Peter landed on an island just off the coast of San Francisco. A rock really. This was the place that he did his thinking. After every mission he came to this location, to the cave that he had filled with his possessions that even master Chow couldn’t see. They were things from his early life, from his family. The picture of his mother and younger brother (only by two years) sat on the magic carved shelf that was on the inner most wall.
They had lived near the poverty line in a tiny one bedroom north-side apartment in the City of Edmonton. He had lived with his mother, his brother and his abusive alcoholic father. Their life was horrible. They barely had enough to eat some days, and others, noting at all. His father had squandered the family budget on his gambling addiction, and buying beer, and Bourbon. He vividly remembered his father beating his mother. One night he beat her nearly to death before he finally passed out. Peter found it weird that he never touched John or him. But he knew that as soon as something happened to their mother his focus was going to switch to one of them. For as long as he could remember Peter had had a boiling hot hate for his father. He wised that he had the power to kill the bastard, but he didn’t. That was, until his powers had “come to maturity” Master Chow had called it.
He remembered that night more vividly, like it had happened yesterday. The night that he had gained his powers was a horrible night. There was a snow storm boiling outside, and his father had been drinking, almost to the point of him passing out, but no, Peters mother would not have that kind of mercy. The beating that night had come with a higher intensity that on other nights. Peters father rained blows down on his mothers face, and chest. She was bleeding from her broken nose and the many cuts that were on her face. Peter, who was eight, was sitting in the closet. His six year old brother cuddled up next to his, they were both crying in the fettle position. This was their usual place to be when their father was going nuts.
Then from the middle of nowhere he heard ... a voice. It did not sound like one he had heard before. It was INSIDE his head! It said.
“Peter, let the power flow through you. This power that I grant you to save yourself!” Peter felt a rush of power through his body. He saw the world almost differently now, almost black and white. He knew what to do to make the power work. He extended his had to the door, and felt a wave of power blast out from his hand. The recoil sent him backwards into his bed, his brother was cowering behind it, afraid of his brother. Peter walked, no, floated out into the hall and into the room where his mother was getting beaten. He went up to his father, who was standing white with his face flushed red and angry. His mother ran to cower behind the couch.
In his fathers drunken rage he staggered to Peter with the look of hell in his eyes. Peter extended his hand and three sparkling blue spikes shot out from his fingertips. They just skimmed his fathers skin and pinned him to the wall with his T-shirt. Peter’s father yelped, and struggled to get off the wall, but his struggle was in vain. Peter took a step forward, and reached back his right hand in a fist, and plowed it forward. It hit his father square in the nose and slammed his face into the wall, creating a dent in the drywall. He rained blows exactly like that one, alternating his right and left fists until his Peter’s father was begging for mercy. Peter would let no mercy fall though. When he was done venting his rage, he held his right hand palm up. A dagger was created in his hand, and this he jammed into his fathers forehead.
Peter slumped to the ground, and expelled the remaining energy. His head tilted back and his chest rose up. There was a blinding flash of light and a blast that took out the outside wall of the apartment building. Now, Peter’s brother had wandered into the room, and his mother was already there. They were both shot out of the building’s outer wall and they smashed into the street four stories bellow. Peter had time to witness his Mother and Brother fall to the earth, and land in a spatter of blood, just before he saw the for of Master Chow hovering above the street outside the busted window. The world went black, and he fell into unconsciousness.
It had been a long seven years of training since then, he took the sharp rock from the shelf, and scratched another point into the rock, the seventh point. Peter walked to the bedroll that was the same as he had left it, he crawled under the rough wool blanket. He cried himself to sleep.
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