Fantasy Family Ch. 01

Authors note: Story has only been edited by spellcheck, intent is for it to be a long-form story. Chapter 1 has no smexy times even if they do start relatively fast. I'm not good at writing slow burn, but I wanted something that set up the base I planned to jump off of.

Hello. My name is Michael Connors. Code name, Omega. Most people call me Mike, though my friends and family have called me Mikey my entire life. I've been told I take after my father visually, my green eyes and dark brown hair setting me apart from the rest of my family. I've always been a small kid, never growing much beyond the 5'8" growth spurt I hit late in high school and I'm built in a way that just screams 'scrawny'. It's no surprise that I've been bullied most of my life.

I'm a student here in Sunset City, and I attend the Advance Training Lab for Augmented Souls. Atlas University, and yes, they are reaching pretty hard with that acronym. Five percent of the global population these days has some kind of power. Techno-Mancy, Magical resonance, shapeshifting, you name it. The list is as random as it is long.

Atlas is a training camp for young supers regardless of their power, and also serves as the regulatory agency for super activity worldwide. Atlas is a combination school, university, and government agency that provides resources to supers while policing the more dangerous villains that crop up out of the super population.

The first thing most of the other "Trainees" here notice is that I don't have powers, despite being in the training courses for supers trying to get or advance their vigilante license. The lack of powers just so happens to be the first thing super jerks with various power complexes notice as well. You'd think would-be superheroes were less prone to being arrogant dicks. You'd be wrong.

The reason I stand out though? The entire rest of my family does in fact have powers, making me the black sheep of the herd. It's the only reason I'm allowed to attend Atlas in the first place. I don't get the same stipend for equipment or supplies any other trainee gets, so I have a small part-time job for pocket money until I don't have to attend the classes anymore. Being raised in a super home I've already been funneled through the super-daycare, and Atlas Elementary, Middle, and High schools. I just can't wait for it to be over, it's not like I'm going to apply for a license anyway.

The folks that know me outside of the program can't ever know I come from a super-powered family, obviously, that puts a risk on the whole "secret identity" thing. That's never saved me from having to do press runs with my mom, photo shoots with my older sister, or side-by-side interviews with my twin sister. I get my own mask and a revamped wardrobe, and a 'codename' instead of a super name, but none of the fun of actually having powers, or so I thought.

On my twenty-first birthday, after a lifetime of believing I was a genetic failure of the family gene pool, my prayers were finally answered. Not in the way I would have liked, but I'll explain how in a bit, I think I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. For now, I'd like to introduce you to the family.

First up, my mom Jennifer, super name Madam Mystery. Mom's power is magical resonance, and she claims it's just pulling power from other dimensions to fuel her "spells". I'm not exactly sure how much I believe that since some of the things she throws around or summons look exactly like firebolts and biblical angels. Still, some of her spells are really nice. Having a mom who can patch you up with a quick healing spell really beats rushing to the hospital for a broken arm.

Mom is significantly taller than me at 5'11" but with the stiletto heels of her super suit, she stands easily at an even six feet. I've always looked up to her. Literally. She's a powerhouse hero with more than a decade of experience saving the world and winning fans in the process. I just so happened to be one of those fans a lot sooner than everyone else, I even still have some of the first posters ever printed by her merch company.

Those same posters gave me a lot of fuel for my fantasies growing up and going through puberty. Jennifer Connors is already an attractive woman, with soft blue eyes and golden blonde hair. Her body is to die for with plump thighs, a perfectly curved bubble butt, and big heavenly tits that have haunted my dreams. Of course, I know it's weird to fantasize about your mom. I get it. But when she puts on that figure-hugging costume, the sexy little parody of a stage magician, I can almost convince myself that it's not my mom behind the fishnets and the mask. Almost.

Next is my older sister Alice, super name Chameleon. Underwhelming name, I know. However, Alice is one of the most proficient shapeshifters in the world. She can copy other people, turn into objects and mimic their properties, and even partially shapeshift specific parts of her body into armor or weapons in the heat of battle. I used to tease her and call her my swiss-army-sister, never far away with a knife or a can opener.

It's hard to nail down a physical description for Alice, since she can change it whenever she gets bored, but the form she uses "at rest" or our assumed default Alice is pretty familiar to me. She's usually around 5'10 with proportions similar to our mom, though I admit I have checked their underwear and Alice is a size or two smaller than mom in a few places. Alice tends for blonde hair, but when she was in high school she went electric red for a little while. After our dad died she chose green eyes for several years, but I later found out that was an effort she had to make and her default color was in fact blue.

She's a pretty stereotypical older sister in a lot of ways. She teases me, plays pranks, and yells at me when I bother her. The biggest difference is she can shapeshift into a famous celebrity to prank me with a "surprise contest win" or shapeshift her arms into steel and pin me down for stealing her iPod. Thankfully things have mellowed out a lot as we got older, but we don't always see eye to eye even now.

Last but not least, my twin sister Macy rounds out our happy little home. Macy's super name is Invenia. A play on words for the Latin translation of "invention". Macy is a technopath and like most other technopaths, she insists her powers are entirely intellectual and that she merely applies science in unique ways. Even if her IQ is off the charts, some of the stuff she makes disobey the laws of thermodynamics, there's definitely powers at play.

Macy successfully hit 5'9" by the time we graduated highschool, firmly cementing her as the taller twin. She has blonde hair like everyone else in the family, but Macy was born with heterochromia. Her left eye is green like me and dad, and the right eye is blue.

I wouldn't exactly call my twin sister a bombshell like mom or Alice, but it's very clear which twin got all the vitamins. Macy has a slim body like a stay at home wiz kid should, with modest proportions to her chest.

When we were younger Macy pulled my ass out of the fire multiple times by turning in reports for both of us at Atlas. I haven't been able to coast on her goodwill since she got her license, but we still hang out all the time. I even got her to turn the ceiling above my bed into a TV. 4k resolution movie night and I don't even have to get out of bed.

Macy's been my best friend and closest confidant since we were born. When she awakened powers and I didn't, we went from being partners to her being my protector. I mean, Macy replaced all the windows in the house with bulletproof glass solar panels. No one even shoots in this neighborhood!

I digress though, that's the Connors family roster, both the super and the mundane. Unfortunately though, it hasn't always been the four of us alone. When I was six years old, we lost my dad. Alexander Connors, super name Alpha, was a B ranked super with Atlas HQ, and not just a hero, but my hero.

I don't remember much of what dad looked like, I can recognize him in pictures and stuff, but my own memories are hazy. Mom doesn't even like to talk about his time as Alpha or his powers. Shortly after he died she applied for A rank vigilante licensing and qualified to move us closer to the city center. We had to leave Dad's old hideout behind with the old house.

I'm digressing though. I explained my family so it would make sense when I told you how I discovered my powers. I should get back to that.

It was an average Tuesday the week after my twenty-first birthday. I didn't have a big blow out bash or anything, Macy can't even get drunk if she wanted to since she actually inherited super metabolism like everyone else. So it passed like any other day.

I went to my lectures, I had lunch, and life went on. However, on that Tuesday after my birthday, I had a surprise lecture cancellation, suddenly freeing up multiple hours of time in the middle of my day.

Not quite enough to head all the way home and be back for my last seminar, but enough to get lunch and kill some time. So I was killing time. One of the benefits of not having a power, no one pays attention to you in Atlas.

I'd trained myself to run circles around most of their systems by the time I was out of highschool. Physical or digital, their surveillance holes made a perfect path if I wanted to go somewhere unseen, and their firewalls were only good enough to keep our the average non-super hacker.

Or at least, a non-super hacker that didn't have a technopath twin on speed dial.

Macy provided me with a data scrubber for my laptop. The entire thing looked like a nicotine patch slapped on the back of my computer, but it was wireless and passively powered and made my activity practically invisible.

With it, I could snoop around the Atlas network for just about anything I wanted. Videos of female supers doing their suit fittings, the battle stats on the biggest strength-class bruisers, and every scrap of data about my dad.

On this particular day I was scrolling through payment records trying to find any 'missing' funds that I could conveniently reroute to a more grateful recipient. Myself. When suddenly, I get a notification from the scrubber. The data trawler I'd set up to gather any references to Alpha had suddenly found a new file. It had to be either a new addition to the network or a recently decrypted file. I can't scan encrypted files for content without breaking them first, and that is hard to cover back up.

Anyway, the file was labeled as a diagnostic report from my dad's class B certification test. If I was lucky, it would even include a detailed analysis of his powers, and might explain why I didn't inherit anything. My hands were shaking as I opened the file.

Subject: Alpha

Power type: Wildcard

Okay, that was a surprise. Wildcard powers were the ones that didn't fit in to any other category, things that shouldn't work or didn't make sense even with the allowances of other supernaturals.

Potential growth: Unlimited

Potential threat: Significant

What the fuck? If dad's growth potential was infinite, why had he only qualified as Class B? That should have qualified him as Class A minimum, with an easy promotion to Class S once he met the parameters physically.

I knew Atlas evaluated all supers as a potential threat, so that wasn't too surprising, but seeing dad labeled as significant threat, on the Atlas "global threat" scale, was a bit hard to swallow. Atlas genuinely believed my dad could have destroyed cities by himself. Not that he ever would, Alpha had an impeccable record despite not being overly popular. Just the possibility was enough for Atlas to take it into account though

Power: Singularity

Summary: According to testimony from Alpha himself, he inherited his power from his father. Alpha's father had a version of singularity that allowed him to effectively "accumulate" knowledge from those he came in contact with. We are currently unaware of how Atlas was unaware of this man until after his death. Alpha's father became a genius level intellect within a few years of discovering his power.

Alpha's own singularity not only allows him to accumulate intellect in a similar form, but he also appears to accumulate physical prowess as well. It it's a fraction of a fraction from each person, but in his time with Atlas alone his physical parameters have increased by 35% across the board. His body seems to naturally adapt to the new strain effortlessly, so the current conclusion is that given enough time, Alpha could become the single smartest individual alive, and gather enough muscular strength to shatter diamonds with his hands. Threat level appraised as immediate but downgraded to significant given Alphas devotion to Atlas and our cause. All of his descendants have manifested alternative powers but one. Subject code name Omega flagged for permanent observation, likelihood of power being Y chromosome attached currently estimated at 75.83% Son considered threat level "potential"

End of report.

That was a lot to get through honestly. I didn't know how to feel, and I was reeling almost immediately. My heard felt like it would burst out of my chest. Is this why no one would ever tell me about dad? Did he live his entire life holding back? Did I have a power I just didn't know how to use? Permanent observation? It was all just way too much to deal with all at once.

I skipped the lectures for the rest of the day and just ran home without so much as a word to anyone else. I was still processing when I burst through door into the house, tossing my bag by the stairs and running up to my office.

"House" is a bit of an understatement though. Atlas requires related supers to live as close together as possible to consolidate facility costs for hideouts and special tools. We basically had a small apartment complex all to ourselves. Four individual housing units all cramped together as close as can be. Alice had an extra third story over everyone else, and it sprawled to either side to overhang the other buildings. Basically giving her an Olympic sized pool and gym to practice physical shifting without space constraints.

My unit was of course the smallest, and since Macy didn't need much "lair" space, hers had a heavily ventilated work shop attached to the back where she did most of her work. The basement for the entire complex belonged to mom though, she kept protection spells carved into the foundation of the building. That, and apparently she had a few summoning circles and magical prison cells down there for some of the more dangerous magical creatures she had to deal with for Atlas.

I'm digressing again. I ran home, slamming the door behind me, and was finally alone when I made it to my home terminal. A laptop is great, can't beat the portability, but when you need real computing power it just doesn't cut it.

I was about to make some very stupid decisions, and if I didn't want to get caught I needed the full battlestation. Ever so carefully, I pulled the data scrubber off my laptop for the first time. I allowed it a moment to recalibrate itself like Macy told me and then slapped on the side of my computer. The faint buzzing sound was ominous, but most of Macy's inventions stopped blowing up after we started third grade, so it should be fine.

Should be.

With a deep breath, I steadied myself and booted everything up, quickly navigating to connect to the Atlas main network remotely. I needed more info, and I didn't want to be on sight when I got it, just in case.

It had never occurred to me to trawl the network for my own name, or even the tongue-in-cheek codename Atlas had given me. Now I knew better, so I opened to master file for the data scrubber and replaced every master string with "Omega" and set it off to search and compare. It pulled the first result almost immediately, and within a few minutes more began to trickle in.

I could barely contain myself when I opened the first file.

Subject name: Omega

Power type: Wildcard

Potential growth: Inconceivable

Potential threat: Significant (Currently dormant. If active, threat level is Cataclysm)

Power: Singularity

Summary: As was initially theorized in report #063-Alpha, the power "Singularity" is Y chromosome attached and thus genetically inheritable. Subject Omega manifested the power in early adolescence after being marked for Atlas monitoring. By all accounts of Incedent #001-Omega, Subject is not in control of the Singularity yet, and thus can't activate it consciously. A grade 3 memory agent was administered to prevent subject awareness and organizational leaks.

Report #063-Alpha failed to recognize a trend for generational increase in the power of Singularity and the potential for Subject Omega to exceed Alpha in original state. This was proven a tremendous oversight by Incidents #001-Omega through Incident #005. On each of these occasions Subject came into physical contact with a fellow super for a prolonged period of time, usually a family member. Shortly there after, Omega would begin manifesting the other super's power in unpredictable, if weaker, ways.

The family of the subject has been held to confidentiality under their Class D licensing agreement, though all three currently rank higher.

Omega was administered a grade 1 memory agent after Incident #005, and has subsequently shown no knowledge of his own power, nor the powers he copied.

At this time Atlas recognizes Subject Omega as the single greatest supernatural force on the planet. Posing a unique threat to human survival should he choose to turn against us, and an unprecedented level of advancement should he assist. The Atlas board of directors have chosen to delay decision making until further notice, siting successful containment of Subject so far.

End of report.

I didn't even have a chance to process what I was actually reading, nor the surge of emotions it elicited in my mind before I was interrupted by the doorbell ringing. That was strange, no one usually comes around during the day, and mom and the girls should be on assignment until Thursday.

Shaking, and slightly paranoid I made my way to the front of my apartment, stopping at one of the windows above the stairs to look out over the door. I sighed in relief when I saw Alice standing there and not some black-ops government boogeyman come to assassinate me for finding their secrets.

With a significant weight removed from my shoulders, I slid down the stairs and opened my front door for my sister. She only lives right next door so it's not unusual to get visits, but I believed she was on patrol today like the others.

"Hey Alice, what's up?" I asked in confusion as she pushed past me into my apartment. Not receiving much of an answer, I had no real choice on how to approach the situation. I laid the sarcasm on thick.

"Oh hey Alice, nice to see you, yeah you can come in, weren't you on patrol today?" I turn on my most annoying younger brother voice I can manage while shutting the door behind us. I hear her groan from the top of the stairs as I follow her up to my apartment.

"Shut the fuck up Mikey. Sit down, we need to talk" Alice practically growled at me when I made it to the top of the stairs.

Not one to risk her wrath, I did as she told me to and sat down on my second-hand futon that I used for both a couch and a bed.

"What the fuck were you thinking!" Alice began shouting at me almost immediately. "Snooping around on Atlas systems like you're hot shit? What would you do if you got caught? " There it was, another lecture from on high. I sighed and leaned back against the couch, knowing most of what Alice was going to say already.

Macy had a tendency to tell the rest of the family what I got up to with her tech. I think she believed she was keeping me safe but it really just felt like everyone keeping tabs on me. The data scrubber was nice, but it traded hiding from Atlas for being perfectly visible to my sister. Wasn't always worth it.