A Bad Guy

“In other news today there have been gravitational anomalies that have been popping up we don’t know what's causing them they could be the work of a hero or maybe villain maybe a hint at another in coming alien invasion I guess will also today the unnamed villain that created all those giant hamsters has escaped” every part of my body was in pain.

I guess I finally found out my limit on how much I can heal because I still feel a lot of these injuries. As I moved around a bit wincing from some jolts of pain I felt my body neatly wrapped in bandages. I guess whoever found me decided to patch me up, nice. I slowly sit up making sure not to move fast so I don’t reopen anything. I slowly opened my eyes and everything was a bit blurry. Guess that's what I get for pushing my sight to its limit, you won in the end and that's what mattered.

I looked around and saw I was obviously in a bedroom. It had solid oak floors with bright blue walls and ceiling. There were a couple shelves with a bunch of little wood carvings of animals. I looked out a window near the bed I was in and saw fields of grass land going on for miles and a barn not far off from the house I’m in, reminds me of an old friend.

Guess I got picked up by some farmers, I gotta call Mary that I’m fine and I’ll be gone for a couple days. I then remember my phone most likely got destroyed in the fight with the commander so most likely Mary is going to yell at me when I get home. I tune my hearing down so I don’t hear the tv downstairs as I sit and think about a new development that happened last night.

I got a inventory maybe a pocket dimension who knows but I have it now and that makes me think what the fuck is happening with me? This is like the ninth power I’ve unlocked. First it was the superhuman physique then my controllable super senses. Then steel drakes powers weaker but still hers after that my healing factor and then blood tracking and then there's my weird instinct power. Being able to build stuff like a developer and being able to ricochet anything and now the inventory.

All of that's not even counting my chaos breath that gives me ten powers and I have a feeling I’ll keep getting more powers. Do I have the ability to unlock powers that help me with the current situation?, nope. No, then I would have a lot more powers and they be much more specific and that wouldn't explain why I have steel drakes power so maybe it's a set amount of powers that I unlock over time, much warmer.

Well whatever I got other people have it and they're called holders so that group either made or is looking for them. Maybe I can find other people like me and I could get an explanation on what's going on with me. I summon one of those evo vials from my inventory, then there's theses. I hold the gold and red vial in my hand as I wonder what the hell does this thing do? Maybe it’s like whatever they did to Steel drake and it gives powers maybe if I drank this or injected it into me I can get more powers.

Twenty four powers that would make me near unstoppable or it could be a flesh eating virus or even take away powers who knows I won’t because I’m not desperate enough to drink this. The vial disappears back into my inventory as I lay there on the bed as I let myself relax.

After a bit I decided to see if I could fix the blurriness because it was kinda annoying. I checked the dials in my head and saw that the sight and reaction/perception dials had cracks in them. I tried to turn them but they stayed still but I could see the cracks healing. Then I felt something, I felt a new dial and I decided to turn it.

The ceiling I was looking at immediately turned blue as I sat up with a wince as I looked around me. The room was now a mix of blues and oranges as I looked outside and I could see orange birds and blue rocks, huh thermal vision neat. I turned the vial again as everything gained a tint of blue as I could blue lines running through the building and me.

I turned it again this time everything turned black and white as everything became much darker as when I heard chirp outside I saw several gray waves rush by. I turned the dial again and I could see old stains on the floor, the remnants of blood on my hands and finger prints around the room as everything turned violet. I turned the dial one last time as everything went clear as I could see my own insides and through walls as I could see a figure walking towards the door that leads to the room I was in.

I turned my sight back to normal as the door opened and an old man walked in. He stood around six two with a decent build, his hands being covered in calluses and scars showing years of hard work and the right hand seemed to have burn scars on it. He had a deep tan created from most likely years of being outside in the sun. He had short dark gray hair and a trimmed beard along with silver eyes. He wore gray overalls with a long sleeved flannel shirt and he was holding a tray of food.

“Ah you're finally awake, thought with your injuries you’d be out all day” he had a deep gruff voice and gave me a kind smile as he put the tray on the side of the bed it had eggs, bacon, sausage and some hash browns and a fork and knife on a napkin.

“Eat up you need it especially after whatever you went through” I picked up the tray and ate the food, it was pretty good, reminded me of my grandma's home cooking wish she was still around.

“Wow you must be really hungry” the old man chuckled as I was already done not even a minute after I picked up the tray.

“It was good” I wiped my mouth with a paper towel.

“Well it's good to know my cooking is still good” he chuckles a bit

“Heh well it seems you can move now so I’ll bring you some clothes and we can talk downstairs” he gives me a smile before leaving.

The old man came back and gave me some pants and a white button up shirt along with my boots. He said my old clothes were too damaged for him to sow back together, as expected. We went downstairs and the house was nice, everything was made from oak and was nice and clean, not a bit of dust. Pictures were everywhere, most of them just of different views and parts of the world; some had a younger version of the old man with some silver haired kid in them. We got to the dining room and he got some coffee for us. It was pretty good and We sat in silence for a bit as we drank from mugs shaped like apples. Eventually he broke the silence after finishing his coffee.

“So kid what's your name?”

“Richard” I took a sip of coffee as I didn’t really feel the heat from it.

“Well nice to meet ya Richard I’m Michael” he lifts up a hand for a handshake as I take it. He had a pretty strong grip and that was impressive for someone with enhanced strength like me.

“So now that we know each other could you explain why I found you covered in blood and half dead near a literal trainwreck?” welp time to lie my ass off.

“Well I was on a train back back hom”

“Before you try and lie to me I already know your a evo and a costumed one at that no one bleeds that much and is fine in the morning plus I found this” he drops my black plated face mask in front of me guess the several concussions messed with my memory a bit because I forgot to pick that up.

“So tell me the truth kid and don’t worry I won’t tell anyone about your secret identity” he gives me a warm smile as I take a breath.

“Well I was on my first solo patrol and it was going ok so far until these guys in pretty good gear started shooting at me and I was able to deal with them but a sniper who shot at me got away so I tracked them to know why they wanted me. I got to this train yard and snuck on a train they were getting on, fought my way through the train and fought some guys with much more advanced gear and eventually fought this commander girl who was vague about what they wanted with me. I nearly died in the process but she was teleported away and then I passed out” I wanted to tell him about the train and the vials and steel drake and everything else but a nagging feeling in my head was telling me it was better to keep that stuff to myself, good.

“I’m guessing you get yourself into these situations often?”

“Kinda ever since I got my powers it's been a wild ride” a real understatement.

“Well I can understand what your going through”

“Are you an ex-hero or something?”

“Ha! nah I don’t got any powers myself my son does got it from his mother think he calls himself silver agent or something I help him deal with his powers when he develop them” huh silver agent pretty well known hero in good Steel drake city wears a silver suit and mask kinda like a secret agent and his power lets him summon these silver weapons from a pocket dimension like giant hands, knights etc hell I even heard he might be joining the vanguard soon.

“So the farm boy was the one that made the hero fall for them”

“It's not like that he’s not my biological son, an old friend of mine made me promise her if she ever died that I should take care of her son and well I did” he seemed to have a more solemn look as it looked like hundreds of memories flowed through those old eyes.

“So uhm how she died?” Why did I say that? How insensitive can I get?.

He sighed as after a couple seconds he spoke “she died in one of Deadnoughts rampages couldn't bury her since there was nothing to bury” My eyes widened at the name of Deadnought.

Years ago around the end of world war two when powers were revealed to the public. it had to be since there were Nazi’s who were ripping apart tanks with their bare hands, summoning giant monsters and moving at the speed of light. The world healed itself pretty quickly, going pretty good until he showed up. Garricks that's what he called himself the first ever reported mythic and one of the strongest at that. Mythics are people with powers that are so powerful and seemingly not affected by physics or laws of this world and always similar to some ancient myth, legend or even works of fiction and Garricks well he was essentially a lich.

He could kill people weak enough with a glance, regenerate from almost any injury, control the elements, move things with his mind and even summon the dead along with many other powers but his main and most deadly ability was that he could drain the Lifeforce out of people. No one knows what life force is but it powered Garricks fueling his powers and letting him make powerful monsters by mashing life force together with corpses and materials, usually metal hell if used the life force of someone with a power the creature would have that power.

He was utterly terrifying most people thinking he was actually a real lich from another world some still believe that. Garricks when he first appeared declared war on the world and destroyed half of Newyork in little time and sent armies of undead to attack major cities across the planet. No one knew where he came from and how amassed such a powerful army. Many people with powers work with the different governments across the world to fight back against Garricks. A lot of them died and their bodies were used to make powerful generals, the strongest being Deadnought.

He tore through whole armies and was near unstoppable until a group of extremely powerful evolved slew Dreadnought and helped push the side of the war. They were Beowulf, another extremely powerful mythic with god-like strength and the ability to summon a sword that could slice through mountain ranges. This group after a couple years slew Garricks in the last battle of the war being struck down by Beowulf as the world seemed to finally have time to heal.

The world quickly rebuilt itself with the help of developers and super intelligence users but after five years Deadnought somehow returned. He went on another rampage and seemed stronger and even had the ability to change its size but it was defeated and destroyed again. Then it came back near the end of the next year stronger and with the ability to teleport and then it was destroyed and then it came back next year stronger and with power again and again not long after he would be nicknamed the walking Apocalypse.

For many decades Deadnought would come back near the end of each year stronger and stronger, even gaining the ability to summon the dead and even absorb life force to achieve new forms. Evenutally Beowulf and the vanguard fought Deadnought a lot of them, died in the process but eventually Beowulf was able to drag the abomination to the Sahara desert and fought the thing with all his might for several days and when the dust cleared both only a burning waste land was left and nether were seen for the next twelve years. I grip my head a bit as the information flowed into my head, information I never knew.

I knew a bit about Deadnought but I ever really looked the thing up and the dead wars and Garricks were something I never cared for either. It felt like all that information was forced into my head no, it felt more like someone told m “you ok there Richard?”. I finally noticed Michael snapping his fingers in my face.

“Yeah just spacing out”

“You sure you seemed like you were thinking real hard?”

“I” Don’t tell him anything.

“I’m fine”

“Good now there's some more important matters we gotta talk about” He gave me a smile.

“That train you were on came from Steel drake city so and since your in the countryside so it's a pretty long way back but I will drive you back”

“The catch is?” Why would I ask if there was a catch? Because there's always one.

He chuckled a bit “well the catch is you’ll head into town with me grab some stuff and help with some stuff here at the farm I’m old and can’t do everything and plus you seem like you get work done quickly” every job I do is perfect, No its not I fuck up a lot.

“Sure”

“Good will be leaving in a half an hour and remember once you're done helping me I’ll take you home” I nod as Michael leaves and I just sit there wondering what's going on with my head, A lot.

I sat in the back of a pretty nice snow white truck as I lean near the window watching as we move past endless green fields with. I wonder how fast that train was going to get out of the city and here so quickly? Actually, how fast was I going to catch up with it without that much trouble?, heh maybe I am a speedster, Still much slower. Some old rock music was playing as Michael tapped his finger on the steering wheel with the beat of the song even mumbling along with the music.

“So Richard got any hobbies?”.

“Not really unless you count running a lot”.

“Well usually hobbies are related to things you're good at so what are you good at?”.

It took me a minute of thought and I realized “besides things related to being a hero or my powers nothing really”.

“Well you're definitely good at things besides being a hero you just gonna find it and when you do you most likely have found your passion” he wasn't qigong never really tried to find my talents maybe I should start looking for it.

After a couple minutes I start to see a small town in the distance. It wasn’t a big town, kinda small, it seemed like a place where everyone knew each other. As we drove into the town I could spot a couple stores, a police station and even an orphanage and obviously a bunch of homes. I could see and hear people going about their day but it wasn’t overwhelming like the city. It was actually more relaxing here.

Eventually we stopped in front of a grocery store with a cow statue on top of the building. Me and Michael get out of the car as we start walking towards the store. “Just follow me around and help me look for stuff and hold things when we find said stuff” before I could ask what to look out for he handed me a list. Eggs, milk, wheat bread, two gallons of chocolate milk, some apples specifically the green ones soup and some beef.

As soon as I walk into the store I’m hit with a rush of cool air as the store is pretty nice seemingly well taken care of as Michael immediately starts walking. He walked through the store pretty quickly, walking aisle to aisle as he grabbed everything on the list, not giving me a second to look for anything and proceeded to make me hold everything.

We walked to check everything out as I was able to hold everything and had to hold two gallons of chocolate milk with two fingers. I noticed something everyone we walked by in the store said hi or at least waved at Michael. “Your popular” he side eyed me as he smirked “comes with the territory of being in this town for a while”. When we got to the check out section the woman working it looked up from her phone and stared at Michael and smiled “Hey Michael who’s Mr tall and pale with ya?” The girl had pasty white skin with dark black hair with streaks of cherry red running through. She also had a couple piercings, some on her left eyebrow and a couple more on the sides and below her lips. She also had a set of silver looking tattoos running up her arms that kinda had a runic design. Her most striking feature was her pitch black eyes with silver pupils.

“He's just some kid that I’m having to help me with some stuff before I drive him back to the city” Michael took the groceries out of my arms and put them on the register.

“I don’t think you need help with grocery shopping?” She started scanning the different items before putting them in the register.

“Well I like company and plus I didn’t feel like carrying all those groceries” he laughed a bit as I looked at the girls name tag, Dawn.

“So you got a name Mr giant?” she looked up at me as I just realized something I was towering over the girl, I swear I was a bit taller then I was before.

“Richard”

“Nice to meet ya Richard I’m Dawn the local crazy teen” she gave me a grin showing off a row of sharp teeth as she scanned the jugs of chocolate milk and handed them to Michael who seemed very happy with Chocolate milk even started humming a song about it.

“Is there a reason you call yourself crazy?”

“I’m magic” she said with pure confidence and without a hint of humor in her tone.

“Really?”

“Yep” she scammed the last item and handed it to Michael.

“Ok if you're magic what can you do?” I’m not really on either side of if the magic is real debate, if I see it I’ll believe it.

“She says she can see people's souls and even their future she said she gave someone the winning lottery numbers” Michael mutters as he takes a quick swig of the chocolate milk gallons.

“I’m a real oracle if you want I can do a quick reading if you want?” If she could see the future it would be nice to know what bullshit I’m gonna deal with next but I’ve seen too many forms of media where knowing the future doesn’t end well.

“I’ll pass” Michael handed the bags to me

“Your loss” she shrugged as me and Michael walked away.

“Cya later dawn” Michael waved as we walked towards the exit.

“Unlikely, I'm heading to Nova central, got an amazing job opportunity” I don’t know much about Nova centra except that it’s a tech capital.

“Welp hope it goes well,” Michael said as we left the store.

Michael quickly drove us back to his house as he ran inside quickly and came out “time for the manual work” he said as I got out and we walked towards the barn. I had to tune my smell as I got to the barn as I could smell the animal shit. We walked inside as I could see cows, horses and pigs everywhere, classic. “Feed the horses and I got the pigs and cows. Be careful about eclipse; they don’t like new people and they like to kick” he pointed at the pitch black horse by itself at the end and then gestured to several bales of hay. This reminds me too much of my old friend.

I walk over to the bales of hay, grab one and toss it into one of the horse's stables. I repeat it a couple times until I get the last stable. Eclipse had its back to me as I went to toss the hay in but before I could toss the hay in it shot out a hoof and kicked me in the face. My head shot back a bit as the horse turned to look at me as it seemed shocked. I glared at the horse as it backed up and I tossed the hay in and walked over to Michael.

“Hey can you help me with milking the cows” I quickly checked to make sure they were all cows and not bulls “sure”. I gently walked over and kneeled next to him as he handed me a bucket as he was already milking one of the cows. I grabbed the bucket and put it under the cow as I let my instincts take over as I started milking the cow. About twenty minutes later we had several buckets worth of fresh milk.

Michael bought only chocolate milk from the store and only drank that I don’t know if that's healthy, I drank worse. We walked outside as after a couple minutes of walking we were now in a corn field. He handed me a basket and gestured at the corn as he gave me the you know what to do look. To make my life easier I ran through the field and started picking the corn as everything seemed to slow down around me. I filled the basket pretty quickly as I ran back and handed him the basket as he handed me a new one. I repeated the process several times as I wondered why I was slower in a fight?

Whenever I’m in a fight I slow down and match my opponents speed a couple times. Guess I subconsciously slow myself down for some reason, The reason is to make fights more fair and fun, that's a dumb reason. By the time I was done with that thought process the corn field was cleared, Michael was already putting the corn in a truck he drove over and was handing me a shovel as he was walking off again with his own shovel.

“Why do I need a shovel?” he turned to me as we got as he stayed silent as we got to an open field and I saw several dead horses mangled and shredded. “Some mutated wolf attacked the horses last night and nearly got me. If I don't get lucky enough to shoot it in the head now you're gonna help me bury them” I shrug as I walk over to an area with nose grass and start digging not long after Michael joined me. We shoveled snow for a bit as I was digging pretty quickly already getting a large pile of dirt. I did notice something, Michael was digging slower than me but seemed to be a bit tired even when it was pretty hot today and he was constantly digging.

I decided to ignore that as after about a half hour we dug a big enough grave as I hop out and help Michael out of the grave. I walked over to the horse corpse, lifted one up, walked over to the pit and gently lowered the corpse into the pit and walked back to repeat the process with the rest of the corpses.

The horse corpses laid neatly against each other as Michael immediately started shoveling the dirt onto the horses as I quickly started shoveling too. After we were done shoveling we went back to Michael's house and as soon as Michael got inside he walked over to the stove, grabbed a carton of eggs and started cooking.

“How do you like your eggs?”

“Scrambled,” I replied as I tapped my fingers against the table.

“I prefer sunny side up. My mom always made those every morning when I was younger, simple but good heh you describe my whole life with that phrase” he had two pans one with scramble eggs and the other with a singular simple sunny side up egg.

“In my opinion it's better to be simple because if you get too much going on you lose track of things and that leads to you making mistakes and mistakes lead to failure but if your simple you only have one or two things to keep track of and you understand them a lot better and that leads to less mistakes and that leads to success” he bugs the different eggs on two plates and hands the scrambled one to me.

“I’ll keep that in mind” I quickly eat the eggs on the plate not leaving even a single piece left as Michael takes his time with his single sunny side up egg.

“Oh yeah forgot to give this to you” Michael pulls out my phone and hands it to me as the screen as I peel off the shattered screen protector and toss it into the trash can.

I turn on my phone and it's at half battery as I see several text messages from Mary asking where I was and when I’m getting home. I texted, stayed the night with some friends and lost my phone while we were hanging out. I'll be home later today. She quickly texted back, you friends? Suuuuure tell me the truth when you get home. I closed my phone as I stored it in my inventory as I saw Michael walk outside. He walked over to his truck as he pulled out the keys and looked at me.

“Do you know how to drive?” not well Dad was teaching me but well he’s been gone for a bit but maybe my instinct power will help me.

“Yep” I half lied

Michael smirked as he tossed me the keys “you can have it”

“What?” I catch them and look at the keys.

“You can have the truck and don’t worry I got another one at the auto shop nearby just getting repairs” he gave me that big grin as he walked over to me.

“Why are you giving me this?” I don’t mind.

“Well you seem like a guy who moves around a lot and I think a truck will help that even if you can just run to places car rides are nice and it you can take any friends with you”

“Thanks really”

“No problem now, don't get into any trouble. Also if you wreck this car, I will beat your ass, understand?”

“Gotcha”

“Now it's been nice Richard I hope things go well with whatever is going on with you and remember if you ever need help I’ll still be at this farm” he pats me on the shoulder as he walks inside his house and I am left alone with the truck.

I got in the front seat and put the key in and turned the car on as it ignited with life as I grabbed the steering wheel and took a deep breath. I let my instincts take over as I backed out of the driveway and drove away from the farm house as I wondered If I’ll ever come back here. At first I kept constantly swerving and going off the road but after a couple minutes I Started getting a hang of it as I slowly corrected each mistake I made.

I was now speeding down the road with a grin plastered on my face as I had the radio on and music blast into my ears. I had the windows down as I could feel the wind rush past my face as after about forty fifty minutes I saw a good old steel drake city, almost home. I then start to hear a ring as I summon my phone into my phone as the caller is unknown and I decide to answer it.

“Hello?”

“Hey Richard!” I hear the familiar voice of Blake

“Hey wait, how do you know my number?”

“Oh Ryan took your phone when you weren’t looking” of course he did, Still proud.

“Well anyways why are you calling me”

“Well I just wanted to ask if you wanted to hang out with me and everyone else?” I sat there and thought about it. I enjoyed hanging out with them for that short amount of time after the robbery. They all just seemed human and I liked that.

“Sure I got nothing better to do” I could feel her smile

“Great!” she yells with a bit too much enthusiasms

“Oh uhm sorry didn't mean to yell”

“Its cool” she’s cute

“Well I’ll send you address if where we’re currently staging and I’ll cya when you get here”

“Cya Blake” the call ends as I drive towards the city getting closer and closer. I’m making friends that's new, but I’m fine with that but there is this itch at the back of my head. Whale Shark said that they were gonna take the deal and I don’t think he was talking out of his ass so that means will most likely get a call from him soon meaning will have to do another job for him. I need to find a way out of this situation because it won’t end well. I need to…………......……I Need to kill Whale shark.