Christine cackled with a cheeky grin for a long few minutes, and finally said, "Anyway, Mom said you're a lycanthrope, but weirder. And, I have seen you making things out of thin air, mostly money, so there is that."
Vince's face morphed into pure shock, "Did she really use the word 'weird' to describe me?"
"No," Christine gave a smug grin. "She used something much worse."
"You're lying." He said with a dropped jaw, unable to find a suitable word to describe his sister and settling with, "You… liar!"
"I swear on it," Christine chuckled heartily. "Anyway, is that true? Are you like a vampire or a werewolf?" She puckered her lips coquettishly, "Rawr, Vince."
"Oh, shut up," Vince rolled his eyes at Christine's obvious fascination with Lycans. "And, I am neither a vamp nor a wolf. I don't drink young virgins' blood or eat thier hearts. Although physically, I share many characteristics with them; negligible senescence, looks to make a dead woman's heart race, superhuman physical attributes, and most definingly, I get stronger at night and weaker at day," Vince said. "But, it's complicated."
Christine nodded intently, "Go on."
"You see, though my internal powers weaken in the daytime, my Shinjin gets stronger. Which contradicts the theory that I am a Lycanthrope. Not to mention, even physically, I have other powers—"
"Hold on," Christine raised her hand frantically, "What's a Shinjin? And, you're saying you have more than one power?"
"Of course, I have more than a singular power, Christy." Vince gave Christine a deadpan stare, "Did you think I became one of the strongest through one single power? Well, FYI, nobody is a one-trick pony in the dangerous world of the unexplained."
Suddenly, Christine's stare grew annoyed, "What? Is this one of those things I was supposed to figure out on my own, too?"
"Hey," Vince shrugged, "not saying you're stupid, but—"
"Just shut up and continue," Christine flared her cute nose.
"I guess it's my fault for leading with my potentially Lycanthropic origins," Vince sighed. "Let's begin with how superpowers work, and we can build from there." He turned to Christine with a growing smile, "After all, now that you're with me, you'll need to become strong too."
"Really?" Christine gave Vince a quick hug. "You're the best, AJ! Now get on with it, how do I become like Mom?"
Vince glanced at her with a hint of melancholy and elaborated, "Most sophont species have their own means and methods of breaking physics. And, broadly speaking, every one of such means is categorized into three brackets—Intrinsic Internal, Intrinsic External, and Magic."
Christine tilted her head in confusion and was about to voice her questions when…
"Say less," Vince said. "Intrinsic powers are typically tied to your race, heritage, or individual factors and are not magic. If said power works from within one's body, then it's an internal power. If it works outside of one's body, then it's an external power. And any power that isn't unique to one's race, heritage, or individual factors is a branch of magic."
"I didn't get it," Christine said matter-of-factly.
"I get that a lot," Vince nodded, matter-of-factly. "Take a Vampire, for example. A vampire's strength and regeneration factors are its internal powers; its ability to telepathically control bats is its external power; and its ability to flash-boil your blood and make you explode like a human grenade is its bloodmagic. Do you understand now?"
"You just painted a very grotesque image in your lovely sister's head, but yes, I understand," Christine muttered with a disgusted expression.
"Everything is perfect then," Vince nodded happily. "As for my powers, I have both intrinsic powers and two schools of magic, and countless other things."
"Elaborate."
Vince elaborated, "My internal powers include negligible senescence, superhuman everything, drop-dead dashing—"
"I know, exactly like a Lycanthrope," Christine gave him an unimpressed stare. "Move on."
"B-beyond that," Vince said, startled, "I also have Immortality, Shapeshifting, and a myriad of psychic powers such as: 1) Being able to think hundreds of times faster. 2) Being able to think of dozens of things in parallel, at the same time. 3) Being resistant to virtually all psychic attacks. 4) Being able to store and process unlimited amounts of data, which is extremely useful when paired with this other thing I can do."
"Aren't all those powers things Vampires have?" Christine rolled her eyes.
"Typically, no." Vince's face scrunched in disdain. "Have you ever thought how dangerous vamps would be if they could shapeshift or think harder than a think tank full of Roman thinkers?" Vince extended his forearm to Christine, "Augh, the thought gives me goosebumps, see?"
Christine passed a stray glance at his arm, and her eyes widened. "W-what's that?!" At the tip of his fingers, long, menacing bone claws were jutting out. It scared the hell out of her.
"Oh, you know," Vince's voice sounded different this time, almost grizzly, Christine frowned, "I haven't cut my nails in a while."
She looked up and almost had a heart attack in surprise. His golden blonde hair was now dark, fangs had grown out of his teeth, he looked like a different person altogether. Christine gets stunned by the drastic change.
Feeling mischievous, Vince slowly brought his face closer to hers and once close enough, loudly exclaimed, "BOO!!"
"Waah!!" Christine yelled, and Vince burst out laughing.
"You… You should've seen your face, Christy!" Vince wiped a stray tear of laughter, "Remind me to always wake you up by shapeshifting into unnatural things. Ah-hah-ha!"
"That is just so petty, AJ! I hate you!" Christine wiped a stray tear of fright. "You… you can just do that? Like out of nowhere?"
"Yes, shapeshifting is amazing!" Vince nodded excitedly. "Although," He added, "creating new things is a bit difficult, but modifying what's there is as easy as breathing for me."
"That's still so cool," Christine said, completely recovering from her previous state.
"I know, right?" Vince nodded gleefully. He rarely gets to brag about his powers, and it's even rarer for someone to react so honestly to his powers.
It's a good thing that he was just getting started. "Now, those were my Internal powers, let's move on to my external powers."
"Right," Christine nodded eagerly.
"My external powers only do one thing. It summons extra-dimensional entities I call Shinjin." Vince nodded side-by-side with each phrase, and spoke like a gossip-lady, "I used to call them Wraiths, but then people started calling me Wraith. And then I met this sexy Japanese priestess, whom I now greatly admire, and she suggested the name Shinjin. So, now it's officially Shinjin."
"TMI, what can they do?" Christine shook her head.
"They are undetectable unless instructed otherwise, autonomous to an extent, unkillable, and have all of my internal powers but cranked up to the next dimension," A smile cracked on Vince's lips, "get it? Because they are from another dimension?"
"Ugh," Christine snorted, "I wish I hadn't."
"Oh, and I forgot to mention, but two of them have been tailing you ever since we met earlier," Vince said with a calm smile full of brotherly villainy. "They are sitting on the back seat right now."
Christine tilted her head in confusion, "What are you talking about—WAAHH! Oh, my god, what are those?!"
Behind them, on the backseat, two pitch-black, solid silhouettes were sitting. They were faceless, slender, and constantly emitted a black wisp out of their body. They were so eerily quiet, that it unnerv
ed Christine.
"Oh, sis." Vince gave a jovial smile, "I just told you, they are Shinjin."