With a sudden thud, all the medical equipment around Leon began to erupt in sparks. His blood pressure, heartbeat, and every internal reading skyrocketed on the monitors. The machines crackled violently, then sizzled into fine dust, collapsing like they had been corroded from the inside out.
Leon pushed his hair out of his eyes and blinked. He was in an unfamiliar space. A hospital, maybe. The sharp scent of antiseptic made his nose twitch. He glanced around again and caught the stunned expressions of several doctors and nurses... except something about them felt wrong. Their movements were sluggish, painfully slow, like someone had turned the world into a broken video buffering frame by frame.
"Huh? What are they doing?" Leon said. The words came out strangely, stretched thin in the air.
The medical team reacted, but only slightly. Their eyes shifted, their hands twitched, but everything moved at a pace that made Leon feel like he was watching statues melt.
"Are they playing tricks on me?" he asked again, confused.
He had no idea that to everyone else, his voice sounded like a streak of noise. They were not slow. Leon was simply too fast to understand what he was seeing.
"What is going on? Stop acting like idiots and talk!" he snapped as he got up from the bed.
From his point of view, he merely stood. From theirs, he blurred across the space, leaving a ripple in the air. The medical staff attempted to jump back in fear, but Leon saw the movement as a gentle, gradual recoil, like they were being pulled away by invisible strings.
"This is really strange," Leon muttered, pacing around the room. He could not understand why everyone was moving like they were underwater.
Unknown to him, each of his steps looked like a flash. One moment he was beside the bed, the next moment beside the curtain, then near the medical cabinet. To the doctors, he appeared in three different spots at once. The streaks of his brown hair and clothes painted the room with blur after blur.
"H-he was right," the doctor whispered, unable to hide the tremor in his voice. His eyes followed the afterimages desperately, but Leon was already somewhere else each time he blinked.
Leon stared at them for a moment longer, then sighed. Since they seemed to not be responding, he decided to leave. He walked toward the door at a casual pace.
"What a weird bunch," Leon said as he stepped out of the room.
Leon was suddenly struck by a wave of hunger so sharp it made his stomach twist.
"Must be that British breakfast… it's poisoning me," he thought sarcastically.
He rubbed his eyes. The sky was pitch-dark.
That was strange. It was summer, and the sun usually lingered until late at night. This… this looked like midnight had swallowed the city whole.
"Mom is going to be pissed…" he groaned.
He recognized the area around him. It was the nearest hospital, the one that was a twenty to thirty minute drive from his house. By car.
And he definitely did not have a car.
"Well, it should be fine since I was literally in the hospital. Mom might believe that… maybe. Probably not. But they have to call a minor's guardian when something like this happens, right?" he rambled to himself while pacing in the dimly lit parking lot.
The more he thought about it, the more he wanted to get home before the situation got worse. Maybe if he arrived fast enough, some miracle would cover for him. Provided his parents hadn't already been alerted.
Leon glanced at the nearby road.
"Why is everyone driving so slowly? If you can even call that driving."
The cars crept along like they were being pushed by a gentle breeze, not engines. They moved at a pace slower than a snail crossing wet pavement.
The gears in his head shifted. Something was off. Very off.
Either he was still in a coma, or he had somehow developed a superpower.
"But seeing things in slow motion isn't exactly useful," he muttered, scratching his cheek.
He paused.
"Wait… I wasn't just seeing things slowly. I was moving faster than my own thoughts."
The gears finally clicked.
"I HAVE SUPER-SPEED!!" Leon shouted, throwing his hands into the air like he'd won the lottery.
"How did this even happen? The cars are crawling on a clear road, the doctors were moving weirdly slow too. But I was faster than all of them, so that means I'm super fast, right?" he said, almost tripping over his own excitement.
Well, there was only one way to confirm it.
Leon lowered himself into a running stance.
He took a deep breath.
One.
Two.
Three.
He dashed.
The world warped. His vision stretched into streaks of light, yet somehow everything felt natural, like he had always been meant to move this way. Flashes burst behind him, bouncing off windows and streetlamps. In ten seconds, he had blasted through several blocks, zipped around corners, slipped between cars moving like statues, and arrived right outside his house.
He skidded to a stop, panting lightly.
"Before I talk to Mom… and Dad, I should probably figure out how to automate this super-thinking. Conversations would take forever if everyone is this slow."
He tried to think further, but the world tilted sharply.
His knees buckled.
And before he could stabilize himself, he collapsed.
THUD.
.
.
.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Leon slowly opened his eyes. His vision was blurry at first, then the shapes in front of him sharpened into familiar silhouettes. The same doctors. The same room. Except this time, they were moving at a normal pace. No strange slow motion. No warped reality.
Had it all been a dream?
His chest tightened.
Where had that spark gone, that brief moment where he felt unstoppable?
That shimmer of hope vanished so easily?
"Nooo…" he whispered weakly.
"Was that burst of speed… just something I imagined?"
The door creaked open. A man stepped inside, casual as if he owned the place, and he must have heard every word Leon muttered.
"Oh, trust me, it was very real, Mr. Gordan," he said, giving Leon a relaxed thumbs up.
"But… everything was so slow before," Leon said, confusion heavy in his voice.
"Your body entered a sort of rest mode. Think of it like a safety setting," the man replied. He took a seat in a chair beside the bed and crossed his arms. His confident smile did little to ease Leon's racing thoughts.
"You do not have enough energy right now to even consider using super-speed," he continued. "Well, you could try, but it would not feel pleasant."
Leon blinked. "So that means… I have to be in rest mode to be normal?"
"Of course not. With time comes control," the man answered calmly. "You will learn to balance it…. I hope"
Leon let out a soft exhale, he didn't want to be tired in order to ask for something or just have a basic conversation.
"But I am honestly surprised you were able to move at all when you first awakened. Your body used a tremendous amount of energy reconstructing itself," the man added, tapping his chin thoughtfully.
"Huh?" Leon frowned.
"Do you not see that lump of muscle on you now, big boy?" the man said with a smirk.
Leon looked down. He had always been decently built, but now his frame looked different. He looked lean and muscular.
"A bit of a cheat, don't you think?" the man teased. "Some of us train for years at the gym to look like that. And you get it because you rolled lucky and got blasted by theoretical energy."
Leon scoffed. "Ah yes, I know I'm special. What else do you have to tell me?" he replied dryly.
But deep inside, excitement bubbled like fireworks.
He had super-speed, a super cool ability!
Most Avengers did not even have that as a main ability. And the possibilities… there were so many. More than he could count.
'I'll be the best hero. Who even needs a squad?' he thought proudly.
Then he caught himself and cleared his throat.
Maybe he was hyping himself up a little too much.
The door burst open with a loud creak.
"My baby!" a woman cried out. Leon's mom rushed inside, eyes wide with panic.
"Oh, hello Mom," Leon said, lifting his arm in a lazy wave as if it were an ordinary Tuesday afternoon.
His mother stared at him in disbelief. "You are hurt and this is how you react? Does anything hurt? You have to tell me. They said you got hit by something. How is your head? Do you feel dizzy? Nauseous? Alive?"
Leon blinked slowly. "Nothing hurts. I got hit by energy but honestly, I did not feel anything. My head is just fine."
His mom crossed her arms but her relieved exhale betrayed her worry. "I hope you get better soon. This hospital smells terrible though…" She muttered the last part under her breath.
Leon chuckled at her honesty. "Where is Dad?" he asked.
"He should be here soon. He went to get you some fruits. Apparently that is the traditional offering for hospitalized and helpless people like you." She gave him a cheeky smile.
"I still blame the breakfast…" Leon mumbled.
"What was that?" his mom snapped as she reached over and pulled his cheeks.
"Ow ow. Alright, I was just joking!"
Before she could go on, the man from earlier clapped his hands. "Now that you two have had your fun, it is time for you to step out, Mama."
"Eh? I just got here," Leon's mom protested.
Another doctor stepped forward with a stiff expression. "You arrived at a rather unfortunate time. Because of the situation, we need to perform several tests."
"Without my permission?" she shot back, narrowing her eyes. Leon, used to this, simply sighed internally.
The doctor's smile became sharp enough to cut air. "Ma'am, respectfully, we performed the entire operation for free. Would you like me to bring the bill instead?"
Leon watched as his mother disappeared from the room at a speed that might have rivaled his own. Maybe even surpassed it. He was not entirely sure.
The man returned his attention to Leon with renewed curiosity. "Now then, Mr. Gordan. I want to ask something before we begin the official procedures. What did it feel like to use your powers? I have a few personal questions."
Leon paused to think. "It felt like… running really fast, I guess. Except the entire world was barely moving. Imagine being in a car, but you are the one running."
"Oh, fascinating," the man murmured as he scribbled in his notebook.
"I thought we were not doing tests," Leon said, raising an eyebrow at the sight of rapid note-taking.
"This is not a test. This is just for my personal curiosity. Now, next question. When you collapsed, did you feel any unusual sensations?"
Leon thought back to the moment. "When I woke up, I felt normal. Like I had just taken a nap. I was not even tired. But after two or three minutes… I started getting really hungry."