- 9 -

- The Miracles of Superhuman Abilities -

Cal didn't stop running until he was safely on the outskirts of Metropolis, at the entrance to a motel he had managed to get himself into with the meagre amount of cash he had had in his pocket when he had returned from Britain. He stopped briefly at the entrance to the motel, but then ran the rest of the way to his room, unlocking and entering it before the dust settled from the road. He walked across to the small desk in the room and dumped the bag of money on it, before removing his sunglasses and placing them on top.

He pulled down his hood, revealing his shaggy brown hair, before slumping down onto the end of the small bed. Cal looked down at his hands, which had begun to ache, and slowly removed the gloves, throwing them over his shoulder onto the bed. The palms of his hand seemed to be alright, however when he flipped them over he saw that his knuckles were bluish-purple.

"What the…?" he said as he stood up and quickly stripped off his coat, hoody, and t-shirt.

As he looked down at his chest, he saw that it was covered with large bruises, in the eerie shape of a large fist. Cal looked down with disbelief before he burst out laughing and fell back onto his bed, sniggering.

"Seems like I'm not as invincible as I thought." Even as he laughed he felt an aching within his chest that told him the bruises were not just skin deep.

As he lay there staring at the flaking roof of his motel room, the image shimmered in front of his eyes and suddenly he wasn't looking at the roof anymore but instead towards the dimming sky. Cal started but didn't move, this phenomenon had happened before, just before his second skirmish with the other super powered individuals that tried to stop him at the bank. That had been the reason he had been staring at his hands, allowing his pursuers to locate him easily.

This time however, it didn't disappear as he tried to think of something else, last time the distraction of the group had brought his vision back to normal; nothing like that was available this time. So he raised a hand in front of his face as before and realised that the objects he was looking through weren't completely invisible. If he looked carefully he could see a faded version of the object; his hand, the roof. Cal swept his gaze across the room and sure enough he could see through everything, and yet everything he looked through became faded.

Something to do with focus perhaps? He questioned.

So with that in mind he tried focusing, not on what he could see beyond but instead on what faded in his view. Cal had sat up on his bed so his piercing view allowed him to see the parking lot below; the room's wall, the outside landing, and some stairs faded out of vision. He picked the outside landing to focus on, trying to look at that instead of at the parking lot.

Sure enough, after a minute of nothing happening, the outside landing faded back into view to block of the parking lot but Cal could still see the faded form of the room's wall in front of him. He smiled and switched his focus to the wall. This time it happened a lot quicker, the wall faded back in solidarity and Cal was left looking at the solid wall in front of him. He continued smiling and decided to try it the other way. Within a couple of minutes, Cal had near enough complete control of picking what layer to look through. However, this ability seemed to vary when he looked at his own hand.

When he looked at his hand, aiming to look through it as he had done with the wall, he found that he could see a faint outline of the bones under the skin. After a second of trying to see through those, his vision changed from normal to a blue tinge; his bones being nearly stark white underneath. It took him a second, but Cal realised that it looked like he was looking at an x-ray of his hand. He glanced down at his chest and legs to confirm it, and sure enough, it was as if he had x-rayed his body parts and was looking at them, instead of just looking at his own body.

With a hard blink of his eyes, as a pain started to build up behind them, the changed vision disappeared and Cal was left looking at the motel wall like any normal person. He sighed and leant backwards until he was looking up at the ceiling as he had done so when he had entered the room. Is there going to be an end to the things I can do? Am I going to end up stopping time and teleporting? Although, that would be pretty cool…even if my super speed ability grants me a similar result. Thoughts like these swirled around in his mind and soon enough he had drifted off to sleep lying half on the bad with his legs dangling off the end. The battle with Leon had taken more out of him then he had been expecting.

"So…what exactly happened for it to end like this?"

Amar Watson was sat in a high backed leather chair and a stylised glass desk was in front of him. On the other side of that desk were two hard wooden chairs with Matt in one of them and Joanne in the other. Both of them were sat with back straights with their hands held politely in their laps. Both of them were also looking anywhere around the office except for Amar's face. An awkward minute of silence followed his question, but Amar was a patient man and he wasn't about to continue the conversation until one of them answered his question. Matt seemed to decide this fact was true and cleared his throat to speak.

"We underestimated him." He said, dropping his gaze to Amar.

"A little." Amar replied before moving his gaze to Joanne, who eventually looked back at him.

"Ok, we weren't expecting him to have every power under the sun!" she said, on the verge of shouting.

"Not exactly accurate but I can understand your confusion." Amar said quietly.

"Confusion!? There was no confusion; this guy was throwing Leon around like he was made of straw, he moved faster than I've ever seen anything move short of a bullet, he could fly, Mira's abilities wouldn't work on him, h…" she stopped as Amar raised his hand.

"He could fly?" he asked

"Yes." Matt said, interrupting to make sure Joanne didn't explode. "He was falling from the roof of a skyscraper and since he'd just had a throw down with Leon and survived, we suspected he would survive the fall. We were also hoping it would render him unconscious or at least disorientated." He paused and glanced at Joanne, who had started playing with her hands. "But he never hit the ground; he just took off into the sky seemingly without aid. But he didn't look like he had full control of it yet."

"Interesting. I did not know that flight capability had been added. You also say Mira's 'Scan' ability did not work?"

Matt looked at Joanne since she'd actually been there at the time. "As soon as we had him surrounded and he wasn't playing basketball with our heads, I asked Mira to scan him but she said it didn't work on him."

Amar reached forward and pressed a button that was built into the desk. "Bring me Mira." He said simply before releasing the button. He then sat back in his chair to wait, Matt and Joanne remaining silent in front of him.

A couple of minutes later, a set of double doors opened into the office and Mira was ushered in by two armoured soldiers. She shuffled into the room slowly until she was stood behind Matt and Joanne; her eyes were locked onto the floor.

"Mira, explain to me what happened when you tried to 'Scan' him." Amar asked. He didn't need to explain what or who he was talking about since it was fairly obvious.

Mira glanced at Joanne but when she remained silent, Mira spoke. "I don't know why it didn't work." She said, her voice barely above a whisper.

"That is not what I asked."

Mira gulped but continued. "The process worked as normal right up until the point I feel my own structure changing to match theirs."

"So, you could see his structure, you could analyse his structure, but the moment you tried to change your own structure to match, your powers stopped working?" Amar had leant forward and was resting his elbows on the desk, his fingers laced in front of his face.

Mira shook her head slightly. "There wasn't a change to my powers, it was just as if I wasn't trying to do it; but I was, I was." She added on the end, scared that Amar would think she hadn't tried.

"Don't worry Mira, I believe you. But you say you could see his structure?" Mira nodded and a small smile crept onto Amar's face. "What did it look like?"

"Like a million tiny suns." Mira said without hesitation, before squeaking and covering her mouth with her hands as she realised she had spoken out loud.

"Thank you, Mira, you may leave now." Amar said and waved the girl away. Mira nodded, her hands still over her mouth, and quickly exited the room, glancing back at Amar as the door closed her out. Amar pulled himself out of his chair and sat on the edge of his desk, his back to Matt and Joanne. "A million tiny suns…" he muttered, causing Matt and Joanne to glance at each other in confusion.

They sat in silence for a minute before Amar seemed to realise he still had guests and stood up again, brushing imaginary dust from his trousers. He turned back to Matt and Joanne with a small smile on his lips. "Right, Leon will need another 4 days to recover, and judging by your report he was pretty effective against the target. Yes?" Matt nodded, while Joanne continued to play with her hands. "Good. As soon as he is back on his feet, he is going to join Joanne, Mira, and Sora as part of an undercover team. You will go out into Metropolis and find out where he is hiding, than I want Mira to get a closer look at his genetic structure. You will observe him for seven days, as much as you can, then I want Leon to go 'Red Demon' in the city's centre. Force the target to fight Leon, and I want the others to observe and mark as many abilities as the target shows."

Matt was looking sceptical but Joanne was nodding her head in agreement. "Let Leon loose, ok. I want to see how much the target can take. Do you understand, Joanne?"

"Completely, although I'm guessing you know how much damage Leon can cause in 'Red Demon' mode, right?" Amar nodded and Joanne stood up, Matt quickly following. "Then I shall brief the others on our mission."

She turned to go but Matt stopped to speak. "Sir, if I may ask. When this is going on, what is the rest of us going to be doing?"

Amar looked silently at Matt for a long second before answering. "The rest of the Risers have another job, Matt, an important job."

Matt nodded and then Joanne led him out of the room. As soon as the door closed and the two armoured guards were out of earshot Joanne pulled Matt into a side corridor. "He's up to something Matt, and I want to know what it is. While I'm out, will you try and find out what he's up to?"

Matt paused. "Something fishy is definitely going on; he knows something about the Target that he is not telling us. I'll do my best."

Joanne nodded and walked back out into the corridor. "Well, at least Leon will be glad. He hasn't been allowed to go 'Red Demon' since he broke Hawaii."