"Is this the true might of my superpower?" Thomas whispered, his voice trembling with a mixture of awe and dread. "It's... It's amazing."
Back at the SA testing facility, the examiners had dismissed him. They had seen the faint black glow on his palms and labelled it a low-grade manifestation, perhaps a minor heat or light power with no combat utility.
They had missed the threads. Even the high-ranking guards at the Vault hadn't seemed to notice the ethereal, writhing tentacles that emerged from his fingertips. To the rest of the world, he was a D-grade nobody with a flashy but useless trick. To Thomas, he was now a walking catastrophe.
His detective's curiosity, usually reserved for cold cases and crime scenes, turned toward his own hands. He needed to know the limits.
He looked around the room, his eyes landing on the sturdy wooden chairs that had matched the now-deceased table. He reached out, barely brushing the backrest of the nearest chair with a single black thread.
