Norvax Gray was running late. It was laughable, really; his ability granted him superhuman speed, and here he was running late. He vaulted off the balcony of his posh apartment building and fell freely through the air with his eyes closed.
The tails of his long coat flapped madly behind him. The mirror-like panels of the towering skyscraper blurred into one long line as gravity accelerated his descent.
He savoured moments of exhilaration like this, the wind howling in his ears; it was just the best.
As he neared the ground, a pedestrian, middle-aged woman who was waiting her turn to cross the road happened to look up. She glimpsed a human body freely falling through the air. The woman screamed in horror, pointing to the sky with a frightened look. As the other people turned to look at what had spooked the woman, Norvax's eyes abruptly snapped open.
He grinned madly, and his eyes glowed eerily, emitting a startling grey light as he activated his ability.
Suddenly, his figure blurred and disappeared without a trace. A small gust of wind stirred from the point at which he'd spun mid-dive, leaping through the air. The woman blinked, questioning whether she was hallucinating, before collapsing to the ground in shock. A small crowd of concerned people quickly formed around her. His nanoshroud suit absorbed the impact from the landing. He continued to run as though he hadn't fallen from the top floor of a skyscraper.
" These suits are amazing," He grinned as he thought to himself.
Praesagius invested quite a bit in their agents. Despite being born with wondrous powers, the talented were not invincible, and many often died during some of the more dangerous missions and covert operations.
Praesagius had decided to research and invest in technology that could afford its agents a measure of protection. The nanoshroud suit was one of the fruits of its labour.
The shroud was customized depending on the ability of the agent; the shroud would enhance their strengths and cover for their weaknesses.
He zipped through the streets as he made his way to a more secluded part of the city to one of the Praesagius subsidiaries' warehouses.
He vaulted over a speeding car as he barreled down the highway and narrowly avoided the hoverboard of a delivery guy. The unfortunate fellow was temporarily destabilized by the burst of inertia left in Norvax's wake.
He gently tapped a hidden button on the side of his vestment as he approached a sharp turn. A silver metal-like liquid flowed up, covering his face, covering his eyes with a see-through visor, and protecting his head. Running at near hypersonic speeds exposed him to several gs of force.
This neat installment in his suit, which the tech department had dubbed "Aeris," helped him navigate through the extreme gravitational force by redistributing the air pressure, managing the drag force, and conveniently filtering out any debris that would be in the air as he moved.
It was also conveniently linked to a GPS, which helped him plot the most efficient route to his destination.
Lately, his workload had ramped up since Gregory was out of commission.
So that left him, as the Commander's right hand, to deal with most of the paperwork and mission approvals. But he'd have to be alive to deal with all that by the time his counterpart was through chewing him out for his tardiness on such an important day.
Today was the day the recruits for Praesagius would be examined to gain a measure of their abilities. The scenery changed as he left the more heavily populated areas of the city. A secluded warehouse rapidly came into view as he slowed down to a halt. The Praesagius periodically moved around their recruitment operations so as not to arouse unwanted attention.
The two security guards in front of the warehouse were visibly spooked as he seemed to materialize out of thin air in front of them, that and the eerie glow of his eyes behind the strange mask.
They had been chatting and joking around to pass the time when the strange humanoid figure appeared.
" Identify yourself." One of the guards said, stepping forward while subtly signaling for his comrade to be on guard to call for reinforcements if the situation demanded it.
"Good morning, gentlemen." He said, recognizing their intentions as he flashed a pass that granted him brass-level access to the warehouse.
He slowly raised his hand, tapped the hidden button on his vestment, and the silver liquid melted away, revealing his face.
His hair, which had been stylishly slicked to the side, had been tousled by the wind as he fell, giving it a slightly dishevelled look.
The guards quickly stood at attention and saluted him.
"Mr Norvax, sir, we didn't know it was you. You're expected, we thought you'd come ..." The man posed as he looked for the right words.
" Using more conventional means, yes?" His smile grew wider.
" Yes, sir." The man nodded.
" Well, what matters is that I'm here now. Good day, gentlemen." The men saluted him once more as he made his way inside at a brisk pace.
The warehouse was, in fact, a large complex with several buildings and floors.
Officially, it was used for researching and advancing nanotechnology that could be used by Black Ink, the conglomerate under whose guise Praesagius operated.
In reality, it was one of Praesagius' numerous bases of operations. A tall blonde woman in a blue suit furiously made a beeline for him.
" You're late," She hissed. Her brown eyes fiercely bore into his own.
"Nice to see you too, Alice." Alice was his assistant, more like a personal abductor. She'd detain him for hours on end and force him to fill out paperwork in his office whenever she could. She was like his very own custom-made tormentor.
" You do realize you're the fastest on the squad, but somehow you're the last to arrive. He's going to chew you out for this."
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I snoozed the alarm a few times, and next thing I knew, I was a couple of minutes late." He said as he raised his hands apologetically.
" But I'm here now, and that's what matters. And don't worry about him, I can handle myself pretty well, even against him." He flashed her a wide grin.
She pinched her nose in frustration the inhaled deeply.
"You're hopeless, you know that?"
Norvax's goofy expression turned serious.
"Where are they?"
She briskly hustled him through a couple of corridors, and before long, they arrived at a large auditorium.
The auditorium was huge, with the capacity to house several small houses. It had been constructed to seat a few thousand workers. In comparison, the number of youths that had gathered there was alarmingly minuscule.
Around fifty youths were gathered, organized into five lines of ten. They ranged from eleven to fifteen years. All of them had been specially handpicked by agents of Praesagius or were children of operatives.
He slowly made his way to the front of the hall.
The man addressing the kids casually glanced in his direction, his cold blue eyes swept over him, causing him to falter a bit before he confidently took his seat on the stage.
" Allow me to introduce you to the Vice Captain of one of Praesagius's covert squads, Norvax Gray. He'll briefly explain what we'll be doing over the next couple of days." He said coldly.
The kids clapped politely as Norvax waved. He flashed them one of his enigmatic smiles and waved for a bit. He strode up to the stage to face him, him being Darius Sunder.
Darius Sunder, the left hand of the Commander of the kill squad, was a mountain of a man.
He was quite tall at 6 feet 5 inches and quite muscular at that. He rarely smiled. Norvax wasn't even sure the man was capable of simple human joys. That said, the monster was also in charge of managing Praesagius recruits, and the man was a real stickler for the rules.
His muscles strained noticeably against the fabric of the plain black fatigues he wore. Norvax almost swore he could hear some of the fabric tear.
The man's icy glare could have frozen a lake over. Norvax's face paled a little as he felt the bones in his right hand creak a bit from the pressure of Darius's crushing grip as he briefly shook his hand.
He quietly grit his teeth and smiled.
" This maniac, what the hell does he think he's doing?" He thought inwardly.
He almost breathed an audible sigh of relief as the brute finally released his poor hand. He could practically feel it throb. His eyes swept over the kids as he subtly searched for the green-eyed girl. He glimpsed her standing near the front; she was one of the shorter kids.
" I'd like to welcome you all to this year's special recruitment." He began." As you may all have noticed, you all have one thing in common, and that is that you're talented. This talent was either inherited or simply bloomed into existence within you. You've all been specially handpicked. Should you pass this test, you'll be provided with resources and help to nurture your talent, for yourself and humanity. We will aid you in realizing your true potential and help you be the very best you can be."
Most of the kids looked at him with eyes full of expectation and hope, while a few óf the others simply looked bored.
A lanky, dark-haired youth at the back slowly raised his hand in the middle of his speech.
"I'm bored, can we get this over with already?" His black eyes seemed slightly devoid of light as he spoke.
There was a ripple of gasps as the kids turned to look at the youth.
One of the shorter kids standing next to Emily, a boy with a mop of brown hair, sniggered derisively while shaking his head.
Norvax cast a glance at Darius, a hint of amusement flickering through his eyes before hurriedly resuming his speech.
The big man's jaw popped audibly.
"But why of course," He said with a smile. "Let's get this show on the road."