The Making of a Champion
Part 1
By
Scott "RaZrEsHaT" Hall

The door creaked slightly as it closed. Jerry felt like a high school kid sneaking back into the house while trying to avoid waking his parents. But Jerry wasn't a kid and he didn't live with his parents.

Quietly he took off his heavy work boots and left them by the front door. Silently he stripped off the dusty and disheveled cloths he had worn to work that morning. Dirt and soot, dust and pulverized brick filled every pore of his clothing, skin, and medium length blonde hair.

Moving to the bathroom at the far end of the small house, Jerry climbed in the shower and quickly washed away the long day's grime. Feeling cleansed, he silently moved to the bedroom.

The door to the bedroom also made a slight squeak as it opened. The sound would have been barely noticeable during the day, however in the calm of night it sounded out like a factory steam whistle. Jerry stopped the door immediately and did his best to slide his muscular frame through the opening as is. Moving to the bed, he looked down at its lone occupant.

Even while sleeping, Carol's body language announced she was angry. Knowing he was in for it in the morning, Jerry began to devise his excuse. It was getting harder and harder to explain away his late nights, and Carol was becoming more and more suspicious. But Jerry did not want to hurt his wife, and so he prepared himself to lie to her again. A night of restless sleep was his reward.

********************

Jerry awoke to mixed signals. He could hear the sounds of breakfast being made, but he could also smell that Carol was smoking in the house. She only smoked in the house when she was mad at him. She used it as a way to get back at him when she knew they were going to fight.

Putting on a shirt, Jerry got up and headed for the kitchen. He knew it was going to be bad, but he had no way to know how bad.

"Did you sleep ok?" The thick sarcasm in her voice was sharp as a knife and any last thoughts about avoiding a fight died in the back of Jerry's mind. Carol was still a beautiful as she had been in high school with her long brown hair and penetrating blue eyes, but when she was angry, even her shapely body became threatening.

"Sure, how about you?" He knew it was best to let her get around to it. If he started to apologize before she brought it up, there was a very real chance he would only bring up yet another reason for her to be mad and thus complicate his already dangerous situation.

"How do you think I sleep?" It was coming out already, she must have been really angry. "Where the hell were you again last night?"

Jerry knew that it was too soon to try and answer the question, there was more coming before she would be ready to listen.

"If you think I am going to just sit here and be made a fool of…" suddenly Jerry realized that there was a different twist to her anger this time, "while you run around town with some little slut…" a tear began to stream down his wife's face.

"Honey, its not…"

"Don't lie to me you son of a bitch!" Carol swung her hand widely toward Jerry as he approached to embrace her. Her arm smacked off of the wall in their small kitchen and she immediately brought the other hand up and placed it on Jerry's chest and pushed with all her might.

Jerry could have brushed aside her attempts to hold him back more easily than she could ever know, but he chose not to.

"What do you think is going on?"

"You are running around at night with one of those sluts that work in the site office." Carol had always been possessive, something that Jerry actually enjoyed from time to time, but for some reason she was very obsessive about several of the women who worked in the site manager's office at the construction yard. Jerry suspected that they reminded her of the cheerleaders she hated so much in high school.

"I don't ever see Cindy or Melanie…"

"You know their names!" The reference to the two offensive women drove Carol over the edge. She began to cry openly. The sound of the phone ringing cut through the tension. On the wall behind Carol was the nearest phone and she instinctively turned and answered it.

Silently she listened to the voice on the other end for what seemed like forever. Slowly she stopped crying and brought her eyes to rest on Jerry.

"It's….it's your dad," her grim tone revealed that the call wasn't from his dad, but about his dad, "he is in the hospital again."

********************

For a supposedly sterile place, hospitals smelled funny to Jerry. Like any able bodied young man, he hated hospitals. He had especially hated hospitals since the last time he stepped in one; the last time his father had cancer.

Ten years prior, Jerry had stood in the exact same hospital while his father underwent several surgeries and numerous chemotherapy treatments to fight his lung cancer. That time he had won, or had he? It occurred to Jerry that it was a battle that could only be called a tie-until you die from something other than cancer-only then could you have said someone won.

Anger swelled up in Jerry. Everything in the environment around him only served to irritate him. The medical staff going about their work like it was any other day, happy families leaving with their released loved ones, his mother weeping since he got there several hours ago, and most of all the doctors.

The doctors told them that the cancer was spread throughout his entire body, that it was too extensive to do surgery on, the chemo would only make the inevitable more painful.

"How had they missed it? How could they have not checked more often?" Jerry asked himself over and over again with no answers. "How was a man with a history of such a disease not checked for it every other damn day?!" He did not even bother to voice the questions; he knew there were no answers that would satisfy him.

Dr. Stephens came through the swinging doors and into the waiting room. He quickly approached the waiting family as if every second counted.

"Hello, are you the Danielson family?"

"Yes," Jerry answered as he got to his feet.

"Please, sit down," the doctor requested as he found himself a seat facing the family. Taking a deep breath, he didn't pull any punches, "I am afraid that the initial diagnosis was right on the money. Floyd has very aggressive and extensive cancer that has spread throughout several systems in his body. We think that it started in his lungs, but at this point it is hard to tell and doesn't really matter." The doctor paused for the news to sink in. "There is nothing we can really do except be prepared to make him as comfortable as possible in the time he has left."

"How…how long is that?" Carol asked, knowing full well that Jerry or his mother Barbara would not be able to get the words out.

"I believe that six months would be the very most you could expect, probably less."

The news hit the three of them like a train and they all sank back into their seats.

"How soon till I can see my husband?" Barbara asked of the young doctor.

"I can take you to see him now."

Carol took her mother in law by the arm and escorted her into the hospital room that belonged to Floyd. Jerry however, was having trouble walking into the room. He stopped by Dr. Stephens and turned to face the young man.

"There is absolutely nothing that can be done?!" There was more determination in Jerry's voice than ever before in his life. "No crazy herbal remedies or strange experiments, nothing?"

"Well, there is a radical experimental therapy being tested over in Denver right now, but…"

"We'll do it! Whatever it takes!"

"What it takes is $750,000 to $1 million dollars. It is not yet FDA approved and therefore your father's insurance won't cover it." The doctor reluctantly stated, "That is why I didn't bring it up before. I did not want to get your families hopes up. I am sorry."

Jerry knew they did not have the money and there was no way they were going to get it.

********************

Floyd's eyes sparkled as his only son entered the room. The elder Danielson looked withered and weakened, a grey pale had fallen over the once mountainous man. The site of his father so weakened hit Jerry like a punch in the gut. He tried to be strong, but his resolve weakened as he neared his father. By the time he reached side of his stricken parent, his anger at the situation had dissolved into tears.

"Its ok son," Floyd consoled. Jerry was a strong man, but like many other strong men, the sight of his father so incapacitated brought out the scared child in him.

"I know dad…"

"I'm gonna fight as hard as I can."

Jerry looked away to gain composure, but his eyes immediately came to rest on his mother and Carol. The two women were also in tears. Jerry immediately turned away and hugged his father deeply.

"We will do whatever it takes dad," but Jerry was not sure what he could do. Eventually the emotions of the moment died down and Jerry and his family were able to relax. Together they sat and talked for hours.

Evening crept in and before anyone noticed, a nurse came in and announced that the visiting hours were up. One by one they hugged Floyd and said their goodbyes. Despite the fact that they would all be back the next day, their parting had all the love of people who would not being seeing each other for a long time.

********************

Carol held the door open as Jerry walked up to the house. His mind reeled with the situations both at the hospital and at home. He hoped that Carol had forgotten how angry she was that morning.

After heading to the bedroom and quickly changing into some work clothes, Jerry found Carol sitting in the kitchen smoking a cigarette and watching some news on a small T.V.

"I'm heading to the yard," Jerry decided that he needed to get some perspective. He needed to be alone for a while and find an answer to everything that was going on in his life, or more specifically, he needed to blow off some steam.

"But it's Saturday and the construction site is closed!?" Carol both protested and questioned. "Wait, where the hell are you going? Don't think I am this stupid!" Anger started to flow through Carols words and it felt like the fight from that morning was beginning all over again.

"I will explain it to you later," Jerry reassured, "but right now I need to get out of here and think." The attempted explanation only seemed to further anger Carol, but Jerry didn't care. He walked out the front door and jumped into his truck. The noise of the engine rumbled drowned out the sounds of Carol yelling at him from the front door. He wasn't sure if this was a sign of the end of their marriage, however compared to the other things occupying his mind, it didn't seem to matter.

As the streets and scenery raced passed on his way to the construction yard, Jerry's mind focused on his "other" problem. For the last couple of months, strange events had begun to become apparent to Jerry. Several accidents had happened on the work site. Nothing too serious at first; accidentally hit by a coworker with a wood beam, having a somewhat heavy piece of equipment dropped on his foot, and falling off of the third story of the condemned building they were demolishing; all without any injury.

The black mesh barrier walls that surrounded the construction site came into view. A small parking area to the side of the site's gate sat empty, exactly as Jerry had anticipated. Parking his truck, he jumped out and walked around the vehicle and toward the gate all the while subtly scanning the surrounding area.

It was amazing how different downtown Indianapolis seemed on the weekends. This same location on a weekday would be filled with people moving back and forth between office buildings, restaurants, and any number of other businesses. But now it was like a metropolitan ghost town.

Placing his hands on the steel fencing of the site's gate, the many late nights at this location flooded back into Jerry's mind. The condemned building inside had come along at a perfect time for him. He knew that there was no better place for him to deal with his other problem than here.

The public had developed several names for people like Jerry, but nothing was concrete in the main stream. Even looking it up on the internet, Jerry found terms like "freak", "bizarre", "altered" and "mutant". He wasn't sure how he liked the sound of those terms, but the urban legends of people with fantastic abilities were wide spread and he doubted that he could do much to stop their use. The worst part for Jerry though was that he felt utterly alone. No one else that he knew of was going through the same thing.

"How was he to know what to make of what was happening to him? How could he make sure that he didn't hurt anyone? Was their any danger to those around him?" Jerry's mind filled with the questions that he knew he couldn't answer, which fueled his fear of sharing his secret with his family.

With the surrounding area clear, Jerry squeezed through the gap between the gate and the mesh wall.

 

A large chuck of brick was broke free and plummeted toward the ground. Over a ton of brick and mortar picked up speed as it fell in the dark of night. A lone figure stood below the descending wall.

Jerry turned and looked up toward the incoming chunk of wall. A moment's panic washed over him, but he stood fast. Although he was very certain that he would come to no harm, the very human desire to escape the impact of the debris was still strong in him. The mass of bricks arrived and Jerry braced for the collision.

A cloud of dust and dirt erupted from the impact. Chunks of brick flew in every direction and Jerry remained standing. His clothing was covered in a layer of pulverized brick, but he was un-phased.

Nearby several large girders lay on the ground. Having been knocked free of the condemned building by the wrecking ball, Jerry decided to see what he could do to them. Hefting an eight foot long bent girder, he began by unbending the contorted girder. The metal of the girder was like thin aluminum in his hands. Next he picked up an almost new looking I-beam and worked it into the shape of a pretzel.

The construction yard had made a perfect location to explore his emerging abilities. Jerry felt lucky for the first time in his life to have been a construction worker. He couldn't imagine what he would have done when his strange new abilities began to appear if he had been working in an office somewhere. No one seemed to notice him staying late in the evenings, and very little, if anything was ever said about the extra destruction that occurred overnight As a matter of fact, the removal of the condemned building was going quicker because of it and the crew was ahead of schedule.

A single story wall made up of two thick layers of brick stood to Jerry's front and an idea occurred to him. Backing up, Jerry took a running start and then launched himself forward. He felt the slight tingle of his flight ability kick in as he flew towards the wall. Picking up speed, he thrust both arms forward with his hands balled into fists. A loud and thunderous crash rang out and Jerry found himself flying out the far side of the wall. Shattered bricks lay strewn around the former wall as the remaining intact pieces fell to the ground. Jerry came to a clumsy landing and admired his handiwork.

"Hhhhmmmmm," someone cleared their throat somewhere behind Jerry. With a slight jump, Jerry spun and looked in the direction of the noise.

"Who's there?"

A man stepped out of the shadows. The man stood nearly as tall as Jerry's 6'5" and appeared to have an athletic build under the leather jacket and pants he wore. His hair was so blonde that it looked absolutely white to include the goatee on his chin.

"Who the hell are you?" Jerry questioned defensively. "This construction site is not for public access."

"I might ask you the same thing," the man dryly responded. "What exactly are you doing here?"

"I…I'm working for the construction company," it was poor as excuses went, "and I am investigating the recent night activities here."

"Please, I have been watching you for over an hour buddy." Shocked, Jerry did not know what to say, as the stranger continued, "I know that you are a mutant, or whatever they are calling us today."

"Us", the reference ran circles in Jerry's mind. The man had said "us", the implication that another mutant stood directly in front of him nearly caused Jerry's mind fits. Until now, he was the only mutant that he had ever known of. Sure, stories abound about numerous unexplained phenomenons that could have been attributed to mutants, but so far no one had been able to publicly prove the existence of people with these incredible abilities. It had been Bigfoot, UFO, and ghosts combined.

"You're a mutant?" The words stumbled out of his mouth in shock.

"Webothare," another man stepped out of the shadows to Jerry's left. This man stood slightly shorter than the first and around 6 feet tall. His dark brown hair looked wiry and stiff, but fell straight back as if he had stuck his head out of a speeding car. The dark hue to his skin made him blend into the shadows very well. He worn a similar leather jacket and pants as the first man, except that the designed seemed less rugged and of a lighter weight.

"What do you want with me?" Concerned thoughts of his wife ran through his head and he suddenly wanted to get home as soon as possible.

"Easy buddy, we're not here to hurt you," the first man stated. "We are simply interested in your abilities. You see we could use someone like you."

"What do you mean someone like me?" Jerry was still didn't know what to expect from the two strangers.

"Well, I go by Killowatt," the blonde haired man stated, "and my friend over there is Mach. Whats you name?"

"I'm not sure I want to tell you that until you tell me why you're here," Jerry felt very defensive around the two self admitted mutants.

"Ok, look, we work together and pretty much take what we want," the cavalier revelation shocked Jerry. "So far we have made sure to keep it real quiet. But we are looking to make a major score and that's were you come in."

"What do you mean," Jerry responded somewhat shocked, "how do I come into this?"

"Yourreallystrong!" Mach blurted out so fast that it took an extra second for Jerry to comprehend what the man had said.

"You'll have to excuse my friend here, it is a side effect of his abilities, you see he moves at tremendous speeds, hell he does everything at tremendous speed, including speaking."

"Yeah, I kind of noticed that. But Mach is a dumb name; you should go by Velocity or something."

"HeyKillowattIlikethat," the hyper speed talking mutant declared, "IwillgobyVelocityfromnowon!"

"Great, another new name," Killowatt seemed frustrated with Velocity's name change, "his attention span can be set to hyper too. He has changed his name five times since we hooked up a few months ago."

"I can see that. What was he getting at though?"

"What he was getting at is that you have something we lack; strength. Mac…Velocity and I each have a unique ability, but to make some real money we need someone with strength like yours."

"And how is my strength going to make you money?" Jerry was almost afraid to ask.

"Tonight is one of the biggest games in Indiana Pacers history. If they win, they go to the NBA Championships. There will be an incredible number of bets being made, and there will be nearly $10 million dollars extra in the main office of the Hunt Chicago National Bank not far from here. It will be in one of the most advanced vaults available, but that vault was not built with you in mind. Mach, uh, Velocity and I can easily get past the night guards, but we need your strength to get into the vault. With your strength, you can pull the door right off the vault and we will all be rich."

Jerry was taken back by the plan laid out by Killowatt. He definitely was interested in making a lot of money after his hospital visit, but committing a crime to do so definitely set off alarms in his head. However the demeanor of the two men made Jerry feel that it was definitely not necessarily the safest move to simply say "no", and given his father's situation he wasn't sure he wanted to.

"I need to think about this," Jerry began, "I am still getting used to being a mutant and I hadn't really thought any further than getting my abilities under control."

"That's fine," Killowatt stepped closer and leaned intimidating into Jerry's face, "how about you think about it for two days and then meet us at this spot." The blonde haired mutant tucked a folded piece of paper into Jerry's hand. "We'll see you then."