Chapter 3: The Spark and the Scythe
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The day a tiny spark was lit. Which would spend the next decade growing into an obsession.
The memory always started with the smell of cheap wax crayons and the faint, sweet scent of apple juice. To a five-year-old Leon, the world was a wonderfully simple place, mostly because it was colored by the bright, flashing animations of Saturday morning cartoons. He loved superheroes.
He loved the way they soared through the clouds, the way they cracked boulders with their bare fists, and the way they stood completely untouched by the boring, predictable rules of the everyday world. His hair back then was much lighter than the dark brown it would become as an adult; it was a soft, yellowish-brown that caught the sunlight whenever he ran across the playground.
"Leon? It's your turn, dear. Come up to the front of the rug." The teacher's voice was warm, dripping with that gentle, patronizing tone adults reserved for toddlers. Little Leon stood up from the alphabet rug, clutching a piece of drawing paper. His bright, honey-colored eyes were wide with a child's pure, unedited excitement. "Tell the class, Xun," the teacher smiled, leaning forward with her hands on her knees. "What do you want to be when you grow up?"
"A superhero!" Leon announced proudly, holding his drawing high. It was a chaotic mess of bright red and yellow marker streaks, meant to represent a cool laser-blast coming from his hands. "I'm going to fly, and I'm going to save people from giant robots, just like on TV!"
A chorus of high-pitched giggles and mock snickers erupted from the rows of children sitting around him. One boy pointed at the drawing and laughed, while a little girl whispered to her friend.The teacher offered a strained, patient smile, gently patting his shoulder to calm the class. "Oh, a superhero! That's very sweet and creative, Xun. But when we grow up, we have to choose real jobs. You could be a policeman! Or a fireman! They are real-life heroes who wear uniforms and protect our city."
Leon looked up at her smiling face. Even at five years old, his hyper-active, incredibly gifted brain didn't quite process her words the way she wanted. He didn't care about the policeman uniform. He didn't care about driving a fire truck. He didn't even care about the "hero" part of the title all that much. What his childhood heart truly craved was the super part of superhero.
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He wanted the magic. He wanted the impossible. And because his ADHD made the concept of waiting twenty years to grow up feel like an absolute eternity, his mind reached a very direct, childish conclusion: Why should I wait until I'm big? I want to do it now.
The moment his mother brought him home from school that afternoon, Leon didn't go play with his toy cars. Instead, he marched straight into the family study. He scrambled up onto the heavy leather chair, his short legs dangling far above the floor, and booted up the family's desktop computer.
He didn't know how to code yet, and he didn't know anything about advanced science. He was just a little boy with a yellowish-brown fringe falling into his eyes. He opened the internet browser, hit the search bar with his tiny fingers, and painstakingly typed out a simple, innocent question. One letter at a time:
H...
Ho...
How...
How to...
How to get...
How to get super powers?
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SCREEECH! The horrific, metallic scraping of a serrated scythe against stone violently dragged Leon out of his memories. The pastel colors of the kindergarten classroom vanished, instantly replaced by the oppressive, bruised, blood-red sky of the alien wasteland.
The massive, car-sized crab monster shifted its heavy weight, its matte-black carapace glistening with yellow fluid under the dim sky. The three uneven, razor-sharp scythes attached to its front joints twitched eagerly, cutting deep grooves into the cracked earth.
Behind it, the floating purple eye pulsed with a sickening, rhythmic glow, its translucent tendrils whipping the freezing air. "Move! Move! Get back!" Arthur Vance screamed, his corporate composure completely disintegrating. He tripped over his own expensive leather shoes, scrambling backward into the crimson snow like a panicked animal.
The small group of thirty survivors dissolved into pure, unadulterated chaos. People shrieked, trampling over one another as they tried to run away from the ridge. But the biting, supernatural cold had already numbed their limbs, making their movements sluggish and clumsy.
The floating purple eye let out a sudden, high-frequency hum. The air around the creature warped visually, and a wave of pure psychic pressure rippled outward. The attack was devastating. Several survivors instantly clutched their ears, screaming in agony as blood began to trickle from their noses. They collapsed into the red snow, entirely paralyzed by the mental assault. Leon frowned, but his thoughts remained perfectly clear.
The giant crab-monster took this as its cue, bursting forward with terrifying speed, its scythes raised to paint the barren earth with human blood. Leon stood completely still, directly in the monster's path. His dark brown hair whipped across his face in the freezing wind. He didn't run. He didn't panic.
Davis wondered how Leon was so relaxed while getting ready to run and keeping a few paces between them.
One of the survivors looked back in disbelief.
"Is he insane?"
But internally, Leon was smiling.
The raw, dense Qi radiating from the approaching monsters was being pulled toward him like water down a drain. The newly forged Universal Vessel throbbed with a deep, ravenous hunger. For years on Earth, he had wondered what it would feel like to actually use the machine he had built out of his own soul.
Now, the predators of this World were delivering the fuel straight to his door. Leon took a slow, deliberate step forward, his honey-colored eyes locking onto the charging beast. The athletic frame under his thin white t-shirt relaxed completely, radiating an invisible, impossible calmness that began to ripple through the air.