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Kiril Genome meditated in silence. Legs crossed, he floated several inches above the floor of the insulated room that he had crafted for this exact purpose. He found that the lack of external stimuli helped him concentrate on focusing and sharpening his psionic abilities. Perhaps a sensory deprivation chamber would be more efficient towards this goal, but those were a pain to keep in working order, and he didn't have time for that. Kiril was by himself in this abandoned, boarded-up hotel in the putrid slums of Metropia, and could only rely on himself. Through time and effort he had managed to create this haven for himself, but that didn't eliminate the fact that it was difficult to maintain on his own, or that he was quite lonely most of the time.
Kiril felt a rat scurrying through the halls outside of his meditation chamber. That was the one thing that he couldn't quite keep out with insulation, foreign minds. Decidedly curious, he mentally reached out to it, and felt its mind. Kiril could not yet pierce a creature's mind and dig through their thoughts and memories, only grope and grasp at their mind for surface emotions and desires. Not that the rat had much beyond that. He felt its gnawing mammalian hunger, and its constant rodent paranoia. There was food to be scavenged and eaten, and then more scurrying for food to be set about. Kiril telekinetically crushed its tiny body into a wad of blood and fur and tossed it down the dilapidated elevator shaft that he used to move between floors. He hated vermin, especially in his home.
Feeling decidedly peckish after that menial task, Kiril descended to the floor and his eyes fluttered open, illuminating the dark room with the silvery glow of his eyes. Kiril felt like a living mood ring sometimes. He had long charted out what the various colors of his aura meant, and silver was the color of primal instinct; fear, hunger, lust, or any other base emotion. He wandered out of the meditation chamber, emerging into the hall that encompassed most of the rooms that he had made livable. Rather than waste precious electricity on lighting, Kiril encrusted parts of the walls and ceiling with psionic crystals that filled the hall with an eerie light. The general effect made the hall seem more like the hive of some manner of alien creature than the home of a teenage vagrant. He decided against dipping into the significant stores of nonperishable food he had stashed away in favor of eating out. A boy could only eat out of a tin so many times a week. However, he also found that he was strapped for cash at that moment. As he stole just about anything he desired, Kiril rarely kept money on him. Though he couldn't exactly steal a hot meal from a diner, so he would need some pocket money to pay for lunch.
At first levitating up through the elevator shaft and then via a stairwell, Kiril arrived at the roof of his building. He didn't descend to the lower floors to exit as homeless people lived there with no knowledge of his nest on the higher floors, and he preferred that they continued to be ignorant of his presence. He floated from rooftop to rooftop in the scummy neighborhood, feeling the minds of passerby for intent. Soon enough, he found what he was searching for. He lowered himself down into the alleyway across the street from the man that Kiril had concluded to be a drug dealer. He brazenly approached the man, hands stuffed in his pockets and looking generally disinterested.
The man noticed him soon enough. "Hey kid, get lost. This is no place for you."
"How's business?" Kiril asked, sound bored.
"Wha- Look, kid, I'm not playing around. Scram."
"Fine, let's cut to the chase."
Kiril lifted his hand and waved it in the general direction of the dealer, and soon both his hand and the man were encompassed in a silvery aura. With a twitch of his hand, the man was lifted several feet into the air.
"Aah! Whoa! Shit! What's happening?" He yelled as he flailed his limbs in panic.
Kiril's expression continued to be that of almost stereotypical teenage disinterest as with another gesture the man was pinned against the brick wall of the alley behind him. Kiril maintained pressure only on his torso, leaving his limbs free, and only pressed him hard enough to be uncomfortable, not to crush him. Kiril was rather proud of the amount of control he had over his power after so much time spent practicing.
"You have money. Give it to me." Kiril demanded, his tone still flat and half-hearted.
"Jesus Christ! F-fine, here, take it!" The man frantically searched his jacket pocket and retrieved an envelope, which he then tossed at Kiril's feet.
Without releasing his grip on the man, Kiril picked up the envelope and found it to have approximately two hundred dollars in cash within. Satisfied, he release the man, who fell to the ground with a thump. Kiril pocketed the envelope and turned his back on the man as he wandered out of the alley just as casually as he had entered. Grunting, the man picked himself up off the ground and pulled out a gun from inside his jacket. However, before he could do so much as aim it at Kiril, a reddish aura surrounded his lower body and a tremendous pain shot through him as his legs buckled and he fell on his face yet again. The man felt nothing but ungodly pain in his unresponsive legs, as unbeknownst to him, Kiril had crushed the bones in his legs into dust.
"Speak a word of this to anyone," Kiril said, still facing away from the man; his usual monotone dripping with malice as he spoke. "I will know. And I'll find you. And I'll kill you. Slowly. Painfully."
Kiril walked away from the man who was loudly sobbing in pain and terror. Kiril didn't pay him any mind. He had a pocket full of cash and an empty stomach. The next order of business was to find a decent place to eat.
). "What on Earth?" He immediately ran inside. He rushed to his training room, and pushed a button on the wall. The wall opened, and stairs appeared. He ran up the stairs, with the wall closing behind him. At the top of the stairs, there was a hallway. This hallway had secret technology which enhanced the transformation from Huan Xi to Swift Jab. He then ran through the hallway. In just seconds, he arrived at the other side of the hall, as a different identity. He pressed another button, which opened another secret staircase upstairs. He ran up, and arrived on the shielded roof of his house. He jumped off the edge, gaining momentum from running. He jumped from rooftop to rooftop of his neighbors' houses. He arrived at the scene of the explosion in just seconds. Where were the firefighters? Huan guessed the lazy idiots would barely be finished putting on their equipment by that moment, and yet they were called like 7 minutes ago, tops. Why? This is Metropia. That's what you expect from a city that doesn't give back. "Idiots. I always need to take care of the fires myself." He then surrounded his body with a green aura that protected him from fires and flames. He jumped into the explosion, and scoured the area for surviviors. The explosion was caused by a propane tank, and the area was a small, 2-story home. "Out of all the powers I could have received in my lifetime, aquatic powers would really be of use right now." His powers mainly involve kung fu, martial arts, agility, and Force, which pretained to shoving enemies back for protection. Huan suddenly heard a scream to his left. It sounded like a young girl. He jumped into the room to save her. The room was a bedroom, and like the rest of the house, up in flames. Huan grabbed the girl, and held her in his arms. The girl did her best to shield herself from the fire. She already had a fire blanket, which really helped. The two ran out of the inferno, alive. The girl was dropped off right in front of the house, and Swift Jab immediately disappeared. The neighbors were questioned and stumped as to how the girl, which was the sole survivor, even escaped the house. A neighbor or two actually say Swift Jab, but the claims were usually never believed in by others. Swift Jab arrived on his roof. He entered the staircase. Then walked through the secret hallway. Huan then climbed down the second staircase, and closed all the doors. He knew his day was over now. The firefighters would handle the fire itself, if they come that is. Otherwise he'd hope for the best that there was an aquatic superhero nearby. Huan then decided to sleep or nap. He would have to go back to work at the airport tomorrow, and then go to his friend's buffet, and then somehow, a problem will arrise that will require a hero like himself to arrive. So he slept, for now..
