About

One in twenty people is born Sparked. It's not a bloodline or a mutation you can engineer, it's just random, and the power Ignites between 11 and 16 usually from stress, fever or strong emotion. The power can literally be anything from useless to world-breaking, which is why society has completely warped around it. People who aren't born Sparked are called Blanks. You get ability insurance, power dampeners in courthouses and schools, Blank-only clubs, job listings that say "Grade 3+ only," a black market for fake boosters, and a federal Bureau that shows up when a kid Manifests too hard. Most Sparked live normal lives, they just live them with something extra humming under the skin. Powers are graded on the Ladder by scale, control and liability, not how cool they sound. Grade 4s are about 60% of Sparked and called Duds, weak, hyper-specific or annoying powers like salting an egg by touch, summoning one disobedient pigeon, or glowing faintly in the dark, unregistered and often mocked. Grade 3s are 30% and called Tools, useful and controllable like welding with your hands, running 40 mph, making a silence bubble or talking to broken machines, they work construction, hospitals and courier fleets. Grade 2s are 9% and called Aces, city-block level like flight, fire shaping, invisibility or seeing 30 seconds ahead, they need a license, insurance and a dampener for government work but many become rescue contractors or PFL fighters. Grade 1s are less than 0.1%, called Calamities, only about 4000 worldwide, forces like gravity control, mass teleportation, statewide weather control or permanently stripping other powers, a Grade 1 Ignition brings a Bureau team and a lifetime handler because they are treated as national assets.