It was always that boy in the furthest corner, the one who had his head down on the table and eyes closed pretending he was sleeping but instead was recounting technical codes in his mind over and over again that looked the most harmless but harbored the biggest secrets. 

dylan's brain had always ran at 100 miles per second, seeing and hearing things he was not meant to understand. especially when by the age of 2, not only he had already learned the alphabet but could count up to a hundred. and by the age of 3, not only he could speak fluent mandarin but also english, japanese, aerokian and even german. it was a miracle, one that was overlooked as simply him being a smart baby for why would anyone who was lower than middle class be blessed with such genius of a child. yet it came as a shock when he spoke fluently, holding conversations that seemed very adult for a child just a few months after, his parents had to seek a psychiatrist. that was when his powers were discovered. 

dylan was a child prodigy, far superior than anyone, with an iq that measured between 160 to 170 at the age of 5. no one knew what to call it; never had they ever seen a child who could remember every single detail he ever saw, speak several languages as if he were a native and still begged to learn more. 

by the time, he was 13, he moved to america to enroll at MIT and by the time he graduated at the age of 20, he had earned his masters in physics and electrical engineering. but was that enough? no. it never was. afterall, knowledge was incessant and as powerful as power itself.

some may have called it greed but to dylan, it was simply the desire to know the universe for what it was. simple yet grande and able to hold between his palms. but it came with a cost, one that cost him his health and sanity. 

"... GENIUS, playboy, philantropist.." times magazine boasted his face proudly but dylan was not satisfied, even at the ripe age of 20. he had just finished his ph.d in engineering with a specification in electrical and nuclear and had succesfully built an arc reactor that was the size of an apple which could power a whole city and still conserve energy but why did that not feel like enough. 

his mind was restless, his palms sweaty, knees heavy... he was staring at the page of astrophysics on a prestigious university's section when it started. 

his mind was always restless and his escape had always been wordly pleasures; women, , drugs and alcohol. he was known to delve in all of it, to the point that it was no surprise he would trash his own party, not show up to any formal meeting. well, he had better stuff to care about that the measly social life that came with his powers.. right?