"Maybe this is where I die," I said, softly landing at the address where Demon was supposedly staying.
Making sure nobody was watching, I let light bounce off of me again, restoring me back to the visible spectrum.
Dead animals were scattered around the large manor. It looked like some serial killer's backyard.
From the number of dead animals, it seemed like every bird that had flown over the place, and every squirrel that had come hunting for a nut, had dropped dead in the yard.
It made the otherwise palatial manor before me look like a haunted house.
I scanned the house, noting the little wisps floating in the wind all around it. Each one had a sucker on the end.
Nobody else would be able to see it, but I could. And they were one heck of a superpower. I guessed it was Demon's.
Thankfully, they didn't affect me, or I'd likely be joining the dead birds and squirrels on the ground.
As I walked up to the manor, I brushed them aside, bundling them up and keeping them from latching onto me. The little things were hungry; they kept trying to break free and touch me.
I hadn't seen anything like this power before, and I found it fascinating. All powers were fascinating in their own way, but seeing one that was truly unique, like my own, was rare.
Brushing aside more of the little tethers, I tried the door. I wasn't surprised to find that it was unlocked.
It would be difficult for anybody to break into the home; they'd have to make it up the front steps without dying.
But I was different. My power was unique as far as I knew. I used my control over energy for many things.
Kinetic energy allowed me to mimic telekinesis for daily chores, thermal energy allowed me to cook or warm the floor of my apartment.
I could even tap into nuclear energy, but that caused more problems than it was worth.
There was always some random, overly prepared citizen with a Geiger counter that started screaming the sky was falling.
I had control of all energy. Kinetic, thermal, electromagnetic, even nuclear and gravity. But there was one that people never guessed, one that would make all hell break loose if it got out.
My control over superpowers.
Scientists, mad and sane, had been trying for years to explain how supers could do what they could do. After all, most superpowers completely shattered the laws of physics.
Scientists theorized that there was some sort of energy that worked alongside superpowers and fit them into the laws of physics that hadn't been discovered.
And with my ability, I knew they weren't far off.
It didn't have a formal name, but I'd always referred to it as ki.
Every super I'd encountered had had this mysterious mystical energy flowing through them, and oftentimes, it flowed out of them as they used their abilities.
I flicked away another tendril that reached out as I paused in the doorway to the house. They were comprised of ki, which gave me some control over them.
But others hadn't been so lucky. Anyone else who had gotten close to Demon could not have stopped them from feeding.
Ki was in every living thing, but it differed in quantities, leading to supers of differing levels. Though, not even the maddest of scientists had found a way to see or accurately gauge ki.
The wisps continued to circle me, and even with my power, I started to get tangled in them.
Yet backing out now would be admitting defeat. I pushed into the manor further, determined to get to the bottom of this.
As I stepped inside, the tendrils began multiplying in quantity, and the bundle I was holding to the side was growing to massive proportions.
I put a little trickle of ki into a ball and floated it out away from me, testing a theory.
The suckers thrashed, trying to get a taste of it. They swarmed it, quickly latching on and draining that small bit of ki.
I watched for a moment, intrigued. Testing a theory, I isolated myself, pulling in all the ki that I radiated and locking it tightly in my body.
I created a void of ki between the little suckers and my body, and instantly, they all calmed and stopped, trying to tangle me up.
I smiled, barely but still, glad that I wouldn't have to deal with them as I moved through the house. They'd been making me a little claustrophobic.
Pushing through them easily, I continued through the manor, watching for where they seemed to originate from.
I followed the suckers upstairs, and as I got closer, I could hear soft crying coming from one room.
Pushing away any vibrations in the air that my steps made, I opened the door and walked into a rather overdone room.
The bedroom had high ceilings that would normally be the statement piece, but the bed demanded all the attention. It was heavy and thick, overpowering the space, matching the gaudy, gold decorations on the walls.
Ignoring the decor, I moved towards the sound of the cries.
I quickly found a shriveled-up person laying on the bathroom floor. Whatever gender or race they were was completely unidentifiable.
Their skin was gray and dried up, and a pair of black horns rose from its head. I could see why the world would call them 'Demon' just based on their appearance.
Demon hadn't noticed me yet, but my body had gone rigid as I watched their shaking form lift up a gun and point it at their head.
My heart broke seeing Demon in this position. From what I could tell, it wasn't a villain. Demon was a victim of the superpower that they'd gotten, which they clearly didn't have much control over.
"Maybe wait to do that?" I commented, bringing up a kinetic barrier to block the gun if it went off.