"At the moment you're basically what every American teenager is, rather useless." Nick sarcastically thanked him before the man continued, "You're learning who you want to become and what your life can amount to, that's why you're useless at the moment. Granted, not every teenager is useless, as there are hundreds if not thousands of teenagers who are at this very moment providing for their families, taking care of ill family members, acting as heads of their households, or any number of other successful and meaningful scenarios. Those examples are not you Nick."

"Th-Then who am I?"

"That's what we're going to find out," the man told him. Nick wanted to say something but the j.a.panese man stopped him by stating, "Nick, you need to stop stuttering."

"What?"

"You stutter because of a poor self image you contain within your own conscious. You think poorly of yourself and as such you believe that what you say has little to no relevance in any topic of conversation, including this one, which you are obviously the subject of. It has almost nothing to do with your speech but with a trepidation you hold toward life, friends, family, and the opposite s.e.x as a whole." The man looked at Nick and continued, "You need to stop for two reasons, the first of which is because it's a sign of weakness. Your friends also see it and know that it's not only a sign of weakness, but they know it makes you self-conscious." The man paused as he saw a young African-American woman approach them.

"What's the s-second reason?" he asked.

"It's annoying," the man rose to greet the young woman.

The young woman only carried a small backpack with her. "Who's this?" she asked the man.

"Nick Jacobs," he turned to Nick, "Nick, this is Melanie Washington."

"What can he do Mizuno?" she asked.

"Y-Your name's M-Mizuno?"

"No, it's Mizuno," he told Nick. "Only one 'm.'"

"What's with you?" Melanie asked.

"Have you been training?" Mizuno asked as he scanned the crowd.

"Why do you even ask?" The man ignored her question. "Yeah I have. D'you want me to air the F-word on the radio again?"

"No, try China though."

"I can't broadcast that far!"

"Well that's why I said 'try'. Train more, get to China," he flatly told her.

"W-Wait." He looked at them both and asked what they were talking about.

Mizuno rubbed his eyes, "I'd hoped you might have taken a guess at it, but basically we're talking about what super power you have."

Nick looked at him blankly. "Super...power?"

"Yes."

"L-Like flying?"

"Similar to flying. Basically there has been a sudden development of super powered individuals across the world over the last few decades. A majority of people have seemingly useless abilities such as the transference of one liquid into another, such as water to wine, or things such as the ability to prevent or force people from sneezing or to sneeze. You, Melanie here, and I however have rather valuable abilities which I plan on utilizing to shape this world for the better."

Nick forced a small laugh, "You're j-joking, right?"

"Nope," Melanie told him. "Mizuno here hasn't already proved his skill to you?"

"I did but Nick a.s.sumed I was simply stalking him," Mizuno answered for Nick. "He's less likely to accept what he believes to be outlandish things such as super powers, which in all honesty makes him more of a problem at the current moment than an a.s.set."

"Why don't you show him what he can do though?" she suggested. "If he used his power, whatever it is, then he'd believe us, right?"

Mizuno nodded, "Yes, but we're not able to do that at this moment. We've got to get Mithra first."

"Wh-Who?"

"You'll learn soon enough, just wait."

"When do we leave?" asked Melanie.

Mizuno retrieved three tickets from his coat, "In two hours."

"Wh-Where are w-we going?"

Mizuno faced Nick and said, "From now on I won't respond to you if you stutter in a sentence. However if you restart and can complete the sentence without stuttering, I'll listen."

"Jerk," Melanie muttered.

"Thief," Mizuno replied as he resumed watching the crowd. Before she could respond, he stopped her, "Just drop it." He glanced past her, his eyes flashed as he stared at a man who walked past the reflecting pool, and he frowned. "We need to leave. Melanie," he tossed her a set of car keys without looking away from the man in the crowd and said, "Get the black Honda Civic, license plate 052-HJP, and pull around now."

They left in opposite directions without another word; Melanie ran to the street to find the car, Mizuno moved through the crowd toward the reflecting pool, and Nick remained where he was while he watched Mizuno work.

Mizuno followed a pale heavyset man in a large brown coat and a worn black baseball hat. Within a second of Mizuno tailing him Mizuno seized the man, broke his neck, and threw the man into the pool. He retrieved a handgun from his coat and in a fluid motion fired the gun at the ground.

The area erupted into panic. Nick watched intently as people fled as fast as they could, while they screamed and shouted that Mizuno was a killer with a gun. Before Nick realized it, Mizuno was back beside him despite the chaos and fired once through the crowd and hit the man in the water. The man exploded, which sent the liquid, garbage, and sc.r.a.ps of metal from the man's bomb flying in all directions.

Mizuno grabbed Nick and Nick's jacket and dragged him toward the car Melanie sat waiting in. Once they were inside the Honda, Mizuno muttered, "That makes twelve."

Mizuno rode shotgun, Melanie drove, and Nick sat in the back while he tried to gather his thoughts. Mizuno tossed the coat next to Nick. "H-How did y-y-you..." Nick stopped, took a breath, and slowly asked, "How did you do that?"

"It was obvious. The man weighted at least two-hundred thirty-five pounds and wore a heavy coat. He would have given himself heatstroke very quickly in this weather. The rest was only a second's work on my part."

"B-But...But how did you know he had a bomb?"

"How was I certain?" he asked for clarification, which Nick confirmed, "My ability enables me to learn anything I want about someone so long as I can see them."

"And y-you...You found out that he had a bomb?"

"Yes."

"D-Did you h-have t-t-to...Did you have to kill him?"

Mizuno nodded. "Are you familiar with an organization known as the Dafu?" Nick said he knew of them. Mizuno continued, "They're terrorists that have made a startling number of attacks recently, today's making the twelfth in the past three weeks. This was however the first of their suicide attacks that's been countered since the incident in Riyadh when Ghost saved the United States President's life."

"B-But did you...Why kill him?"

"'Just.i.tia Omnibus,' justice for all. What I did was lenient; he was going to die anyway. And compared to what would have happened to him once he was captured, he'd be grateful."

"Did you know that was going to happen?" Melanie demanded. "Is that why you had us meet there?"

"No. That was just an eerie coincidence." Mizuno handed Nick his pa.s.sport and ticket, both read 'Isaac Jones.'

"So we were lucky?" Nick asked.

"I'd say so."

"No," Mizuno muttered. "Now the Dafu's at the very least aware that there are people who can counter them which is a disadvantage to us as we've lost the element of surprise."

"I doubt they're going to be able to find us," Melanie muttered.

"That isn't the point," he snapped, "They're aware of us, which means they're going to become far more cautious and it'll be far more difficult when the time comes to deal with them."

"Deal w-with them?"

"All this will do is cause them to become cautious," he mused, "Now that they know they can be stopped, they're going to escalate things..." Mizuno scowled and retrieved a small notepad from his coat, reclined in his seat, and focused on his notes for the rest of the drive to the airport.

4:45 PM.

Both.e.l.l, Washington A cool breeze washed over Drake and Ian while they sat on Ian's front porch. They each held a can of soda in their hands, an orange soda for Ian and a can of grape soda for Drake. They enjoyed the sunny day in contrast to the rainy night they experienced the previous evening.

"You haven't heard from Nick, have you?" Ian asked.

Drake shook his head and said no one had. "I talked to Jordan who hasn't heard anything and he spoke to Amy and she hasn't heard anything either." Drake took a sip of his drink and added, "She's worried about him. She tried calling him a few times but he hasn't answered."

"Did you try?"

He nodded. "Once," he paused to take another drink and said he only got the voicemail.

"The same thing happened to me," Ian sighed.

"You know it isn't your fault that he's missing," Drake told him. "He was going to find out about it eventually."

"I should have told him though."

Drake didn't agree. "It doesn't really matter who he heard it from because the result would have been the same."

The boys sat quietly as a few trucks drove past. Drake glanced over at Ian and noticed how low he kept his eyes and hardly looked anywhere past the soda can in his hands. Ian's grip on the fragile aluminum can bent the figure slightly.

"Do you think I should have lied to him?" Ian asked.

"What are you talking about?"

"Do you think I shouldn't have mentioned that I saw him, or that I thought I saw him kill Victor?"

Drake told him he wasn't sure what to tell him. He looked up at the porch lights which were off when they stepped outside to talk, yet he noted their sudden flickering.

"I just feel like it's my fault he's taken off."

"He isn't gone," Drake told him while he kept his eyes on the lights above. "He's probably just venting somewhere and he'll turn up in a day or two."

Ian still frowned though. "I still feel guilty."

Drake returned his focus on their conversation and changed the subject. "When are you leaving?"

Ian shrugged, "It'll be awhile."

"Why?"

"The apartment I was going to move into was next to the building that was bombed last week," Ian told him.

"Oh."

Ian let out a small breath and took a drink of his orange soda before he set it back down and gripped it with both hands again. "So who was that girl you spent so much time with last night?"

Drake sipped his soda and cleared his throat, "Her name's Hiromi Tsukahara. She's an exchange student from Kagoshima, she'll be going to Both.e.l.l High this year, and I'm hoping to see her again soon."

Ian smiled for once and asked, "Is she a pretty cool girl?"

"I think so." Drake noticed the lights stopped flashing before he continued, "She's into videogames and happens to love the Creeping Darkness series."

Ian looked at him and asked, "Does she realize who you are?"

"You mean that I'm the son of the head of Winchester Enterprises?" Ian nodded. Drake raised his can up to his lips and quickly muttered that she didn't know before he drank from his beverage.

"When are you going to tell her?"

Drake wasn't sure. He felt he should have told her at the party when they met, but he didn't want it to seem that he tried to use his status to impress her. He felt he needed to impress her on his own, which he planned to do, and hoped that he could tell her without seeming like he hid something from her from the start.

The two young men stared off at the clouds on the eastern horizon as they drifted toward the Cascade Mountains.

10:48 PM.

Baltimore, Maryland Ryan woke suddenly as he believed he heard a shriek. He propped himself up in his bed, listened intently, yet heard nothing. He felt his pulse throbbing in his head and neck, found a cold sweat over him, and felt faint.

The room was pitch dark and even though the window at the end of the room was open it failed to let in very much light. Ryan stopped. He slowly looked back over to the window and realized it was open.

His door opened, the light was flicked on, and a young nurse asked if everything was alright. Ryan looked at her and asked, "Is that window supposed to open?"

The young woman showed her confusion and asked, "That window?" Ryan nodded. "The windows don't open Mister Sage."

He glanced back to correct her but realized she was right. The window was built into the corner of the building and had no way to open. Ryan rubbed his eyes and apologized. "I...I must have dreamt it."