The Shadow Knight Begins: Part Three: Endgame

Chapter 8: A Legion Of Heroes

"Who are you?" I demand now speaking for the first time since this strange conversation began.

"I am Marcus Walters, Formally Dr Marcus Walters "but I guess you can call me Patient zero or if you like... just M... I'm still working on the codename."

"Whatever..." I dismissed his codenames, I wasn't here to make friends, but get answers "what do you want with me?"

"Well...that's a little bit of a long story, but first..." he quirked his head with an insulted look, "your welcome"

"For what?" I demanded.

M or whatever he called himself then explained, "Your sisters and your positive side in that tortured jumble of your mind? I'm the one who got them to you in the deepest, darkest parts of your psyche. I used my telepathy, but even that proved hard...you have some kind of building immunity to mind manipulation kiddo"

"So..." I said getting the pieces together from what he was saying, "That was you who did that in the darkness, brought those projections in when I needed them, and that was your voice I heard back there... telling me to fight my darkness!"

"Ever the detective knight" Marcus nodded, "you mind if I call you knight?"

He took my silence as an answer.

"Well what I mean to say is you and I. we are the first of a group of humans, a new offshoot of human genetic mutation that is slowly coming into the gene pool of the world's population. These new humans or Meta humans for a better sounding term...that's what I call them... they show increased stamina, endurance and intelligence, but one thing that stands out among them all...are varied differentiable, but extraordinary abilities inherent in what makes them all...meta human" Marcus said saying words that would make anyone who wasn't like me who had actual powers go "HUH?"

"You're talking about superpowers...other super humans?" I asked concerned, "like me and Dorian?"

I figured since he knew my name, and had helped me...then he had known about everything...including the brain of crime.

"Not exactly, every meta human's power is different. There is a gene inside you, me and all other Meta humans, active and dormant that possesses the mutagenic ability to take outside forces or external forces that would prove either fatal or stressful biologically harmful for the owner of a meta gene, and catalyze that irritant into something the body can use, while changing the D.N.A upon its activation... therefore changing the Post human into a meta human...and granting the meta human powers inherent to the catalyst source. You and Dorian's Meta powers were both gained from the same source, a mutagenic chemical with traces of dark matter in it, which allowed both of you to gain control over shadows and energy from a dark matter hyperspace dimension, the negatively charged Plane of existence existing beside ours which is the positively charged Plane of existence...but you knew that already. You call it the shadow realm. But unlike Dorian who got his powers temporarily through consumption of the liquid miasmic mutagen. You didn't, your blood was mutated by the mutagen in a big chemical bath on the streets in that accident"

"So why did I have different control?" I wondered to myself.

"because your genes were different, just like how they were differently activated" M...Marcus, I'll just call him Marcus..."yeah...that's better sounding", Marcus said...obviously reading my mind again.

"You just read anyone's mind?" I asked angrily, it was like I couldn't keep anything from this guy.

"Sorry, forgive me. I'm kind of like you, learning through trial and error"

"Not me...it's been mostly error" I muttered.

"Thing is, both you and Dorian. Your genes were activated before you were both mutated by the chemical, otherwise if they weren't active, the mutagen would have killed you like a potent acid" Marcus explained.