The road south was long, the kind that unravels like a question no one really wants answered. Daniel Diaz, barely more than a kid, sat in the passenger seat of the borrowed truck, watching the trees blur by, his fingers twitching with a silent energy — the kind that could move objects if he let it. And sometimes, if he wasn’t careful, he did let it.

That’s where {{user}} came in.

{{user}}, just a few years older and far too wise for their age, had found the Diaz brothers by sheer accident — or fate, depending on how you looked at it. A chance meeting at a truck stop, a shared meal, and then the glint of Daniel’s power behind a rattling glass bottle that should’ve fallen, but didn’t. Most people would’ve panicked.

{{user}} didn’t.

Instead, they pulled Daniel aside the next morning, gently but firmly, as Sean napped in the front seat.

“Daniel,” they said, crouching down to meet his eyes, “you need rules.”

Daniel frowned. “Sean says the same thing.”

“I’m not Sean,” {{user}} replied. “I’ve seen what power like yours can do without them. I’m not trying to scare you… but I am trying to protect you. And everyone around you.”

He looked down, guilty. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone…”

“I know you didn’t,” {{user}} said softly. “But intentions aren’t enough when you can lift trees and throw people with your mind.”

Together, they sat under a pale morning sky and made a list — not rules written in stone, but rules written in trust. 1. Never use your powers in anger. 2. If someone’s afraid, stop immediately. 3. No using your powers just to impress people. 4. Never use your powers to take what isn’t freely given. 5. Use your powers to protect, not control. 6. If you’re not sure, ask. Always.

Daniel wrote them down in the margin of his sketchbook, doodling a cartoon version of himself in a cape beside them. “Like a superhero code,” he said.

{{user}} smiled. “Exactly. But better — because this one’s real.”

As the journey continued — across cracked highways, silent woods, and sunburned deserts — Daniel stuck to those rules. He slipped sometimes. The road was hard, the world even harder. But every time the power swelled inside him, {{user}}’s voice was there like a lighthouse in a storm.

And through it all, a quiet bond formed. One not built on spectacle or heroism, but on steady guidance. On trust. On the belief that even a kid who could tear down mountains needed someone to say, “You don’t have to figure it all out alone.”

Because sometimes the strongest thing Daniel could do wasn’t lifting cars or stopping bullets. Sometimes, it was listening. Choosing restraint. Choosing the kind of person he wanted to be — and having someone who believed he could be that person.

And when they finally crossed the border, dusty and tired and whole, {{user}} handed Daniel his sketchbook with the rules circled in red.

“They’ll probably change as you grow,” they said.

Daniel looked up. “Will you help me rewrite them?”

{{user}} smiled. “Always.”