Electrify - Volume 1 Chapter 9

Over the past few weeks, Peter and I both realized something. The kids were slow, Miles was only one to have some brains that he only ever used in computers. The training timeline we had set was based on us and that seemed impossible to be followed by these kids. Now a days, I would only go in there to spar with them for an hour, the rest of the time they practiced on their own with the help of TACT. I had even used the AI to help myself as well. Apparently, I relied too much on my speed and this was negatively affecting my actual martial art prowess.

The Shield chatter was quiet for a few days now and that usually means another shit storm approaches. I sighed and flew around the city stopping a few petty crimes and what not. However, my mind was else where. There seems to be a problem with my memory, to be more specific, my memory from the previous life. I could barely recall anything anymore. There were the bit of my previous habits that followed me to this body but that actual details they seemed to be gone. There was that feeling of forgetfulness but that too was receding. I could no longer tell if I was supposed to know something or not. That honestly kept me awake at night.

There was another thing that kept bothering me, that bald woman from the mansion. She apparently doesn’t exist anywhere in the world. I ran her face multiple time in every database available to shield but nothing. The mansion is abandoned and has been so for many years. I had set up a few surveillance equipment around there but those would malfunction every time there would be any sort of activity. I had witnessed a delivery boy handing over some sandwiches to a fat Asian dude but the sensors and cameras picked up nothing. Then there the words she had said. ‘If you wish to truly learn.’ Did she know about me? Or was that some random cult gibberish I was over thinking.

There was another thing that kept bothering me, my body was changing yet again, without any prompt. Peter had ran some tests at the Baxter Building and those tests didn’t indicate anything, well except for the fact that my make was so different that I would not even called a human anymore. F.u.c.k, now I had a sort of mini mental breakdown because having children seemed a bit too far fetched and dying alone was not something that I wanted. Existentialism aside, there was another problem in the city.

Dr. Curt Connors was missing. This was a priority because he was working on something quite revolutionary. Hyper regeneration, the ability to grow back limbs and other body parts as long as the patient had enough nutrients and was alive. A bastardised version of Logan healing powers, if you would. There was a problem though, the research was dangerous to humans and all the other mammals in its initial stages, the serum or the formula was delivered through airways and was aerosolized for use. The equipment for that and the lead scientist were now missing.

Shield believed that a terrorist group could cause the death of entire New York within minutes if the formula was released from a high enough altitude. Thankfully, Peter had the lead on that case but on the other hand I was protecting a kid from an assassination attempt. The kid in question was a priority target for a few drug lords. The son of the commissioner of NYPD, they had dug up some dirt on the King Pin and the money in question was upwards of 50 millions. Soo, I had to simply keep an eye out for an actual assassin because all the food and close quarters security was handled by a private security company called Sable International. The guys were tough and serious and were willing to get the job done no matter the cost. The company did have some of its down sides and one of them included a sheer dislike of vigilantes. Even though I had a badge they simply over looked it on the basis of the mask. So, what I did was sit on the roof and carefully monitored all the electric signatures inside the buildings. Some of the guards tried to kick me off the property, but I had to strip a team of them completely n.a.k.e.d and dismantle all their guns and write some pretty nice phrases on their n.a.k.e.d bodies to make them back off. It was brutal and funny, even Fury didn’t say anything about it.

Dispute that stunt and the over all passive aggression I had to face for a week, the guards from the Sable were still quite stubborn about me. That soon changed when I felt a 4 humans approach the side of the building and began to loiter around. I went there to check but they all acted as if they were drunk and headed off. I sped up and stopped them. They acted quiet well and even had me fooled for sometime but one thing that gave them away was the energy within their bodies. It was that of a top Olympic athlete. Soon, I laughed along with those guys and headed back. Once, I was out of sight, I activated the tracker I had placed on them. They went to different parts of the town where the ‘gangsta’ kids loitered around. The man I had followed first blended in with the crowd seamlessly and even started laughing and mingling with the crowd. After nearly an entire day of random roaming and having changed his appearance over 30 times, the man finally headed towards the China town. Once there, I lost the man behind a passing bus. That was alarming, because nothing escaped my eyes once I was onto it. I immediately zoomed in on the area and found a manhole. I didn’t stand out in anyway what so ever but the moment I landed on it I felt like I was being looked at. I sped myself to the maximum and looked around. 2 Chinese ladies, 1 homeless guy, 3 kids and 4 other people in the windows were looking at me with a blank face. There were hundreds of other people who were smiling, shouting, cheering and booing me, but those were natural reactions, The blank faces were not. In a weird turn of events, they reminded me of Natasha, she would always show appropriate expressions but her eyes would always betray her training, something about those beautiful eyes always seemed dead and fake and that is what I was seeing here.

I slowed down and went to the exact same position before doing that. I asked TACT to pull up all the schematics he could find of the nearby buildings and voila, the sewer I am currently standing on doesn’t exist. I sighed and levitated the lid and jumped inside and welded the manhole shut. Now, let’s see if I am trapped in here with them or they are trapped in here with me. I chuckled at that cheesy line and began to look at all the entrances and crevices.

About a hundred meters into the tunnel, I found an open area, filled to the brim with all sorts of weaponry, poisons and explosives. Though there were no signs of that assassin. While, I looked at the knives and the detailed maps and schematics, I felt a tiny poke on the back of my head. I was instantly in motion with all my speed and turned around to find a throwing knife hung in the air. I sighed and threw the knife to a target and walked towards the direction it was thrown from. The man appeared to be an Asian, probably Japanese, well built and was dead silent. His eyes were concentrated on my position and his stance was perfect. I was alarmed again.

This was a highly trained assassin and from what the geography of this location and it appearance would suggest, there were many of them and they had been around for a while. I delivered a stun and slowed down. The man fell convulsing on the floor before he passed out. I looked at other areas and found a residential area and a gym. There were a few computers but they immediately blew up the moment I turned them on. I sighed and went back to the passed out man, he had nothing on him except a boat load of knives and a single hand gun. On closer inspection, I found 3 pills on his body which I suspected to be cyanide pills. I gathered all the remote charges and carefully defused them. Then I tied the man up and flew back to the surface. Though, I sealed the manhole back up, I could not risk anyone else getting to it, so I made a few calls and asked Agent Hill to send a security and a forensic squad to the location immediately.

I handed the man at the HQ and went to search for the other tracker, but by the time I reached it, the man had shot himself dead. There were two other cases of suicide noted inside the hour and they were the other two guys. The database says that these guys were citizens of US and had not criminal record. One of them even had a family with two children. Yet, he killed himself just to escape me. I rushed back at the Shield HQ and found that the man regained consciousness and immediately snapped his neck. There was even a footage this time, I saw it multiple times just to make sure. There was not hesitation in his actions, no emotion on his face, body movement full of confidence when he twisted his neck. I sent the video and the details of the other bodies to Fury and went back to their hideout. Shield had set up a tiny quarantine and the forensic dudes were down there running a whole battery of tests. I headed down there and found the lead forensic guy on the scene.

“Talk to me.” I said.

“There a 78 sets of hand prints, 67 degraded fingerprints and a lot of DNA in the gym area. There was no sign of bio weapons or drugs. We did find a disgusting amount of key building schematics and patrol route for nearly all the government and private security agencies.” He said and picked up a bag with the throwing knife in it. “This one is coated with a cyanide based poison.”

“Tell me did you find out any other entrances or exits to this place?” I asked.

“No. Aside from the one we came in from, this place is sealed shut.” He said and got back to work.

I headed back to the surface and looked around. There were no longer any of the faces I remembered, so I had TACT look up all the faces from memory and voila. Addresses and socials of all the people staring at me, I immediately got into action but before I got there everyone was dead, each and everyone of them dead. Some killed themselves but the kids were killed by someone else. I sighed and finally called Fury.

“Did you look at the report I just sent?” I asked.

“Kid, describe the assassin.” He ordered.

“I sent you the observations.” I replied.

“Just do it.” He grumbled.

“Fine. The man reminded me of Natasha, he had confident, ruthless and determined. He had training, maybe some brainwashing was also involved. There was no hesitation whatsoever.” I described his appearance, approach and body language.

“Kid, this is big. Way above your pay grade. Close the investigation and leave it to us.” He said.

“Fury, I just saw bodies of kids, no more than 8. I deserve to know.” I growled out.

“The organization is called The Hand, top secret assassins and killers, known to worship a demon, all of them experts at martial arts. Your teacher Finn was one of them before he turned over to us. Now, these people are religiously relentless, if you push any further they will get to your family. It has happened to a few of the other agents. So, this is an order drop this and move on.” Fury said and hung up.

I just stood there for a few minutes and digested the information. A group of religious cultist assassins in New York, an organization that even shield is carefull around. I sighed and saved all the data I could and called off everyone. I was feeling very frustrated and useless, till I got a notification from TACT that Flynn and Warren had gotten into a fight. Well, hello stress relieve. Needless to say I sent the rest of the day hammering those idiots into the ground, even the ones that were not involved. Overuse of authority? May be. Cathartic? Definitely.

After a healthy amount of stress relieve, I finally stopped to look around at my handiwork. Enhanced or not, everyone was lying on the ground struggling to even move an inch, Flynn was unconscious and so was Jessica, Warren had bruises all over his face but surprisingly he was the only one sitting up. Peter’s protg was trying to get up. I sighed and waited for everyone to get up and made them stand straight In a line.

“Now, care to tell me why were the two of you fighting.” I glared at Warren and Flynn.

“We were not fighting, we were sparring and I got out of hand.” Warren said.

“Yes, Sir. We were simply sparring.” Flynn said nodding his head.

“I don’t really care. The beating was handed to the team and if I suspect anything, the punishment will be handed out to the team.” I said and released an arc of lightning that sn.a.k.e.d around their bodies without zapping them to oblivion, I could not do anything about the heat though. “Remember, you are all special in a way. Therefore, you retards are under a microscope. The Shield is basically using you as a case study to see if the mutants are controlled beings or simply monsters. If you give them a reason to think you are monsters then you will be treated as such.” I took back all the lighting floating around in the air and took off my helmet.

“I am disappointed. And I will rectify this mistake.” I said and floated to the gym.

I began my training for the day and before I was done warming up, Warren and Miles were in the door way looking at me with wide eyes. The looking in their eyes was different, Miles was astonished at my workout routine while Warren was star struck to a degree. I sighed and put the stuff down.

“What do you want?” I asked as I put my shirt back on.

“Sir, yesterday, we saw another mutant while heading home.” Mile began.

“This girl had some weird powers to control people, we are not sure what her capabilities are but she did something to a crowd and they all immediately became cheerful and happy.” Warren continued.

“Too early to jump to any form of conclusions. Tell me exactly what you saw.” I said.

Miles described a girl who had bright red or pink or orange hair, I changed its color from different perspectives. The crowd was a bunch of foreigners were angry at some of the local who were disrespectful and the girl was walking by. She waved her hand an in mere seconds all of them had a change of heart before all of them dispersed with a smile on their faces.

“So, did you get any pictures or are flying blind here?” I asked.

“We got a few but none of then Show her using her powers.” Warren said and transferred a few pics.

“Okay, forget about that and concentrate on the new training schedule.” I said and shooed the away.

“TACT, search the database for the girl, pull up everything about her and summarize it.” I said and the hologram flashed a few times before hundreds of videos and pictures flooded I front of me.

TACT knew about my powers so he was very concerned about me not able to keep up, so he did the opposite and an went through the information at break neck speeds. Armel Orchards, a second generation of a couple that moved to USA a few decades ago. The parent have an orchard in France that is managed by the relatives while they managed distribution here. Armel has a few quirks that made her forgettable, she didn’t have many friend and none of them could be called close. I sighed that that fact, somehow all of the young mutants have loner tendency. I sighed and looked deeper. Apparently, she had gotten into trouble a few months ago but instead of get suspended she was not punished at all. I looked her family dynamics and her socials. A few hours later I was over her home observing her, she was playing with a few squirrels in her backyard. I flew in closer and the animals ran away, quickly alerting her to my presence.

She looked at me and I suddenly read the changes in the chemical composition of the air as well as the residual electro magnetic field of the surrounding. That confirmed my hypothesis about her powers, pheromones complimented by minor mind control. I saw beads of sweat rolling down her face and I read the changes.

“Armel Enough.” I said and dropped down I front of her.

“How do you know my name?” She yelled at me.

“I have seen you use your powers on a bunch of people over the past few weeks. Though not in the constitution specifically, what you did legally counts as assault.” I said and watched her face turn pale white.

“You have no proof.” She squeezed out in a very low voice.

“I actually don’t need one.” Said and released a bit of electricity.

Her knees gave out and she started shivering. I retracted the current and sat down opposite to her.

“Funny enough, I am not here to bust you for all that, I know what we perceive as normal is far to different. I do however have a proposal for you.” I said and pulled up picture of Xavier school. “There is a school upstate where people like us go to learn. Hundreds of kids just like you, quality education and training for your powers. It is actually very amazing. I believe you can fit right in.”

“Hundreds? How is this not public knowledge.” She asked.

“Because that is how it is kept safe. People are generally afraid of different things and we are very different.” I then pulled up the Shield HQ and showed her our facilities. “This is here in NY, a government agency that trains people like us to be agents. It works for the safety of The States and the World as a whole. I lead the team here. Though is much more training intense and far too dangerous, you can come under my team and train there, education is also good and pay is good as well.” I said and handed her the contract.

“Do I have time?” She asked.

“Not really. If we have found you, so have other people, people with an agenda and with lower morals.” I said and looked at the tree.

I felt another signature literally pop up out of nowhere along with someone else approaching fast from the corner of my senses. The man in the tree was blue in color and had a tail with a spiked end. I saw the mark of Xavier’s team and relaxed. Soon, Logan was also perched on top a tall fence looking down at us.

“Hey, bub.”