Zazm's hand hovered over his phone, a flicker of something akin to excitement battling with the lingering bitterness from the letter.
He needed to tell someone, someone who wouldn't judge, someone who understood his sardonic humor and his deep-seated loneliness but he kept it all to himself.
This letter has made him go I to even deeper thinking, his guilt for not saving the life's combined with his past wasn't an easy burden to carry but he knew he had to deal with it.
Zazm glanced at the letter again knowing he would have to leave as quickly as possible. Otherwise, his parents won't be happy, "Hell, I promised Nox to check his powers."
He picked up his phone and he tapped Jahanox's contact.
"Jahanox," Zazm said, his voice chill, "meet me tomorrow. Noon. The usual spot."
"Whoa, hold up, Zazm," Jahanox's voice crackled through the speaker, laced with his usual playful tone. "What's got you all mysterious? You sound like you're about to reveal the secrets of the universe."
"Something like that," Zazm replied, a hint of a smirk playing on his lips. "Tomorrow's the day. We're going to find out about…your powers."
He could almost hear Jahanox's eyebrows raising on the other end of the line. They'd had this running gag for months now, "For real? You're going to do it tomorrow?".
Zazm let out a mocking laugh and spoke, "Hey make sure you don't die by tomorrow." Jahanox also laughed and spoke in an excited tone, "Well, I'm just that excited anyways I'm going to sleep I'm tired man."
"Yeah that's great I'm also tired, well then I'll see ya tomorrow." Zazm bid Nox goodbye and threw his phone of the side of his bed before plopping down there himself.
He unclenched his fist revealing the once expensive and beautiful letter turned into a piece of junk. He threw it on the ground and layed down on the bed on his stomach.
"After all these years, they are calling me to meet them huh?" He thought about what the reason could be for his parents calling him.
His parents never gave him any time nor did anything for him except paying everything he wanted. That was why 4 years ago before starting highschool he moved out of their house.
He didn't told them anything and moved far away from them in his current house. His parents never asked or complained to him and just simply kept sending him money.
"Have they finally realized they had a son?" Zazm started laughing to himself before his eyes turned dark and a hint of frustration and sadness crept up in them.
He was lost in his thoughts and before he knew it the world started feeling drowsy and his vision kept blurring. In a span of few seconds Zazm fell into deep slumber. He was tired from partying so it was only natural he would fall asleep.
---
The morning sun, usually a welcome sight, felt harsh and intrusive as it streamed through Zazm's dusty window. He rolled out of bed, the floorboards cold against his bare feet, and went through the motions of his morning routine.
A quick shower, a hastily thrown-together breakfast, he quickly wore a black shirt with a white pant and combed his long hair avoiding it from falling in his eyes.
He left the house, the familiar streets of his neighborhood stretching before him. The air was crisp, the sky a clear, vibrant blue. He walked with a determined stride, the anticipation of meeting Jahanox and the underlying unease about the letter from his parents swirling within him.
The mountain loomed in the distance, a rugged, rocky peak that offered a panoramic view of the city. The abandoned observatory at its summit was their sanctuary, a place where they could freely test their abilities and if someone ever found out they can be silenced.
The climb was steep, the path winding and uneven. Zazm navigated the treacherous terrain with practiced ease, his mind racing with possibilities and anxieties. He reached the crumbling observatory, the rusted dome a stark contrast against the clear sky.
Jahanox was already there, perched on the edge of the roof, legs dangling over the precipice.
He turned as Zazm approached, a wide grin spreading across his face.
"Took you long enough," Jahanox said, his voice echoing in the stillness of the mountain air. "I was starting to think you'd ditched me."
Zazm raised a brow and lifted his sleeve revealing his watch, he carefully looked at the time and spoke, "You damn idiot, I'm here early and you were earlier than the earlier."
Jahanox let out a small laugh, "Well not my fault, I'm just that excited." Zazm also smirked and he continued to walk towards their main meeting point.
"You know Zazm" Zazm looked back at Nova who was standing there with his hands in pocket.
Jahanox walked closer and spoke in a suspicious and low voice, "You called me here so suddenly is everything alright?"
Zazm didn't budge, he matched his gaze without hesitation and gave him the same carefree smirk, "It's nothing that special my folks just wanna see their lovely son."
At his words Jahanox also stepped back slightly, he was gonna say something but looking at Zazm he decided not to and only a single word came out, "I see."
Zazm smiled and spoke in his carefree tone, "Well let's go we gotta check your powers."
Jahanox followed him behind, "So am I supposed to sit like last time and wait?"
Zazm shook his head, "Nope, at that time I was weak I'm not anymore," he smirked and put his hands on the back of his head.
Jahanox tilted his head in confusion but before he could speak Zazm suddenly stopped and spoke, "Yes, this is fine."
Jahanox turned around and saw Zazm standing he looked at Zazm for a while before he started walking closer. Just when he was a few steps away from him Zazm opened his eyes.
The beautiful design of his mark with his black secreta looked otherworldly. Jahanox quickly got his guard up, he suddenly felt chills throughout his body.
But before he could do anything Zazm's hand directly held him from his head. His grip started tightening and Jahanox quickly put his own hands on his wrists trying to loosen the grip.
But he couldn't do anything, "Za..zmm....what are.." His body started feeling weak and he was about to lose consciousness when he heard Zazm's voice.
"Shut up and trust...." He couldn't hear anything else and he lost his consioussness. His hands fell down lifeless as he was held by his skull.
---
Zazm let out a small chuckle as he grabbed Nox by his skull. Threads started flowing out of Zazm's body, one....two...three and before he knew it, he was surrounded by millions of threads.
He looked at Jahanox who was unconscious in his hands and slowly all of his threads started flowing through Jahanox's mark. They all rammaged through his arm and his mark started glowing.
Zazm tightened his grip and his focus peaked, he knew he had to be extremely careful with this. The threads from his own mark covered all the other threads as they flew through Jahanox's mark pulling out his threads.
A smirk appeared on Zazm's face as he lifted his other hand towards the threads that flew out of Jahanox's mark. Slowly the threads started talking a shape, instead of moving irregularly they started to form a circle on top of Jahanox's head.
The threads spin in circles until they started to take a new shape and before Zazm knew it, the threads have taken the exact shape of his mark. Zazm slowly layed down Jahanox's unconscious body on the ground.
He started to control his threads but that didn't work, "I see for some reason I can't control his threads the same way he can't control my mind."
Zazm already knew something like this would happen so he was already prepared, instead of letting the threads flow back in, he opened both his eyes even wider making the entire area freeze in time.
He slowly started using his threads to influence Jahanox's threads to break them into small pieces, his threads slowly flowed and moved the threads that were frozen in time.
Time started to flow by and Jahanox's threads continued to get dismantled, the earlier shape of his mark was nowhere to be seen and only shambles of threads remained.
Zazm raised his left hand the one with the mark and a few on those threads started flowing through Zazm's mark, he did that by covering Jahanox's threads in his own.
He repeated it a couple of times before he closed his eyes and opened them again but this time they were normal, he sat down holding his head, he had used his powers too much.
Jahanox's threads started flowing back into his mark. And within a few seconds all of them disappeared. Zazm layed down with a hand on his catching his breath.
---
"Ahh.."Jahanox slowly opened his eyes still feeling a bit hazy, he slowly sat down and looked around him finding himself laying on the bench.
He sat down and saw a hand on his shoulder he momentarily jumped and when he turned around he saw Zazm standing there with a bottle of juice.
"Yoo, you're up." Zazm spoke with his usual carefree tone. His left hand was in his pocket whole he enjoyed the juice with his other hand.
Zazm looked at Jahanox's dumbfounded expression and then looked at his juice bottle, "Oh sorry I forgot one for you."
"Wait that's not important, what happened?" Jahanox asked Zazm with a serious tone, suspicion etched on his face.
Zazm shrugged his shoulders, "Well unlike last time I didn't had to go into your mark and took a century to understand your power, I simply pulled it out."
"What?" Jahanox tilted his head in confused still suspicious. Zazm jumped over the bench and sat down on it and put his leg over the other.
"Well as I said we have different threads than others its because of our marks but you already know that." Jahanox nodded at his words understanding his reasoning.
Zazm continued, "These marks have different types of threads store in it that doesn't naturally flow and those threads store this power or whatever in it."
"Wait so you're saying these designs are actually threads?" Jahanox questioned Zazm, but Zazm shook his head and lifted his mark up.
"You see what these marks do is that they make sure we don't over exert their powers, they didn't convert our threads at once. They kept those special powers stored in them until we can bring them out themselves." Zazm finally finished his drink and threw it directly into the bin.
Jahanox walked towards the bench and plopped down besides Zazm, "What if we didn't had these marks? We would been directly able to our powers right?"
Zazm let out a sigh before he got up and walked towards the railing and leaned forward. The wind made his hair flow into his eyes, he put a hand through it putting it back to it's place.
"If that happened our brains would've exploded. My consciousness would've been lost on the fabric of space time the first time I saw the threads and you would've burst the mind of someone you tried to control."
Zazm looked at the shocked face of Jahanox, "In other words these marks work as a safety measure to contain our powers and help us master them, basically they are slowly making their roots in our body with each passing second out powers are used."
Jahanox leaned back and crossed his arms trying to think, Zazm looked at his before speaking, "What are you thinking, don't you wanna know about your powers?"
Jahanox shook his head and spoke in a serious tone, "I'm thinking that everything is too perfect."
Zazm put his hands in bis pocket and asked Jahanox, "What do you mean?" Jahanox didn't say anything and let the silence built up between them, "Well how we got these powers, their uses and every other thing. It's like the powers we got are telling us to fix the ruptured multiverse."
Zazm nodded his head in understanding but before he can say something Jahanox continued, "Let me guess what you did was you used your threads to understand mine? You froze them in time along with my body so they can't flow back and properly examined them."
Zazm eyes widened in surprise and he nodded with a smirk on his face, "You got me, but yes. I also feel like someone or something wants us to fix this problem. But the question still remains how?"
Jahanox got up dusting his clothes, he walked towards Zazm with a smile on his face, "But that's that, so what's my power?"
Zazm looked at him and a smirk appeared on his face seeing Jahanox all excited. He stayed quite for a second before he finally told Jahanox about his powers, he told him everything he found.
"N-No way....," Sweat tickled down Jahanox's spine as he heard about his powers. He expected his powers to be something great but the truth truly shocked him, he didn't knew what to say.
"Well now you kno---" Zazm was cut off my Jahanox's intervention as Jahanox spoke in a hurried tone, "Zazm, this must have a downfall or something, wouldn't it?"
Zazm took his hands out of his pockets and shrugged, "That's on you, find that out, understand your powers."
Jahanox nodded understanding Zazm's words and Zazm's smile widened, he lifted his hand and opened the portal, he finally spoke in a low voice, "Well that's that, it's late and I have to leave for Japan tomorrow. So I'll see you in a while."
"I see, I'll make sure to understand and master my powers by the time you're back." Jahanox also smiled and held his fist in the air. Zazm bumped it with his fist and both bid each other farewell.
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