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Chapter 20: The Sky Felt Heavy Today
POV: Leon Walter
(4/10)
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I didn't go to school today.
Not because of a test. Not because I overslept. Not even because I was sick.
I just woke up and felt like the whole f**king world was tilted three degrees to the left.
The air buzzed. My sheets clung to my back like glue. The lights flickered when I opened my eyes, and my phone wouldn't stop vibrating—even though it was turned off. I tried to stand, but my legs felt like spaghetti dipped in static. So I sat there, on the edge of my bed, breathing. Just breathing.
A notification blinked across my cracked screen:
18 missed texts. 5 voicemails.
One from Gwen. One from MJ. Even Carol.
Something about auditions. Something about the rooftop.
I didn't care.
I slipped on my hoodie, zipped it halfway, pulled the sleeves over my fingers, and walked out. No brushing my teeth. No comb. The sky looked like someone painted it in grayscale and forgot to add the blue.
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The city smelled like burnt toast and secrets today.
I kept my hood low, shoulders hunched. Just another nobody in a sea of somebodies. But everything felt off.
The sidewalk hummed beneath my sneakers. I passed a group of kids playing tag near a broken fountain, and when one tagged another, I swear I heard the words:
"Don't let them find him."
Right in my ear.
Except no one said it.
I shook it off.
My brain was glitching. That's all. Sleep deprivation. High school stress. Or, hell, maybe early-onset schizophrenia. That would explain the voices… and the fact that a trash can bent sideways like jelly when I sneezed.
Just stress. Totally.
I wandered to the edge of the industrial district—rusted fences, abandoned warehouses, an empty lot filled with crushed vending machines and weeds tall enough to sue the city.
And then it hit me.
A wave.
Not an emotion. Not a sound.
More like… gravity itself sneezed my direction.
The lot flickered. Not visually. Not physically. But I saw something burned into my eyes—metal tanks. Glowing cables. A blue stasis pod wrapped in mist. My own reflection staring back at me… wires embedded in my skin.
"Nope. Nope nope nope nope nope."
I stumbled backward.
Nosebleed. Buzzing in my ears.
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They found me ten minutes later.
Three guys. Civilian clothes. Too clean. Moved like predators in borrowed skin. The first looked like a barista. The second like a gym teacher. The third didn't even have a face my brain could remember—it just… skipped it.
"Leon Walter?" Barista Man asked, smiling like he already knew me.
"No hablo stress, bro," I muttered, turning to walk away.
They followed.
"You're destabilizing," said Gym Teacher, pulling out a black cube. It beeped.
Then the ground lurched.
"Quantum signature locked," he said.
Barista Man reached for my arm.
And I snapped. From literally stress.
Not a little panic attack. Not a scream. Not a shout.
The alley shifted.
The air compressed.
A dumpster imploded like a tin can. Gravity twisted in every direction. One guy got pinned to a wall, screaming. Another got dragged face-first into concrete. The faceless one? Gone. Just gone.
I blinked.
They were gone.
So I ran.
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I didn't run far.
Just… across rooftops. Across streets. Across whatever the hell my body was doing.
My body moved without touching the ground, every step like skipping a rock across water. Fast. Flickering. Weightless. Wrong.
Every step felt like skipping a rock across time. Flickering. Flickering. Gone. My feet barely touched the ground. My breath left behind little silver clouds.
I landed on top of the train station, knees weak. Body buzzing.
And then I laughed.
A weird, cracked-up, half-sob of a laugh.
"What the hell am I?"
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My phone buzzed.
Voicemail.
MJ.
> "Leon, if you're okay… just call me. People are asking about you. Dangerous people. Be careful. Please."
I didn't call her back. Now she cares?
I just stared up at the sky.
It felt heavy today.
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Meanwhile, at school...
The soft ticking of the clock was louder than ever in Room 3B, where time felt like it had died of boredom.
Students stared blankly at the chalkboard as Professor Margaret argued with that one smart girl who always thought she knew more than the syllabus. The back-and-forth was as dead as the fluorescent lights above them. Flickering away like soulless entities.
Roxy, however, wasn't listening.
She just kept staring at the empty seat in front of her.
Leon's seat.
She didn't know why she cared. Not exactly.
But she did.
The previous day, after combing through the security cam footage, she found three separate skips in the file.
Not one. Not two.
Three.
No footage. No explanation. Just jumps. Gaps.
She even tried seducing the answer out of the janitor—came close, but all she got was secondhand brain damage and a headache.
Whatever happened yesterday wasn't normal.
Roxy had seen this before. Memory fog. Neural dampening. Psychic interference. The stuttering from the questioned person. The dull light in the eye. It all was as clear as day.
Her suspects?
S.H.I.E.L.D. or the X-Men.
S.H.I.E.L.D. was busy dealing with Hydra's latest warfront. They didn't have time for high school mutants.
But the X-Men?
They were too quiet.
And that made them very, very dangerous.
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(Leon POV Con;)
Welp. Now I know for damn sure that shit hit the fan, flipped back around, and exploded in 4K.
First off—turned one dude into a crumbled piece of toast smeared against a wall. Another into a perfect pour of vintage red wine... all over the floor. And the last guy? Bro just straight up vanished from existence like a deleted tweet.
So here I am—slow-walking across the roof of the City Bank like some depressed anime protagonist—before gravity yeets me onto the edge. I crash down on my ass with a sigh like the sad star of a mental health commercial.
My day's already spiraling like a toilet flush, but surely the universe has some mercy left, right?
Plop.
A goddamn bird picked that exact moment to bless my shoulder with its fecal love.
"Fucking poetic," I muttered.
"Everybody get down! ON YOUR KNEES!!"
BANG!
BANG!
Gunshots erupted from inside the building beneath me—and because the universe runs on cartoon logic, one bullet punches clean through the roof and tears through my big-ass sneaker like butter.
I blinked at the smoking hole near my toes.
"...What is this roof made of? Cheap Lego?"
But then—it struck me. Like, literally, the idea just smacked into my fried little brain:
Buzz Buzz no Jutsu.
I mean, I can sink through my bed when I'm half-asleep and emotionally unstable. Teleport distance when I'm trying to outrun potential murder case. What's a shitty rooftop compared to that?
"Alright. I need a mask," I declared with MCU-level confidence. Gotta keep the Leon-brand under wraps—no more dudes in suits or secret agents tailing me like I'm Spider-girl or some shit.
I glanced around at my truly depressing surroundings. Banks really just gave up on rooftop hygiene, huh?
To my left? A pigeon and a rat were full-on anime-dueling over a slice of greasy pizza.
To my right? A cluster of bats that looked like they just walked out of rehab.
And in my hand? A paper bag soaked in a mysterious liquid that smells like the breath of a dying planet.
That'll do.
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