As quick as the figure came, they swiftly dived deeper into the alley, disappearing into the shadows. Braun quickly calmed himself down, followed from behind, and made sure to not be noticed by his prey.
A few minutes later, Braun hopped onto the rooftop of a building and looked at a distant house, with white walls and a blue-tiled roof. A window on the second floor appeared to be open, and as the hooded figure stood right beneath the opened window, threads began to extend out of his arms, latching onto the edge of the window, pulling himself up with a tug.
“Silvery threads manipulation and possibly creation as well.” Braun analyzed. He squatted on the ground, opened his sling bag, and took out a small solar-powered camera that he had evolved through constant augmentation the past week among other things.
Attaching it to the edge of the rooftop and turning it on, another camera feed appeared in his left eye’s view, displaying the blue-roofed house.
The hooded figure, upon entering the room belonging to the opened window, took off his hoodie, revealing his upper body covered in a thin layer of silver threads. Then, starting from the tips of his fingers, the threads unraveled themselves, unwrapping his body to allow air to breathe into his bare skin.
Braun’s vision zoomed in, examining the figure’s face.
Unexpectedly, unlike his initial assumption of the figure being a grown man, they were actually a guy near their late adolescence, around 17 to 18 years of age. They had fluffy dirty blond hair and dark green eyes, an upper body with developed muscles with proportions similar to a martial artist.
The adolescent teenager collapsed to their bed, partially naked, and seemed to slowly doze off into sleep after the intense fight a few minutes prior. Slowly, all activities ceased, leaving Braun nothing to observe.
This moment of no activity was helpful though, as it gave him ample time to process the information he just gathered.
Most importantly, he finally found the super he was looking for out in the wild, but this unexpected find gave rise to a lot of questions that slowly filled his mind.
First, why hasn’t he been apprehended yet? In his previous experiences, while he may have only personally seen a total of five different supernatural events in the past two weeks, the number of times his memories were erased wasn’t just limited to that.
In total, his memories were erased a total of eight times, a majority of which occurred in the second week, which signified an increase in supernatural activities happening in the city.
This meant that the secret organization should be capable of tracking any hints of supernatural activity at a moment’s notice ranging from a few seconds to a few minutes after it happened, and he speculated that it was related to the local satellite orbiting the city.
Because of this, he assumed that his chances of finding a rogue super out in the wild would be slim since the moment they activated their powers, they’d be apprehended, but there seemed to be a flaw in their tracking technology.
While it doesn’t matter for now, maybe soon enough, his target would be tracked by the organization and captured before he could do so. Understanding the mechanics of their tracking is not just important to keeping his prey safe from other predators, but to also hide himself from their tracking in the future when he too gains access to powers himself.
Secondly, why did he feel a sensation similar to zenithral power when he came into close contact with the boy, and why only now?
For the question regarding why now of all times did he sense it,
For the ‘why now’ question, Braun assumed it was because of his rapidly developing senses and deeper connection with the Zenithral Force that he was finally able to sense that minute sensation.
As for why there was a sensation akin to zenithral power in the first place, Braun also had a rough idea, albeit the idea does reach out quite a bit into the hypotheticals and theoretical.
Considering the Zenithral Force seems to operate on a scale even higher than the four fundamental forces of the universe, it must have some sort of influence over this universe’s rules or something similar. Maybe, since this power holds dominion over the concepts of growth, evolution, and transcendence, domains that superpowers directly represent, then perhaps superpowers function by utilizing zenithral power?
Braun found that idea of his to be close to the truth, and perhaps even spot on if he was being honest. While he could only touch the tip of the iceberg called Zenith, it doesn’t mean he couldn’t put two and two together to solve a simple mystery like this.
It was just a simple matter of correlation and educated guessing using the knowledge he already knew. Since Zenithral Force propagates the concept of evolution, and superpowers are like transcending one’s own status as a normal man, then it’s basically the same thing.
As for the deeper details regarding that question, that’s something he’ll just have to answer much later on when he has easy access to superpowers. For now, his top priority is still acquiring superpowers for himself.
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Besides, this mystery is nothing compared to the mystery of how I even obtained this power.
It’s simply too coincidental to my liking, and while I haven’t confirmed the existence of fate, I wouldn’t trust too many coincidences.
From the meteor to Christopher acquiring powers, and then myself next, to us becoming mortal enemies, it creates a scenario where I am forced to develop and grow stronger to take care of this looming threat that holds unquenchable bloodthirst.
If that didn’t happen, if I somehow just managed to acquire zenithral power and not the part where Christopher became the second-coming of God, then… Braun chuckled.
Then I would probably be having way more fun right now fooling around with my massive boost in talent. I wouldn’t even know superpowers are real until years later, and by that point, I would have probably become some super famous online influencer, greedy businessman, corrupt politician, or mad scientist trying to find a way to acquire eternal life through science.
However, I have been exposed to superpowers, given a threat that wouldn’t stop until I died so the world wouldn’t break its balance, and forced myself onto a path to godhood. I don’t even have a choice right now, it’s either do or die, and most ridiculous of all… I don’t even mind it!
This is basically the dream! To struggle, to face challenges, all in the hopes of acquiring great power capable of destroying galaxies under my thumb. Sooner or later, I would feel this desire even if Christopher didn’t exist. This desire was just forced to bloom many decades earlier than normal.
Braun took a deep breath, with a fire burning brightly in his heart. This short contemplation gave him deeper insights into his past and his character, before finally deciding to leave and observe the boy from a distance.
…
Time swiftly passed and two days went by in a flash. It was already Tuesday and Braun gained a lot of info about the adolescent crook-fighting hero wannabe.
His name was Theo Norris, a master of Karate and gold medalist in many national-level martial arts competitions. Moreover, he was a smart student at one of Nuwesca City’s prestigious universities, with high grades and a high class standing.
He was essentially a great guy overall with a lot of future prospects, but there remained one quirk about him that would leave one chuckling at its childishness—he was obsessed with superheroes and becoming a superhero just like those masked vigilantes in comics and shows.
While this remained a pipedream for any other normal person, he was somehow granted the great gift of superpowers and officially embarked on his path of becoming a superhero about a week prior based on the camera footage he had access to of the past.
During these two days, Braun had been observing Theo proactively and deduced a couple of things. His powers were quite weak compared to the other superpowered individuals he had come into contact with, and his threads weren’t that great.
Although the way he applied his powers was remarkable, on their own, they weren’t that super. Using this notion, Braun came to a certain idea on how the secret organization’s tracking works.
Whenever he activates his superpower, there would be a fluctuation of energy stemming mostly from the source of zenithral power I can sense within him, which might be what their trackers are sensing, or maybe it’s the energy fluctuation itself.
Using that burst of energy, at a high enough level, they would be able to accurately track the source of the energy and apprehend whatever rogue super is out there.
Because Theo’s ability wasn’t that strong, thereby producing a weak energy signal, he perhaps managed to luckily avoid the secret organization’s radar and continued his vigilante work, unnoticed and hidden from their prying eyes.
But that luck would eventually run out. I can see his abilities are growing stronger the more he trains and uses them, just like a muscle. It coincides greatly with Zenith’s nature of progression.
As this trend progresses and the more he uses his abilities, he will eventually net their focus, and get captured.
That’s not good, not good at all. Braun sighed and observed Theo in the distance putting on a dark gray hoodie and gray sweatpants, with threads unraveling from his fingertips to cover the rest of his upper body.
The more he goes out, the greater his chances of getting apprehended before Braun could do so, causing the prey he had fortunately found to be stolen by others from his grasp.
Braun wasn’t foolish enough to let that happen, and only by actively preventing that event from occurring could he take a significant step closer to acquiring the ever-mystical powers he longed to attain.
Cold winds blew, causing his clothes to flutter. He stood on top of a rooftop, wearing the same black-themed outfit as before, with an umbrella leaning on a wall beside him.
In the distance, Theo finished putting on his clothes and was preparing a couple of water bottles in his bag, as if he was about to embark on a journey in the dead of the night.
During the two days that passed, it seemed that superpowers were becoming more rampant as he had his memories wiped back to back, with him even encountering another rogue super wreaking havoc in the southwestern part of the city.
In that encounter, he met two new members from the organization, with one being a girl wielding a futuristic laser gun and being adept at martial arts, and the other being a man capable of conjuring blue-colored barriers.
Although the ability of the girl wasn’t revealed, her prowess in close quarters and marksmanship even impressed Braun, and he managed to gain a lot of valuable material to mimic in his later practice.
However, besides that, the back-to-back memory erasure made him deeply aware of how easy it is for his prey to be stolen.
Drastic times truly called for drastic measures.
Or more so I was being stupid and should have done this in the first place. Sometimes, being overly cautious and doing too much research would just slow down my progress. What was even stopping me from doing this two days ago anyway?
Braun pulled out a strange black-colored sphere from his sling bag around the size of a ping pong ball, with a strange texture that left powder on his fingers. Gazing off into the distance and locking his eyes on Theo, he grinned and pulled back his hand, mimicking the stance of professional baseball players when they’re about to throw a pitch.
Fwoosh!
The black sphere flew forward, flying through the open window and ramming straight into Theo’s face. Unable to dodge nor even respond, the black sphere dispersed into a burst of black smoke that encapsulated his whole room.
He coughed heavily as he inhaled the black smoke by instinct, which immediately made his body freeze. An intense feeling of drowsiness overwhelmed him, causing his body to lose its strength, with his limbs turning limp.
With no way to resist, he leaned back on the wall, eyes closed, and breathing rhythmically.
Fuck, I really should have just knocked him out back then. Who cares about his background, all I need to know is that he has superpowers and that he’ll be my lab rat!