The blank form in front of him, on a table welded from brushed stainless steel, looked daunting. Four pages of information required just for a permit to enter the United States. With a sigh, he grasped the pen beside the form and wondered why he had ever agreed to this.

The basic questions were always the most boring. To alleviate that, he decided to do them out of order this time. After jotting down his social security number, he moved on to gender. As with most official forms, the question meant the biological gender he was born as, and any choice for people who identified as something different from that was missing.

He goes on to answer the simple questions.

Gender: Male

Age: 19

Native Language: English

Nationality: Filipino

First Name: Ren

Surname: Olssen

Well then, those were the 'simple' questions out of the way. He glanced up from the paperwork and out the window. Outside, it was a fresh spring evening, the otherwise relatively quiet streets of his hometown broken by a group of rowdy teenagers going out to try and find someone gullible enough to buy them alcohol. A flash went through his head, bringing forth memories of his own youth when he was among such teenagers.

Ren and many of his friends had gathered on the schoolyard with a bag of stolen ciders, getting drunk more from the rush than the alcohol content of the drinks themselves. By chance, a few of the so-called 'nerds' of his school happened to walk by, and a group of three boys, the same ones who had stolen the beverages, went off to harass them. Soon enough, the boys grabbed one of the nerds and had him on the ground, giving him a torturous beat-down.

Ren best intentions that day got him plenty of bruises. When he got home, he had quite the explanation to try and give his parents, only barely managing to stop them from calling the school and making waves that were not necessary. It was just the daily reality of school at his age.

For whatever reason, his memory trip flickered to a different scene. This time, it was him who was on the ground, with people looming over him and calling you a freak.

"You freak!" Ren heard as the cacophony of shouting mixed in with the sound of kicks against his side.

This memory was from when he was fourteen, a particularly rough time in his life. His parents had forced a move upon him, breaking up his friendships and established places in the cliques of school. At this new school, he was the new kid—a target for the bullies.

As if this was not enough, he was also discovering something strange in himself. It was something that didn't fit with what he had learned in school and from his parents. Something was brewing inside him, wanting to come out. He had reached puberty a couple of years prior, so at first he thought something had gone wrong with that, even asking his parents about some of it, yet they could only offer dumbfounded looks. As it got weirder and weirder, he realized it was something very different.

He was becoming something more than just human. Powers came to him in a flurry, only for a quick moment and in times of severe distress. One time when the bullies cornered him, his powers had manifested, and although he was left in a state of shock by the sudden overwhelming of his senses and couldn't remember what he had done, the bullies never touched him again.

After high school, it was time to start upon his path to a career in full earnest. He had spent some time working at burger joints and other odd jobs, but eventually he would need to do something more.

A keen mind, the main attribute for anyone who wanted to create something that would end up changing the world and bringing forth the best that humanity had to offer, by giving people the tools they needed to better themselves. He would have no shortage of work, whether he ended up as an engineer, architect, designer, scientist, or even a writer or painter. Throughout his childhood, his mind was always working overtime to comprehend his surroundings and satisfy his demand for more knowledge.

A keen mind was still nothing if it was not in a healthy and agile body. His knowledge of the world and the subjects of health and anatomy also pointed towards the fact that he would need to get some fresh air, exercise, and eat healthy so he could make the best use of his brainpower.

Ren shook his head gently, brushing away the memories of his past. As he looked back down at the paperwork, he glanced at his hand and the pen he was holding. With a smile, he went back to scribbling down the next page of information required from him.