“Wait, do you not work for Raymond?” Michael asked, furrowing his eyebrows.
“For with. His empire would pay much more than running errands for him when someone he’s too scared to face himself shows up.”
“So you want me to kill Raymond, then what, you step in and take over all his businesses?”
“You got it.” The man took another drag of his cigarette, blowing the smoke into the air and tapping away the ash.
“And you think Wonder Boy would work with you?”
“Oh god, no. I doubt he would be into that, but I don’t like that prick anyway, so it’s no skin off my back.”
“How do you–”
“Let me worry about that. Now are you in, or would you like me to splatter your brain across this alleyway?” He asked flicking the cigarette butt away and cracking his knuckles.
Michael checked his premonitions one last time before sighing. “I’m in.”
“Good choice. Now let’s go get you some more powers.”
The large man grabbed Michael by the arm, lifting him to his feet. He kept a firm grip on the limb as they exited the alleyway and stepped into a white SUV. Michael lost track of time as they drove for what felt like hours before they stopped at an old, rundown barn.
“Let’s go,” the large man said, pushing Michael out of the car.
They walked toward the building, and the two men who followed him into the alley pulled open the door, revealing a blindfolded and bloody man tied to a chair.
“Hey, there Frank, did you miss me?”
The tied-up man spat on the floor. “Fuck you Tom”
“Oh, don’t be like that. I came to give you one last chance,” Tom said, walking forward and pulling a handgun from under his coat. He racked the weapon right next to the ear of the tied-up man and pressed the cold steel of the barrel against his temple. “So what’s it gonna be?”
“Go fuck yo-”
Bang.
Michael winced at the noise.
Tom wiped the blood off his gun and walked toward Michael. “Alright, kid, do your thing.”
Michael nodded and walked to the corpse, the scent of burning and rotting flesh filling his nose. His eyebrows rose at the stench, and he wondered why it already smelled so terrible, but he unflinchingly pressed his hand to its neck, anyway. A vision entered Michael’s mind, showing that the man had a power very similar to Tom’s.
Michael turned to face Tom. “How did you kill someone with that strong of a regeneration power?”
“Trade secret,” he responded, putting his gun back into his jacket. “So I take it it worked?
Michael nodded, made a small cut in his arm with a metal cable, and watched as the wound knitted itself back together. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“Excellent. Now let’s go over the plan.”
“First, who was this guy, and why is his power so similar to yours?”
“A cousin of mine, but as you can see, he was not great at doing what he was told. Let that be a lesson for ya. Now the plan.” He motioned for Michael to follow him to a large table in the corner of the barn.
A large blueprint displaying Raymond’s bunker was rolled out on the table.
“How did you get this?” Michael asked.
Tom shrugged. “With the right bribes, you can do anything.” He pointed toward the ventilation system. “This will be your entry point.”
“So that’s why you wanted me to have regeneration?”
“Yep, we’re going to need to cut a few bits out for you to fit inside, but that won’t be a problem now.”
“Ok, so I get in there now, what? How do you expect me to get past all the security measures and kill Raymond on top of that?”
“As you are now, I don’t. Some mediocre kickboxing, even if you’re using superpowers to compensate, isn’t going to cut it against Raymond. For that, you’re going to need to spend a few months honing your technique.”
“How do you expect me to do that and keep up my appearance? I just started building a name for myself.”
“I don’t. From this day forward, Michael Graves and, by extension, Flux are dead or at least that’s what the world will think.”
“So what do you expect me to do when this ends?”
Tom shrugged. “I see two choices. Take a new name and become my Wonder Boy, or they find you in a ditch somewhere.”
Michael’s lip twitched, and he rechecked his premonitions, still upset that there was no opportunity to escape. “Fine,” he said, gritting his teeth.
“Good, let’s get your training started,” Tom said, grinning.
 
Several months passed, and Michael was introduced to a man who was trained in martial arts and assassination techniques. The man had never told Michael his name, but by the end of his sixth month of training. He had improved every aspect of his fighting style and optimized it to be as deadly as possible. His knuckles would grow bloodied and battered from training, and there wasn’t a day he did not almost collapse from exhaustion, but he had to keep pushing. He had also spent a long time training his powers during this time, and had manifested and convinced the spirits that once held his Flame jet power as well as the Green eagle, to entrust their goals to him.
Joel and the electricity user had also appeared during this time, but he could not convince either of them to move on. Joel because the spirit of the man was unwilling to share what he wanted and the electricity user just seemed to like trying to piss Michael off. Another thing about his power that he noticed was from the mental library. The more he had used the skill, the more human and alive the power’s owner had begun to look. The man could also finally string together coherent sentences, making it seem like his mental capabilities were rising as well.
He had also gained three new powers with his trainer and Tom forcing him to fight other unsuspecting captives to the death with the promise to free them if they won. Michael had barely been able to get over the first two, almost entirely refusing to use their powers for the first few months so that he did not see their faces again, but when his third test rolled around, he had finally grown numb to it.
It wasn’t even like the powers were extraordinarily useful. The first one gave him superstrength but to a lesser degree than the Green Eagle’s power, especially now that he had unlocked its full potential. The next one had given him a small cognitive boost, raising his reaction speed, memorization, and intuition, which had come in handy while studying and improving his combat style, but would not make much difference in a fight. The final power had been the most interesting. He had already leveled up his flame jet power at this point, allowing him to open a vent on any part of his body, and this man had a similar power that allowed him to surround his arms in flame.
To Michael’s surprise, when he killed the man, he did not gain his power; instead, his flame vent power gained the ability to surround his arms, and he gained far greater control of the intensity of the fire. He was still unsure why this had happened, but wouldn’t complain about it. Several more months of training passed after that event, finally bringing him to today, a full year after he had come to this place for training and his final test. He simply nodded when Tom gave it to him. He knew it was not going to be easy, but at this point, he did not care. All he could think about was what he would do with the man’s power once he got it. His hands were steady as he entered the training room that morning, and he prepared to begin the test. To kill his instructor.