Inextricably Linked

Her name was Lyona Torgersen, and she was one of a very special group of humans who came to be known as: Out-Breakers, but she was one of the first. Before they had a name. Before she came to realize there were others out there like her. Before the Sci-Focus Community was conceived... She was there, using her powers, but they weren't just her powers. She was part of a triad, a trio, a triumvirate, inextricably linked.

It was the summer of her fifteenth year, a 70's baby, an 80's kid, now a 90's teenager, in the full blossom of awkwardness. It didn't help her social standing that she was a nerd-girl, more at ease with computer programs, video games, comic books and chemistry experiments than knowing about the latest fashion or whom Tiger Beat magazine was touting as the newest hunk.

Insofar as hunks go, Lyona only had eyes for seventeen year old Bryan Merchant, a senior way out of her league, who sat two tables up and one row across from her in Chem class. She thought of him as drop dead gorgeous. With his mop of sandy brown hair with blonde highlights, Bryan was a bi-racial stud-muffin, with a caramel skin tone and absolutely perfect teeth.

Lyona would sigh each time he'd pass her table on his way to the pencil sharpener. She'd surreptitiously break all his pencil points when she thought no one was looking.

Someone WAS looking however, at just about everything Lyona ever did: her fellow nerd, the concentration camp thin, exceedingly pimple faced Evan Dorchester. Of course the kids at school never called him Evan, seldom talked to this gangly fourteen year old that dared to be a sophomore already (skipped a grade early on, but could've skipped more). When the other students did address poor Evan they would call him: DORK-chester.

Although Evan was so stuck in the Friend Zone with Lyona he had renamed it: Friend Quicksand, he dreamed that someday she would notice him as something other than just the skinny, pizza faced, geek with whom she could discuss games, software and comic book heroes.

To Evan, Lyona was like his image of a comic book hero (or she-ro, as they were starting to call them). Her huge flowing mane of auburn hair, her impish grin, the bridge of her nose a sea of freckles, to Evan this girl was perfection! Not even the Sally Jessy Raphael glasses, that always seemed to slide halfway down her nose, could mar the beauty Evan had seen since the fourth grade (the grade he skipped into).

Evan bit his lower lip with his ample front teeth, the overbite his braces hadn't quite corrected yet, making the move easier than it should've been. It hurt to watch Lyona from his Chem lab table ogle Bryan, but he was just bi-curious enough to see why.

Now, Out-Breakers, as a general rule, break out in puberty, but they seldom, if ever, break out together. The Triumvirate was special, linked to each other in mind, heart and power. It was on this day in Chem 101 that they would find out just HOW linked.

God, even his muscles are perfect. Not too big. Not like he's on 'roids like Schwartzenegger. Lyona thought to herself as she looked at Bryan, or at least she thought it was to herself.

Who said that? Bryan thought back as he tried to make sense of hearing Lyona's voice in his head.

Oh, my GOD! Lyona thought as her eyes widened to epic proportions.

And Arnold doesn't do 'roids! Sly does! Bryan mentally protested.

You're kidding, right? The first telepathic conversation EVER and you two are going to waste it on a steroid debate? Evan thought to them, having heard their exchange.

Who the hell was that? No, wait, I can tell. It's you, DORK-chester! Bryan thought.

I prefer Evan, 'Roid Rage.

I don't do... Dude, I don't even do glandulars.

Evan, can you hear us both? Lyona interjected.

Yeah, Lyona, it looks like you, me and Jock Itch over there are on the same party line. As my Grandma used to say.

Sayings from Grandma, huh? Do you use her doilies too?

And how would you know about doilies, Bry? Looks like somebody's a little Mommy-Whipped.”

Will you two shut-up! Evan's right, this is the first telepathic conversation in the history of the world and you two dorks are using it to trade insults?

Lyona then heard the dual blast of: He started it in her head.

It was at that point that everybody's concentration was broken when Rory Spathe dropped a beaker of Thiol on the floor, the resulting stench clearing the lab of anybody with a nose.

For the rest of that day the Triumvirate shared consciousness, the ebb and flow of thoughts connecting them in ways they could've never imagined. Their were no more secrets between them, from who was crushing on whom and the embarrassment that was caused, to how Evan couldn't pronounce caterpillar when he was a little kid and it always came out cappa-tiller. But what ended up bonding them emotionally, what brought both Evan and Lyona to private tears was Bryan's memory of how he lost his mother.

Bryan was only twelve when it happened. He was swimming with his Mom in the ocean off of Point Muga when a rip tide caught them both. With his father not there, it was a mother/son day out, bonding experience, Bryan tried to save his Mom from being pulled out to sea. Again and again he got near her but couldn't latch onto her arm. He never gave up, and lost consciousness trying to get to her. A nearby boater jumped in the water and managed to pull young Bryan out of the water and resuscitate him, but by then Bryan's mother was gone.

He never forgave himself for not being strong enough to save her from the water. That was when he dedicated himself to getting stronger. That was why he had the muscular physique that Lyona admired and Evan envied, because he never wanted to be too weak to save someone he loved again.

No three people on earth ever knew each other as well as they grew to know each other. Not a thought, not a memory from one was hidden from the other two, and a kind of kindred mutual respect was born and flourished.

As if the mental connection and telepathy wasn't enough, weeks after their initial mental communication, they discovered that when they locked arms and concentrated the two on either side of the triad would go limp and lose consciousness, while the third, whomever was in the middle of the Triumvirate, would get the consciousness and strength of all three.

Whereas Bryan on his own could bench press a good 300 pounds, when they pooled their powers into one body, Bryan or Evan or Lyona could lift more like 900 pounds. It was like they multiplied the strongest attribute of any of the trio times three. For Evan this strength was the kickiest of kicks, and over the objections of the other two did selfishly use the Triumvirate to settle a few scores with a few bullies on campus. For Lyona and Bryan, having been privy to Evan's memories of what these certain individuals had done to him in the past, they only put up passive resistance to their comeuppance.

As Out-Breakers they had all acquired an exoskeleton when they broke out, making their skin twice as thick and tough as the biggest of bull elephants and just as bullet proof, but they didn't know that until one day when they met after school at the park.

“I think we're bullet proof!” Lyona said flatly.

“Why do you think that?” Evan asked.

“Well, the other day when I was chopping onions--”

“Oh, I remember that day!” Evan remarked. “My eyes started watering in the middle of family game night, and now my Mom and Dad are convinced I'm clinically depressed!”

“Yeah, it hit me right in the middle of weight training. My strength coach thought I'd pulled a muscle.”

“ANYway! Did either of you feel a slight pain on your index finger?”

“Not really,” offered Bryan.

“Maybe,” added Evan.

“Well, you should've. I was looking away, trying not to breathe in the vapors and I cut the heck out of my finger. Or so I thought. When I looked at where I felt I had cut it there was nothing. No blood. No cut. Nothing.”

“Maybe you just thought you cut it?”

“Really, Bryan? Then how do you explain this?”

Lyona took out a pen knife with her right hand and slashed across the palm of her left hand with it. The boys looked astonished at the lack of blood or even a cut.

“I can see the wheels turning, Bryan. What are you thinking?” asked Lyona.

“I'm thinking of getting my Dad's gun.”

Approximately twenty minutes later, after Bryan had procured his father's gun from the super, secure, hidden spot his responsible gun owner Dad kept it. The Triumvirate was in Bryan's backyard.

“I think Lyona should take the first bullet, since it's her theory.” Evan said, quickly.

“I got a better idea.” Bryan said as he just as quickly shot Evan in the shoulder.

Evan fell over from the impact, but all three reacted in pain from the shot.

“I was afraid of this.” Lyona stated. “Looks like we're like a modern day Corsican Brothers. When one of us feels something, we all feel it. ”

“GOOD! Cuz that was a DICK move, Bry!”

“Calm down, Ev. I aimed for your shoulder. If Lyona had been wrong, the wound wouldn't have been lethal.”

“Cool, beans! Now that we know it works, can I shoot you in the balls?”

“Be my guest.” Bryan said as he flipped the gun around to hand it, handle first, to Evan.

It was then Evan rethought his position as Lyona and Bryan began to chuckle at him. He joined them, as he took the gun and shot himself in the foot just to watch the other two hop around.

What they didn't know then was that an Out-Breaker's exoskeleton was based on the strength of their individual power intensity. More powerful Out-Breakers developed thicker exoskeletons, but weaker powered Out-Breakers, with minimal powers... Not so much.

The Triumvirate baptism of fire as heroes came the week before Spring finals, when the three of them were (as was their usual custom since they broke out) sharing a table in the cafeteria at lunch, and the call came over the P.A. System about an active shooter on the campus.

“What the hell?!” Evan squeaked.

Daryl Moran, a Goth, loner type, burst in thru the cafeteria doors, armed with a semi-automatic rifle and a couple of hand guns stuffed in his belt.

“Lyona, you're in the middle. It's on you!” Bryan exclaimed, wishing it were on him.

Before Lyona could respond both boys grabbed one of her arms and immediately went limp, as she assumed their strength and consciousness.

“Oh, great.” Lyona said, as she grabbed each of them quickly pushing their bodies under the table where they had been sitting.

Lyona flipped another table over and placed it between Daryl and the boy's bodies, as she yanked down her hoodie to obscure her face to anyone that might notice.

“Now you'll all pay! You bastards! You'll ALL pay!” Daryl shouted, as he opened fire.

The students in the cafeteria began to scatter in panic, with the exception of one (who was three).

We're with you, Lyona! Bryan's voice in her head said clearly.

Make him notice you. Keep the focus on us and away from the other kids. Evan thought to her.

You got it. Lyona thought back to them, as she picked up a chair and hurled it at Daryl.

Daryl saw it coming at the last second and opened fire on it. It still hit him in the head and shoulder area, knocking him down.

Close in, Lyona. Bryan thought to her.

Yeah, guns are a distance weapon. Minimize the distance and you got him. Evan offered.

Lyona jumped on a table and then towards Daryl. Daryl had dropped his rifle when he got knocked down by the chair, but now pulled his hand guns and shot Lyona dead center of her upper torso.

“Arrrgh!” Lyona groaned in pain. Je-ZUS! Even with my hide three times as thick, it doesn't exactly feel like raindrops hitting you!

Keep pushing forward. Bryan thought to her.

Yeah, the fact that you didn't go down with four slugs pumped into you, should shock him enough to give you a second. Evan concluded.

Evan was right. Daryl's eyes widened as Lyona lunged for him. Her usual three foot broad jump now enhanced to closer to nine feet. She landed smack on Daryl's crotch. Lyona heard the sympathetic groan from the boys in her head. She saw the confusion on Daryl's face just before she landed the blow that would knock him out completely, as he must've wondered why Lyona was snickering as she hit him.

The next day the school was abuzz with chatter about this unknown hero who saved countless lives in the cafeteria the day before. No one knew it was Lyona, or the part that Evan and Bryan had played in the event.

This suited the Triumvirate just fine, as they proudly walked down the halls of their school content in the knowledge that they used their abilities for a good purpose, and that no one, not even Daryl was killed or even seriously hurt. Of course all three would complain of a sore chest for a few days.

This would not be the last time the one who were three would stand against a threat together, and years later when they would discover other Out-Breakers, help to form the Sci-Focus Community and later the Sci-Focus Bureau, that too they would do together. Inextricably linked, with their bonds growing stronger every year. The Triumvirate were heroes... To the end.