"So, are we going to talk about our different powers?" Violet said, pushing the conversation back onto its original track. The others nodded, some of them quite reluctantly. This was a difficult conversation, and they normally liked to reveal what they knew about themselves over more than a couple of meetings. But they all agreed that with the Enemy truly on the move, there was a chance the living members could be attacked at any time, and it was best to make sure that they at least knew what the others could do.

Jack was the destroyer; somehow that didn't come as much of a surprise to Amber, although she was a little surprised by her own response. He told them about how he could find the weak spots in anything, and destroy it. He could find the pressure points to touch that might even let him break through a wall. He wasn't sure if his punch was more powerful than that of a normal man, or if it was just his talent for seeing weaknesses that made him so effective, but there was no doubt that if something needed fighting or destroying, he was the man for the job. Or would have been, if he were alive.

Amber was more surprised by her own reaction than by the nature of his power. She would have thought that destruction was a naturally bad power, but as Jack described it she could see all the reasons it would be useful. This wasn't like some television superhero show, where there were bad powers and good powers; everything depended what you used it for, and somewhere deep in her mind it seemed she knew that already.

Mel's power was one that could be incredibly useful for finding the truth, and probably didn't matter too much if he was in the real world or not. If you told him about a dream, he said, he could tell you if it was just a dream, or if it might be a symbol of something in your life, a prophecy of the future, or a memory of a past life. That meant that any little flash they recalled, Mel would be able to categorise. It wasn't much, but it was the only way they had of recovering the memories that they might have lost.

"Does that mean seeing the future isn't a power?" Arnie asked, a little surprised, "We're all like oracles, but only Mel can interpret them?"

"Not quite. I can tell you if a dream is about the past or future, but I can't tell you what it means. I can tell you if the dream was true, or was symbolic, but I can't tell if you remembered the dream correctly, or if you understood it right. I don't do interpretation. I can tell if someone uses magic to tamper with your dreams as well, but these days that's less likely to be useful."

"A lot of these abilities seem to be a little abstract," Alex admitted, "But I think they still have all the power we need. Take mine for example..."

Alex's special ability was finding things. When alive, she'd found that she could track down whatever she needed, given enough time. And if something was needed urgently, she could find it more quickly as well. That was what had led her to believe in destiny, and to find a new religion. Because everything seemed to happen at the right time; because her power worked faster when she needed it to, as if everything was some huge, complex tapestry where everything was in place just where it was needed. Not a benevolent god guiding people, loving and caring. But a pragmatic consciousness weaving a tapestry, and making sure that everything happened as it was supposed to regardless of what people did.

Alex could find things that were less concrete, as well. Finding people and things seemed obvious, but when she turned her talent to research it seemed that it worked just as well there. She could hunt through the libraries that were kept in chambers near this meeting room, and find details about the past that they might not have known. She could search through a huge wall of books, and find the one that contained the fact she needed. She might even be able to find answers, if she was looking in the right place. It was the perfect research skill, and helped them to find quite a lot of details of their past which Mel might then be able to validate.

"That's a pretty weird set of powers," Amber said, when it looked like they'd all finished. "Nobody can fly or anything like that?"

"No. But there's two powers left we haven't discussed. Remember, you're members of the group too. We think you are, anyway."

"But I haven't found out what mine is yet," Arnie bit her lip, "I guess I need to concentrate on that more. But how do you discover something like that?"

"You don't need to," Violet giggled, "We're an ancient order of knights, remember? We've all been here before. You'll be able to get where you need to go quick. Finding a path, or looking at timetables, that kind of thing. That's almost like one of the comic book powers. A kind of super speed, maybe, but unless you really need to not fast enough that people would notice it. You can even jump so far it's like flying, I'm so jealous of that one. It's not perfect, and you can only use it to the max when the others are around, I think Jack told me. It's like, the more of us there are in one place, the better our powers get."

"Yes," Alex nodded, "My power also can be used in a way that makes it seem like I can fly but isn't really, but only when we're all together. I think we influence each other somehow, becoming more effective when we really need to. When our allies are nearby, or our Enemy."

"How about mine then?" Amber couldn't hold the question in any more, "Does that mean I get a power too, the same as this Claude person?"

"You should do. And Claude's power was the opposite of mine: the power to create. It's one of the hardest to explain though, I don't think you'll find it in any of your comic books. I'm trying to remember how to describe it in a way you could understand."

"Like a real MacGyver," Mel suggested, "Do they still show reruns of that? Could take whatever he's got, like a pile of parts in a junkyard and build a tank or something. I heard Claude did something like that, improvising the things he needed to make in ways that really shouldn't have worked. Maybe if the Enemy was close by, he would have been able to make weapons or whatever appear out of thin air, but I don't think that's happened in a long time."

"Wow, that sounds pretty cool. So is Jack like my rival or something, with the opposite power?"

"You'd think so," Jack grinned, "But it never worked out like that. I'm more direct, Claude was a bit of a schemer, we worked so well together. Like a proper team, he always knew what I was thinking. I hope someday we'll have that kind of rapport again. Do the relationships between us reincarnate as well? I kind of hope so. But for now, I think you'd best watch yourself. Try making things, see if there's any opportunity to master your power. It'll come when you need it, I think, and it'll seem like a normal thing. But if you keep working at it, the sky's the limit."