Rebirth in the Apocalypse: Third Time's a Charm



Knowing that I wanted to take them to the back field near the base of the mountain, I looked around my toy barn. I think that it was very clear that I was only prepping for one. I would need to add a few more of the standard ATVs and maybe a luxury camper or two.

Not like I was planning on leaving my paradise, but part of being prepared was being prepared for everything.

The three of us stood in front of the small ATV that could technically hold four people, I shrugged. "At least you two are close, I'm sure you two would be okay in the back as I drove," I said, chuckling at the look on their faces.

If you were wondering, that suggestion did not go over well.

Sighing, Wang Chao took out his cell phone and started texting someone. I could only assume that His Royal Highness was putting in an order for more ATVs. "There will be twelve coming in about an hour."

"Twelve?!?" I screeched. "As in a one and a two? Twelve? What on Earth do I need twelve of these things here?"

Wang Chao shrugged his shoulders and Liu Wei started chuckling. "Hey, at least you will have extras," he said, trying to find the silver lining.

"Yeah, why don't you put in a few orders for some of the luxury campers I've seen around and also figure out how to get me the gas to run everything."

Silently, Wang Chao took out his phone again and started texting.

"Wait," I said holding up my hand to him. When he met my eyes I continued, "You know I'm joking right? I don't need you to buy all this stuff for me. Besides, I am pretty sure you don't really believe me about the end of the world. Superpowers aside."

Wang Chao looked at Liu Wei and went back to typing quickly on his phone. I was put into a trance by how fast he could type. Luckily, Liu Wei knocked me out of it when he put his arm around the small of my back and led me outside the barn.

"I think it is safe to say that we believe you about the oncoming apocalypse. And now that Wang Chao is feeling guilt for the first time in his life, take advantage of it. Is there anything else that you need?"

I looked at the man confused as we stopped in the same clearing where I had lost control of my blue flame for the first time. "What is there to be feeling guilty of? And guilt does not require him to spend millions of dollars on me."

Liu Wei chuckled. "Don't worry about it, just accept it and make the man happy," he said, bringing me around to face him. "Now, onto important matters. How do I know if I have superpowers or not?"

Nodding my head at the newest issue before me, I put the idea of campers and ATVs out of my head and stretched my neck. The snaps, crackles, and pops reminded me that although this body was only 20 years old, I was almost 45 years old. I think there might be a warranty issue in the body that contained a soul over the age of 30.

But I digress. Looking at Liu Wei, I took a deep breath. "There are 11 powers that can develop after taking the vaccine, and one of those isn't really considered a power. Although everyone that I had met before only displayed one power, His Royal Highness over there has three, so we are going to have to do this a different way than the others did."

"What kind of powers are there?" Liu Wei asked, intrigued.

"There are the standard powers of earth, air, water fire. Pretty self-explanatory and the majority of power users have one of these. Me, as I am sure that you are well aware of by now, am fire." I held out my hand with the pink flame and watched as it seemed to wave at Lui Wei.

"From there, you have the less well-known ones. These include metal, lightning, and power. I like to refer to the power users as the fighters as that is all they seem to like to do."

"I can assume that with Wang Chao's ball of lightning that he greeted me with a few minutes ago that one of his powers fall under lightning. What does power and metal mean?"

"Metal is the ability to call and manipulate any type of metal from iron to gold to titanium. I would say think along the lines of Magento, but you don't know who that is. And His Royal Highness is also a metal user," I said, somewhat cranky that Wang Chao got two out of three of the middle bracket powers.

"And a power user has super strength and stamina. In other words, they can fight for a very long time." I continued trying to think about what else the power users could do.

"Then we have the top three most desired and legendary powers that less than three people ended up developing last time. Those are toxic, spirit, and healer. And before you ask… HRH has also developed spirit as his third and final superpower and we will not be discussing exactly how we figured that one out."

"Well, now I want to know more than ever now," said Liu Wei laughing. "I assume that healer is somewhat self-explanatory, but what about the other two?"

"Healers heal people's injuries, they just can't heal any damage caused by a zombie or any type of blood transfusions. Those with toxic powers, and I only met one last time, can poison people. Either to just cause discomfort or to cause death, or discomfort until death, they can inject a toxin into someone either through a liquid form or a gas. Wang Zi Mo could kill someone from miles away at his height and no one would be the wiser."

"Then how did you know that it was him?" Asked Liu Wei confused. By this time, Wang Chao had finished whatever he was doing and had come to join us.

"I was beside him when he did it," I replied, closing my eyes and remembering the screams of the Asymptomatic as they were killed, not knowing what was going on.

"So, he needs to die," said Wang Chao as he stopped beside me.

"The world is a really shitty place," I said, "But it would be a lot better without that man in it."