The Exemplars

Tanner's Origin Story: Chapter 2

Matt chuckled, shaking his head. 

"No! I don't have superpowers! That's crazy!"

Everyone else started standing up and brushing themselves off. 

Woods' eyes widened as he motioned to the door handle. 

"Then how do you explain what just happened? Hmm?" Woods sighed, reaching out his hand to pick Matt up, but Matt shook his head, mumbling something, and got up.

He looked around at everyone, who were all looking at him, either surprised or worried looks on their faces.

"Guys, I'm fine. I promise." He paused for a while, then sighed. "If I do have superpowers, which I don't, but if I do, are you okay with it?"

Which got a scoff and a laugh from everyone around him. "Of course we'll be fine with it! Our boss having superpowers? I mean, come on! That's awesome!"

Matt rolled his eyes and then started to put his hand near the handle again, and the others noticed he was hesitant at first to touch the handle, but then opened it quickly. He held the door for the others, and the door clicked shut behind them.

Tanner was just sitting at his desk working when Matt suddenly rushed over to him. He blinked in shock and surprise, but said nothing. 

"What's up, Matt?" Tanner said, trying to keep his shock in check.

Matt shook his head, then got closer to Tanner. "Listen, Tanner. Uh, you know what happened earlier? The, lightning thing?" 

Tanner nodded, chuckling, looking at the floor. Duh. Who wouldn't have seen that? He shook it off and looked back at Matt, who looked super nervous.

"Dude, what's wrong?" 

Matt rubbed his forehead, which was currently covered in sweat. "I uh, I knew."

What did that mean? He knew? Knew what?

"What do you mean? You knew what?" Tanner asked, thinking to himself that Matt might have gone crazy from the lightning bolt he survived.

"I knew that I was going to be hit by lightning! Okay?" Matt grabbed a nearby chair and practically fell into it. He was sweating profusely and was looking at the ground. His skin was paling.

Tanner went to help him, but Matt put his hands up. "I'm fine! Don't touch me!" Matt sighed, then looked at Tanner. "A few nights before today, I had a nightmare. The nightmare was exactly what happened today. I got struck by green lightning, which then made me have...superpowers." 

Tanner could tell Matt really didn't want to admit that he maybe had superpowers by the way he hesitated to even say the word, so Tanner didn't say anything for a few minutes. But then he was overwhelmed with curiosity.

"Did your dream have anyone else in it? Did anyone else get powers?" 

Matt sat there for a minute thinking about it and a glimpse of recognition flickered in his eyes, and he looked at Tanner, but then went back to normal after he saw that Tanner was looking at him and looked in another direction.

"No it was just me," He said way too quickly for Tanner to be convinced. Matt stood up and wobbled off in another direction.

Tanner's lips pursed in thought, thinking but then decided it was too much effort thinking about it and he got back to editing a video.

On his desk he had a water bottle, which he kept by the monitor of his computer. He screwed the lid off and gulped it down until it was empty, then saw it was empty and he groaned. He took his headphones off and walked out of his office and into the break room where the fridge was. He opened the fridge where the water filter was, grabbed it, put his water bottle down on the table in the middle of the room, then poured the water into his water bottle, then opened the fridge back up and put the water filter back, then closed the fridge and walked off.

He was about to sit down again when he realized that his water bottle was empty. His eyes narrowed in confusion, and he started to mumble "But I already-" but then stopped. Maybe he just forgot to actually pour the water in his water bottle.

Very confused now, he started walking back into the break room when he stopped. He gasped, dropping the water bottle in surprise and utter bewilderment. The water bottle, being made of plastic just made a bunch of noise and didn't break, but Tanner didn't bend down to pick it up.

Instead, he stared in front of him. Because directly in front of him was a big glob of water formed into a huge sphere. The water sloshed around, but none ever fell on the floor.

"What the heck?" Tanner quietly whispered, not wanting to disturb the ball of water. He slowly gained back his confidence and walked softly towards the ball of water, but he got right in front of it and it never broke its form.

"Hey Woods! Get down here!" He yelled. 

Footsteps practically sprinted down the stairs as Woods rushed to Tanner, holding a Nerf gun, but then he saw what was happening and stopped in his tracks. 

"Whoa. What is that?"

Tanner shook his head. "I don't know. I was just thinking about water and then it happened."

Woods looked at Tanner, then at the ball, then itched his face. "I have an idea. It's going to sound crazy, but just do it, okay?"

That made Tanner a little nervous, but he nodded. "Okay?"

"Think about fire," Woods said.

"Fire? Woods, you're going to burn the studio down?" Tanner joked, then saw how serious Woods was, and then put his hands up in defense. "Okay, okay. I'm sorry, I'll do it."

Then just as quick as it had turned into water, the ball quickly turned into a flaming ball of fire. Red and orange flames flickered, crackling violently.

Woods started chuckling excitedly and turned off the lights. The ball of flames lit the entire room. Woods turned the lights back on, then looked back at Tanner.

"Do you know what this means, Tanner?" Woods asked, jumping around excitedly.

"That this is a weird coincidence?"

Woods shook his head. "There is no way this is a coincidence. Tanner, both you and Matt have superpowers."