Paradox -Octo3112
Superpower name: Paradox
Given name: Mohammed Jarbi
Gender: Male, identify as male
Sexual preference: Hetrosexual
Height: 6"1
Weight:159
Hair color: black
Eye color: brown
Birth date: March 20, 1991
Birth place: unknown
Hometown: irrelevant
Occupation: professional superhero's hitman
Superpowers: After an accident dark matter was fused into his body and now it is bursting out while multiplying inside his body, making random explosion around him. He made equipment to put it under control, mainly the gauntlets: a pair of black alloy gauntlets that let him shoot dark matter in one of three states - gas, solid, and liquid. Gas combusts when it comes in contact with air and creates an explosion from the palm of the gauntlet, liquid make a rope or cable and can be attached to a smooth surface or used like a whip and can explode on command, solid make cubes of dark matter that are fixed into place relative to the gauntlets, if the gauntlets move it moves, and can explode on command.
Weaknesses: The gauntlets can run out of battery and he doesn't wear them all the time, without them he cannot control the dark matter explosions and might hurt himself or others around him. Basically - you take out the gauntlets and instead of a weapon he is now just a bomb.
It was a nice day outside, the kind of day that made want to go to a short walk outside. But I didn't have time for a walk today, shame.
So instead of walking outside I was sitting in my office with a client that sat there with discomfort, his underlings behind him.
"As I told you on our emails earlier it is definitely possible, but it will cost you a large sum." I tried looking into his eyes while speaking to him but he evaded my gaze.
"Around one point seven million." I continued.
He glanced into my eyes for a short second then looked at his palms.
"What if you fail?" He asked me.
"It will be so that if I do not succeed you will get a full refund minus the arrangement price." I answered and saw he was somewhat relieved to hear it, he didn't believe I might be successful in the job.
After he and his underlings left I pulled my phone out and checked the location in question, a small building with a park across the road from it.
Was this job possible? yes, easy? No.
I got up from my chain and looked outside the window, what a nice day.
As the elevator went down to ground level no one else but me was in it so I let my thoughts run.
For the game we were playing there were rules, unspoken ones, ones that when you brake the whole game board come crashing down, so if I am going to break such rule I better be ready.
I exited the elevator at ground level and instead of going outside to my parking car I kept walking into the building until I stopped against a red locked door.
My keys fit perfectly into the lock and it clicked open.
As I descent the stairs downward my phone rang.
Transfer complete, I had the money.
The room at the end of the stairs was nothing special, if someone somehow find his way down here he might think its a garage where we keep some unused tech for the company.
And there it is, under a shelf a big tool box sat, my equipment.
As I opened the tool box I felt that tingling excitement, almost euphoric.
The gauntlets were matt black, made out of a special alloy, their design was similar to the ones you might see in video games. big, bigger than my hands by two times at least, with claws at the end of each finger tip.
I put the gauntlets on, they covered my hand and forearm with clicks sounds as the mechanism suit itself to me.
I tried moving my fingers and the black claws moved with them, perfect.
It was a 12 minute walk from here to the target, but with the gauntlets on my hands someone is sure to call the authorities before I get there and it could be problematic.
So I drove my car, a more complex task than it might sound when you have on hands equipment that might blast the wheel away if you are not careful but I was experienced.
I parked my black sedan on the edge of the park, so just across the street from the target home.
There were a few non targets on the street, walking or sitting on a bench in the park, not a problem.
I climbed out of the car and some people looked at me, pointing to their friends, some walked back or completely choose to leave but most just stared at me. I walked with enough confidence to make them think I was not here for trouble.
Not having your face known to the public helped I assume, and the formal clothes I had might contribute something too, black pants with nice shoes, a grey tie to match black jacket above a white shirt, I did just walked out of a meeting with a client after all, and I was a professional, for a job like this the suit was good.
The looks from the non targets were now focused on my back as I stood in front of the building.
I opened my hand and placed my palm on the surface of the wall.
My gauntlets had three modes, and for this one I knew which I should use.
A hissss sound could be heard from my hands, and slowly after it black lines spread from my palm across the surface of the building.
For the meantime it didn't do anything and I let it spread more.
A siren was going off somewhere and getting closer each second, someone already called the authorities on me.
I moved my hand across the wall, letting my claws dig in it.
I closed my hand into a fist.
No sound, no smoke, no fire, only the explosion. The black lines on the outside wall all burst at once, exploding without any sound or effect beside the explosion.
The wall crumbled, coming down to the ground.
Now the first part of my job here was a hit, not on the building but on someone in it and another person. They didn't give me the details of whom they wanted dead in the building so I had to kill everyone, simple enough.
But I could guess their target, a kingpin would not get the help of a professional outsider like me for a lot of things, his own man could have definitely handle this hit with not a lot of trouble, then why come to me?
Because it broke the rules.
Someone in this building was protected by an unspoken rule, either a retired superhero, or a government official from a special department, or most likely - a superhero family member.
Superheros were very simple minded with how they handled villains, as long as you did not use lethal force so did they, as long as you didnt take hostage so did they, as long as you didnt kill their family they didn't kill you.
Killing their family was a devastating move yes, but it was also a game over for a lot of villains, because from now on they would come at you full force, a kill order would be issued, prize money for people who give information, they would ask the people in cages for advice on how to get you, they will not care for your secret identity, revealing all the information they have to the public and coming after you the same way wolves go after prey.
And here I come in, a stranger, an outsider with grey enough morals to kill them, no connections they can chase me through, already have a kill order looming on my head, no family or friends they can talk to, no one in the cages who can tell them about me or how I worked.
I started blasting the building aiming through the collapsed side where I could see people or any movement.
The dark orbs that were shot from my hand explodes when they were close enough to their target, again no sound or smoke or fire, only the blast, ripping furniture and bodies apart.
The people behind me were now screaming in horror and panic, some were running, some were filming with their phones, some tried to protect the people close to them with their body.
Dumb, I can definitely kill someone even if you block my line of site with your body.
But they were non targets so I didn't kill them, I just walked to my car, ready do drive away before the police or the heroes came.
"6 confirmed dead at a supervillain attack on castle street. 2 injured, one of them from falling derbies from the apartment complex destroyed in the attack. According to eye witness the super villain approach the building in the middle of the day and used some sort of weapon to destroy it and kill the civilians inside, his motives are still unclear."
The news lady voice was a background noise for me, letting me focus on the task I was doing.
Currently I was doing the regular check up on my gauntlets, making sure no dust found its way inside the dark matter chamber, that the switching trigger was smooth and set the right way and all the other things that made it work.
I need to move to a new place after today, not a problem because I didn't really have things to hold me down, but where would I move too? New york was always a possibility with the amount of supervillains there.
I was thinking about moving and checking my equipment while listening to the news when a sharp sound echoed its way through the building.
They were just in time, following the trail of breadcrumbs I left after me, or in this case the trail of unstable anti mass matter.
I put on the gauntlets, now I wasn't in a suit and tie any more but in my full armor, all in black and greys and my logo at the front of the chest plate, the broken circle in bright purple against the black alloy.
Another sound, this time closer.
The board game was coming down in a crash but i was ready to catch it.
The hero appeared in front of me instead of walking through the door, BoltCore in his yellow and white suit.
He had three sets of powers, self teleportation, super strength, super vision. He looked in his 40s, maybe a bit younger, he looked at me through his mask with face distorted in anger.
He used to do mainly search and rescue mission and he was good at it with his teleportation and supervision but lately he got into fighting criminal more, putting his super strength into use and he was good at it, very good going by what I read on him.
He swung a punch at me and I knew that if it would hit me it would smash bones.
I stepped back to evade it and he used the opportunity to teleport, putting himself inches from my face. He swung again and I had no chance to evade this time.
I pulled the trigger, firing my gauntlets at mode 1, gas.
Dark matter moved from the chamber to the outside where it met air and burst, no smoke, no sound, no fire.
The explosion tore its way through the floor and the edge of BoltCore foot.
He screamed in pain and then just disappeared from sight.
It was quiet for a few seconds, I switched modes on my right arm, liquid, then BoltCore appeared again, his foot which had been hit by the explosion didn't bleed anymore meaning he have a healer of sorts at the ready somewhere.
I'll have to kill him in one go then.
I waved my right arm in a snappy movement and what looked like a rope of black oil was shot out in BoltCore direction.
He teleported again, this time to my right, swinging a kick at my.
I lifted my left arm, close to my ribcage and under my right arm and the dark matter gas was shot out, resulting in a silent explosion. He teleported again, in front of me again, the black rope almost caught him but he ducked just in time.
"This is tiresome." I commented while shooting out another gas explosion from my left arm.
"This is tiresome?!? You piece of shit, garbage. You killed my wife!!!" He teleported after shouting then tried to hit me with a punch. I raised my left hand and released an explosion, using the recoil to doge right.
I switched the mode in my right arm back to gas and shot at him with both my hands, making hin teleport behind me, I then quickly switched both my arms to liquid and swung them back, hoping to hit him.
I heard the sound of teleportation and he appeared above me, falling right on top of me.
I didn't have time to switch modes and evade so I just raised my hands, claws of alloy pointing their tips at him.
He teleported again before hitting me, using the momentum from the fall to kick my feet under me.
I fell to my knees, luck was he didn't use his super strength for the kick because of the fall so my legs were not broken.
I switched my right hand to gas and my left to solid then used my right to shoot at his face.
He teleported and I rolled with the recoil, raising to my feet left to where I was a second ago.
"Yea, tiresome." I said, panting.
"I will fucking kill you!" Was all I got in return.
I used my left hand, sending black cubes of dark matter to float in the air.
I saw him moving quickly between the cubes, getting ready to swang another punch at me when I understood what he is doing.
He wants me to run out of ammo, he knows he can't get close because I will just blast him with gas mode so he wanted me to use all my ammo, then he will get me.
I don't smile often so I didn't smile now, but a different person might have, I can’t run out of ammo.
I moved my left hand in a broad stroke and the cubes in the air moved as if they were connected to it.
He teleported to a corner of the room that didn't have any cubes as I moved my hand up, smashing all the cubes into the ceiling.
Blocks of cement started coming down as my cubes destroyed the ceiling above as, I lifted my other hand up and blasted the gas explosion, clearing the derbies above me.
BoltCore had only two options to avoid the falling ceiling, either he would teleport away from the room and risk losing me or he would teleport to the only safe place inside the room, right above me.
I switched my right to liquid and my left to gas and shot the liquid one upwards, BoltCore appeared right next to it, I missed.
I closed my right hand into a tight fist and watched as the black rope of dark matter exploded, knocking BoltCore away.
I moved my left hand to point at him and shot the gas charge, it hit his left side, tearing his left arm, shoulder and probably some ribs away from his body.
He landed on top of the derbies that fell when I destroyed the ceiling, and started bleeding there ro death.
I moved closer and shot him again with the gas explosion this time taking his head, don't want him to gather up some force and teleport to his healer.
He was too passive in this fight, waiting for me to run out of ammo, so I had to shake things up, maybe if he would have been more aggressive he could have taken me out, punching the ground under me with his super strength or throwing things at me to block my vision of him.
But he was new in the fighting scene I guess, rising in popularity but not having much fighting experience.
I turned off my gauntlets and walked slowly to the exit, I will need to leave town.
3 years ago.
I was working on one of the accelerators, messing with the amount of power going in hope to make it more efficient when Emma pinged me.
"What?" I pressed the intercom button in and asked her.
"I'm getting some weird reading here, is John with you? I want you both to come look at this."
"Yea sure I'll go get him, where are you right now?"
"Delta point, right beside the core."
"Ok I'll go get him." I put the accelerator down and went to look for John.
I found him at his desk, eating a sandwich and checking his phone.
I knocked on the open door to let him know I was there and he looked up from his phone to me, his glasses sliding down his nose a bit as he did so.
"Mohammed, what do you need?" He asked me.
"Emma said she gets some weird reading down at Delta, she wants us to come and have a look." I answered.
He nodded his head and warped his sandwich in a plastic bag before putting it aside.
We walked down the stairs to Delta.
Emma was there waiting for us, her black hair in a horse tail, she was reading something on her tablet.
"Ok what's the weird reading?" I asked once we were close enough.
"Look at this." She turned her tablet so we could see the screen, it was full of statistics from the machine.
I looked for anything that qualified as weird, power input and output was okay, same for the amount of matter, all the stats were good until I reached mass.
"Okey, that weird." I said as I tapped the mass feed to bring up the graph.
The graph was climbing steadily for the last few days. But at 3 points there was a sudden drop in mass.
"Do we have a leak?" I asked her while showing the graph to John.
"No, if it would have been a leak than it would be more consistent, not like this sharp drops.
Can you show me the time stamps?" I asked John, he tapped on the screen twice and gave me the tablet back.
"12:47, 15:32, 18:56. All yesterday. Did any of you did something at those times?"
"Not that I remember." John shrugged.
"I left early yesterday, so neither did I." Emma said.
"Oh fuck." I said as I remembered what I did yesterday.
"What?" Emma asked me.
"I think those are the times I put back the first 3 enhanced accelerators. They worked so well I took out another 5 to work at today."
"The accelerators? Why would they do something to the mass count?" John sounded sceptical.
"He might have hit one of the sensors when he put them back in?"
"Three times in a row? Unlikely, also I did a check up on the sensors at Beta this morning."
"What time is it?" I asked them.
"14:30" John answered after checking his watch.
"I finished 2 sensors already, we can put one in and see what's going on."
We took one of the sensors and put him in at Beta, I soot at Delta, closest to the core monitoring the mass count, Emma was at Alpha upstairs, checking the 'weather' and John was connecting the thing at Beta.
"Ok, three, two, one." I heard John voice through my headset and watched the tablet, the graphed dropped.
"It dropped. Its definitely it."
"Ok." Emma voice was distorted because of the layers of cement and metal between us.
"So... What now?" Emma asked.
"Ugh, I have no idea, the accelerators does work, so they probably are messing with the sensors somehow... We will need to take the whole thing apart and check, maybe getting new sensors or accelerators." John sighed. "Its a lot of work, we will do it tomorrow."
"You sure? What if something will happen?" I asked.
"What can happen? It is detecting less mass than there is, it's not like its unstable or unsafe. We will start working on it tomorrow, for now don't put the upgraded accelerators in just yet."
"Okey." I closed my tablet and started going up the stairs back up to Alpha.
"So you say you can do it." I looked at Emma as she talked then looked at the other side of the bar where we went to hang out.
"We work at and underground secret lab and you have a hard time believing I can pick up a girl in a bar." I spoke again.
"Yea shithead, you can't, me on the other hand..." She glanced at the blond we were talking about.
"We coin flip then."
"Fine." She agreed.
I took out a quarter and flip it in the air.
"Tails." Emma said first.
"Heads then." I replied.
I caught it and checked to see what it was.
"Oh, sorry Mohammed, maybe next time you will have a chance." She tapped my shoulder and got up from her chair, her cheeks were red and from what we drank she was definitely drunk.
She approached the girl and I got my phone out checking for messages.
Emma came back shortly after, smiling.
"What?" I asked her.
"She straight, but you can't go to her caused I won the coin flip."
"I hate you, why do I even hang out with you?"
"Cause i'm cooler than John and we are the only two people you aren't afraid to accidentally tell something that you weren't supposed to."
I sighed, she was right.
"Well it late, and we both have work tomorrow morning, im going back home and so should you." I got up from the chair."
"Your no fun." She got up and walked beside me.
"I may not be fun but you are too much fun, and at work you are the opposite, how do you do it?"
She held her hair in one hand behind her head.
"It's all about how you present yourself." She let the hair go and it fell around her neck.
"Im a lesbian women in a field that almost only have straight white men in it, I have to present my self to be the best and most serious."
"Yea and what about me?" I pointed at my beard.
"You got here because your brain is like space internet."
"What does that even mean?"
"You know. World wide web? So your brain is like space wide web, you know everything thing. Probably the smartest person I ever met, that why they let you in on the project."
"And they let you in because of how you present yourself?"
"Yep."
"And John?" I asked, curious to hear her opinion.
"We needee someone who knows people in the field, that's John, and he have experience."
"I just realized our team can be a starting line for a killer joke, a lesbian a Muslim and John walk into a worm hole..."
"That's a shitty joke." But she had a small smile on her lips as she said it.
"Morning John," I walked into his office.
"Hi Mohammed, you wanna work on the accelerators problem now?"
"Yea, Emma is already setting things up in Beat, I will be at Delta, can you put an eye on things from Alpha?"
"Sure."
"Ok pull it out" U heard Emma voice through my headset and I pulled the accelerator I held out of the machine board.
"Its spiked, minus 30 to mass." John said.
"What?" I was surprised, it also changed when we took it out.
"Is it sensors?" Emma asked.
"I looked through the Delta point window straight at the core of the thing. It was a metal ball suspended in the air with cables. And now it started shaking.
"Movement at the core, its shaking."
"Oh shit."
"What?"
"Mohammed get out of there now." Emma had panic in her voice.
I dropped the tablet and the accelerator from my hand and heard it hitting the floor when I turned around to run.
I was at Delta, closest to the core, Emma and John were safe at Beta and Alpha, a few layers of secured cement and steel alloy between them and the core, I only had bullet proof glass to protect me.
There was no sound of an explosion but I heard the glass shatter behind me, then it hit me, throwing me at the ground and peeling my skin and meat of my bones. I screamed in pain.
I took a deep breath, how am I still alive? And what is this pressure on my back?
There was a strange feeling then the pressure disappeared.
I stood up and looked around me, it was Delta point no doubt, but it was destroyed, some of the walls came down and revealed the wires behind them, the bullet proof glass window was not there anymore, blood was all over the floor, is it my blood?
I checked myself, I wasn't injured, which was weird enough by itself but I also didn't wear anything, and my beard was gone with the rest of my body hair.
I took a step forward and black matter shot from my toes, sliding on the floor.
I looked at it, what was it?
Then it exploded, silently, the floor was cracked and i jumped from surprise.
At the end of the crack I saw the only thing not damaged by the explosion, the accelerator was on the floor, close to my shattered tablet.
I picked it up and went up the stairs, fearing the will fall under me from the damage, they were full of cracks and cricked when I stepped on them, cement stairs aren't supposed to crick.
I reached Charlie, the unused point, it was in a similar state to Delta, I continued to climb the stairs up.
At Beta there was blood all over the place, and a gooey mess in the middle of it. Emma.
It shook me, Emma was most definitely dead, no limbs, no head, no skin, her guts were all over the place. I feel to my knees and felt the slippery blood under me.
Wtf is going on. Why am I alive and she is like that? Wtf
I put one foot up trying to get up but black matter spatter from me again, landing one everything in the room.
Then it exploded. I was thrown back by the force of it and the room was destroyed.
When I got back up and looked nothing remained of Emma at all.
I slowly climbed other the mess and to the stairs, going to Alpha.
John was still alive when I got to him, I think, he didn't have his legs and one arm and most of his skin was gone but I think I saw him breathing, not that it matters when you are like this.
I tried to walk around him but the black goo was shot out again, landing on him too.
I worked my way out of the lab with the accelerator in hand, using the balck goo to explode my way back to the surface. It took me half a day.
I managed to somehow get back to my apartment without destroying everything on the way there, I took some clothes then it was destroyed by the black goo, leaving me also homeless in this whole messed up thing.
It took me 4 months with half-assed lab equipment that i kept destroying by mistake with the black goo to put it under control, it was based on the accelerator I took with me from the ruined lab.
Turns out I was not human anymore, not totally at least, dark matter was mixed in me, making me something less.
I wanted to turn back to normal, not needing to worry about dark matter from my body destroying everything around me, lying in bed knowing it will be whole when you wake up.
But you needed money, so much money to make research needed for something like this.
So I built the gauntlets.
My first job was for a small time supervillain who wanted me to take out another villain who kept butting in his business.
I didn't have my control at that time all set so when I tried to shoot him the whole building came down.
From the 3 years that passed since then I learned much, control, instincts, tactics.
I was still not really known to the public but after this job, killing a superhero and his family, I might just be outed.
But im getting money, faster than I ever dreamed of, I almost have... A tenth of what I need.
