When I was born, I was told I could bring fortune to my family — but at a terrible cost. Every coin I created seemed to drain their sense and reason. By the time I was three, they had more wealth than they could ever need, and less humanity than I could recognize. One day, they sold me. They didn't care that the man looked dangerous. They just wanted to be done with me.
He became my captor for years — cruel, manipulative, and endlessly deceptive. People suspected something was wrong, but he always found a way to twist the truth. By the time I was old enough to understand my own fear, I finally called for help.
But when the authorities came, I denied everything. I was too scared, too exhausted, too broken to face it. Yet the evidence told the truth for me. They took me away, treated my wounds, and sent me to a trauma center. It took a year of therapy — and more strength than I thought I had — to begin to heal.
When I turned twelve, he was released. I decided I couldn't keep running from the shadow he left behind. I went to see him, my heart pounding like thunder in my chest.
"Connor," I said, steadying my voice as he smirked like nothing had changed.
"You're still the same, aren't you?" he sneered.
I glared at him. "I'm surprised they let you live," I said quietly.
Something inside me snapped. All the pain, fear, and rage I had buried rose at once. I lunged — shouting, kicking, striking, letting every ounce of fury I had explode out.
The police pulled me back, but my body sparked with something new — something electric. The air around me crackled and flared. I realized then what I had always been: a conduit for power. The same power that once cursed my family now coursed through my veins.
My foster family took me in when I came to America. They wanted to change my name legally, but I refused. My name is Kanoa Haikili. I can summon lightning through every limb of my body, and—believe it or not—I own a pet jaguar, completely legally. I'm twelve years old, born on September 12th, and I stand at five-foot-two. I'm in middle school, but I don't talk about my past to anyone I don't trust. The only person who really knows me is my best friend, Roi.
One day, Roi told me his secret—he could manipulate blood. I was stunned. I joked, "How cool would it be if we were in some kind of superhero story?" That's when he told me everything—where our powers came from and why we had them. Long ago, two kings ruled the world: Yin and Yang. Yin could heal, Yang could harm. Together, they created powers and sent them down to earth, granting them to those they deemed worthy whenever a wielder died. But everything changed when darkness crept in—evil forces tore the two kings apart. And from their separation… Chaos was born..
The next day at school, everything felt normal at first. The same crowded hallways, the same chatter about yesterday's math test, and the same creaky lockers that never quite closed right. But as I walked to mine, something immediately felt… off.
There was a note shoved halfway through the vents of my locker, its corner fluttering slightly as if it had just been placed there. And then I noticed him — a tall man standing a few steps away, leaning casually against the wall like he had all the time in the world.
"Hey! Who are you!?" I snapped, my hand halfway to the note.
The man's expression didn't change. His eyes, sharp and unreadable, met mine. "I see potential in you," he said quietly. "Think about this."
Before I could even respond, he vanished — not walked away, not ran — vanished, like smoke in the wind.
"What the hell!?" I muttered, staring at the empty space where he'd been. My pulse was racing. Slowly, I pulled the note out of my locker and unfolded it.
It was short — almost too simple.
Come to my dojo.
— [address]
*:) *
A single smiley face.
I stuffed it into my pocket, still staring down the hall like he might reappear at any second. My mind was spinning with questions — who was that guy? How did he know me? What kind of "dojo" did he even mean?
The bell snapped me out of it. I sprinted to science class, nearly bumping into a teacher on the way, and slid into my seat beside Roi, my best friend.
"Dude!" I hissed, pulling the note from my pocket and shoving it toward him. "Look at this!"
He scanned it, eyebrows lifting. Then he leaned in, whispering, "Dude! We could become heroes! It's an internship at a hero facility! We could nail this!"
"Wait, what?" I blinked. "You think this is real?"
Roi grinned, excitement practically glowing off him. "Come on, Kanoa. You can literally summon lightning through your arms. You think this kind of thing doesn't happen to people like us? This could be our shot — real training, real missions, everything!"
I looked back down at the note, the small smiley face staring up at me like it knew something I didn't.
Maybe Roi was right. Maybe this was fate.
Or maybe… it was a trap.
Either way, I knew one thing for sure:
I was going to that dojo.
It was a the great Shift.