Running around at the speed of sound (Humanity)

Alex reclined within the chair, giving only a minimal amount of attention to the grilling that was taking place. His mother seemed more interested in finding out about things than his dad, who was enraptured in what looked to be some kind of thick hardback novel. ”Are you even listening to me?” She snapped, drawing him from his thoughts of fishmen, soft glowing blue eyes focusing upon her more intently.

”Yeah, something about me being irresponsible right?” He asked, which only really appeared to annoy her more than anything else.

”That doesn’t even cover half of what I was saying.”

”Probably has something on his mind, or maybe someone.” His father mentioned with a tone that suggested something. He didn’t turn from his book, though Alex had an idea of what they were suggesting. It sounded just like something that his dad would think of, which beat any accusations of heroics.

”Someone? You know i’m not suave enough.” He mentioned, remembering that he was supposed to meet up with one of the squad to do some kind of training, or maybe they were worded as tests. Honestly anything that got him out of this situation was a good enough excuse for him.

”Some girls go for the whole cute and clueless types.” Okay, now he was just jabbing at the idea to annoy him.

”Well if that is the case, he would have at least told us by now, or I would have heard something.”

”Wow, my wife sounds like a stalker now.” He chuckled, letting the book clap shut, shaking his head as he set the novel down. ”Come on Diane, i’m sure you don’t need to grill him for being late once.” Dad to the rescue as always.

”It’s not that I don’t trust him, I just don’t trust other people.”

”Well if we’re done here, I have to do some important school things with a friend.” He stood up, picking his backpack up and slinging the thing over his shoulder. It was a little weighty, but nothing that he couldn’t lift. ”Promise I won’t be late or anything like that. Don’t want my mom killing me before I even turn eighteen.” He added with a smirk, stepping out the door.

”You better.” Was all she said.

They knew he used his powers for more recreational purposes, though it was mostly frowned upon for obvious reasons.

Still, he decided to give the illusion that he cared about that kind of thing and took his little rough truck a few blocks before actually just running. There was supposed to be somewhere that he was supposed to be, so that was where he would run. Things were just cutting too close, and something told him he would get found out eventually. When that happened however, that was the key to how he would handle it then. That being if he had to even worry about it. Minutes passed, as he ran through the city, cutting through some of the smaller alleyways to avoid taking the main streets and eventually finding where he was supposed to be, quickly changing into his own suit before actually approaching it.

It wasn't a good morning for Matthew to say the least. His life had been thrown through so many spirals as of late that he had no clue which path he should travel any longer. But these were problems of another day; not for today. No today was a day dedicated to Bolt, as were many of his days prior; and days to come, unfortunately. Molding Bolt into a hero was a true chore to say the least, it required tests; alibi's and more patience than he had at times. But his hard work was beginning to bear fruit. Actual, tangible fruit. Bolt's speed was increasing. From the sub0mach levels he had seen at Argenas Corps, all the way to being able to create after images, a feat of speed that was no small skill. Mentally or physically!

   The one problem Matt had with Bolt, however, was his overall stamina. His stamina seemed to be infinite, to the degree that it actually didn't actually have a reliable scale. There were times when he went faster, harder and stronger than ever before. Then there were times when his stamina failed like an overused innuendo that could have been relevant to the previous sentence. Walking out of the coffee shop with his strange concoction in hand, Matthew made his way to his car, and with the music on he drove outside of Chicago, to the outskirts where there had been the same lab he worked from during the Atlantis operation. Opening the car door he stepped out and walked over towards the entrance. With a knock on the ballistic-proof glass, the camera moved to identify Matthew's face so Cypher could release the lock.

  Of course when he entered the laboratory area he found Cypher sitting there, their back turned to him as they continued to type away at their keyboard, running algorithms and other useful tools to help them with the days' tests.

  "Good morning Mr.May." Cypher said as they continued to work, not bothering to turn the chair around. Matthew lowered his coffee container from his mouth and let out a long exhale.

  "aaaaahh- Good morning, Cypher." He said before there was a burst of wind, and suddenly Bolt was standing within the large empty area with a desk and computers overlooking the area ahead, Matthew and a chair with it's back turned to him; and from beyond there was a small flight of stairs that descended into a rather large laboratory station, divided into three rooms and some open areas with observational equipment.

  "Good morning Bolt."

There he was, standing amidst both Cypher and proxy going about their daily lives. It didn’t take him as long to get here as usual, something that could be chalked up to his continually increasing speed. One had what looked to be some kind of coffee beverage, something that usually helped the whole not feeling tired thing. He offered a quick smile to both of them, regardless of who actually noticed it. ”Mornin.” He responded with a small wave, giving the lab the usual look over. Something about working with an actual lab was something that always managed to blow him away, no matter how many times he saw it, despite how empty it looked at times.

If it wasn’t for their help, something told him that the Atlantis operation would have not gone as well as it did. ”So, what kinda things we doing today?” He asked, resting hands on his hips as he began to walk about the room with eyes mostly scanning over the observational equipment. They obviously had some kind of use to them, though what that was occupied his mind for the few seconds that he was looking over them, before turning his attention back to Matt and Cypher.

”Because I’m ready, unless it’s something really weird and invasive I guess.” He added in, regardless of how pertinent it was to the situation in question.

"Oh, Hi. Uhm. I'm Cypher. Or I guess rather that's how you know me." Cypher said as they were turned around in their chair by Matthew, revealing their true identity. Cypher, behind the complex voice modulator and the techno jargon there was really a rather interesting face behind the computer. A sheepish smile and a little wave was all that was offered up. Matt let out a little cough, which in turn causes Cypher to recognize they never finished their thought. "My name is Kris. Kris Kelly. It's nice to finally meet you. See you. Overall....talk to you." She said, trying to be specific, but then believed herself to be a little weird. The part about all around talking to him caused her to mover her arms in little circles as she smiled awkwardly and pulled her hair back behind her ear.

"Well, now that I've successfully made things more awkward, perhaps we can start." Matt said, seeming satisfied as he left a little chuckle and continued down the small flight of stairs.

"Right. We think it might be a good idea to re-run the baseline tests that Proxy took when it was just you two. For some reason he thinks that you've gotten even faster. If that's the case we need to know just what we're working with." Chris said as they began their explanation of their qualifications. She was going onto talk about her graduate program and the workings of a thesis she had developed in people with particular superpowers. Powers particularly relating to gravity.

"Chris is just being humble. She's one of the tortured genius type; graduated high school years before us and is already finished college. Now she's focusing on the interaction of metagenes and physics. Her specialty is gravity." Matthew explained, simplifying the scientific ramblings and highly advanced terms he'd likely not understand. Matthew then walked over to what appeared to be a small, circular device for Bolt to hold. Chris agreed with Matt, almost shocked that he'd go out of his way to compliment her.

"Right, well...this lab has an air-field just a little ways away. You'll run on the track, and we're going to be able to monitor your speed through this kinetic energy sensor. It's going to help us track and understand the expressive energies." Chris said as she picked up her stuff and began to follow after them. If all was well, they'd walk together for a couple hundred yards and talk about the procedures. Then, they'd run their tests.

"Alright Bolt. Run. Run as fast as you can. Hold nothing back." Matthew instructed as his eyes fixated on Cypher's laptop.

Alex offered Cypher a small wave as they turned around to look in his direction, offering him a name that was more than just Cypher. It was nice to have something that he could refer to a person by other than a codename, since that just felt really  cold and distant. ”Nice to meetcha too.” He responded, not even really bothered by her obvious lack of social graces. Not like he could really judge her, considering he wasn’t exactly known for being the social butterfly other people were. Most people just felt like they talked too slow, walked to slow and overall were just to slow for him.

Zell chimed in before anything could become sufficiently more awkward, as they would walk down the stairs with him in tow. They had something in mind, tests that had something to do with his own powers. So he would follow along to find out what that something was, despite how his imagination managed to wander as far as that was concerned. Maybe there would be something interesting they could find out about his abilities that he did not know himself. Maybe they could even help him increase his speed, which sounded like an awesome thing.

Imagines of him running even faster than before flashed through his mind, the implications of such speed not even registering. ”He thinks i’ve gotten faster? Well, I guess that could happen.” From what he knew, his dad wasn’t always able to move as fast as he could, though that small detail had been left out. There was an explanation thrown in there about Kris being some kind of tortured genius type, something that made some sense considering they were part of the brains behind his speedy operation.

Alex wondered how they would actually test his speed, though something about being a specialist on gravity did catch his attention.

So, brains and beauty, sounded like they had everything.

Time passed as they walked, Alex being sure that he sounded interested within everything that he was told by the two. ”Wow, you two have everything covered don’t ya? Where did you guys get all this stuff anyway?” He asked, as the thought did cross his mind. Not like normal people could just get their hands on equipment as techy as this, regardless of how high tech the world was becoming. However, his attention was drawn to what looked to be some kind of track, something that people sorta walked around to exercise, though apparently he was supposed to run on this. Not like it would be really difficult, considering that running was his strong suit.

”Aight, I can do that.” He said with a small nod, stepping up to what he perceived to be a starting position and sized up the lines that lead around the track. Once he was given the go ahead, Alex would take off as fast as he could start, easily shattering the sound barrier and releasing a resounding boom. He would continue this trend of acceleration until he was at his maximum and just held that as long as he needed to.

Matthew would ignore the question regarding where they had gotten such equipment. There were several reasons he didn't want to discuss it; though he managed to play it off well as if he hadn't simply heard Alex to begin with. The good part about pretending to be a smart guy was the tendencies to pretend to get lost in thought. It was a great way to ignore people; without being categorized as rude. The tests, however, truly did capture his eyes and commanded his attention.

Alex began to run, and run, and run. The entirety of his speed laid out as the numbers began to climb on his laptop. The entirety of his speed; the culmination of his very being was being laid out on the trail there as he sped past. The wind whipped and ripped, the friction tearing at his armor with little avail. Cypher was slack jawed as she watched Bolt's sheer force tear through the EM readers, causing quite a deal of interference to them. Matthew's hands lifted from his laptop, the light beneath the keys beginning to fade in and out as Bolt ran. he ran the fastest he had ever run before.

The counter registered Bolt's maximum speed and displayed it on the screen; Chris looking in disbelief as she looked down at the screen. Matthew, on the other hand, had an arched eyebrow and a simple hum of curiosity as Bolt stopped, likely short of breath. To this neither Chris, nor Matthew noticed, but finally Chris said something and broke the awkward silence the duo had as they observed the information processing on the laptop.

"You clocked in at 1372 meters per second! Do you have any idea what this means!?" She laughed as she crossed her arms and shook her head, her smile only getting wider as she walked to the other side of her comrade and began writing down notes. "I have to take this down. This is history. How could this happen? Today of all days! So excited!" she laughed to herself as she worked.

"It means you've gone over 3069.08 miles per hour. Which means you're 767.27 miles per hour faster than you were last week, which is 33% faster than before...It also means you've reached Mach 4 speeds." He said with a small smile and a nod before beginning to type more information down, subtracting variables and continuing to remove artifact information.

The test itself was brief, or rather it felt that way to Alex as he ran around until he didn’t need to anymore. Just giving a small amount of thought to it, he could tell that he was going even faster than he normally did and the idea alone was just awesome. That was why he was going through these kind of tests in the first place, because his speed was steadily growing into something greater. Maybe he would get some kind of answer that would help understand his own powers even more than he did now.

When he did stop, it actually took a large amount of effort to come down from the level of speed he was going at. A small amount of strain was put on him as far as stamina was concerned, though he managed to get over it with a few deep breaths.

With that done he returned to his friends, making note of one of them having what appeared to be a look of sheer shock. Someone was impressed with how fast he could move, and that only really fed the small fires of his self confidence as they would go about with their talk. Speeds in meters per second were given, though that didn’t mean anything to him. It sounded pretty fast, but the real scale of that speed was something that went over his head for the most part. Regardless, that was enough of a reason for Cypher to be excited, so maybe he should be excited along with her.

Luckily he could trust Humanity to chime  in with a number that felt more familiar to him. A large spike in running speed like that was something he did not expect, but then again superpowers sorta worked that way. Yet something told him that there was something more to this than just the fact he could run a little faster than before. ”So I can run faster, but something tells me there some kinda sciency explanation behind that.” He noted, pulling back his mask to let his face breathe a little.

"Indeed it does. You see when you run it-" Humanity began but quite quickly it was interrupted by a flashing red light and an alert coming over the intercom system. Humanity jumped a little before looking around, worried a little about what was the threat that they faced this time. Of course, he himself was convinced that he was in no real danger. Making his way over to the table he watched all the monitors for a moment before sighing.

  "...Alex..." He said before he swallowed audibly and cut to the satellite picture that showed his house on fire.  "It's Humanity. He's targeting you and your parents!" He said as he began to type information into his laptop, immediately pulling out all the stops to try and assist his friend.

  "Humanity!? How? Why?" Kris was beginning to Panic.

 "We don't have time. ALEX! GO!"

What sounded to be an explanation was quickly cut off by something else. Red lights flashed and sirens sounded, suggesting that something was going on, and something pretty bad from the sounds of it. As soon as he heard this, Alex was prepared to do something about it and yet he didn’t expect the thing that would come out of Humanity’s mouth. Humanity sounded like a name that he should be able to recognize and yet it took him a few seconds to even draw any info about them.

What did this terrorist have against him of all people? It didn’t make any real sense, but then again he did not have time to think this whole thing through. If they were targeting his parents, that either meant they had something against him or his parents, though the second seemed all the more likely. They had been heroes before, which meant pissing off a fair amount of people with dubious intents, though right now all he had to do was make sure they were okay, despite how capable they were. If he knew anything, this Humanity guy was no joke as far as the news said anyway.

Without really saying anything, he quickly put his mask back on and was off. There was no time to waste, so he went as fast as he could regardless of what that meant as far as the whole environmental destruction aspect of things. Things blurred past him as his thoughts began to blur along with it, only one thing really keep his attention. The address of his home was already within mind, as he ducked and weaved around anything that stood within his way and then he was there.

There was his home in flames, smoke pouring up and outwards as it was consumed by the blaze. Shit, now people go and burn my house down. I live here. First was finding who was around, if there was anyone around. Normally his dad would do something to stop some kind of massive fire, but the thing was still blazing. Alex darted into the building, quickly scanning around while avoiding inhaling any smoke. The person he came upon was his father unconscious within the living room, though his mother was not present within the burning wreckage.

He looked a little banged up, smoke tinged but otherwise he was alive. Now it was time to see if he could do the same thing hs father could, despite how much skill it actually took. This came down to rotating his arms, forcing them to do so until the vacuum, drawing in the flames from the house as he tried to keep focus upon it’s construction. It stung, forcing his arms to rotate into such a repetitive motion, but eventually the flames themselves were snuffed out. It didn’t save the house itself, a few more beams falling down but it did keep anymore of it from being burnt down.

”Alright guys, I put out the fire.  I….can’t find my mom.” He sighed, grinding his teeth and  looking down to his father. ”So this….Humanity guy probably has her, so i’m goin after him.”

"WAIT!" But before he could successfully stop Alex he had already taken off, and at this rate there was no disuading him. Matt's heart sank to the pit of his stomach as he slouched back, looking at the mintor in defeat as he closed his eyes and let out the longest, most drawn out sigh he could muster. Kris, or rather, Cypher had taken time from her computer to look him over. He brought his hands up and pulled off his beanie, running his hands through his dark hair before standing up and walking towards the door.

"B-but, Alex needs our help! where are you going?" She asked as he passed, though he simply looked to her with a stoic face and passed her with nothing more than the statement:

"To make a call..." as he stormed out, Cypher standing up and watching him leave, before meekly sitting back down and worrying for her narrow-sighted speedster and quickly pulling up any information on Humanity she could get, including all the devices he had been seen using on national television... There was not a lot....

---------


Bolt could run around at the speed of sound all he wanted, but without any direction he'd never manage to find the elusive man-made killing machine that masqueraded himself as a part of humanity. Bolt would eventually find himself helpless and without any context or help if he didn't manage to pick up any clues quickly. Thankfully for him, Cypher forever had his back and quickly popped in through the earpiece.

"Bolt. It's Cypher. He covers his tracks well. Too well for me to tell where he is unfortunately. But that's not all....Bolt I- I think that he wants you to find him. Because you left your phone here...and your mom just sent you a text message. The signal can't be traced perfectly but it's somewhere across the city. It says "I'll meet you at dinner. Your favorite." with a squiggly line and then an H after it... Alex...It's probably a trap. " Of course it was a trap. A very, very obvious trap with bait and everything. There was nothing about this that didn't look, sound or smell like a trap. But the question was what exactly would Alex do?

"Proxy here. Bolt I got some friends in the area. Particularly gifted friends. Just tell us your favorite restaurant and they/ll meet you there." He said, though he was quite distant from Cypher he could have sword he heard her give a sigh of relief. This was an incredibly bad idea, and nobody could believe it was happening. But it was...

Alex was on his way to have dinner with the devil...

Alex knew he didn’t have a plan, or even the slightest idea of where he was going. There was only running and running until he found something, or until he found nothing at all, despite how long he had to actually run. Thought didn’t play much of a part within this constant motion, only the desire to save someone he cared about. Even when his muscles began to ache, and his legs cried out that he should stop for a little, running was the only thing that he would be doing. Despite the lack of things that he could have done to stop this, something within him could not help but feel as if this were his fault.

Eventually he would have to stop this manic running,  out of breath he as rested underneath a tree, though where he did not know. A couple beads of sweat worked their way down his forehead, wiped away nearly as quickly as he felt their cool touch.

I could run as fast as I want and I can’t find a damn thing. He thought to himself, slamming a fist against the coarse bark of the massive tree. It shook from the force, a few leaves fluttering to the ground. Everything felt as if it were going wrong all in one moment, when he heard someone chime in on his little communicator. It sounded like Cypher and hopefully with some kind of good information.

Of course it wasn’t anything good, as they said something about not even being able to find them. Well that was as helpful as….well burning his house down, though that had already happened. Then came something about a message, saying they would meet him as his favorite restaurant likely. Now whoever this Humanity person was, they were messing with him as if this were all one big game. They had been watching him for a while, it was made even more obvious now but the question was what they had against him.

Alex hadn’t taken down too many criminals, and suddenly he was dealing with some asshole named Humanity. ”If it’s a trap, its a pretty damn obvious one, but I feel like I don’t really have a choice.” He said, standing up from his sitting position, jaw growing rigid as he tried to keep control of himself. Well, if they were going to meet up with certain doom,  or lose his mother, well there was only one option that made any sense to him. All he had to do was go to wherever he normally liked to go, and then he would...probably die. Honestly Alex wasn’t expecting this to go very well, so he had to prepare for whatever this guy as doing.

If there were friends of Proxy’s there, then maybe he wouldn’t be so outmatched or maybe that wouldn’t matter.

Their Venue was some Mediterranean food place that his dad had gotten him into, though all that mattered was the name. So he would give that to his two more tech savvy friends, who would send the supposed reinforcement there. Before even going there, Alex would bother changing into civilian clothing If only to avoid drawing anymore attention to himself than he needed to. Despite going to his favorite place, well he felt more like he should be dressed for a funeral, regardless of the actual context.

It only took him a few minutes to find the place, seemingly suffering a lull in the usual business. There were a few people in there, though no one in particular caught his interest. There was someone that looked around his age, though shorter and paler too, with this shaggy brown hair, just sitting there and picking at what looked to be some kind of meat dish.

This was going to be a long day.

It wasn't something that he looked forward to, but Proxy continued to monitor things over the comm system they had set up. He continued to be the eyes and ears for Bolt and Ryan, though the two hadn't introduced themselves to each other yet. Humanity was still nowhere to be seen on the scene yet, of course that could change, or it could be nothing more than a distraction. The problems were endless it would seem, especially with Bolt's mother on the line. It wouldn't take too much for them to slip up and mommy dearest end up dead.

    "Ok. Bolt I've got a lock on Humanity! He's there." Cypher said through their modulator as they located him on the cameras.

 "Backup is in position too, don't worry Bolt. We have your back." He said before his microphone cut out a little. A text message would chime on Ryan's phone and further inspection would reveal the contents of the message were instructions for Ryan from his previous temporary-teacher.
 
  A fight's about to break out. Bolt is the speedster. It'll be nice fighting WITH one for a change, won't it?   But seriously Ryan, be careful. You don't know what this guy has up his sleeve. Just.... keep yourself safe. G.L.H.F

    With the message relayed to Ryan Cypher pointed out Humanity's location, showing him at a rather large table in the back, a curved booth where he sat in the perfect center, all on his own with nothing but a glass of water and a few magazines with tabloids and information regarding heroic figures and other metahumans prominent in the world today. One such tabloid seemed to have a cover of a silhouette with a question mark in it, the bottom dot of the question mark also seeming to be the head of one of those "Male restroom" signs.  The headline said "Humanity Unveiled", their buy-bait way of trying to get the readers to buy into their self-righteous rhetoric.

  "Be careful Bolt, he has your mother. Don't do anything too brash... no matter how much he seems to be blowing you off." Matt said before a strange silence seemed to fill the comms.

 "Aaand we're back..." Cypher said, clearing their throat and trying to play the odd silence off as a breakdown in communicators. The noise of silverware clicking and clanking onto plates offered a soft beat to the rhythmic murmur of the dining civilians that took notice of Bolt, though Humanity himself didn't seem to notice anything. Many of them didn't actually. it wasn't until Bolt started moving that anyone noticed anything. Subtle little bugger the bolt was.

 "So, where are the reinforcements located?"
 "Don't worry about them. They're in position." Matthew cut her off quickly, causing Cypher to look oddly at the screen.

  "Well please, tell us. Bolt should go talk to them and get acquainted with-There's no time for that. Humanity is there and there's reinforcement there. If Humanity sees Bolt talking to anyone he'll count them as a potential ally and that will ruin any elements of surprise we have. So whatever you're doing, I suggest you do it now!

It was when he reached said place that Bolt realized that he had no idea who he was actually looking for. He looked around rather quickly, until his eyes fell upon someone that looked like they would match the look of Humanity. The person that had the gall to go about kidnapping mothers, granted that was sort of expected when he actually put some thought into it. A part of him had an idea what he wanted to do, but the reminder of him having his mother was enough to temper his anger. The warning was not to do anything brash, something that he found rather difficult considering what was at stake here.

Alex took a deep breath and did the only thing that he could, which meant actually having to talk to this psychopath. His heart felt like it would beat out of his chest, proving nearly painful as he approached the table and sat down. Keeping the electricity coursing through his body in check was difficult, though the only actual show of this was his eyes glowing brighter. Sitting down at the table with the person looking over the several papers, choosing to be as far away from them As he could.

His expression showed a certain amount of disdain towards this person, though he didn’t let this show by saying anything. Granted, likely they could easily read this from his face alone. He felt eyes on him, hopefully some of those eyes were actually some of those allies that were supposed to be helping him. Who these people were and what they could do, well that was something that he would hopefully find out soon enough.

”Well here I am. Heard there was dinner, but all I see are terrible tabloids.”

Alex had decided to walk up and start a conventional conversation. Well he get's a +10 to his "Ballsiness" stat but one would have to question if he just critically failed his intelligence roll. Though it seemed to work out alright for that particular second, as Humanity didn't seem to do anything to him, as of yet anyway. When Alex had reached the table and opened his mouth about the tabloids, Humanity just hummed for a moment before setting the papers down and folding them closed.

"Terrible tabloids. Terrible hero and an even more terrible man." Humanity said simply as he motioned to the booth, as if showing Alex to sit. "Your mother will be fine. She's already awake in an alley somewhere wandering her way back home.... Make her vanish for a little bit and her child comes running." Humanity said, completely honest and without any indication of deceit. If the truth was told, which it was, then Bolt really had no reason to stay here any longer, he was free to go. But then what was the point of all this? Why would Humanity go through all of this?

Humanity's eyes seemed to be frosted over as a type of glassy white, his cloak and chains wrapped around snugly, his dagger and knife nowhere to be seen. Bolt was sitting right here, right now with what appeared to be a dangerous vigilante, who was unarmed and completely powerless. All of this added onto the fact he had kidnapped Alex's mother, and burned his house down it offered quite an interesting perspective...or more or less an interesting situation for the young hero. It would be interesting to see how it all played out.

The villain would close the paper, not really giving him much notice beyond saying something about terrible tattoos. They had motioned for him to sit, though he was the type to take the initiative to actually sit down, though the anger was likely something that was driving him right now. Next came something about his mother being alright, something about likely already wandering back to his home. That was when he was reminded again, that his home was reduced to nothing more than a smoldering wreck. ”So you burn my home down, kidnap my mother and just...let her go?” There was a barely contained anger within his voice, seething and threatening to burst forward.

He could feel a sensation zinging through his body, threatening to burst outwards and yet he kept control of himself enough. Their eyes were an odd frosty, glassy look, though his attention only wandered over that for a few seconds before he focused back on what he was thinking. ”Was this some kind of sick joke? Do you get your kicks from burning peoples houses down and kidnapping their mothers?” The lights in the restaurant rapidly flickered, a light bulb shattering with a pop. People appeared to react rather obviously to sudden power flickering, but his power itself wasn’t exactly the type to be contained right now.

”Give me one good reason I shouldn’t take you in now.”