Before we delve into my journey with the Electroclan, let's start this story off with a name I haven't heard in years; Marcus Rodgers; before my little incident, that was my name. I was a normal 15 year old boy growing up in 1903 Chicago, I went to school with all the other children, and I was really good, one of the smartest in my class, I had many friends and just lived a happy life. That is, until my fateful day; I was walking home from school, my book satchel over my shoulder, when I heard gunfire and screaming of people, and it was getting closer; I panicked and jumped into some nearby bushes, hiding from what could be coming. I saw that two men were riding horses and firing back at two police officers chasing after them, I couldn't tell what they were carrying, but it looked like satchels full of something, then, as they rode past me, I felt a pain in my abdomen, then it felt warm; I held where the pain was, then trembled as I brought my hand up, fearing the worst, and my fears were correct; my hands were covered in red and my clothes began to be soaked with my blood. I crawled out of the bushes, weakly trying to call for help, but to no avail, nobody was close by as they ran off in the commotion; I curled into a ball, trembling, feeling cold and scared as I waited for my final moments to come, that's when the rain began, washing my blood off the street, but leaving me there. I gained the strength to flip myself onto my back and look up at the sky for my final moments, I saw a light approaching, I thought this was it, but just as soon as it appeared, it was gone, then I heard the deafening crack of thunder and for a few moments I laid there in the middle of the rainy, muddy street. Afterwards, I realized I felt more energy within me, and for some reason my pain was gone; I looked down and saw there was still a hole in my shirt, but the wound was completely healed. I was baffled, and just sat there, wondering if i was dead or not, but feeling the cold rain on me and slapping myself a few times proved this was all real. Until I had further explanation, I wouldn't tell anyone; I grabbed my book satchel and ran back home.
When I got home, my mother was preparing dinner, and she noticed the hole in my shirt, I was very glad the blood was still wet and the rain washed most of it away, leaving only a very slight pink stain on my white shirt.
"Marcus, darling, what happened here?" I thought quickly, not wanting to reveal all that happened.
"Oh, uh earlier today I spilled a little fruit juice on my shirt, and then while playing outside, I got my shirt caught in the branches of some bushes and it tore a little bit." She seemed convinced enough and let me go.
"Well, I'll fix it the next time I wash. Run along now." I smiled and went off to my room, which might as well have been a small laboratory; it was full of science equipment, test tubes, bunsen burners, microscopes and all sorts of other chemicals I got from science kits; my favorite one however had to have been the electricity generating kit, developed by Thomas Edison himself. I closed the door and took off my overcoat, which miraculously had been left undamaged, and my shirt, which I did realize had 2 holes, one in the front and the back when the bullet exited, I decided to tear the hole in the back more to make it look like it was caught in bushes and stuff. I changed my shirt and then began to work on what exactly happened to me; I got out my notebooks and began to write down theories. After an entire afternoon of thinking, I came to choose the theory that somehow I became electrically charged with the lightning bolt that hit me.
During the next few days, I did what any good scientist would do and began to experiment; I took skin cells, cheek cells, even some of my own blood to look under the microscope, surprisingly, my theory was beginning to become a reality, I saw that little sparks of electricity were jumping from cell to cell, slowly, but over the days, it got faster and more frequent. I also tested large scale, creating a small circuit with two wires, a light bulb and myself as the energy source; to my joy, the lightbulb turned on, very dimly, but it did turn on. I tested for another 2 weeks, my results were repeating and they were actually getting better, almost as if I was actually increasing in electrical capacity. I never told my parents or anyone else about my powers, not wanting to be disowned or treated like a freak.
For the next 5 years, I learned how to control my electricity, basically having superpowers that were growing, of course, the term superpower wasn't created yet, but yes, I did get powers. By the time I finished high school, I could shock through direct contact or through conductive surfaces, I could shoot small bolts of electricity up to a distance of 30 feet that were the same strength as my conductive shocks, which were about 100 volts; I could make my entire body or select parts light up with the brightness of about 20 bedside candles or heat myself to boiling temperature and not take any sort of damage. However, there was one drawback I realized around 2 years in, I was getting lighter, my mass was somehow just disappearing, I still looked the exact same, but I was just getting lighter. I moved out of my parents house when I was 19 and got a small apartment in downtown Chicago, along with a job in a locomotive factory; by that time, I had gone from my heaviest of 116 pounds to 67 pounds, however I could still lift and move just like I ever could. Shortly after I moved into my apartment, I did some testing on myself and realized that my cells were becoming overcharged, they were essentially becoming pure energy and I didn't have much time left; so i devised a plan, that I wasn't even sure would work. For the next year, I smuggled scraps from the factory and began building a metallic skeleton, with movable limbs and everything, I figured that if I did become pure energy, I could at least transfer it into something. The clock was ticking, I was losing mass faster by the day, but I managed to finish the skeleton, a little too late I'm afraid. As I put the finishing touches, the wrench I was holding just fell right through my closed hand; I looked at it and saw that it was translucent, as was my entire body; I couldn't pick up anything, and I was actually floating above the ground, then, my body began to just scatter in little sparks of electricity, I reached for the skeleton, but to no avail, I was scattered.
I woke up in some strange place, it almost looked like the sky, but there were no clouds, just a big vast void of whiteness, however, underneath my feet, I could see the whole world below and I could look anywhere I pleased, over any country, inside any building, but above all else, I could see small dots of yellow, some places had more dots concentrated that others, when I took a closer look at those places, I saw that the dots signified where electricity was. I had an idea and looked where my small 10 cubic meter apartment was, sure enough it was coated with yellow, showing that my electricity was still there, but it also was coming back together, near the center. For the next 2 weeks, I watched as the electricity slowly came together and merged into one big source, when suddenly, I was phasing out from this weird dimension and saw that I was back in my apartment, but definitely not the same. I looked at myself and saw that I was just a floating cloud of electricity, almost looking like a ghost, I had become pure energy. I couldn't really move from that one spot, well, not slowly anyway; whenever I wanted to go into a direction, my... form just bolted forward until it collided with a wall, then I decided to aim for the skeleton that was just standing slouched in the corner, bolted forward, and to my delight, I was completely absorbed into it. The skeleton was very crude, like a very simple human skeleton, just made out of scrap metal and more horrifying; I felt myself course through the limbs and joints, and could see out of the sockets I had placed in the head, then I thought about moving, just my arm, to start; I concentrated and it moved, up and down, the hinges and sockets working perfectly. I tried with the other arm, and all sorts of movements, my fingers, wrists, neck, everything was working as it should, and I could even walk. Before anything else, I also tested to see if my powers worked, I opened the window, aimed out and shot a bolt of electricity, that was all the confirmation I needed.
I decided that my human life was far behind me, so I put on clothes and even stuffed them a little bit to make it seem like I wasn't just a skeleton, donned gloves and a large shadowy hat, sticking to shadows and dark alleys as well. It wasn't long before I realized I couldn't talk, not in the traditional sense anyway, but I was able to somehow communicate my thoughts to speech through telepathic communication, it was one way, but at least I could make people hear me. As the years passed, I saw the wonders of technological advancements unfold before my eyes, and along with those advancements, came even further advancement of my powers; by the time 1918 rolled around, about 15 years after I got my powers, I could now choose how strong or weak I wanted my bolts to be as well as my shocks, my strongest bolt, which I measured to be about 2500 volts could travel up to a mile in distance. I could heat myself to temperatures upwards of about 1000 degrees Fahrenheit, but I tried not to go that far as my skeleton would have become almost melted, and I could rival the brightness of a stagelight in your face; on top of improvements from my old powers, I've learned to travel between conductive surfaces and electrical current carriers to get somewhere far faster, I've been able to create EMPs and have also gained slight magnetic properties. However, above all others, my most useful power over the years, and possibly my most morally wrong power, is the ability to invade other people's bodies and be able to control all their voluntary functions, movement, speech, I can even conduct my powers through them; I only ever used this power on homeless and on rare occasions when I really needed to be a human for a little bit.
Fast forward to 1987, I've left my training grounds in Chicago long ago and have been roaming the country, even the planet, for 70 years. Within all that time I've found my own little hideout where I build new endoskeletons and create suits so that I can go out and about in humanity; yes, I did use my powers to steal some items, but never very expensive and only for my designs, besides that, I've actually been using my powers in Vigilanteism, under the self given name, Luminios. So far, with my suit and skeleton designs, I've landed on 2 so far that are really good; first, the endoskeletons I use were made of aluminum with traces of iron within it to boost conductivity and magnetism, though the ideal combination would be a gold-titanium alloy, semi-lightweight, strong, conductive and able to deal with relatively high temperatures. The 2 suits though, my human suit made of latex and other artificial materials represents me at around 18 years old, 5'8, slightly tan, black hair, and green/brown eyes, though they tend to glow whenever I don the suit, also I've learned to sync my mouth movements with telepathic talk so that it gives the illusion I'm actually talking, I can even broadcast it to multiple people. My Luminios costume on the other hand is blue spandex with yellow painted chain gloves and boots so that I can use my powers through them. Speaking of my powers, they have also grown, obviously, and I figured out, very early actually, that I don't need to sleep, I still can if I want to, but it's completely optional, also, with the introduction of more and more electrically powered items, I've discovered that I can absorb the energy from them and recharge if I ever get low.
One last fast forward to the year 2005, I was back in the united states and in New York at the time, just sightseeing, I loved coming back to times square and just watching how it changed so much; the LED signs are just an absolute playground for me. I was just walking, when I was approached by 2 men and asked to come with them; not really worried about much, I obliged and followed them to a car, where we drove off to a quieter part of New York and to a seemingly old building, like an abandoned factory, but when we went inside, I saw it was just a cover up for a small base of operations, there were weapons and guards, tech people and computers, and the weirdest part, a board centered around me. I turned to ask some questions, but one of the guys who brought me just handed me a phone, it already seemed to be on call; I answered it and a male voice spoke to me.
"Hello Marcus, or should I call you Luminios? The yellow ghost? The demon of lightning?" So he obviously knew my many nicknames throughout the years, my personal favorite being 'The Face Peeler' in reference to when I was careless once and peeled back the face of my human mask to travel between electric currents and someone saw me. "Which name do you feel more comfortable with?" I sent an electric signal to mimic speech through the cell phone to reach the other end, I've learned my way around phones in the past century.
"I'd prefer Luminios for now. Who are you and why are you so focused on me?"
"The who I'll save for later, as for the why, well, there's a group, a company, by the name of Elgen inc. Surely in your very long life you must have heard of them."
"Yeah, the medical products and electrical production company, what about them?"
"Back in 1996, they tested a device called the MEI, which would have been a vast improvement over normal MRI scans and other sorts. However, due to a malfunction, 17 babies born that day were bestowed with special powers, electrical ones, the CEO of Elgen, James Hatch, has already recruited some of them."
"So where do I come into the picture?"
"I'll get to that. Ever since that day, we've been trying to find the children ourselves, to keep them out of Hatch's grasp, so we began researching, trying to find them; then we heard stories about an electrical ghost, something that isn't human, but acts like one, hides among them, yet doesn't cause harm. We've done our research and these stories have been going as far back as the 1910s, we began tracking you, always being one step behind, until today. So, what we need you for, is to help us find the others, we know that Hatch has 5 already, that still leaves 12 unaccounted for, that we know. With your help and experience with these powers, you'd be a big help in finding the rest. What do you say?"
"I'm not sure, anything for me?"
"We'll give you all you want for the ideal body to build and anything else you want. Just as long as you help us out." I thought it over for a bit, then agreed.
"Alright, I'll help."
"Pleasure to be working with you Luminios. We'll pack up our operation in New York and escort you to our main base where you can work. Also, just refer to me as the voice." Then he hung up. I handed the phone back and saw that everyone was packing up rather quickly; we went outside where I saw a long line of black cars parked outside. Long story short, we drove to an airport, boarded a private jet and due to me being able to read the electrical signals from the guiding systems, we landed in Utah. After another long drive, we were at a place called Timepiece Ranch where it looked like a normal ranch, but I could feel the electrical signals from all over, weapons, gadgets and other highly advanced things.
"This place is awesome, you guys really stockpile for an apocalypse or something." The guards said nothing, but I didn't really care. We made it to the central building, where I was greeted by the director I assumed, escorted to my own room, and when I entered, I felt like I did when I got my first science kit. It was huge, at least 100 cubic meters and one wall was lined end to end with metals, tools, wiring, synthetic skin, everything I needed to build my ideal forms, there was even a forge built in one of the far ends. Once I was left alone, I went straight to work, and boy, I was so happy. I couldn't wait to show off to the world just what I could do, and with a true purpose, I was ready.
Hey there everyone, look who's back. I seem to have gained inspiration for another story, this one however, might take longer than the others, since I have to re-read the whole Michael Vey series. By the way, if you haven't read them, do it, they are fantastic books. Anyway, a little info, Luminios is a superhero I created back in elementary school, and I sort of forgot all about him until the beginning of high school, now he has a place in my creative library to call his own. Anyway, have fun reading and I hope you enjoy this new adventure.
