It took Tom a long time to accept what had happened to him. The days of recovery seemed long and unnecessarily drawn out. As far as he could tell, he felt fine; no scars, wounds, broken bones or bad burns. In fact, he felt great. Ten times better than he ever did before. And yet, he couldn’t understand why.
Doctor Vex made countless visits to him, explain the process and the science behind it all. It tended to get complicated and far above his pay grade. The gist of it was, that his ancestral genetic code was responsible for absorbing the serums secret formula. It locked on to a specific marker within it and latched on to mutate the gene to… well… whatever he was now.
Outwardly, he looked no different than before; a bit more defined in muscle tone and some reflex actions, but nothing much in his complexion. He was still… Tom Hawkesby. Managing to look around the hospital more, Tom finally saw the devastation Doctor Vex was talking about. The westside of the base was levelled from some sort of explosion. There was burned out buildings, destroyed vehicles and like a line in the sand, a huge cement barrier with wired fencing went straight across it to stop anyone from getting anywhere near it.
The staff seemed uneasy about being around him, as if Tom had something contagious, but Doctor Vex tried to explain that his transformation had set off a number of worries. The first being the ultimate disaster he caused (not intentionally) from the merging of his cells to that of the experimental formula. The second was that he was now creating a minor field of radioactive waves that permeated off of his skin. They were low enough not to harm anyone, but scientists on the base felt that he was almost atomic.
“Atomic Hawk…” Tom said to himself looking out at the devastated area. “This has to be all a dream… or a nightmare.”
“How is our super patient today?” Major Leaf said grinning at him from the otherwise of the hallway. “You sir, are a threat to me, you know that? I mean, come on… Half the base? Geez, guy… don’t overstep my powers or nothing….”
“I didn’t know I did that…” Tom muttered. The last person he really wanted to talk to was this asshole. He tired to give him a personable wave off, turning to head back to his room, but Major Leaf flew over to him quickly and stood in his path. “Okay, look, I’m sorry about our first encounter all those months ago…”
“Month’s? It’s been month’s?”
“Oh, sorry… yeah,” Leaf pursed his lips. “Guess they forgot to tell you that, huh? Don’t sweat it, we all had to have that big long sleep to recover afterwards.”
“He did this to you too?” Tom asked.
“Each and every one of The Northern Crew has had it done.” The Major nodded. “We kinda had the same sort of thing happen. Sole survivors from the meds, killing everyone else or mutating them into fleshy balls of goo… I don’t really like to think about it that much.”
Tom wanted to hurl. This happened too many men, or maybe even women, who knows with crazed man like Doctor Vex. Which made Tom bring up that point nagging in his mind.
“How could the Canadian government let a man like Vex do this sort of thing?”
Major Leaf leaned against the wall and chuckled. “You really have ask that during a time of war? The Nazis are doing this crazy shit too… At least that’s what Doctor Vex said when they captured him in one of the buildings raided.” Suddenly, Tom raised his brows in shock, Major Leaf smirked with a slight grin. “Oh, yah, guy… He was one of theirs. But I guess he made a margin with the Canadian officials and not so much with the Brits. From what I’ve heard, super hearing you understand, they wanted saw potential in Doc Vex’s work.”
“That’s… treasonous…” Hawkesby gasped in horror.
Major Leaf paced around Tom casually as he continued the smug smirk. “Don’t get bent out of shape about it. You think the Americans haven’t started a project like this either? Every country is trying to jump on board with the ‘superhuman’ equation right now. The government only wants to enhance or military presence. Vex only cares about the science. He’s only too happy to put Adolf in his place for leaving him alone for the allies to find him. So, don’t get too judgemental there, ok?”
Tom didn’t know what to make of this information. It was horrifying to know every country, including theirs, was doing this sort of thing to their people. Creating monsters to stop monsters. Tom was reluctant to accept this, but with the war becoming so intense, he didn’t know how anyone could stop it from happening. Major Leaf placed a hand on his shoulder and showed his handsome toothy grin.
“I’ve come to make you an official member of our team. The Northern Crew welcomes you as a brother. Meet us for training in two hours…”
“Wait, I didn’t agree…” Tom said smacking his hand away.
“And I didn’t ask,” The Major said. His grin diminished and pointed at him. “You volunteered, remember? Who do you think approved you coming here?”
‘What? You didn’t even know who I was when I first got here….”
“Yeah, sorry…” Leaf chuckled. “I tend to forget sometimes. But, I’ve got you on file to help me remember. I thought the team could use a bit of native flare… ya know? What do you say? Meet us in two hours by the airfield?”
There was that racist side again. It took all of his strength not to deck him. He clenched his fist and was ready to do it––oh, how he wanted to do it, so much. The Major Leaf was a major dick, a superpowered one at that. Despite his burning need to teach him a lesson in humility and respect, he let go of the thought and replaced it with another. Maybe it would be better to see what they were all capable of––weaknesses, strengths, what powers any of them had (including the racist bastard Major). It might even be beneficial to see what even he himself could do. Rather than give the guy the satisfaction of any more racial slurs, Tom relaxed his intense stare at the man, and agreed to his meeting with them all, giving a slight nod in response.
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“Great!” Major Leaf beamed.
He gave him a hardy slap to the back and walked away whistling a tune unfamiliar to Tom. There was that supexstrenght again, but this time, Tom barely moved. It was like he absorbed the inertia from the slap; it was a strange sensation, indeed. Heading back to his room, Tom tried not to think of all those poor souls who died as a result of the experimental drug test. So many gone, yet he lived, all because he had better genetics. That’s what Doctor Vex had told him. But could he actually trust that scientific lunatic?
“Guess I’ll find out soon enough,” He sighed. “Atomic Hawk, guess that’s who I’ll be from now on…”
* * *
Soaring through the air at incredible speeds, Major Leaf shot past the other Northern Crew members as they tried to stop him diving in. The Black Horned Owl, swooped up with her feathery wings and shot laser beam eyes at the man gunning for her first. Leaf smacked into her head on and she impacted to the ground close to Petite Pierre. He cursed at her in French, and at Major Leaf as he narrowly missed the short man.
Another Northern Crew member tried to take on the Major, as Silver Baton threw her weapon straight at his head. The shot seemed to make contact with him and it was a blow that caused the hero to spin out and smack the ground. The slivery armour clad woman, looking more like a mythical modern day Valkyrie, laughed at his failure to stop the strike and proceeded to charge to his location swiftly.
Petite Pierre tried to cut her off, but was having trouble catching up to the ultra-fast woman. He used his own power to shrink down to the size of a fly, and bounded over faster than he could have in his regular form. The next bounce shot him immediately to her face, his fist straight out, and in one mega punch, the woman was lifted off her feet by it and spiralled out.
Pierre stood proudly on her armoured right breast plate and held up his fists in celebration. The joy was short lived as Stretcher Rex grabbed on to the micro-hero from the far side of the airfield and threw the tiny man over into one of the fuel trucks nearby. Screaming into the tanker, the tiny man went through it like a bullet, causing a spark and igniting the gas to explode. A fireball shot up and the airfield lit up as some of military soldiers flinched from the chaos.
Watching it all from the sidelines was Tom, The Atomic Hawk. The uniform given to him was less than idyllic. The tight fitting unitard was coloured brown and orange, not the best of color schemes, and it had a symbol of a hawk rising out of a flame. Doctor Vex had made the costume for him. Already knowing the name implication to put on it. Atomic Hawk felt like an idiot wearing this halloween garb. Even the band-like face mask with a lone feather sticking out at the back seemed a tad humiliating.
Major Leaf leapt out his crater and whistled loudly to all the Northern Crew. Each member stopped in mid-combat and followed him as he walked past. They obeyed, brushing themselves off and insulting one another as they boasted about their attacks. The team formed up and approached Atomic Hawk, looking unimpressed at the newest member.
“Ladies and gentleman…” Major Leaf announced in a strong voice. But then looked over at Petite Pierre and motioned at him mockingly. “Oh, and Pierre as well…”
The team laughed at it (Pierre did not) and the Major then motioned a hand at Tom. “I give you our proud new recruit, Atomic Guy…”
“Atomic Hawk…” Tom glared at him.
“Right-right… Sorry…” Major Leaf snickered to himself. “Atomic… Hawk, of course.”
The team looked at his costume and throughly mocked the design. They realized who created it and shook their heads. Most of them had theirs created by Doctor Vex, who fancied himself a scientist with a flare for clothing design, but they all described how horrible theirs looked at the beginning as well. That made Atomic Hawk feel slightly better, not much, but enough to feel less of a fool before them all.
“Where’s Red Phantom?” Atomic Hawk asked.
“Who knows…” The Dark Horned Owl groaned. “Red Phantom tends to do his own thing.”
“Yeah,” Major Leaf agreed. “Rarely a team player… But, when we are called for duty, he’s there and all in for the fight.
“So what did they give you?” Pierre grumbled while rubbing his stubbled goatee. “What is your power, mon ami?”
“I, uh… don’t really know.” Atomic Hawk shrugged. “I guess I blow stuff up.”
The members scoffed at that response, feeling he was holding back the truth, Major Leaf tried to quell their skepticisms, and vouched for Hawk’s lack of knowledge about it. He told Atomic Hawk to walk with him a few feet away and explained what it meant to have powers.
“We all have our gifts, you understand, but each one has something unique and special to bring to the team. They just want to know how or if you can control your powers. You need to show us everything you can do, so that we can help, as a team, right? To bring your full potential and not get any of us killed out there in battle. Heck, I nearly tore off fifty soldiers heads when I started to power fly about. Luckily it was only about thirty of them… but it could have been worst, right?”
“I don’t know where to begin…” Atomic shrugged.
“Well, uh…” Leaf looked about for an item nearby. He saw an old bucket off to the side and handed it to him. “A bit cliche… but, better than nothing. Kick the bucket…”
“Kick the bucket? Really?”
“Really… give it a shot and see.”
Oddly enough, Atomic Hawk could see no reason not to give it a try. He gave sigh, grabbed the item and prepared to punt it with his foot. A massive build up of energy started to form between the bucket and his foot swinging towards it; The atoms shifted bout, tossing and smacking into each other, as the kinetic energy surged forward while it forced them to explode in a violent manner.
The result was the bucket launching away like a missile, it was a fireball of atomic energy that streaked across the sky and then exploded once it touched down again in the far distance. A miniature mushroom cloud plumed as all on the base (including the superhero team) gawked at the destructive power displayed before them. Major Leaf hadn’t expected such power, but formed a large grin on his face as he realized he could use a guy like Atomic Hawk on his Northern Crew.
“And…” Major Leaf said, still looking outward. “That would be lesson number one. Don’t give it too much of a kick. See? Baby steps, my friend, baby steps….”
Atomic Hawk was too much in shock of the results himself. He couldn’t believe that just happened. Eyeing his foot with disbelief, he then slowly (and gently) placed it down, as not to cause any more damage. The team finally snapped out of their stupor and congratulated their new recruit for the example. It wasn’t their praise or opinions that mattered to him in that moment.
Looking at the other soldiers, the ones he knew and spent time with, had terrified and haunted faces while witnessing the fireball cloud beyond. They looked at Hawk as if he was an alien that just landed in front of them, the scared eyes glaring at him as if they didn’t know who he was anymore. It suddenly dawned on him that things had changed drastically. People wouldn’t look at him the same anymore. Having often been singled out most of his life for his native heritage, he would now have larger problem of being singled out as a freak with powers.
All he wanted to do is serve his country, to be proud member of his Prairie Cree community; Now, he wasn’t sure about anything anymore. Would any one accept him now? Would his own people? He would have to answer those questions later, for now, the world is at war. Time to be something he volunteered to become… a hero.