"Father wants you," the girl behind him said. 

"Why?" Jed asked. He didn't want to talk to his father right now.

"Are you actually going to question what he wants right now? After disappearing for almost four weeks? Come on! Even I was worried about you!" Jed heard footsteps behind him and the girl walked in front of him. 

She had jet black hair just like him that went down to his waist. People always said that they looked similar even though they weren’t related. She was a few inches shorter than him, but she was still intimidating as hell. She was wearing a dark purple t-shirt and black ripped jeans. She scowled at him, but he could see in her eyes that she really had been worried for him. 

"Fine, Joann. But I just walked up all of these stairs. I don’t what to walk all the way back down them.” He had said that in a teasing way but she seemed to misunderstand his intent. She threw her hands up in an exasperated fashion.

"Then take the stairs!" she yelled at him. The sound echoed through the stairwell. She turned on her heel and stormed into the main building, slamming the heavy metal door behind her. 

Jed sighed. Joann had always had a temper. He remembered her getting mad at him once just for losing a bracelet that she had made for him. 

He shook his head and followed after her, closing the stairwell door more gently. She was holding the elevator door open when he got to it. When he walked into the elevator, he smiled at her and she growled back at him and turned her head away from him. He just laughed.

“Is that a way to treat your brother that has just gotten back from being lost for three weeks?” Jed teased. 

“Shut up.” She looked tense and ready to kill, but he knew that that was just the way she held in her emotions. 

“Are you blushing?”

“SHUT UP!” Joann screamed at him and pinned him against the wall. But Jed just continued to laugh. Even as her fingernails grew to an unnatural length and her face turned cat-like. He knew that all he had to do was look into her eyes and she would stop. 

And when the nails digging into his flesh started to hurt, that was exactly what he did. He dug down deep, past the memories and emotions, into her brain, specifically the reticular activating system, which controlled consciousness. 

Suddenly, Joann collapsed. Her nails retracted back to their normal length and her face went back to how it usually looked. He breathed out and wiped his hands on his pants. He was glad that he could still institute his gift so easily even after so many weeks of not using it. 

The elevator dinged and he looked up at the monitor that told what floor they were at. It finally said basement. He squared himself and brought Joann back to consciousness. She was just peeling herself off the floor as the door opened. 

“What the hell, Diah!” she yelled at him. But he just put his hand out in her direction and shushed her. 

“What?” Joann seemed oblivious to the man standing in front of them so Jed pointed. When she saw, she scrambled to her feet and smoothed her shirt. 

“Hello again, Father,” Jed said. The man in front of them was giant, at least six foot seven. He had red hair and a scraggly beard. Scars crisscrossed his arms where thick biceps stood. He wore a leather black vest that looked like it had seen better times. His expression showed anger and frustration. His name was Dyna and he was the leader of the villainous clan Caolf. His gift was making fireballs in his hands that could grow almost as large as a watermelon and hurling them at anything in his way. 

“Jedidiah Samuel Monstrim,” Dyna said. He paused. “Come with me.”