Leon showed up to Strovam, where Allan apparently lived. It was a pretty simple neighbourhood, with basic houses right in front of a set of factories, even if a third of them were now going unused. This was where he grew up, on the same street as Elijah and Travis, in the middle of the neighbourhood. He had the day to himself, so he figured he could just go the long way around to Allan's house.

He finally got to Allan's house, walking past the weed infested pathway and knocked on the door. A portly woman appeared in front of him, with the same shaggy hair he had.

"Who are you?" She asked through squinted eyes.

"Name's Leon, friend of Allan. Mind if I come in?"

The woman's face lit up when she heard the phrase 'friend of Allan', and she quickly moved aside to let him in.

"He's upstairs. First door on the left."

Leon entered the room she mentioned, and it was pitch black aside from a few white LED strips across the walls and a monitors glow. The windows were covered by thick black curtains, and the room was almost completely empty besides some workout equipment in the corner of the room and his bed. Allan was furiously typing at his computer, not even acknowledging his presence.

"Allan?" Leon asked dryly, glancing around the room for a lightswitch.

Allan let out a shrill scream of terror, reaching for something when he turned back, letting his expression turn back to neutral after seeing who it was.

"Oh. Sup, Leon."

"Yeah, hey." Leon replied, trying to get a look at what was on his monitor. It seemed to be an extremely basic looking forum, with everyone looking into what Allan was saying. And Allan seemed to go by 'DarkTwist99'

He was talking about his new powers. He had a few blurry screenshots of last nights fights posted in the chat, and everyone was discussing it, and where the powers could have come from.

'yeh the gods ur talking about are totally government agents. theyll be unregistered so you wont be able to look them up, but its totally feds'

'chemical bomb, has to be. if your filtration system is still good it cant have been the water supply.'

'IT'S TOTALLY (((THEM))) IT'S SO OBVIOUS'

"What are you even talking about?" Leon asked. Slightly confused, and a little more than slightly concerned.

"Got my friends on the case. They'll pull up those gods and reveal them as feds."

"You think they're police?"

"Secret military. Look, grab a bunch of people about to enter adulthood, and use a chemical weapon to give them powers. If it goes well, the entire city will be next, and we'll be safe against any foreign powers. That's what the government is thinking"

"So why do we have to kill each other?" Leon asked, trying to make sense of the last few sentences. The phrases made sense individually, but together sounded absolutely unhinged.

"Testing the limits of the different power sets. It's either seeing what each excels at or weeding out the weak powers."

"So what, if one person has a bad showing the powers not getting rolled out, or something?"

"This isn't the only game they're planning, man. Trust me, more of these are gonna pop up after this is over. Or during it, who knows? Maybe whoever survives this is getting thrown into an all stars season when this, but we can deal with that when we get there."

"We?" Leon asked, looking at the door.

"Yeah, that's why I called you here. How would you feel about an alliance?"

"Excuse me?"

"Look, we both have pretty cool powers, right? And there are a bunch of abandoned factories around here? And you know why they're abandoned?"

"Corporations outsourcing to cheaper countries?"

"Incorrect! It's because within are bases for the government to observe us all. Ergo, we go in and stop the whole operation early, demand a return to normal, and be seen as adored by the public, or something. I think we'd get paid. Or assassinated. Look, we should do this either way."

"So what's the plan?" Leon sighed. His reasons for checking out the abandoned factories was quite frankly insane, but they were a bunch of boarded up buildings that nobody had a reason to go near. So if the gods were for whatever reason hiding something, that wouldn't be a bad place to start.

"I scope out the area tonight, and tomorrow I'll let you inside. Hopefully the next game will have started by then so the security won't be as tight."

"You know what…sounds like a plan." Leon said calmly. "See you then."

"Okay!" Allan said. "Look, if you could do me a favour and stay for a few more minutes so my mom gets off my case about not talking to anyone outside of school, that'd be great."

"Yeah, fine."

Elijah sat by the car dealership, taking in the scenes around him. In front of him were trees, and behind him was the city. He was waiting for Travis and the two would hit up the junks. Been a while since they went, and the only goal was to shoot the shit and see what was going on.

After a few minutes, Travis arrived. Decked out in the finest car of sixteen years ago, with the busted up back end he never got around to fixing. He crawled in, and the car was cleaner. Like a good clean, real deep.

"Bro, nice one."

"Thank you." He nodded. "We going?"

"Sure." Elijah said, throwing his lunchbox in the back.

"You can pick the music." Travis said as he started the car.

"Sweet." He smirked, getting his phone and playing Punk Survival, what he called the apex of music. Everyone else tolerated it. Travis turned the music down after his favourite part, just a little bit.

"Excuse me?" He asked.

"Look, remember when I said I had something important to say yesterday?"

"Oh yeah, forgot about that." Elijah said. "My bad…what was it?"

"I think I'm a girl." Travis said quickly. Eyes focused dead on the road.

"Repeat that?" Elijah asked after a brief pause.

"I…think I'm a girl." Travis repeated, slower this time.

"Right." Elijah said after a longer pause. "How did you realize this, exactly?"

"Look, I didn't mention this, but something about how I was supposed to click just felt…off? I don't know. Didn't know what it was, but I got some girls clothes online, and when I tried them on, everything just felt…right. So this is probably the best way to go for me? I dunno, man. I'm still thinking about it."

"So are you changing your name?" Elijah asked casually.

"Wait, that's your takeaway?" Travis asked.

"Look, considering the shit I've been through with Leon, this isn't much. I just gotta know if your new name is any good?"

"First thing coming to my mind is Valerie." Valerie said. "You know, like that one character on my jacket."

"Valerie. Like, space gal Valerie? That comic book you read?"

"Uh, yeah."

"You're naming yourself after a comic book character?"

"Look, it's a nice name regardless."

"Sounds alright." Elijah nodded. "Guess there are worse things to name yourself after."

"So…we just going to the junks?"

"Yeah, I'll explain when we get there."