A man sat on his desk flipping around the documents in his hands. It was like any other day in an office except it wasn’t an ordinary office.

 

A knock on the door.

 

“Come in,” said the owner of the office room.

 

The door opened and a man dressed in a black suit with a file in his hand.

 

“Agent Bond, we’ve found him,” said the man who just entered. He rushed inside and slid the file on the mahogany table. A custom-made table to the liking of the almost bald Agent Bond.

 

Agent Bond who had focus eyes turned his attention to the thin new file on the table. His eyes grew wide as he swapped the files in hand to the one on the table.

 

He flipped it open and ignored the still standing agent in front of him. Then he saw it, a rather blurred image of a person who just walked out from the airport gate. An image was taken by the CCTV of Pearson Airport. A familiar face he saw back in a hospital.

 

“It’s him, it’s really him!” Agent Bond glanced at the junior agent in front of him.

 

“How did you find him?” Agent Bond asked.

 

“Well, one of ours managed to hack inside the Canadian intelligence agency. They managed to find a few of them before they were kicked out,” said the junior agent.

 

“They’re good, didn’t think they can break through their freaking iron firewall,” said Agent Bond. He had been asking help from the Canadian intelligence agency since a week ago and they outright refused them. Usually, they were good to go seeing they were in a friendly alliance but this time it was different. Every country was experiencing a total meltdown in terms of both economies as well as security. Right now, these Awakened were being put on the pedestal as they were the only way of fighting back against the UC.

 

As his eyes kept on reading the documents regarding this man, the more dumbstruck he was.

 

“Did you read this?” he asked the junior agent.

 

He smiled for a while but then he had a crestfallen look. The junior agent felt mixed feelings about the man that they had been searching for. The only way he could respond was nodding at his senior.

 

“He’s…” Agent Bond lost his words not knowing how to describe the man they had been searching for. They were too late to stop the man from leaving the borders of America. They previously interviewed the junior doctor now known as the Scarlet Battle Maiden about the man but he couldn’t get anything substantial. The only thing she told was about how he saved her from a camp of hobgoblins.

 

She didn’t even know about the incident that happened back in the mall, the heist that went wrong, a heist stopped by a lone man. The thing that was missing from a vault, a property that should be within the hands of the American government was lost to the hands of a Canadian citizen.

 

But that wasn’t the only thing that surprised him. As he read on further, the Canadian intelligence agency was building up a case against the man known as Jason Park. They still didn’t have concrete proof regarding this man but all of the events listed on this document showed that this man might had done the impossible.

 

Two weeks ago, three special ops unit that included the Awakened suffered a total defeat. The gamma team incident, and the alpha team incident. The events might not be related to one another but the Canadian intelligence agency was trying to find a link to it.

 

The unknown variable known as the Invisible Man kept on appearing in the reports. An Invisible Man knocked out the entire gamma team. The Invisible Man stole an artifact right in front of their eyes. The Invisible Man that might be responsible for killing powerful UC. Deeds that impossible at the moment were possible by this man and Agent Bond also knew the truth.

 

He investigated this man long before the Canadian did. He watched the CCTV in the hospital as well as the American Dreamyard and after hours of streaming, he found him on tape disappearing into thin air. The man was meticulous trying not to get caught by the CCTV but the buffet restaurant had their own security cameras and the footage he found from the hospital showed that the man had a mishap while going invisible.

 

From that alone, Agent Bond was impressed by the cautiousness of this man. But he too was a determined man.

 

“They still don’t know about him,” said Agent Bond.

 

“Yes sir, but we too don’t know anything about him,” said the junior agent.

 

“Daniel,” Agent Bond called out to his junior agent.

 

“Yes sir,” said Agent Craig.

 

“We have the proof of him being an Awakened but they still don’t, they only thing they have are these two,” Agent Bond arranged another picture above the one showing Jason. This time, it showed the image of a black tall man, it was Hakeem. The image depicted the scene when Hakeem and Jason shared a hug in front of the airport entrance.

 

“From the report, this man is known as Man of Steel as he could block bullets with his body,” Agent Bond took a pause as his hand slide on the keyboard and opened an image file to the desktop screen.

 

“Scarlet Battle Maiden?” said Agent Craig as he saw the sight of a woman battling against a pack of giant wolves.

 

“From the report about her, this woman, Bryce, also has something similar to the black man,” said Agent Bond.

 

“You mean their energy guard?” asked Agent Craig.

 

Just like the Canadian, the Americans also recruited the Awakened across the whole nation and they learned Energy Guard was a type of defensive barrier that protected the body of the Awakened. A few had other variations of energy guard but they were more or less the same except for these two people.

 

Agent Bond had a hunch that their defensive ability was a notch higher in quality compared to the energy guard. Once, they tested in shoot someone with the energy guard and the result, a bloody hole in an innocent body of a person. The man survived but that itself showed that this barrier was weak to bullets.

 

A few of these Awakened responded that they might be able to stop bullets if their points were higher than their current one. It was one of those things that Agent Bond couldn’t wrap his head around, a few of these people spoke that these things were like a game and point distribution matters most. Even if points did matter, there was a disparity in quality. After reading the report he came to knew that superior abilities existed and his gut feeling was telling him that in the near future, those who have unique abilities were going to stand at the top of the food chain.

 

“So, do we get him?” Agent Craig blurted out a question. In the first place, Jason wasn’t the first priority of the NSA, him disappearing from the hospital was a minor issue but after knowing him being responsible for the loss of the unknown artifact in American Dreamyard’s vault, Jason just a put target on his back.

 

“Don’t be a fool, there’s no way Canada will let us take someone with a potential like this,” again Agent Bond glanced at the picture of Jason.

 

“Even if we did a covert op, you think Canada will just sit around and do nothing? After they find the truth about him, I bet they will go and use him to fix their problem,” said Agent Bond.

 

Agent Craig only nodded in response as he too thought the same.

 

“Daniel,” Agent Bond called out to Agent Craig. His head was tilted downwards as he was deep in his own thought.

 

“Yes sir,” said Agent Craig.

 

“Although the higher up is pressuring us to retrieve the artifact, I still think it’s better if you and I try to gain these abilities,” Agent Bond’s words shocked Agent Craig.

 

“But our specific task is to…” while Agent Craig was stating the obvious, Agent Bond cut him off.

 

“You’re missing my point here,” said Agent Bond.

 

“Explain sir,” said Agent Craig curious about the thought in his senior agent.

 

“Before we catch an Awakened, shouldn’t we also be one?” Agent Bond let out a slight smile and he continued, “It takes one to catch one.”