Metawars: The Complete Series: Trance, Changeling, Tempest, Chimera Read Online Free Page A

out of the plaster wall and clattered to the floor. Ignoring the chilly tiles, I flipped the wall switch and flinched against the yellow light that bathed the room.
    As my eyes adjusted, I leaned over the cracked porcelain sink, studying my reflection. Chills wiggled down my spine. Purple streaks as thin as fingers highlighted my hair in no discernable pattern, just like before I started dyeing it. Odd, yes, but not scary. Scary was reserved for my eyes. Formerly brown irises now shone an iridescent purple that moved like oceans of light. I’d seen eyes like that once, and not in my head. I remembered an age-lined face and white hair stained with blood, an old woman as she lay dying.
    I gripped the sink’s edge. “No.”
    I ran my fingers through hair no longer familiar, convincing myself that it was not an illusion. Purple hair was at least familiar. Purple fingertips? Not so much. I rubbed my thumb and index finger together, testing the texture of the skin. Lavender sparks shot off like a party sparkler. I yelped. My heart slammed against my ribs as a strange odor filled the room, like a scraped matchbook cover.
    I had to get a grip—easier said than done. I rubbed again. More sparks. On a whim, I snapped my fingers. A marble-size ball of purple light appeared. It hovered above my palm like an extension of my hand, connected by a faint warmth I couldn’t explain.
    “Whoa.”
    I didn’t move. Neither did the light. After a moment of concentration, the marble grew into a walnut, and then into an apple-size orb. Holy crap. The oddest sensation of heat still connected the hovering sphere to my hand, pulled taut like a rubber band. I could control it, shrink it, expand it. Could I make it fly?
    “This is bad,” I said, stumbling away from the sink. I tripped over a well-worn tub mat and fell, landing flat on my ass. The orb disappeared. Sharp pain skewered my lower back, and a few choice curses tumbled out of my mouth.
    I sat up, breathing hard, and tried to drum up some explanation. Anything to account for this. My powers were gone, had been for fifteen years. Just like every other Meta. No one knew why our powers went away that day in Central Park. One instant we were huddled together, preparing to killor be killed, and the next we were all writhing in pain as some unknown force tore our abilities away from us. The world saw it as a blessing—no more superpowered freaks wreaking havoc. No more destruction. No more killing.
    No one considered how it affected
us
.
    Like most explosive and devastating conflicts, the spark that lit the five-year Meta War was decades in the making. For more than two hundred years, superpowered Metas had been a part of our collective history, but it wasn’t until the first half of the twentieth century that the minor Meta disagreements became full-blown conflicts. Conflicts that grew bolder and bloodier over the next century. During that time, the Ranger Corps was established, and Washington bureaucrats coined the term “Banes”—a catch-all for the Metas our Ranger ancestors were tasked to capture and neutralize.
    Over time, career-criminal Metas embraced the distinction and their identity as Banes. Schoolchildren were taught that Banes were bad, but the Rangers would always save us. It was a nice fairy tale.
    A decade or so before the outbreak of the War—right around the time my generation was born—Specter showed up. More powerful than any other Bane, his abilities were a fierce blend of telekinesis and telepathy—once in your mind, he could control your actions until unconsciousness or death forced him out. This power to possess from a distance and turn the possessed’s powers against them helped him command loyalty from the fractured groups of Banes scattered around the world without ever showing his face to the public.
    For the first time in history, the Rangers were outmatched.The Banes came at us sideways, using deadly force against anyone who stood in their way, children