Thousands of years ago, many humans came upon a power not known to have existed before. A power that let them use a strange energy around them to perform miraculous feats. Some were able to move and change the elements around them, some could heal, and some could even make things appear seemingly out of thin air. Many of these humans hid their power not knowing how others would react, others flaunted their power and were heralded as gods or messengers from above. Many were killed out of fear.

There was one, however, that was different. They had power, though they weren't sure what. They could feel an energy of sorts flowing around them, but they didn't know what it meant or what to do with it. For years, as this person grew, they became more accustomed to this feeling and eventually found that they could make this energy flow in whichever way they saw fit, moving the flow around as if it were water. They didn't know what the use for their power was, and it drove them crazy trying to figure it out. They needed someone to help.

They had an elder sibling with whom they helped tend the fields with their family. One day when they were both alone, far from the others, the younger sibling confided in their elder about this energy they felt. Their elder sibling, in turn, confided in them that they too had some sort of power, though they didn't move the energy around them, but pull it inside them. It even seemed to grow within as they concentrated.

After much discussion they came up with a plan. The younger gathered the energy from as far as they could around their sibling. The elder sibling felt as the energy accumulated around them, and pulled it within. As they concentrated on it, they felt themselves rise from the ground. They both were startled and lost their concentration, so the elder fell.

They were both frightened but excited at what they had discovered. Afterwards, whenever they were alone, they continued working on their power. Testing it as best they could. Gradually, the younger became more accustomed to the energy flowing around them and even found the best ways to control it. They even began feeling the energy from farther distances. The elder, on the other hand, discovered that after pulling in energy, they could move objects.

At first the elder started levitating themself off the ground, which eventually led to slowly moving around the room. Next came other objects. First small like their bowls or firewood, but then bigger objects like tables, but for some reason they could never lift the younger sibling. They both came to the conclusion that though the younger could effect the energy, the energy could not effect them.

The siblings secretly used their power to complete their daily work faster so they'd have more time to practice. They had a feeling that others may not like that they had this power. "They would be envious of us" said the elder sibling, "They would fear us, they would hate us, they must never know!" But the younger wanted to use the energy to help people, to help their family. If they could give their elder sibling more energy, perhaps they could give their family some so they could all have easier lives. But their fear of the possibility of what their older, wiser sibling said made them believe every word... For a bit of time.

One day, months later, the siblings were practicing their power once more in their home. The younger's control over the energy grew exponentially, and the elder found that they could even draw it in from farther than what was immediately around them. Still though, their progression had seemed to slow to a halt. The younger was not gathering more energy, so the elder could not harness more.

At this point the elder had just about everything in the room in their air with them. "More!" shouted the elder. "I cannot, I've given you all I can!" replied the younger. That angered the elder. They wanted more, and the only way they could get it was from the younger. "You're holding back, I know it!" That scared the younger, for in truth, they were. Their elder sibling's lust for power grew with every training session.

The elder sibling gave an exasperated sigh and everything crashed to the floor. "Careful!" the younger shouted at their sibling. "You almost hit me with father's axe!" The elder turned to them, rage in their eyes. "Why do you insist on not giving me more? We have gone weeks and still my power hasn't grown a bit. If your power can grow, mine can too. I need you to give me more!" The elder glared angrily. The younger glared back, "Yes, I'll admit I'm holding back. I'm afraid of what might happen if I give you too much. You already have enough to make our lives easy. Our work gets done faster and we have more time to ourselves, what else could we possibly need?"

Their elder hesitated for a moment. "I've been thinking. We couldn't possibly be the only ones with these powers, right? There has to be more, maybe even people from the village have power that they hide as well." "Maybe," replied the younger, "But what does that have to do with us? What does that have to do with me giving you more energy?" The elder turned away. "If there are others, there could be people with more power than us. People who are, or could become, stronger than us. If they're stronger, than they can control us, rule us with their power. We need to be stronger so that we can be the ones that rule."

The younger sibling was taken aback by this. "You want to control people? Control our neighbors? Our friends? Our family? If that is your goal, I will not help you. If anything we should be sharing this with everyone, make everyone strong so everyone can be equal and live happy lives like we do." "No!" their sibling screamed, "I told you before, they will not see this as a gift, they will see this only as evil and want to destroy it. Destroy us!" The elder ran to their younger sibling and grabbed their arms. "Listen to me, please. You have to give me more. I need more power so I can keep us safe!" The younger felt the hands squeeze their wrists tight while things around them started to float. "What are you doing? Get off of me!" The younger shouted at they tried to escape the claws that bound them. "Give me more! I need more!" The axe came eye level to them.

"NO!"

At that, everything fell to the floor. The elder looked around. "What did you do!?" Their grip tightened even more, cutting off the circulation. "What did you do!? Where is my power!?" Spittle flew onto the younger's face as they defiantly stared back. "I took it away! I moved all the energy I could away from here. Away from you! I will not let you use our gift to control people, no matter what you think their motives may be." The elder's mouth fell open, hands fell to their side. "You... you can do that? How long have you known you can take the power away?" The younger looked to their feet. "For a while now, I figured if I can move it to you, I can move it away as well. I was afraid something like this might happen."

The elder stared in disbelief. "Why didn't you tell me? This fixes everything. I don't know why I didn't think of it myself. If you can change the flow of energy to make me stronger, surely you can push it out as well... This... This is how we can control them. It's simple! You draw the energy away from them making them weaker, while I use whats already around me. Maybe even steal it from them to give it to me, if possible. Nobody will surpass me then!"

The younger clenched their teeth. "I won't. The energy is gone, and it will stay away until you swear to me you won't use it on people." The elder growled and smashed the younger into the wall. "You will give me back my power now! Can't you see you're just dooming us to anyone else with power!? I'm just trying to protect us!" The younger struggled to get away but could not. "I won't! I don't believe you!" At that, the younger was thrown to the ground while the elder landed on top of them, crushing the air out of their body. The elder then began raining punches down.

The younger tried fighting back, so the elder pinned down their hands. "Stop fighting and bring back the energy! Give me back my power!" "I won't!" shouted the younger, "I will not let you rule over our neighbors!" Their sibling's face went blank and stared for a moment. "Fine, have it your way. If you're not here to keep the energy away, than surely it will come back to me... I'll become stronger myself."

The younger sibling could do nothing as the one person they loved and trusted most began strangling them. They struggled, trying to push them away, punch them, anything to stop their windpipe from being crushed by the stronger sibling. Just as they were about to give up hope, they remembered the axe. Frantically they searched for it with their hand, luckily it had fallen close. They grabbed it and swung the broad side into their sibling's head.

The elder fell to the floor as the younger struggled to their feet and moved back as far from their sibling as they could. Waiting. It was at that moment the younger realized their concentration faltered during the struggle and the energy came rushing back. The elder started to stand, blood covering one side of their face and dripping down to form a pool on the floor. The younger was frantic and hyperventilating. They couldn't concentrate enough to push the energy back.

The elder sibling rose to their feet while pulling everything into the air. Rage fueled them. "I can feel it... I'm getting more energy than I ever was before. You weren't just holding back, you were sabotaging me! I never needed you at all, did I!?"

Just as the younger sibling started to regain their concentration, something crashed into their head. Their mind went fuzzy and they fell down to one knee, propping themself up with the axe. They looked up and saw the table was moving, but slowly. The elder wasn't as powerful as they thought. They stood up and started running at their sibling. This was the only choice. They wouldn't let their elder use their power anymore. They wouldn't let anyone use power anymore.

Objects began pelting the desperate younger sibling as they ran, their father's axe lifted above their head. As they came near their target, they swung down with as much force as they could muster.

Everything went black.

The younger sibling awoke to their father shaking them, and their mother screaming. Their father was saying something, but they couldn't comprehend. They looked around while in a daze. The room was in ruins with everything strewn about. They lifted their hands up and found them covered in blood. They felt blood soaking the back of their head. They looked to their side and saw their sibling. Laying in a pool of blood. Their father's axe stuck in their body through the collarbone. Motionless.

That's when it all came flooding back. Their sibling must have hurled something into the back of their skull as they brought the axe down onto them. Finally they could understood their father's words and their mother's screams. Obviously they wanted to know what exactly happened. But what could they say? We were practicing witchcraft? Magic? That their elder sibling went mad for power and had to be put down? Nothing would be able to explain this. So nothing is what was said.

They couldn't answer their parent's pleas for an explanation. They only sat there in a daze. Eventually their parents gave up asking and instead, not knowing what else to do, forced their last remaining child to leave and never come back. So they left, determined to continue living. Determined to make sure nobody would end up as their sibling had.

So they wandered as far as they could, eventually coming upon an unknown village. They found a nice stranger that took them in and nursed them back to health. When they were healthy and fit enough to leave, the younger sibling thanked the stranger and tried to leave. The stranger, however refused to let them go back to wandering, and instead convinced them to settle in their village. There was plenty of farm work to do, and they were more than happy to help.

After much hard work, they were even able start a farm for themselves, found love, and started a family. Things weren't perfect, of course. They had their struggles in life, but they were able to raise their children to be good people. People that enjoyed helping others.

As the years went by and the younger sibling's power grew stronger, they found they were finally able to keep the energy far enough away so that nobody would be able to use it for power. But they wouldn't be able to hold it back forever. They needed someone to take on the mantle of protector, but as far as they knew, nobody else had the power to keep the energy at bay.

When they finally thought it fitting, they told their children of their power. They let the energy into their home so that the children may feel it. Sense its movements. Thankfully they did. So eventually the children were taught how to control it, and how to keep it at bay so that nobody may use it.

The children's minds were instilled with their parent's ideals, and that the energy was something that shall be forever forced away from their lands. They told their children the story of their life, of their elder sibling, of why they had to protect everyone from the energy. When their time came to pass, they left their children an artifact to help them in their life long duty.

Nobody knows the identity of that person, we only know that all who have our power have all descended from them. That is why we call them The Ancestor.

For thousands of years we have dedicated ourselves to this mission. With the help of the artifact, we have been able to keep the energy away from our planet.

"...And so that mission continues with us to this day. Along with the other six families, we must try to protect humanity from itself, and continue The Ancestor's legacy."

Freya sighed at her mother's insistence on telling the story countless times.

"Yeah, we know, we get it, you've been telling us this story our entire lives. In the however many years people have been telling it, couldn't they have shortened it a little?"

"No, you don't get it," her mother replied curtly. "Until you get it out of your head that the energy should be brought back, I will continue telling you this story. I refuse to let my daughter, the next head of the Alistair family, to have these crazy thoughts floating around in her head."

Freya folded her arms and looked away. Her twin brother Finlay turned to her.

"Why do you have to make this so difficult? I'm sick of hearing this story too. I swear I probably have every word of it memorized. But every time you insist on bringing this craziness back into question, Mom makes us listen to it again."

Freya sighed. "I'm not saying we should definitely do it, all I'm saying is that The Ancestor originally wanted to give people the energy so that everyone would have power and be equal. If it weren't for their sibling being an ass, The Ancestor would have done it. Just... maybe its something to think about."

Their mother furrowed her brow, "Do I need to tell the story again?" she said through clenched teeth.

Finlay jumped out of his seat. "No! Its fine mom, its fine. We need to get out of here and meet up with the guys or we're going to miss the movie." He looked pleadingly at his sister. "Freya, tell her its fine, please."

Their mother turned to Freya and put her hands on her hips.

Freya sighed. "Ookaay. I'll stop bringing it up, its fine."

Freya stood. Their mother turned to her children. eyeing them up and down. "It's not enough to not bring it up, don't even think about it," she sighs "Ok, you can go be with your friends."

At that the twins rushed out of the room.

"Its them that are crazy." Freya says under her breath as they get to the front door.

Finlay stops and spins around. "Will you stop... please... I'm really sick of this."

Freya raises an eyebrow. "You agree with me, though! Why do you never back me up on this?"

"Because I'm not crazy enough to bring it up with Mom, who heads the council of seven. As much as I agree with you, there's no way it would ever happen."

Freya pushes past her brother and out through the door to the car.

As the car doors close Freya turns to her brother. "Well I'm going to be the one at the head of the family one day, then I'll be able to bring it up for discussion with the other families."

Finlay groans. "There's no way you'd get approval for something so crazy. We're talking about something that's been going on for thousands of years. You alone, even with me backing you up, wouldn't mean anything."

"But the others..."

Another groan. "Aren't, and won't be, heads of their family. Maybe one if something happens... But still, for something so crazy you'd need all seven to agree to give up The Ancestor's work. That'll never happen, so please, just drive. Now you're the one making us late."

Freya groaned and dropped her head onto the steering wheel in exasperation. She put the key in, sat up, and drove off.

"Promise me you won't bring it up with Mom again," demands Finlay.

Freya stares ahead and says nothing for a moment as she drives.

"I promise..."