I. The End.
I never saw a doctor after the bank incident. I ran. I just
ran. The police never chased me, neither did any fifth column members. I got to the hospital long before the ambulance did, never quite sure if it was my own ability or this newfound energy. I followed my aging father into his room, and I pleaded that the doctors let me follow him in. However, he persisted that I stay in the waiting room.
Everything will be fine. He told me that. He was wrong.
I sat with my father for 6 hours. He had a smile on the whole time, and he gazed into my eyes lovingly. I will never forget his eyes. They seemed
satisfied. His mouth slowly opened, and a world of insight flooded out. I fell off of my chair.
Dont seem so surprised boy. This city needs you.
My father never cried in his life. But a single tear escaped his eyes as the last words he ever said escaped his mouth.
Son
he uttered, the sound of machines buzzing an whirring around him, his only connection to the living. the way you are is not a punishment, or a burden. It is a gift, from our ancestors. We were meant for this to occur. Live on, for me. He then sat up, gazed once more into my eyes. There is
. There is no point in living if you cant feel alive
. Feel alive son
for those who
who
arent. He slowly closed his eyes, and laid back. He brandished a smile, and slowly mouthed the word Alive. He died in peace, his purpose fulfilled in his eyes.
I walked out of the room, my mother watching from the door. She had no idea what happened with me. However, I turned to look at her, my eyes glowing and bright tears of light streaming down my cheek. Instantly, she knew.
I then continued to walk. Throughout Paragon city, in all the suburbs, and finally to atlas park. I kneeled down at the memorial, to the legendary Statesman, and as I did, It started to rain, hard. My tears fell with the rain, as I pounded the ground at the memorial, screaming up to the sky. I never saw the two shadowy figures coming in behind me. I never saw the metal appendages spawning from their arms, never saw the multicolor hair cuts or body tattoos.
Not yet at least.
The first seemed extremely compassionate in his speech, not at all like his actual nature. But the freakshows have the best PR department in the city.
Kid, you seem down. You need any help? He asked. His friend seemed to gaze on, not really showing any emotion except
. Eagerness.
No.. I just need some time alone, thats all. I replied, wiping my nose with my sleeve. It did no good, considering the downpour.
You sure? You look like you could use a friend. I know a lot of people who can help you through this obviously tough time. He extended cold, robotic hand to help me up. Cmon. Join the freakshows.
I looked to his hand, and slowly I stood up, standing under his figure. I must not have figured their size correctly by the quick glance I gave them earlier, because they both stood towering over me.
I said no, leave me alone, you freaks! I yelled. I slowly realized that more shadowy figures had crowed around me, all of them dressed as freakshows. I heard their gruesome appendages click and whiz around me.
Listen kid, life is easy when you are with us. When you want something
. His robotic arm clamped shut. you just take it. Now we can do this easy, or-
No! Let me go! I am leaving! I went to leave, when two metal armed thugs pushed me in the center. Two more grabbed me by my arms, as they converged on my body with kicks and punches. I took them silently.
Look at him! one yelled. Too weak to fight back and too stupid to call for help! He punched me once more in the face. My head hung even with my shoulders, balanced by the two robotic arms holding me there. My hair, wet with rain, sweat, and blood, hung in front of my eyes. Their punches stopped, probably because they wanted to view me in my beaten state.
I didnt call for help on purpose. I said, out of breath. The leader did a double-take upon hearing me speak.
Oh yeah? he said, angered that I wouldnt just fall down and die. Why not?
I looked up at him, my eyes glowing a bright white. I smirked, blood running from the side of my cheek. I screamed, maintaining the smirk on my face.
Because I am alive!
Ten minutes later, the freakshows crawled away from the scene. Their twisted metal armaments lay scattered on the ground, and energy wisps still hung from my fingertips. I panted, not sure of what I had done, exactly. After grabbing me, a jutted two ball of energy into the stomach of the freakshows holding me in place. The others converged on my location, and I leaped up just in time. At least, I think it was a leap
It still rained, and I decided to go back to comfort my mother. As I turned, I glanced once more at the Atlas memorial. I glanced down at the plaque, reading each word.
To the Statesman and all heroes who follow him.
I heard another body approaching behind me. My eyes began to glow, and I turned around, energy slowly gathering in my hands.
What I saw, I would never forget.
The Statesman was standing behind me, holding out a soaked piece of paper.
Kid, trust me. That plaque belongs to you. He said. He handed me the paper, and he simply winked and flew away.
I looked down at the piece of paper. I slowly smirked, and my clenched my hands into a fist. I slowly ran home, letting the paper fall behind me.
It simply read: New Heroes Apply For license at 229 Galaxy City
II. Synchronicity
My fathers funeral was short. No mention of his work, no mention of my mutation, his crippling car accident that left him in a wheelchair. Only me, my Mother, and some extended family and friends. Closed casket, simple burial, and only four words on his tombstone : Called to by God.
It was always in my head that heroes never died. That they lived on forever, and in some part, they did. A hero saves a child. He will remember that until he dies, until he tells that story to his children and grandchildren. They tell theirs, and theirs, and so on, immemorial. In essence, they became immortal.
That day, I swore to become immortal.
After the funeral, a small service was held. My father had some special conditions in this will. This after ceremony was supposed to be a time of laughter, and it was. For most of them. I stayed at the grave, looking over the newly upturned soil. I turned around to join my fathers party when I ran into a body standing behind me. I felt my energy boil, but as I looked up, there was a hand reaching down to help me up.
Dude, you alright?
Luckily, it was no Freakshow or fifth column member. It was just Jay.
Jay was my best friend for all of my life. Me and him have formed a strong friendship, and I was glad to see him here.
Of course, Jay wasnt his actual name. His real name was Joshua Kramer. He knows my real name, but now he knows never to call me by it. He calls me by my
other name.
In an odd bit of coincidence, his and my grandfather had served together in World war two, only his grandfather, nicknamed Kramer, had been a P.O.W. and had been released in a raid that my grandfather leaded. He was found in a lab, uncertain about what had exactly taken place there, only that several needle entry points were found on his arm. However, a doctor had cleared him. He lived longer than my grandfather, but not much longer.
Another notable fact was that Jay was addicted to fire. The literal definition of pyromaniac. He always had a lighter with him, even though he didnt smoke. It always pissed off my mom, because he spent most of his time at my house. His parents were a little too shaky to be reliable, slightly verbally abusive. It didnt really affect him much, just he liked it much better over my house. He was fifteen, like me, his birthday a couple of months after mine.
As he slowly helped me up, he handed me a package, sealed with a wax seal. It held the strangest of insignias on it. I looked up at Jay, confused.
Its something your father gave you for your will. he stated simply. I threw the box in my pack, and walked towards the service.
Me and jay walked home, and he figured I needed some time alone. We shook hands ( the secret handshake, we had come up with in fifth grade, mind you. ) and he ran down the alley to his house.
I ran up to my room, and broke the seal quickly. I poured open the contents on my bed, a little surprised at what I saw. There were two items: an envelope labeled 2, and a small, CD container labeled 1. The CD in it read that it was a DVD, so quickly, I popped it into my laptop.
The face of my Father filled the screen. He spoke slowly, and I had no idea what was about to come out.
Son, it looks like you must go without me. I have passed, but it is time you are strong. You must understand your past, and learn something very vital, and it does not just concern you.
First, he explained my powers. He said that I was able to absorb energy from the environment, and that I also had the powers of empathy. Both were from a mutation, a ticking clock in our genome. It ticked down to me, and that is how I received the powers. But what came next was a true insight.
Son, I was not paralyzed in a car accident.
I stared at the screen blankly, watching my father talk about his adventures as Psyman, He loved it, and sat intently, even as he heard the story of how this ticking clock started. The chemical, allowed into his fathers bloodstream, started it. He took this all in, but the true surprise was about to be unleashed.
This was a chemical that my father, your grandfather, retrieved from a Fifth column lab. They had stolen the mixture from it. It was a chemical that created a constant energy vacuum, only filling a small amount at a time. It would eventually be filled, and therefore useless, but it would be centuries at a constant flow, such as that from the power suit. Now Son, listen carefully. Your grandfather retrieved it in a raid to save Joshs grandfather. It had been added into his bloodstream, same as this chemical was added to mine. However, the one added to mine was a more pure stream. The one injected into Joshes grandfather was more chaotic. It needed an extra generation to spawn, and it also caused a different reaction. As if that wasnt enough of a shock, this is the most important thing. Josh has powers very similar to you. He has not spawned them yet, but he will soon enough However, they are on a different type than yours. How can this be if your powers came from a mixture of your already muta-genetic genes and this chemical? If Josh has no ticking clock, how did he get these powers?
I waited in heavy anticipation, hinged on his every word.
Son. You and Josh share a common ancestor. You both carried the ticking clock. And now you both carry powers, enough to be a hero, to live out my dreams that were killed by a bullet. You control the powers of empathy and energy. However, Josh controls power over another energy source. He can manipulate and control-
I did not need to hear the last word as a smile came over my face, as me and my father spoke in unison.
Fire.
-----
Josh walked down the alley to his parents house, not hearing the clicking of metal behind him. Not hearing the humbled voices.
He knows that kid that attacked us.. Maybe he can tell us about him. Or maybe we can just beat it out of him!
Josh never saw the freakshows approach him.
And as they all soon found out, he never needed them to.
hey everyone. these were posted on the old boards, this is just an update.
Origin Of Psykid
My name is Psykid. I have a real name, but I only will let one person call me by it.
My Father.
I am a fifteen year old man, a wise talking, street smart, Defender of justice. Or, something like that. That is not the point, the point is my story.
I guess, in order to tell my story, I have to tell my fathers. So here it goes.
My Father was a great man. He told me that as a child, he would listen to war stories from his grandfather. He was a war hero, and on one occasion, saved a group of superheroes from death. The great paradox, he would call it. Saving the saviors. But, those were my grandfathers stories.
They filled my Fathers head with imagination or glory and valor. He yearned to be one of the mighty, a hero, so that he could do what his father could not. He constructed a battle suit, and soon, he joined the ranks of the mighty, and fulfilled his dream. At 28, He was The Psyman.
My father worked at a science plant, working on a project that had some accord with the human genome. For many of his experiments, he used his own tissue for study. This was his cover, his alias. He did not want people to know about his suit, for a couple of reasons, one of which had to do with the suit itself. It ran off of a mixture of chemicals, very expensive chemicals, that allowed it to run for a century before needing new material. However, many clamored after this chemical for its energy output for such low input. A group of the fifth column renegades heard of this chemical, and wished to use it for their own deeds.
They attacked my father en masse. Luckily, he activated his suit long enough to hold them off in a hazard zone, and hoped that other heroes would come to his aid.
Unfortunately, none did.
My father saw one shot left. The chemicals were highly acidic. Almost anything could make them combust in a huge explosion creating pure energy.
Especially Blood.
My father saw his arm bleeding, and new that it was his only shot. The explosion ripped through the hazard zone, destroying the attackers, while what was left of his suit saved my fathers life. However, unforeseen to my father, the suit slowly started eating away at itself, and in one final moment of life, an FC solider shot my father in the back of the spine.
The doctors were not able to save his legs.
Confined to a wheel chair, my father grew gravely ill. My mother used to tell me that is was because with out the weight of justice on my fathers shoulders, he grew weak and frail. That was 1986.
For two years, my father mourned his present state. He made up a story about a car crash to cover up for him at work. He worked more feverishly on the genome, until one day, he made a startling discovery. The chemical mixed with my father blood to become organic. He found that unseen areas of his chromosomes were being accessed in his genes, but they were not being expressed in my father. Slowly, he knew my.
Because he was to old. The Lock was there all along, and the accident only provided a key. My father saw it as a proof of divine intervention. His family was meant to have a hero. That duty would be thrust into his next of kin.
Me.
My parents wanted to conceive, so they went to a special clinic to conceive. My father Observed my genes in the lab, and they came out with the Lock- The ability to be a hero. He gave me the key I needed to unlock what was mine-and ours. I was born normally, and by then, my mother knew of what her son was capable of. However, this knowledge was not passed on to one critical source- me.
So slowly, I grew. I had no powers, due to a unforeseen aspect of my mutation-I had to wait for my puberty to unleash them. So, slowly, the time came, and
Nothing.
Not until my day at the bank.
A year ago, I was 14 and my father took me to the bank. Using technology from his power suit, the doctors said that he might be able to walk again. The money that we were to loan from the bank was to pay for it.
Just as we were about to leave, a renegade group of fifth column members broke in, asking for money and waving guns. My father said something to them- something to this day I will never know.
They .
They shot him.
The adrenaline in me surged- and that very instant, the key in my body clicked with the lock. Somehow, I lurched energy towards them , and they flew back.
I stayed with my father all night long, and listened to him tell me about my mutation, and my gift.
He died later that night, and his last words will never leave me.
Son, Know that there is no point in living if you cant feel alive.
One year later, those words still stay with me.
I have controlled my powers a little more, and I have made myself a stable defender. I am pretty brash, being a teen and all, and I like to think I am funny. But with my gift, I will assure that there will be no more war, and I will pave my own war story.
I am, after all, 15 years old.
And in a final act of reverence, I have taken my fathers name, and altered it for my quest of justice. It is by it that I am called by the masses.
I am Psykid.
I am a hero.