Chapter 6: One Victory
-Kings high
Daniel is walking in the hallway going to his locker to prepare for his first class, he has his hood up to hide the white streak on his hair and grey right pupil. Daniel is not use to being the center of attraction due to him just blending in the background all his life, He grab the books that he needs for the morning periods and went to his first class, still avoiding attention Daniel got in the front door, walked quickly to his seat at the back of the class. He rest his head on the desk of his chair and waited for the teacher. When the teacher arrive she calls the students one by one for the attendance. "Daniel Frost?" She calls. "Here." Daniel said while raising his hand. "Mr. Frost can you pull down that hood?" The teacher requested. "Well, actually I can't the reason is medical, and I'm going to the doctor's after school to get it checked out." Daniel says hoping the teacher reconsiders, and lucky for him she does, and then she nods at him in approval. 'So much for staying under the radar.' Daniel says mentally, all eyes are on him. Elise is sitting in front in her usual place, she heard what Daniel said and she got worried for him. 'Okay I gotta check on him later.' She notes to herself. She is planning to meet Daniel on the rooftop at lunch. The teacher starts the lesson for the period the whole class was taking notes except for a few lazy students who were sleeping. "Now class make sure you pay attention to all my materials because this is gonna come out in next weeks exams." The teacher advised her students. "For your homework please answer this questionnaires that I will be handing at the end of this lesson, this will also serve as your reviewer for the exams, so make sure you study the materials and answer it correctly." She continues her lessons, after that she hands the homework to her students. When it was Daniel's turn he quickly grabs the piece of paper and bolts out the door on to his next class. He could feel someone following him so he enters the boys restroom to see who his pursuer was. He waits for a couple of minutes to see if his pursuer follows him inside, 2 minutes passed by and no one else enters, so he exits the restroom and stops when he hears a feminine voice. "Ehem! Avoiding me Daniel!?" Leaning on the wall between the entrances/exits of both the female and male restrooms is Elise Avalon, her eyes are closed and her arms are crossed, she looked annoyed. "N-no no! It's not like that! I was just keeping a low profile hehe, that's all!" Daniel said nervously. "What's with you today? When the teacher asked you to pull your hood down you refused and said something about a medical thing or whatever! Are you sick? " Elise asked him with a concerned tone. "Look, I don't feel comfortable talking about it in public so can we just talk about it in lunch? Meet me at the rooftop and I'll explain everything." Daniel assured her but she just rolls her eyes and says. "Whatever, you better tell me everything Daniel." She then walks away from him. "I'm sorry." Daniel said in a low voice and Elise hears it, but before she could turn around to face him he was already gone, so she proceeds to her next class.
-Lunch period
"Daniel you're here! Now explain to me what's going on with you!" Elise said in a demanding tone. "Okay jeez chill!" Daniel replied. "Umm, how am I gonna say this." Daniel said not knowing how to begin. "Just say it!" Elise snapped. "Okay! okay, look something happened to me yesterday and I don't know what it is. But please don't think I'm a creep." Daniel said. "Of course I won't Daniel!" "Okay, it's better if I show you, but before I do, Please! Please! PLEASE! Don't tell anybody!" Daniel said with a worried face. "I promise Daniel you have my word!" Daniel pulls his hood down and shows Elise the white streak on his hair. "So you got a highlight! That's not something medical!" Elise said annoyed. "You see that's thing! I didn't!" Daniel replied. "What do you mean?" Elise said confused. "It just showed up yesterday, and that's not the only thing, LOOK!" He shows her his right eye that he has been hiding. "Oh my gosh Daniel! It's grey!" She said with a concerned tone. "How did this happen?" She added. "I don't know. We had ice cream yesterday, then you gave me a ride to work, I went home, took a shower, looked at the mirror and poof! 2 inches wide white streak on my bangs, and grey right pupil!" He recalled not saying all the details though, he cut out the part about saving someone, taking a beating, and exploding. "I probably look even more terrible now that I have these right?" He refered to the changes in his physical appearance. "Why would you say that!" Elise shouted at him. "Well because I DO!" Daniel shouted back. "NO YOU DON'T!" There was a moment of silence between them. "You don't even look terrible in first place." Elise said calming down and blushed. "What?!" Daniel asked in confusion. "Daniel you're handsome okay!" She admitted. "The white streak actually looks good on you. And you look even more handsome with it." She said in a low voice due to her embarrassment, she blushed again. "Yeah. You should come with me to the hospital later and get your eyes checked." He said sarcastically. "I'm being serious!" She laughs after she said that, she then punched his shoulder playfully. Daniel realizing that Elise was really serious, he began blushing as well he couldn't believe it, the great Elise Avalon thinks he is handsome, he was silent for a few seconds. "Well, I'd say you're beautiful but. You already know that, heck! The whole city knows that! Possibly the whole world." He complimented her and she blushed. "Anyway, you should uhh, probably go back to your friends, you don't want them looking for you!" He gave her a smile and she returns it with a smile on of own. "Yeah. Enjoy your lunch Daniel." She said. "Yeah! you too!" He replied. As much as Elise hated to leave she has to, she doesn't want keep her friends waiting. She reached the cafeteria and orders the sandwich Daniel always orders. "No salad today Elly?" Samantha asked. "That's new." She added. "Well I really wanted to try it, so I did." She said not telling her friend a half truth.
-After class
Daniel is outside the gymnasium waiting for the music teacher, to tell him he can't make it to practice today due to his doctor's appointment. He poke his head through the entrance to see if the teacher was there only to find out that he wasn't, he check his phone for the time and tried looking for him again. He then lean his back at the wall next to the entrance of the gymnasium. When Daniel poked his head Elise noticed him and stopped the practice game and was on her way to the entrance of gymnasium to talk to Daniel. She noticed Daniel leaning on the wall fidgeting his hands and acting anxious. "Hey." She Greeted "Oh hey!" He replied. "Are you alright?" She asked. "Y-yeah." He stuttered. "What are you doing? Wait you're not stalking the girls volleyball team are you?" She joked. "W-what? No! of course not!" Daniel replied defensively. "I was just looking for Mr. Gibson. I need to tell him I can't go to band practice today due to my doctor's appointment, and he's not even here yet! I'm gonna miss the appointment!" Daniel explained and was worried tapping his right foot. "Don't worry, I'll tell him when he arrives. Just go." Elise assured Daniel and gave him a smile. "Really! You'd do that!?" Daniel felt relieved and his body moved on it's own and Daniel hugged Elise. Elise was shock and her eyes widen and when Daniel realized what happened he quickly let go of her and blush, and raised his hands to his chest. "I AM REALLY SORRY! M-my body just m-moved o-" Elise cut her off. "Just go!" She gave him a smile. "R-right! I'm r-really sorry!" He stammered and run away to the opposite direction. Elise comes back inside the gymnasium to resume the practice game, and she didn't realize she was grinning from ear to ear like an idiot and is beet red from blushing. "Well someone's awfully happy all of a sudden?" Samantha commented on her sudden mood change. "So, what did Edward say?" Samantha asked. "Or rather, do?" She added and the entire team was ooing, except for Carol who looked quite annoyed. "What?! No! Nothing!" Elise snapped. "Let's just get back to the game." She finished and they resume.
-Kings City General Hospital
"Is something wrong with him doctor?" Denise asked with a worried expression. "No, nothing's wrong with him. In fact everything's fine with him." The doctor answered. "Then how do you explain the white streak and the grey right pupil doc?" Daniel asked. "Could be mutation, but the eye I think you have an acquired complete heterochromia, this could only possibly lead to eye condition or certain health problems, but we can cross out the health problems, I see nothing wrong with you're body, I recommend going to an ophthalmologist, get your eyes checked." The doctor said, recommending an ophthalmologist on the same hospital. When they reach the ophthalmologist the eye doctor couldn't find anything wrong with Daniel's eyes. "Everything seems to be in order. No eye conditions, his eye sight is healthy for his age." The eye doctor said. "So, how do you treat this heterochromia doc?" Daniel asked. "There is no need to treat it, because you have no health issues, it's just genetics. Do you have any family members who has genetic mutation similar to yours?" The eye doctor asked. "Not that we know of doc." Denise answered. "It's probably that you have a relative that has the same genetic mutation, it's actually quite rare that you acquired it later on your life. Mostly, mutations like this happen during the fertilization, when an egg or sperm carries a gene mutation it's either form the dad or the mom. In other cases it happens hours after the child is born, and that's some of the real rare cases. Yours on the other hand, I haven't heard of it ever since, it must be the rarest occurrence of heterochromia. Heterochromia is actually pretty uncommon less than 1% of the population has it, and your part of it. If you want your eyes to have the same colors you'll have to ware contact lenses." The doctor finished. Daniel was awe struck upon hearing what the eye doctor said, but then he realized. 'This mutation thing is probably caused by that sphere that exploded on me and giving me this power.' Daniel said mentally. "Well, nothing we can do about it now right? I'll live with it for the rest of my life I guess." Daniel said
-Daniel's Home.
Daniel looks through his closet, he is looking for something, he is looking for cloths for his hero get up. He found a dark grey hoodie and and a black sleeveless denim jacket. "This could work." Daniel said. "Might as well go with a denim pants." He decided. He grabs a dark blue straight cut denim jeans and a black with grey stripes skateboard sneakers. He looked at himself in the mirror, and pulled up his hood. "Yeah, this well definitely work." "And now for my symbol, I should probably just spray paint the the back of my denim jacket, making a patch is way to much work and I don't know how to sew." He said. "Let see now. Smoke, since my power is smoke might as well go with a smoke symbol." He begin by making smoke symbol designs on his computer, it took him a couple of hours to finally come up with a simple but good design, he made it simple for the reason that no one would actually see it that often. Later that weekend he went to the hardware store and bought a couple of spray paints.(White, Grey, Red) He drew his design on a piece of cardboard and cut out a few pieces to use as a tracing guide, he then went to the roof of their rented apartment and started spraying the back of his jacket. He was satisfied with his work when it was completely dried. Night came and he changed to his hero outfit, got out from the window of his room and smoke dashed form roof to roof looking for crime, he found a couple of muggings here and there but he stopped that effortlessly, he didn't face the criminals head on like he usually does, he used the element of surprise to catch them of guard, using the shadows of the night to hide from plain sight. He was about to turn out for the night when he stumbled across a group of 4 people coming out of a pest control van, carrying heavy weaponry in front of a small bank. Daniel smoke dashed to the roof of the building across to the bank. "Guns, great." Daniel said to himself. "How am I gonna do this?" He was thinking of a plan. "Since they have projectiles weapons, it's only fair to me to use my projectile attack." He aimed for the masked man who was furthest from the group, Daniel shot a smoke ball and hit his target disabling the man. "What was that!?" The other masked man shouted. "It's on the roof! Shoot it!" He commanded, all 3 of them shot in the direction of where Daniel was, and Daniel quickly smoke dashed to the roof of the building next to the previews building he was on. Lucky for him it was night so they didn't see him at all. "Watch out for that thing!" One of the masked man said with panic in his voice. Daniel smoke dashed to the roof of the bank preparing to do a super hero landing on the bank robbers. "Oh what's this? they're perfectly aligned for this next move. Sorry boys this is gonna hurt." Daniel stepped to the edge of the roof of the bank, he took a deep breath and jumped, chain wrapped on his fist with a glowing ember and thick reddish smoke coming out of it. He aimed for the van and landed right on top of it causing it to explode, it sent the muggers flying and the bank alarm went off due to the explosion of the van. "W-what the hell are you?!" The conscious robber asked in pain. "No one important, Just. Like. You." Daniel said with an emotionless voice. "FUCK YOU!" The robber pulled out a pistol and shot Daniel. [Gun Shot] "Uh!" It hit Daniel on the chest and his eyes widen, he fell off the flattened van and fell unconscious for a couple of seconds until a ember glow covered his gun shot wound, reddish smoke came out of it until it was completely healed, Daniel's eyes opened, and he made a mischievous smile. "Oh hehehehe! I could get used to this!" He stood back up and approached the man who shot, him he slowly walked up to the man, reddish smoke began emitting from his hands to his forearm, thickening even more as he was getting closer to the man. "NO! NO! YOU STAY AWAY FROM ME! YOU MONSTER!" The robber said, crawling away from Daniel without taking his eyes of of him. Daniel stepped on the robbers leg and slowly pressed harder. "AHHGKK!" The robber screamed in pain. "Monster huh? Well, takes one to know one does it?" Daniel could hear police sirens from the distance, he took this as a sign to leave. He smoke dashed to the vent of the of the building close to him, he reformed on the roof the building, He looked at the bodies on the road making sure the cops get there without any of the robbers escaping. When the cops arrived Daniel smoke dashed from roof to roof until he reached his apartment, mean while back in the crime scene. "Get me out of here! Arrest me! Just get me the fuck out of here! I'll tell you whatever you need to know!" The robber who shot Daniel said in fear. "What's wrong? Plan didn't go so well? hahaha!" The officer said laughing with the other officers joining in. "It was a demon! o-or or whatever it was!" The robber said. "Yeah, yeah, save it for the judge!" They took him away a long with his fellow unconscious crew. Daniel went inside through his window and quickly changed his cloths to his regular ones. Daniel sighed feeling good about himself. "It all starts with one victory." He smiles.