Chapter 1

With a gasp, Sixteen year old Nick Weston woke up from a vicious nightmare that was already fading from his memory. It was always like this. He did record bits and pieces in his photographic memory, though. He had a strong suspicion that it had to do with his past. But that was the hitch; Nick couldn't remember anything past two months ago.

From what he could remember of the dreams, they were very strange and could not possibly be his past or even real. Yet, his instincts screamed at him that these dreams were exactly his past and he should listen to them—even if they did half exhilarate and half scare the shit out of him and they were only bits and flashes.

The hospital said that he was found on the water front, floating. They said that he was as white as a ghost and the men who found him thought he was dead at first. But that was when they saw that his chest was barely moving. They got him to the hospital as fast as possible.

What the hospital found was blunt trauma to the head and two .22 caliber bullets in his back, not to mention traces of weird tranquilizers they couldn't identify. That was all the hospital or the police could get from him. They ran DNA and finger prints and checked the name Nick Weston. It was like he was a fucking ghost.

He was severely fed up with the hospitals and the psychologists trying to get him to remember and he was ready to split without permission and try and make it on his own, without Identification and severely hurt. That was when his savior stepped up.

Her name was Sara Douglas. She was a Doctor in neurology. She told him that since he was still only sixteen, she would take him in as a foster child and get him out from under the scrutiny of the shrinks. At the age of thirty six, she was probably the youngest of any of the doctors in Neurology in the state. However, she did have a heart of gold.

And for some reason, the sixteen year old amnesia patient agreed. There was just something about the woman that seemed to call to the boy, and it had nothing to do with hormones.

Although, the blonde hair, green eyed bomb-shell would certainly fall into the category of eye candy. However, for some reason, he didn't have even one of those feelings for her.

However, the others at the hospital he didn't trust as far as he could throw them. To Nick, respect was to be earned, not given. Moreover it seemed every fucking one of those shrinks wanted something from him and yet they gave him nothing.

Sara told him a lot about her home life—enough said.

When they pulled up to the gate of a three story mansion, Nick knew that his jaw was hanging open. Even if she was a doctor, he knew damn well that being a doctor didn't pay that well. He didn't ask questions, though. It had shrubs and gardens all the way down the half-mile driveway. He idly noted the place was surrounded by razor wire. He found out later that 200 vaults of electricity also went through that wire.

She said he had free run of the place, except the basement. That was off limits.

Sara was somewhat of an enigma to the young man. He had no idea why she would take him in, especially considering that she had had two twin fourteen year old daughters. The thing that he liked about Sara was that, while she pushed him to regain his memory, it was subtle. They would work on it only for a couple of hours a day.

Speaking of the Twins, Nick would have had to be blind not to notice them. They were both blond with green eyes, like their mother. Nimmi had long, long hair down to the middle of her back that she always kept braided. She was the type that could only be described as stoic with a dry sense of humor.

Kimmi was a different story. She had sort of a bob cut hair style, save for the braid. On the side of her head, she had a braid that ran all the way over her shoulder down to her budding breasts. She was also the tomboy of the two. If there was a curse word in the world, Nick believed that she had already said it before.

He would be lying if he said he didn't have the hots for both of them.

Then there was the whole rehabilitation kick Sara was on—she didn't leave her daughters out of it either. She hired the best Martial Arts instructors a Multi-Millionaire could hire—so the three of them really went through the ringer. Nick and his girls (he didn't know when he started thinking of them like that) had to work out for five hours, bullet holes in the back or not. He thought that he must be pretty sick in the head since he considered this his favorite time of the day. He loved the leotards the girls wore. He wanted his body in the best possible shape.

The one thing that he found out quickly—and was part of the reason Sara got him out of the hospital real quick—was the fact that he healed at a remarkable rate. Once the hospital got what they considered food in him, the bullet holes in his back scabbed over and scarred within two days, and then the scars slowly faded away. That was when Sara thought that she should get him out of there. Nick didn't know it, but she used a bit of mind manipulation on the staff, doctors and the shrinks to do it that quickly.

However, that was two months ago.

It was today that scared Nick the most.

Today was a Saturday and Sara was sending Kimmi and Nimmi (The Twins) out for the day because she had guests that were coming to talk to Nick. When Nick told her about his dreams, about the things that he was doing, he didn't think much of it. However, when he looked at her face, it was ash white. He had asked her what was wrong, but she said nothing and ran upstairs to use the phone, so that he couldn't hear because of the sound proof walls. That was another thing about Nick, his hearing and eye sight was really, really acute. He could understand people whispering thirty yards away.

That was yesterday. Apparently she was calling in reinforcements.

The dreams themselves were very erratic and almost crazy like. In some of them he would be throwing something as large as a van at a car that had a gun stuck out the window trying to shoot him. In others, he knew that there were bad people in a house that trafficked in child prostitution. One thought later and three ring leaders and fourteen body guards went up in flames—all dead in most painful ways. In the dream, he always knew what he was: Elemental Psion: Level Two.

But that was it. He couldn't remember anything else. Zip. Nadda. Wait. That was not quite right. He did remember something—something vague. It was a girl's voice, maybe fifteen—she called him a name. A name that sounded absolutely right.

Viper. She called him Viper. He told Sara all of this.

Ever since he had started having the dreams two weeks ago, he had never tried to see if they were real. To have that much power, well, it frankly scared the hell out of him, as it would with anyone with a brain that functions in a thick skull. With power came responsibility. Even he knew that. He knew if he had that power he would have to choose what to do with it. In his heart he already knew the answer, though: Help.

There was one thing that he was sure of, though—Sara knew more than she was letting on. Her actions sang that theory loud and clear. He didn't push, though.The question was what kind of bomb of information she was going to drop on the sixteen year old today. She could definitely come up with them, even if they were subtle.

One day she asked very casually if he remembered to shut his bedroom door.

The catch? It was in perfect French and he responded in the same fluid language. That was the day that he found out that Sara was a fluent linguist. It was also the day that he found out that so was he. There was Swedish, French, German, Russian, Arabic, Japanese, Vietnamese, Chinese and five weird languages called Hallikan, Baligonian, Draconian, Falynian and Ishtamian.

Those were all the languages he knew, counting English. He could speak them like he was born there. More than that, he knew their customs and slang words. But that didn't explain HOW he knew all of this. How did he know when the proper moment to bow in a Monks temple was?

It was driving him mad!

When he asked her about those languages, she changed the subject, took him shopping and bought him and the girls' state of the art lap-tops. She wouldn't let them have them though; she wanted to make some adjustments on them first. She wouldn't tell what kind of adjustments, just that the computers would be better when she was through.

It was enough to drive him insane. He hated not getting answers.

If that wasn't enough, one evening Sara came down to dinner with something in her hand. What was in her hand, she threw it to him and he caught it by reflex. It was a silenced Smith & Wesson 9mm semi-auto. "Break it down quickly," she said in a very serious voice, not telling how to do it, just to do it.

The gun was broke down and put back together in record time—pure instinct. It was like breathing—like letting his heart beat. He knew immediately that he was an expert shot when he touched that god-forsaken gun. However, it was bittersweet the way he was getting his memory back. It seemed the only memories he got made him into a killer.

The night that he broke down the gun, he found a full arsenal of guns and ammo in his closet. It was everything from hand-guns to machine-guns, all the way to rocket launchers—with all the ammo he needed. It seemed that Susan wanted him to be prepared for something. So, he made sure he knew every one of them that night. Nick found out that he knew each intimately.

Nick figured that it was enough time for wool gathering, it was time to get on with the day. He crawled out of bed nude and looked at his body. Sara had truly turned his body into a warrior's body—one hour weight lifting and four hours of Martial Arts. At sixteen, he was six foot even and weight about two-fifty, all muscle. The thing of it though, the boy was quick as a cat and could hit like a sledge hammer.

However, his favorite was a two .50 caliber Desert Eagles that were semi-automatic and had extended clips, so that they held twelve shots in each clip. With one in the pipe, it was a pair of dual, customized, lucky thirteen hand-guns. The grip seemed to be perfectly customized for him. There was a pair of dual holsters that went on the back of his belt that a long leather jacket would cover up.

Then there was the customized ammo. He didn't have one clue how he knew what they were, but he knew what they were immediately when he saw them. The pullet was strange looking. For one thing, in place of lead there was glass at the tip. It was a special glass that wouldn't break till impact. What was inside the hollow glass? It was a thick yellow substance that didn't look pretty. What was it? Nitroglycerin. It sure as hell would stop anything he shot. He had twelve boxes of them. There were fifty shells to a box. All of them were made for the .50.

The shower and change of clothes was quick. He took one last look in the mirror, wanting to make an impression on whoever was at the meeting. Like always, his unkempt black hair was untamable. The green eyes that stared into the mirror had an eerie feeling, even to Nick. He was wearing black blue jeans with a sleeve-less shirt that show off the chiseled work that he put into them. Over all, he was an intimidating sight.

It also showed a tatto that he had had since he had woke up from his coma. It was a curved dagger with black Viper curling itself around it, bearing it's fangs in an ominous warning. Nick had always liked it.

It was about three minutes until he was due in the dining room. He might as well make it a little early. He left his lavatories and his bedroom and headed out into the hall, going down the stairs. As he reached the dining room, he saw three lovely ladies sitting around it and that was including Susan. Both of the guests looked no older than sixteen themselves. However, Nick had an odd feeling looking in their green eyes that they were a hell of a lot older. One had black hair, and other blonde—both were drop dead gorgeous... Yet he couldn't help but notice they all had the same shade of green eyes. Hell, his eyes were the same shade. His instincts screamed that this had something to do with the conspiracy, and he always listened to those good old instincts. They got him out of tricky situations before.

"You ladies aren't starting without me are you," he asked in a joking tone as he took a seat a few seats away from the three women. Nick never was shy, and he loved being surrounded by such beauty.

Susan was the first to speak up since she was the host. "I think introductions should be made first. On my left with the black hair is Stacey Wilson. On my right with the obvious blonde hair is Clarice Johansson. Now is the time that I am about to drop a ton of information on you, Nick." He could swear he heard regret in the woman's voice. God, he would always love her, no matter what.

He steeled his emotions for the worse. "Let it rip, Suzie. I'm ready when you are." He called her Suzie to break the ice.

It worked a little, she did crack a smile. "First things first. When you woke up and said that your name was Nick Weston, it was the mental conditioning you put yourself through. You give that name when you are in serious trauma. Your real name is Nick Viper, like the tattoo on your arm suggests. You do not exist in any country. For all accounts you are a ghost. You main objective was to take out terrorist Psions bent on taking over countries to make them slaves. You were one of the best—a legend in your own time, some would say. We have no idea how you were taken down."

From that moment on he decided to go by Viper. "So the dreams were true," he murmured mostly to himself.

Stacey chose that moment to speak up. "Yes, they are. But that knock to the head messed with your Elemental Abilities. It could take a year, or more, to get to that point you were at before the attack. However, for some reason when Susan did a scan she found that the powers shifted. You are one of the strongest Mind Controllers and Pyrokinetics we have come across to date."