Kelvin's heart was beating wildly in his chest as he ran. The damp air of the sewers rushed over his face because of the speed of his movements. He was fast because he was running for his life. He had to be, or the members of the justice league would catch him.
He knew the sewers like the back of his hand, so the darkness didn't bother him much. After all, he had lived here for most of his life. He knew the shortcuts, the dead ends, and the special dangerous sections that one can take to lose pursuers.
Besides, spending most of his time underground had made his eyes adapt to the low light created by the mosses planted for that very purpose. This and his speed granted him the advantage needed to always stay ahead of his pursuers.
But he knew it wasn't going to be enough. After all, the members of the Justice League are all extraordinaries. They are not normal human beings. They have certain advantages and abilities that will help them find him.
This is certain, if only for the fact that they succeeded in finding his father's lair, breaking past its defenses, and killing him. Now they are chasing after him just like they chased after his ten thousand brothers and sisters.
Many of his siblings have already been killed, so it is only a matter of time before they get to him. This knowledge weighed heavily on his mind. It didn't help that he was already becoming tired after running for hours.
He was trained to be a soldier by his father and can handle long periods of strenuous activities, but this is too much.
"It should be soon." He said to encourage himself. "Just a little more."
It truly is a little more, and he would reach the access point to the edge of the city. That way he would be able to come up on the surface outside the city walls. From there, he will venture through the radiation zone.
The radiation should be able to scramble whatever means they are using to track him. That way he will be able to escape. As long as the protection pack they had prepared there was still intact, then he might be able to survive this horrible day.
He had everything thought out. But then he heard steps behind him. The steps became louder and closer. Hearing them made him realize that whoever was chasing him was gaining on him fast. At this rate, he wouldn't be able to reach the access point. He was all but doomed.
His heart skipped a beat because of the panic coursing through his vein. He was already in flight or fight mode and has been in flight for quite a while. There was nothing else he could do with this panic. So his heart skipped the next beat too.
It was not a good feeling at all. His chest tightening in pain as his heart shut down. All of his stress, panic, and adrenaline spiked but stayed motionless in his blood. Not that more adrenaline would do any good, but it was going nowhere without the heart.
But then his heart began beating again. It was not a pleasant feeling again. It was as if something had broken open within him. A dam burst, letting go of the hidden potential in his body. He awakened with a roar of pain that resounded within the sewers like the cry of a wounded animal.
His vision was shaking as well as his limbs. The only thing he felt was pain. It was not phantom pain at all. His bones broke through his muscles and skin, and his blood spilled from his veins.
It was pain and more pain. It was all the pain he had ever experienced in his life combined. He thought he was going to die. He actually wanted to die. He would have accepted anything so that the pain would end.
It took a few seconds, but it eventually ended. When it did, he was a totally different teenager. He could feel it in all of existence that he was no longer normal. There was a new awareness in his mind that informed him of his capabilities.
It was just a feeling, but combined with his knowledge of the world and extraordinaries, he could deduce a lot about what he could do. What he deduced made him smile.
He thought to himself as he examined his hand, "I might just make it."
Even as he spoke, the fingers of his hands split into two to become a total of 10. He combined the first eight into one. Then he hardened its surface by making a sheet of bone grow on it. This made it look like a hoof. Through it all, he felt no pain.
This confirmed his suspicion, so he wasted no time in taking off all of his clothes. Then he changed his legs into bird claws. This made his steps silent.
He snuck into a corner and changed his skin to match the dark walls of the sewer. He stopped breathing, stopped his heart of his own volition, and lowered his body heat by dilating his veins.
He also flattened himself to look more like a bump on the walls instead of a human trying to hide. Then he waited like the predator he had become.
Prey came soon. A member of the league appeared in the tunnel beside him. It was a woman. She was looking at the ground intensely for signs of his passing.
It took a while for her to notice that he had disappeared. She thought he had done something to make himself more difficult to track. So she stopped for a while to examine her surroundings.
He watched her silently without breathing while silently accumulating power like a viper. Then he struck when she had her back turned to him.
It was the fastest he had ever moved. All of his muscle mass had been concentrated in his legs so as to gain a burst in speed. Then he morphed one of his thin, emaciated arm into a bone spear.