With a mere thought, Aron took out the first crook by smashing him into the ceiling. The burly scumbag fell onto the stack of metal crates that filled most of the room and groaned in pain.

Aron strode further into the dingy lobby and waited for the other thug to react. The most reasonable reaction would have been to run away, but few ever did. Granted, it was unusual for a young, lone, baby-faced boy to storm an arms dealer fortress on his own, but that should have been all the more alarming to the still standing crook.

Nevertheless, the ugly criminal pulled a hand gun and emptied the magazine from two arms lengths away. Aron simply held the bullets in the air by sheer will, picked one out as if plucking a berry and let the rest drop to his feet.

He turned the bullet between his fingers into a gum drop, threw it high into the air, caught it in his mouth and grimaced. Why could he never get the taste of strawberry right?

With the gun now useless, the remaining crook pulled a switch knife from his belt and aimed for Aron’s chest. He succeeded in poking a tiny hole into the fabric, but the blade turned to dust as it impacted on the skin.

“You guys never learn,” Aron said with an eye roll. Why would a knife do what bullets couldn’t? Still, it was understandable. They had obviously never encountered a boy with god-like powers before. He was unique and a secret after all.

Waving his hand for dramatic effect, he lifted the second crook into the air and made him join the first one on the metallic boxes. Lazily, Aron brushed over the container and its material deformed in his hand like soft wax. He pulled on the metal as if it was a sculptor’s clay and wrapped the criminals’ wrists into crude cuffs that fixed them to the crate.

As he walked past them, towards the door deeper into the illegally occupied warehouse, he pressed the red button on the little walkie-talkie he carried on his belt. “Eagle One here. Took out two guys. Lots of boxes in the antechamber but they’re all empty. They must have brought the goodies further in.”

“Well done, Eagle One. Keep going,” came the voice of the FBI agent from the device.

“What do you think I’m doing?” Aron mumbled, already proceeding. There was a five inch thick steel gate in the way, but it melted just fine as Aron heated it to a temperature that made the sun look frosty.

Just a single guy stood in the dim corridor, smoking a cigarette. His eyes were widened in disbelieve as the remains of the steel door smoldered behind Aron. The unwashed delinquent had the presence of mind to draw his useless gun, too – the cigarette falling out of his gaping mouth.

A simple gesture flung the man towards Aron, who stepped aside and let the crook fly out onto the lobby. With precise force, the boy summoned the gun. As it collided with his hand he changed its atomic structure into that of a gun-shaped chocolate bar.

After taking one bite Aron found he had made it too bitter for his liking and turned the rest into sand, letting it slide from his grip. He didn’t spit out the bite in his mouth, though. It was still good enough – not as tricky as strawberry.

Following a short corridor Aron arrived in the main hall where a good dozen huge, scary guys loaded illegally acquired weapons and bombs into a non-descript straight truck.

This was the fun part.

To his side was a heap of junk the criminals had pile up to make room for their operation. He tapped it once and it collapsed into an unbelievable amount of half-molten, excessively sticky marshmallows. That was when they noticed his presence.

Fond of theatrical entrances, Aron took hold of the electricity flowing through the walls and turned it up to eleven. All dozens of laps along the ceiling – and everywhere else in the building – exploded loudly into a shower of sparkles. The only remaining light came from the dust crusted windows, lending an ominous aura to the scene. Quite a bonus.

Multiple buff guys with more tattoos than teeth shouted orders over each other. Within seconds, bullets came Aron’s way which he let rain onto the ground.

Technically he only had to make the area save for the FBI to storm. But he had so little opportunity to flex his muscles – or brain or whatever else caused him to have power over matter and energy – that he couldn’t help but indulge himself. What were the FBI agents going to do? Scold him a little?

The boy walked right into the middle of the gangsters and flung one after another into his marshmallow pile where they helplessly sunk into the squishy goo.

An old man with gold teeth rushed to an open box filled with grenades. If he wasn’t careful he might bring the building down and that was now on Aron’s schedule. The boy closed the box telekinetically and cooled it down to Siberian temperature. As the crook tried to open the box he found his sweaty hand sticking firmly to the icy metal.

Resistance had turned to flight. There were no more bullets coming for Aron to stop. Taking his time, he walked up to the pile of weapons yet to be loaded onto the truck and laid his hand on the crate stack. Dozens of highly dangerous arms turned to pink cotton candy.

Plucking a little treat for himself, Aron wondered if he should hand the situation over to the FBI already.

One of the especially creative criminals tried to vanish through an air duct – a classic. Except this one dragged a bag of ammunition with him and Aron could not allow any dangerous stuff to get lost.

He ignored the shouting around him and casually walked up to the wannabe-escape-artist who had a hard time fitting into the tight ventilation system. With an effortless thought, he pulled the man back out and dragged him along the floor into the marshmallow pile, making sure the bag stayed behind.

Aron smiled a broad, innocent smile that would have been pleasant to look upon for anybody who wasn’t a trapped and soon to be arrested criminal.

“Well, I guess my job here is done.”

Something rattled. The gate at the other end of the hall opened as some men pulled the chain manually, all electronics still fried. The half-loaded truck’s engine started up. Ah, the getaway car, another classic.

Aron waited. Five gangsters had boarded the vehicle which picked up speed slowly. The three who had opened the gate jumped on as the car drove by. The gate fell down shut behind it.

It was a lot more satisfying if they thought they actually had a chance. It was mean, but he had a foible for proper comedic timing.

A brightly shining ball of plasma straight from Aron’s hand blew the garage door to burning bits. He told the fire to go out, just in case it was going to spread to adjacent buildings otherwise. The truck was pretty far away, but there is no distance limit for Newtonian physics.

Aron lifted the truck, his hand up and gesturing for dramatic effect. He couldn’t help it, the act came to him naturally.

First he tore off the axles. Then he ripped open the doors. Letting the car drop onto the asphalt, he forced it back into the hall, making its bottom spray sparks as the metal was dragged along the concrete.

The criminals jumped off the truck as if it was on fire and ran through the containers strewn across the abandoned industrial area – only to meet the FBI agents that had the complex surrounded.

Another successful – and fun – heist.

He had needed that, after having come too late to catch the child traffickers last week.

***

He rewarded himself by buying real ice cream, not one he magically made out of cardboard or whatever. He could never get the taste and consistence just right anyway.

Technically he was supposed to attend a debriefing, but no one ever reprimanded him for skipping those boring bureaucracy-fests.

As he sat in a small L.A. park on a hill overlooking the neighborhood, he spaced out. Therefore he didn’t notice the other person until he was right in front of him.

The young, slender boy was also Asian but more elegantly dressed than Aron.

He spoke in heavily accented English. “Hi there, I’m Junior. I’m here to take you back to Korea, if that’s alright with you, Aron.”

Thoroughly puzzled, it took Aron a moment to realize what was most disturbing about the encounter. “How do you know my real name? I didn’t even give it to the FBI agen-“

A little too late, he realized that he was giving away more than he should.

Junior smiled brightly. “Don’t worry. I know a lot of things no one else does. I assume you consider yourself unique? With the whole having control over physics and such.”

“Y-yes? What are you getting at? Why do I need to get to Korea? I’m pretty sure I’m doing a lot of good here.”

Without asking, Junior sat down next to him, very close. Was that kid coming onto him?

“I’m with a secret organization,” Junior said. “We want to build a unit out of people like us. Like you and me. We call it N.U.E.S.T.”

“New-what? What does it mean?”

“It means… actually that doesn’t translate very well.”

Aron had been caught off guard by the sudden switch to Korean. He hadn’t spoken that in years. But Junior continued in the foreign language anyway, much more fluently now.

“First I suppose a demonstration. Over there. That man will have his fries stolen by a brave pigeon and drop the rest. In three, two, one. Now.”

The prophesied situation occurred. The man even cursed loudly, for added emphasis. That was a bit amazing, Aron admitted to himself.

“And this little girl will ask her mother for money for ice cream, but get a scolding instead.”

The stern woman turned red with anger at the audacity of her daughter seconds after Junior had predicted the events.

“I’ll demonstrate more later if you wish,” Junior continued, “but nothing too interesting is going to happen here until that tree topples over in a few minutes or so. Here’s my card. Don’t make me wait. And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention this to anyone.”

Junior rose and bowed. He spoke his goodbyes quickly and walked off without looking back. Aron kept sitting, dumbfounded.

It was a hot-pink business card stating its owner’s name as Junior. Instead of proper contact information there was a hotel room’s address scribbled on it.

Shady.

Aron memorized the address and got rid of the evidence by turning the paper into minty bubble gum. After the ice cream he could use something to cleanse his palate. He kept sitting on the bench, contemplating, occasionally turning the gum back into uneaten one to refresh the taste.

Four minutes later the park’s most fragile looking tree snapped in the wind and Aron was still there to witness it.

He had goosebumps pretty much continuously from then on and decided the only thing that could calm him down was more ice cream. That Junior guy was legit. But still shady.

***

A/N: I know Aron didn’t speak Korean before starting his carrier but I didn’t want there to be a language barrier. One out of five, introduced.