? POV
Where do I start…? Oh yeah.
My name's Joel Clayton, I'm 15 and I'm a Conduit or as most people call us, "Bioterrorists".
I lived in Seattle, which was somewhat a totalitarian state if you ask me, governed by the DUP or Department of Unified Protection, which was formed by the US government and led by Brooke Augustine, who was actually a Conduit.
Some of us Conduits were hiding from the militia of the DUP to avoid capture and getting sent to Curdun Cay Prison, where all the captured Conduits were locked up.
The DUP would have propaganda in people's faces to manipulate their beliefs about Conduits.
By the way, I first discovered my powers back in primary school, when I almost got kidnapped. The first of my abilities was smoke/ash manipulation, or just smoke for simplicity sake.
My parents tried to keep my powers hidden from anyone, after they found out but that did not work as time went by; the rest of my basic Conduit abilities appeared, which was enhanced strength, agility, endurance and also healing factor.
When the DUP came along, my parents went all out to protect me, while I was feeling very guilty for my parents' burden, then the DUP took them away right after they hid me away, by sending me to my relatives, who promised to take good care of me.
I went into a long event of depression after that and my powers grew, which did not help me one bit. I had… 'Bad' thoughts during the time of the DUP and always have sadly wondered where my parents had been taken. Of course, I tried to look for them but I failed.
During my depression, I met a guy by the name of Delsin Rowe, who had the same power of smoke like me. However, his actual core ability was power absorption, which basically mean that he can absorbs powers from other Conduits and utilize those powers as his own.
After the fall of the DUP, which I backed the team up in the assault of the DUP headquarters; he took me under his wing and trained me to use my powers properly. I quickly got better at the use of my powers and my powers also got stronger, since I was quite a fast learner and usually get good grades at school. Then I got more powers after that.
I naturally gained the last of my powers as time goes by, from training. But it sort of ended after I received two more abilities, which was the power to control napalm and asphalt.
NOW, back to the main story…
Joel's POV
I was heading to my friend's hang out spot, which was on top of a building with a billboard memorial of Delsin's brother, Reggie Rowe. Reggie passed away, trying to save his little brother's life by sacrificing his.
It had been 3 months after the fall of the DUP. Conduits and the people of the city learned to coexist.
When arrived I saw Delsin talking to Abigail and Eugene. I cut into the conversation politely.
They looked at me with smiles on their faces and Abigail or Fetch was the one who spoke first.
"Hey Joel, what's up?" she asked in a casual manner.
I chuckled and replied.
"Nothing much, just being bored all day, till I decided to hang out with you guys."
"Good choice." Eugene said.
"So am I going to have training or something?" I asked with a quizzical look.
"Actually, we wanted to give you something, right guys?" Delsin said as Abigail and Eugene nodded.
"We've been thinking about this and decided you deserve it, not only because you're one of us now, but because of what you been through during the DUP." Abigail said with a sympathized look. Abigail can be friendly figure sometimes, especially around people who lost at least one of their family members. Abigail had once accidentally killed one of her love ones, who was her brother, Brent Walker.
"But I didn't help you that much…" I said, sheepishly scratching my head.
"Well, you helped us enough to beat the DUP and stop trying to be modest. It's weird." Abigail said and the rest of us laughed.
"Anyway, here's your gift." Delsin comes up to me and gave me a wooden box.
I opened it and saw a pair of gauntlets with twin blades on each gauntlet. My blue eyes widened and my heart raced a hundred miles per hour. I looked at them with a shocked look. (My body has a moderate build and I have slightly pale skin as well.)
"Oh my… These are… holy…" I stuttered with shock.
"Go on, put them on." Delsin insisted with a smile.
I combed my black hair with my hand and put the gauntlets on. They fit perfectly in my hands as the sleek blades gleamed in the sunlight.
"Now, imbue it with your powers, like I taught you." Delsin ordered.
Smoke, ashes and embers appeared from my hands and covered the blades to imbue it, the blades changed from metallic blades into blades with continuous burning ashes.
"Now your blades are stronger and sharper than ever." Delsin said, still have that smile on his face. I moved my arms around and tried a few attack moves with my gauntlets.
"Congrats, Joel." Abigail cheered.
"You look good in those. I wish I had a pair." Eugene looked at Delsin with a smirk.
"You have the power to summon angels and demons, you know that?" Delsin said as Eugene chuckled. "I thought you were a god, when I fought you." Delsin recalled.
"I was quite intimidating huh?" Eugene smirked.
"You were scary as hell."
"Ironic, I used to be scared of others, but now it's the other way around."
Eugene looked back at me and congratulated me.
"Thanks guys, for everything." I smiled delightfully to them.
"No problems, kid."
"Anytime, Joel."
"It's alright, Joel."
An hour later, I was returning back to my house to chill for a bit till night time, plus I wanted to try out my newly acquired gift. The gauntlets were still on my wrists, though hidden in the sleeves of my black jacket. I also wore black jeans to match my jacket and white shirt. My shoes were white with red streaks.
That's when I heard a fearful of a girl I immediately took off running to the direction of the scream. I smoke-thrusted my way up the towering buildings' roofs and ran as fast as I can, while searching from a vantage point.
Another scream occurred and I followed it right up to a dilapidated building. I reached to the roof of the building via smoke and took a look inside the building through a large hole.
Then, I saw three guys harassing a teenage girl in her early high school years. One of them had a glass sword and he was pointing it up to the girl's neck. It was a conduit but not like any conduit, who is mostly friendly. Oh no he was bad news. I was not sure about the other two though.
A sense of injustice crept in me and I silently smoke dashed behind a wooden box and spied on them.
"Heh, now you'll listen to me and me only. You're gonna strip yourself and you're gonna let us in." The leader spoke with lust, along with sinister intentions. The other two smirked in triumph.
My fists clenched as the girl begged them to let her go.
"Please, just let me go… I'm still 12…" She whimpered.
"Oh no, you're not going anywhere…" The leader spoke darkly all of a sudden. The girl whimpered again.
"…And face it, no one can help you." One of the cronies said.
"Even if someone finds out, they have to get past this guy." The last of the cronies pointed to his leader.
The leader smiled evilly and suddenly tore the girl's shirt forcefully, which exposed a bit of her undergarments. This time she was crying and screaming.
I had enough and revealed myself behind them. The girl saw me and was about to call for help, but I place my index finger to my lips before she could even utter a word and it was enough to silenced her.
The thugs were surprised by this immediate change and smirked.
"So, you have given up eh, well that makes the job a lot easier." The leader said as I spoke angrily behind the trio.
"I can't believe you used your powers for this, you bastard."
They turned to me quickly in shock for a moment, enough for me to satisfy myself from their reaction and the gleaming hope in the girl's eyes, which warmed my heart and I was laughing in my mind by the thugs' reactions.
The moment of shock was over and one of the leader's cronies shouted.
"Hey! Get out of here or we'll-"
The crony was cut off by the leader's raised hand.
He took a step forward with that glass sword, still in his hands.
"Hey, man. I appreciated if you step off so you don't hurt yourself." He brought the blade facing towards me. His cronies snickered.
"Sorry, I'll pass. ASSHOLE!"
The leader then looked at me with a death glare and immediately charged with his sword up for an overhead strike, but I blocked with my one of my gauntlets and the steel of the blades made connection with the glass blade and chipped the glass edge. It also sent the leader back a few feet with a look of surprise. He took a moment to look at my gauntlets before charging at me again. This time, he was firing shards of glass at me and I quickly dodged the shards. I recovered quickly and blocked another attack made by the leader. I used the moment to counter-attack with an ember blast, which knock him to the ground and another few feet. My opponent grew frustrated and also grunted from the pain that I gladly gave him. He signalled his cronies for aid. His cronies grabbed metal pipes and came for me with pipes above their heads. I smoke-dashed behind them and knocked them down with my smoke-shots.
The girl took the time to run away as fast as she can and I was grateful for that. Suddenly, I heard a blade coming from behind me and I blocked it just in time again. The leader and I were having this sort of clashed-blades standoff moment, until he made the effort to stab my side. I smoke-thrusted to gain distance, the blade barely touched me. His cronies were back on their feet and all of them charged at me in all directions, craving for just one blood spill or bruise to be made. I smoke-thrusted my way up and out of the building in three burning embers, which I then performed the Orbital Drop that Delsin taught me.
However, I was warned that this type move needs to be performed almost flawlessly or at least with caution; or else, I would be in a world of hurt.
Even Abigail and Eugene agreed that it was a reckless type of move and not to be played with, even if I'm a conduit.
I dropped down from the sky and funny enough, the height I reached to perform this move was very high, which made me wondered, if I over-done it. But it was too late to turn back as I reached the bottom, creating a huge explosion that could have destroyed armoured tanks. Suddenly, it all went black…