Chapter 4
The pre-dawn light cast long shadows across Gotham's skyline as Abel Gordon made his way home, his mind still reeling from the night's discoveries. He slipped in through his bedroom window, wincing at the squeak of unoiled hinges. The house was quiet; his father must have finally succumbed to exhaustion after days of searching for his missing son.
Abel's enhanced hearing picked up the steady rhythm of Jim Gordon's snores from down the hall. Guilt gnawed at him briefly, but it was quickly overshadowed by the exhilaration of his new abilities. He had so much to explore, to understand.
Over the next few weeks, Abel threw himself into testing the limits of his transformation. He'd always been smart, but now his mind worked at an unprecedented speed, processing information and making connections faster than ever before. His physical abilities were equally astounding. He could lift objects many times his own weight, move with a grace and agility that defied human limits, and adhere to nearly any surface.
But perhaps most intriguing was what he'd come to think of as his "spider-sense" – a preternatural awareness of danger that manifested as a tingling at the base of his skull. It was this ability that saved him from discovery one afternoon as he practiced scaling the walls of an abandoned warehouse in the industrial district.
The tingling hit him just as he heard his father's voice echoing through the cavernous space below. "GCPD! This is Commissioner Gordon. We have a warrant to search these premises."
Abel's heart raced as he clung to the shadowy rafters, watching his father and a team of officers sweep through the building. They were clearly looking for something specific – or someone. As they moved deeper into the warehouse, Abel took his chance and slipped out through a broken skylight.
That close call only fueled Abel's determination to master his new abilities. He pushed himself harder, faster, learning to trust his instincts and the new signals his body was sending him. All the while, he maintained a facade of normalcy at home and school, though he couldn't quite hide the newfound confidence that radiated from him.
It was during one of his nighttime excursions, about a month after his transformation, that Abel witnessed the event that would change everything.
He was perched on a gargoyle high above the financial district, watching the ebb and flow of late-night traffic, when a commotion caught his attention. Three floors below, in what should have been an empty office, shadowy figures were moving with purpose.
Abel's enhanced vision allowed him to make out details that would have been invisible to normal eyes. Men in expensive suits, passing documents back and forth. A safe being opened, its contents emptied into briefcases. And at the center of it all, a face he recognized from the society pages – Douglas Fredericks, CEO of Gotham National Bank.
This was no simple burglary. This was white-collar crime happening in real-time.
Abel watched, transfixed, as the men finished their business and left the building, melting into the night as if nothing had happened. His mind raced. He should report this, but to whom? His father? The GCPD?
The next morning, over a tense breakfast (family meals had become an exercise in unspoken tensions since Abel's unexplained three-day absence), Abel decided to broach the subject.
"Hey, Dad," he began, trying to sound casual. "Hypothetically, if someone had evidence of corporate crime – you know, embezzlement, fraud, that sort of thing – how would they report it?"
Jim Gordon looked up from his coffee, his brow furrowed. "That's an oddly specific hypothetical, son. But generally, they'd file a report with the GCPD's Financial Crimes Unit. Why do you ask?"
Abel shrugged, aiming for nonchalance. "Just curious. We've been discussing white-collar crime in Civics class."
His father nodded slowly, clearly not entirely convinced. "Well, the tricky thing with those cases is gathering enough evidence to make charges stick. These corporate types, they've got armies of lawyers and ways of hiding their tracks. Without rock-solid proof, it's nearly impossible to bring them down."
"But if someone had that proof? Witnessed it happening?"
Jim sighed, running a hand through his graying hair. "Even then, Abel, it's not simple. There are procedures, warrants to obtain, and bureaucratic hoops to jump through. By the time we cut through all that red tape, the evidence could be long gone."
The frustration in his father's voice was palpable, and it resonated with something deep inside Abel. There was a clear injustice, a crime that would likely go unpunished because of systemic limitations.
As Abel left for school that morning, his mind was made up. He couldn't just sit on this information, couldn't let these criminals walk free because of bureaucratic constraints. But going through official channels clearly wasn't the answer.
No, this situation called for something different. Something outside the system. Something... like him.
The seed of an idea that had been germinating since his transformation began to take root and grow. Gotham needed someone who could operate in the shadows, gather evidence, and bring criminals to justice without being hampered by red tape and legal restrictions.
Gotham needed a Private Eye of some sort.
As the pieces of his new identity began to fall into place, Abel felt a surge of purpose unlike anything he'd experienced before. He had been given these extraordinary abilities for a reason. It was time to put them to use. His way.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone