Interested Parties 1

A medium height man walked into the large busy hospital and slowly strolled past the lobby full of waiting patients. He paused as if to map the area, quickly identifying the receptionist. Dressed in a black suit and a pair of shades, he was an oddity. On his way to the reception, he garnered a few glances and stares from several patients and staff alike.

"Hi."

"Hi. Can I help you?"

"I'd like to see Dr. Spencer."

"And you are?"

"John, he's expecting me."

The nurse nodded and picked up the receiver probably to get a hold of the doctor. A few moments later she put it down, "fourth floor, second door to your left."

John nodded back at the nurse before he turned and headed for the elevators. The nurse followed him with her gaze for a few moments before she diverted her attention to the next patient who was next in line.

John knew his timing was off thanks to traffic and the Dr. Spencer was soon to start his night shift as the attending ER Physician. The fact that the doctor still accepted their meeting meant the intel was critical and would be worth the trip all the way from the Capital.

The chiming of the elevator subconsciously triggered him to start walking, and he went straight to the Doctor's office. He made a slight knock before entering to find the Doctor seated and slightly tapping on his hardwood office desk.

"Doctor Spencer?"

The doctor gave him a quick glance before replying. "You certainly take your time."

"Traffic, I didn't realize rush-hours were nightmares in Argo too," John replied as he took a seat. "You'll get used to it. I have less than ten minutes before my shift starts, so I hope this meeting will be as brief as possible." The doctor said before pulling a drawer and fishing out a file.

He handed it to John before pushing back the drawer. "He was brought in yesterday just as I was about to finish my shift and was in pretty bad shape."

"How bad? And in English please." John asked, slightly more curious as he went through the file.

"He had a broken arm, several broken ribs, punctured lung, severe internal bleeding, ruptured spleen, heavily damaged liver, serious head trauma and that's not mentioning the swelling of his brain. He had a very faint heartbeat, but we worked on him and were able to get him out of danger." "Must have been one hell of a beating."

"Under normal circumstances, he shouldn't have survived, but interestingly enough he got better and better by the hour. The next thing we know he had disappeared at the crack of dawn."

"I assume you didn't contact any local authorities?"

"No, I didn't, and I made sure none of the nurses did too."

"Did you see exactly what happened while he was in your care?"

"Well, over the course of the next four hours after he was brought in, his condition alarmingly improved. His bruises were disappearing rather quickly. A quick CT scan showed his internal bleeding had stopped and his damaged organs were also healing. His bones were as good as new at that point.

"So, we put him under observation, one of the Detectives walked by when he was brought in and said he knew him, he spent a few moments with the patient before leaving."

"Who brought him in?" John asked.

"His friend, at least that was what he said he was. Sorry didn't get to know his name. Though did tell us the patient's name was Justin Walker."

"Is that what his ID said," John asked speculatively.

"Yeah. He was there during his surgery before he left for almost an hour."

"Then?" John closed his file and focused his gaze on the doctor as if to capture every detail of his story.

"I'm not sure, but one of the nurses said she saw him come back and a few minutes later the patient's monitors began to blare. The nurses were first on the scene before I was paged. I rushed in to find him gone, his castings dumped on the floor."

"Anything on the security cameras."

"Nothing, they avoided them on their way out."

There was a long pause as John went through the file again as if matching the story with the data in it. "Okay Doctor, I will need the Detective's name, security footage of when they were brought in and his blood work."

The Doctor smiled before extracting another object from his drawer. This time it was a large parcel.

"That's the only copy; there is also the Detective's number and the Patient's DNA, prints and a few other details I could gather secretly."

John grabbed the package together with the file and placed them in his case.

"Sorry but times up, I took the liberty of getting more information about him by reaching out to a few of my friends, and none of them have ever heard of him. He has no medical history whatsoever. It turns out he's also not from around here."

Spencer finished while looking at his watch, "I believe you can find your way out." He added before leaving John behind.

"Interesting fellow," John muttered to himself.

Outside the hospital, John got in his car before phoning in. "I found another one…I don't know about this one, but he looks promising…We need to get him before he disappears Sir, they always do…Thank you, Sir, I'll set up a base here and get it done…yes, Sir.?"

Turning on the ignition, he drove off with a slight smile plastered on his face; he was going to take his time and extreme precaution with this one. Without a doubt, he was going to be the best test subject he will ever meet.

It had been a week since the revelation, and he couldn't stop thinking about his mother. The mother he never knew, somehow, he felt guilty for never asking about her. She had been dead all this time not having the chance to actually see her son grow up to the specimen of a man he was today.

The sound of metal hitting bone resonated throughout the warehouse as Raymond found himself on the floor for the thousandth time. He groaned internally as he tried to hide his agony while at the same time heard someone laughing at his expense.

"You zoned out again, focus." Charles chided as he resumed his stance.

Charles was impossible to beat. Ray tried everything he could ever think of, but so far nothing seemed to work on him. He was finally tempted to just blast him away for a change. It should put him on the laughing end at very least.

They had spent the next two days after he got back from home furnishing the warehouse. It was now fully equipped with a sparring mat, various training equipment, some he never knew existed; it was also a part-time gym. His surprise came when he tried benching the weights and realized he could top out at one thousand pounds doing two reps of three before without a sweat.

Ray had been proud of his record until Charles grabbed the same weight and did ten reps of five bicep curls like it was nothing. He was however slightly relieved when Jane claimed she could only top out at nine hundred pounds.

Adding salt to injury, Charles never let up on his amusement about the highest bench press weak humans could do was a lot closer to his best until Ray had enough of it and sprang into action once more.

It had been a strenuous ten-minute brawl that had him bruised, cut, broken and bleeding but he wasn't going to give up without spilling some blood of his own. It was a good thing he could now heal during combat, and that's what still kept him in the fight. The whole place was completely trashed.

Ray picked up a fifty-pound dumbbell and made another charge at Charles who smiled and got into a stance with a weight bar behind his back and his left arm extended in front of him. Ray threw a powerful right at his lowered head only to be sidestepped, the resulting momentum made him lose his footing. A jab was made on Ray's lower side, hitting squarely at his liver.

"Argh!" Ray groaned, once again he was on his knees. Getting up, an idea popped into his head; but it could be risky.

Raymond had just finished healing his broken nose and was now focusing on his liver. The last time he had used it his eyes were closed, and Charles' rules only mention on using his air and electric abilities as being prohibited. There was nothing said about this.

Looking at Charles, Ray too smiled before focusing on the space behind Charles and mentally pulled it to him. With his eyes opened, this time he could easily see himself zoom in to his destination; literally going through Charles.

Another smack resonated inside the warehouse but this time it was his dumbbell; he was lucky to manage a block.

"Good, I was beginning to wonder if you had a tactical mind at all."

"How did…"

"I trained with a teleporter before there isn't much to expect apart from sneak attacks and once you're aware of your surroundings, it shouldn't be had to counter." A quick glance at Jane. "No offense love."

Charles was however met with a sneer. "And you my friend are rather slow and predictable I could actually do it blindfolded."

"Yeah, like how you sneaked into the palace and stole Zeus' golden chalice." Jane scoffed. "What! He stole from Zeus?"

"That was a long time ago when I used to be a soldier. It was a big deal back then. Zeus was this All-Powerful ruler, so having something to show my fellow soldiers gave me a bit of status." Charles said.

"Were you caught?" Ray asked.

"Eventually, well Athena did personally see to it that the culprit was found. After a few days of investigation, she realized it was her own soldier. Luckily for him she forgave him and swept everything under the rug." Jane finished the story.

While she explained, another idea popped into his mind.

"I guess no one has yet to train you against this?"

Charles raised his right brow as he contemplated what Ray meant.

Raymond sprang into action again, this time he tried something entirely different. Closing his eyes, he let his conscious spread out of his body. He ignored the weird and mild disorientation feeling he received.

"What are you doing?"

"Wait for it."

"You know I could crack your skull open right now, and it's exactly what will happen when you get into a real fight."

"Give it your best shot."

Charles responded with another swing aimed for his head. Without moving or even opening his eyes, the dumbbell he held dropped from his hands, as he quickly searched for another weapon.

The view was so surreal as Raymond could see Charles from a three-sixty-degree standpoint and it became much easier to tell what Charles was going for.

Raymond immediately commanded his body to move just like he would a video game character only instead of a gaming console, all he had to do was will it. His body responded and leaned backward to allow the blow to pass.

Charles' brow rose before he frowned and went for two rapid strikes aimed at both his chest and head.

At that moment Raymond realized how advantaged he was when he saw Charles' body movements and got his own body out of the way again rather swiftly. Raymond then gave out little nervous laughter.

Charles quickly recovered his balance and resumed his stance while glancing around the warehouse.

"I thought I said no powers."

"Nope, you said no offensive blasts. You had no qualms with me using the Aether." Raymond was surprised when he heard his disembodied voice, but it wasn't coming from his mouth.

"Wait that's cool." He, however, didn't get much of a chance to admire himself as Charles came at him again.

Charles threw low swing with his weight bar, aiming for his chest. Raymond chose that opportunity to push his limits and picked a metal bar before he blocked the strike.

Ray's decision became a blunder when the blow never connected, at least not to his chest. His knee paid the price. It was a feint.

'Damn it!'

The pain that shot throughout his body forced his spread-out conscious back to his now kneeling body. "That's cheating."

"It's not, I bluffed, and you fell for it. That's lesson number three today. Your opponent won't always follow through with their attacks. It will be up to you to remain alert on the possibilities." "How will I know they're bluffing?" Raymond asked as he rubbed his sore knee.

"You won't right off the bat, that's why you should work on your stance. It will make your recovery much quicker for the real attack, other than that. Body language for starters. Most fighters won't invest more into their feint so that they can save power for the real attack."

Charles finished by artistically twirling his rod before resting it behind his back with the tip touching the floor. "I'd say that's enough for today. You can clean up after this."

Charles went straight to the makeshift shower and had a set of fresh clothes before he and Jane hoped into his jeep and left. Raymond remained cursing as he slowly began levitating several scattered equipment into place.