Mirrors and Shadows

Chapter Two

"The Gift?" Christoph asks incredulously. "What's... the Gift?"

I'm thinking the same thing, after the dean gave the five of us a story plucked out of a fairytale. About how he searched around the globe for children blessed with 'The Gift'.

"Roughly 0.01% of the population has the Gift currently, and of course most of them don't know its existence. The Gift, if not used, usually fades away when the child grows up. There are three kinds of Gifts, all of which give the person blessed with the Gift special abilities. We'll talk about that later."

"So..." Alastair says, as my brain is spinning around the fact that only 0.01% of the population has the gift. I do a quick calculation and find out that only 7800 people in the world have this 'Gift' right now. "Um, Mr. Smith, why did you call us here at this point of time, and only the five of us?"

The dean sighs. "Why I called you here at this time is because of the robbery. The one everyone saw on the X tab. I had it hooked on to any news regarding that secret government vault.

As for why I called the five of you here, is because the five of you are extremely gifted with the Gift. I noticed that when I was searching around the globe for children with the Gift, the signs that indicated you had the Gift were really clear. I don't get why nobody noticed. Of course, I will make an announcement to all the students about the special training that will start soon, but you will be trained especially for a secret mission."

"What signs? What abilities? And is it possible to have multiple Gifts at the same time?" I ask, questions spilling from my brain. How is this connected with the robbery? Who was the robber? What crazy mission are you going to send us on? Is the dean joking with us? He never jokes.

"Small signs like your shadow in the wrong direction, your shadow disappearing in broad daylight, your mirror self not doing exactly identical things as you. That's how I found you.

There are two abilities relating to shadows, and one relating to mirrors. The mirror Gift gives you powers to access the parallel mirror dimension. The mirror selves of people with this Gift aren't normal mirror images, they're real but just act almost the same as the original.

The first shadow Gift allows the person to slip into their shadow and move through objects. This is called the fluid shadow. The second one allows the person to move their shadow and the shadow can interact with objects above it, but the person is frozen and cannot move until the shadow returns. This is called the moving shadow.

And yes, it is possible to have multiple Gifts at the same time, but that's much rarer. In fact, Mr. Taylor and Mr. Wu here both have double-Gifts. And you, Audrey," the dean looks at me right in the eye. "You are what we call a tres palas, which means 'three blades' in English. There are only three people in the world now who have all three Gifts. Me, you, and Colin Cleve."

And it's like he throws a mega bomb on top of the already-exploding pile of TNT. Only 3 people?! In the world?! I never wanted to be special! How do I blend in now?!

I spy the other four are looking at me in awe and cringe inwardly. My brain manages to squeeze out a question. "Who's Colin Cleve?" I ask.

"Ah, yes," the dean says. "That brings me to your mission. Colin Cleve is the leader of a newly formed group called the Emergent. That's why he stole the emerald ring along with the ruby. He needed money to support the group and to get the people he needed. He's now gathered 7 other talented adults with the Gift and plans to overthrow this school and take over the government. The ruby is called the Jaquelin and holds immense power. The fact that he has seized it means that he has been healed to much more of his original power peak.