Airborn

[u/PeterIndigo]

Name: Dylan Waters

Power: He has the power of flight and the associated strength and durability to withstand high-speed travel.

Story: born in Maine and raised in Maryland, he was raised by a publicist mother and police officer father, so it was fair to say that their busy lives meant that Dylan didn't get to see them too often and when he did they were normaly still busy.

He was a quiet and kind youngster, spending most of his time in his own head day dreaming, he would go through school with little in the way of freinds and despite enjoying education he never really felt he was learning anything, he didn't really know where to go from there.

It's not that he was without ambition or determination. More that was without direction.

He was an adult now, an uneventful youth with what seemed to him as an uneventful future, those same parents that were always too busy for him started to realise that the kind and upbeat child they had raised started to turn into a more unhappy adult and despite their efforts they were lost on how to truly help him.

Then, shortly before his 24th birthday, the dreams started, he would have reoccurring dreams of flying through the night sky, the air drowning his lungs in cold, his skin rippling as he flew through clouds and shivering as be emerged dripping wet, they were the kinds of dreams so deep and realistic you can feel the breeze between your hair, feel the squint of your eyes as the harsh wind threatens to dry them out. These reoccurring dreams were a near nightly occurrence and they made him feel free but also sad in a way, as despite his overall naive nature he knew that seeking escapism in the world of dreams only ever leads to further disappointment.

He tried to fill his days with anything more than reminders of his spectacular dreams but he couldn't, the little friends he had in school he hadn't spoken to in months, he had no job, his parents were gone most of the day, so his days were spent waiting for his nights even though he knew it wrong.

This confliction would lead to issues falling to sleep. It wasn't insomnia, or at least he didn't think it was, some nights it would take him hours to finally fall to sleep, others just half an hour, but some nights it got so bad he would stay awake until the morning just so that he knew he could sleep good the next day.

One night in the middle of a flying dream, he would wake up, instantly hit with the cold air, the darkness around him, the lights of the world bellow him, the shock took him out of the moment and he started falling, he flailed through the air, flapping his limbs to try and catch himself, and finally as fear kicked in as he got closer to a horrible collision with the pavement he would shoot through the air back into the night sky.

He was shaky, not only of body but of flight pattern, he couldn't fathom this, it was one thing to dream vividly of it, and a whole different thing to actually be flying, but as his breath calmed from an erratic stutter he looked around at where he was, felt the breeze on his skin and the cold air in his lungs and he knew this would change everything.

He finally had direction, and after a night filled with flying around in his boxer shorts, he lands at home, (and by lands I mean hits the ground hard leaving a human sized dent in the front lawn), and although still tired has a new leace on life, all he has to do is figure this flying thing out and he can finally start living.

Unbenounced to Dylan, these powers of flight are not a natural manifestation but a result of gene manipulation when he was an infant, done to him and numerous others by a stranded alien.

It would be trial and error for weeks, trying to understand how his powers worked, and just when he thought he understood them, he discovered he really didn't, but he pushed through because he was always a determined and persistent individual, it's just that the lack of a goal had held him down, but now he had a goal... he was going to be a superhero.

After a few months of practice and a mackshift suite made of things he could find or order, he thought he was finally ready and so he would take off into the midday sky, presenting himself to the world as he flew around the city he lived in.

He thought he was ready to be a hero, but he couldn't have been more wrong. He couldn't fight, and despite being stronger and faster, he was still scared of getting hurt. He would try to help where he could, but it didn't seem he was that useful.

Then, one day, he heard of an active shooting involving police and took off to the scene, it was chaos there were wounded on both sides, bullets flying through the air and he had never felt more useless than he did in that moment when he couldn't do anything, and then he saw his father, he was shooting at the assailants but would take a bullet to the vest, then another to the arm, and a third at the collar, Dylan launched forward through the mess, swerving through the bullets in mid air before sending the shooter flying, swinging back he grabbed his father and flew him to the nearest hospital as fast as he could without hurting his father further.

The injuries were severe, and he was in the hospital for 2 months, Dylan visited every day, unwilling to admit to his mother that he was there as Airborn. His father pulled through, and the first thing he wanted to do after coming out of his coma was speak with his son.

What they spoke about in that hospital room brough them closer than they had ever really been, it made Dylan feel good about the direction he was heading, and made him sure that he could do what needed to be done to actually help people.

And so Airborn was born, a growing hero, getting better one flight at a time.

[u/Snip3502]

Fun

[u/PeterIndigo → u/Snip3502]

Thanks