As the Louisiana summer of 1995 approached, Max found himself locked in a deep, internal debate.
He was four and a half years old, but his mind had spent the last three and a half years analyzing every possible variable of his existence.
He had built an army, terraformed a dimension, and saved hundreds of lives from the shadows.
But despite his grand, overarching plans for the timeline, his most pressing concern was the two people sitting at the breakfast table with him every morning.
*”I cannot just sit and watch them get hurt, Alpha,”* Max admitted one night, projecting his thoughts into the Shadow Dimension.
*”I know they survive the events of this decade in the original timeline.
But my mere presence here is a massive butterfly effect.
What if a Skrull targets them early?
What if Hydra investigates Maria?
They are my family.
I have to protect them directly.”*
*”A logical conclusion, Master,”* Alpha replied, her voice resonating with supportive warmth.
*”However, if you reveal the Shadowkhan or your dark magic to them, it may invoke fear rather than comfort.
The shadows are…
inherently sinister to ordinary humans.”*
*”Then I won’t show them the shadows,”* Max decided, a plan forming in his mind.
*”I’ll show them the light.”*
The perfect opportunity arose a week later.
It was a sweltering Tuesday afternoon.
Eleven-year-old Monica was running wildly through the backyard, wearing a makeshift superhero cape and chasing a stray dog that had wandered onto the property.
Max was sitting in the grass near the porch, dutifully playing the role of a toddler stacking wooden blocks.
Maria was in the kitchen, washing dishes by the open window.
Suddenly, Monica tripped over an exposed, gnarled tree root.
She went down hard, tumbling across the dirt and gravel.
“Ow!” Monica cried out, clutching her right leg.
A nasty, deep scrape ran down her knee, bleeding freely down her shin.
Tears immediately welled in her eyes as she tried to stand, only to buckle with a sharp hiss of pain.
Max didn’t hesitate.
He dropped his blocks and stood up, his toddler legs carrying him swiftly across the yard.
This was the moment.
He needed to ensure Maria saw it so she wouldn’t doubt her own eyes.
Drawing on his massive mana reserves, Max focused on the *Lumos* spell, pushing it outward not from a wand, but from his own tiny body.
A blinding, brilliant flash of pure, golden-white light erupted from Max’s form.
“Max?!” Maria shouted from the kitchen window, dropping a wet plate into the sink.
She bolted out the back door, her heart leaping into her throat as she saw her youngest child glowing like a star next to her injured daughter.
Max knelt beside Monica in the dirt.
He reached out with his chubby, glowing hands and gently placed them over her bleeding knee.
He activated *Minor Healing*.
The golden light flowed from his palms like warm, liquid sunshine.
Monica gasped, but not in pain.
The stinging agony in her leg vanished instantly, replaced by a soothing, deep warmth.
Right before their eyes, the torn skin rapidly knit itself back together.
The dirt pushed outward, the blood dissolved, and flawless, unblemished skin replaced the gaping scrape.
Max let the light fade, pulling his hands back and looking up at them with perfectly wide, innocent eyes.
Silence descended on the backyard, broken only by the chirping of cicadas.
For a split second, Monica beamed.
“The Yellow Sun rays!” she cheered, remembering her comic books.
“I knew it!
Mom, look!”
But her cheer died in her throat when she looked at her mother.
Maria was frozen on the porch steps, her face ashen, her breathing shallow and ragged.
In that moment, Maria wasn’t seeing a miracle; her military training and her knowledge of classified government protocols had violently kicked in.
She had flown black-book missions.
She knew what the United States government did to “anomalies.”
A terrifying, vivid image flashed through Maria’s mind: Max, locked in a sterile, underground glass cell, surrounded by men in hazmat suits.
She saw them treating him not as a little boy, but as an asset, a weapon, a guinea pig to be dissected and weaponized.
She had already lost Carol to the unknown.
The mere thought of men in dark suits coming to her farmhouse to drag her baby away sent a wave of absolute, paralyzing nausea through her stomach.
Seeing the sheer terror on her mother’s face, Monica’s superhero fantasy shattered into a thousand pieces.
The eleven-year-old girl suddenly understood.
This wasn’t a comic book.
In the real world, if you were different, the bad guys didn’t wear colorful costumes—they wore government badges.
A crushing weight of panic seized Monica’s chest.
“Mom?” Monica whispered, her voice trembling.
She scrambled backward in the dirt, throwing her arms around Max and pulling him tightly against her chest, shielding him with her own body.
“Mom, we can’t let them take him.
They can’t have him.”
Maria snapped out of her horrific reverie.
The fierce, uncompromising maternal instinct overrode her military panic.
She rushed forward, dropping to her knees in the dirt and pulling both of them into a desperate, crushing embrace.
She buried her face in Max’s shoulder, her whole body shaking.
“No one is taking him,” Maria swore, her voice thick with emotion but hard as steel.
“No one.”
She pulled back, looking Monica dead in the eye.
“Listen to me, Monica.
This is our secret.
The biggest secret we will ever have.
Do you understand?
You cannot tell your friends, you cannot tell your teachers, you cannot tell *anyone*.
If the wrong people find out what Max can do…
we lose him.”
Monica, tears now streaming down her face from the sheer stress of the realization, nodded furiously.
“I promise, Mom.
I cross my heart.
I won’t let anyone take him.”
Maria turned to Max.
Her hands shook as she cupped his small, innocent-looking face.
She was so incredibly grateful that his powers were meant to heal, to mend, rather than destroy.
“And you,” she whispered.
“You only use this if you have to, Max.
Do you understand me?
Only to keep us safe.”
Max, maintaining his cover but ensuring she understood his devotion, gave a firm, serious nod.
He wrapped his small arms around her neck.
They stayed there in the dirt for a long time, a family bound together by a terrifying, beautiful secret, determined to protect their own against the world.