Jayden sat in the wreckage of his office, legs crossed in a meditative pose he'd learned at fifteen when he first started trading. The position was automatic now—win or lose, profit or loss, he'd sit like this and dissect every decision, every pattern, every mistake.
It's what had turned him from a desperate kid with a trust fund into a monster in the financial markets.
He was hoping it could work on this one too.
Blue lightning danced across his body in lazy spirals, his shirt half-burnt away, exposing skin that crackled with residual energy. The emergency lights had died, leaving only the glow of his own power to illuminate the destruction.
*Think. Analyze. Understand.*
First: he'd been in an accident that should've killed him. Instead, it had turned him into... what? Something between a speedster and a lightning manipulator. His powers had catastrophic effects on electrical currents—that much was obvious from the graveyard of electronics surrounding him.
But there was something else.
As he sat here, trying to find his center, he could *feel* it. Genesis Energy being absorbed by every electrical cell in his body. He was filling up like a battery with no limit switch, and he wasn't sure if that was good or catastrophic.
How could he even explain this situation?
Jayden forced his breathing to steady, his mind to organize. Start with the basics.
Always start with the basics.
Earth. Two hundred years ago, everything changed with the Awakening Era. Powers emerged, yes, but that wasn't all. Gates appeared—like something out of those apocalypse novels he'd read as a kid. Portals to other dimensions filled with monsters that poured into the world.
Humanity got powers and fought back. Dungeon raids, gate breaks, hundred years of war against creatures that shouldn't exist. Cities fell. Billions died. But humans adapted, evolved, survived.
The last century had been about rebuilding, but the world that emerged was fundamentally different.
Humans couldn't go back to the old ways. Traditional electricity generation became impossible without high concentrations of Genesis Energy. Machines needed monster cores to run. Everything—cars, phones, entire power grids—depended on Genesis Energy and some machines? From cores harvested from gates and the creatures within them.
The new human world order was built on three pillars:
Superheroes and supervillains—the powered individuals who shaped society. Some, like Apex, became symbols of hope. Others became nightmares just as powerful.
The balance of terror.
Gates—still appearing randomly, still requiring constant vigilance. Specialized teams of powered individuals dove into these dimensional rifts, harvesting cores and preventing break-outs. The Lilith The Hell creature Apex had just defeated? That was a Catastrophe-class entity that had escaped from an Antarctic gate five years ago.
And Legacy Families—the dynasties that ruled this new world alongside governments. The Apex family. The Sterlings. The Voughts. And yes, the Luther Cross family.
Just in USA those were the ruling families.
To these families, power was everything. They were always at each other's throats, competing for resources, gates, influence. Bloodlines carefully cultivated to produce stronger abilities with each generation.
Jayden just happened to be from one of these families. The direct son of Marcus Luther Cross, next patriarch of the Luther Cross dynasty.
For seventeen years, his family had been a laughing stock among the Legacy Families. Not because they lacked power—his father's shadow manipulation was Level 135, his mother's photokinesis Level 128. His sister could fly at Mach 2. His brother's pyrokinesis could melt steel.
No, they were mocked because of one person: The Cripple.
Him.
He wasn't liked by anyone in the family except his mother, and even she had to swallow her love and maintain appearances. He was the comedic relief at family gatherings. Other Legacy Families would ask about "the broken Luther" with fake sympathy and real amusement.
So he'd found something he was good at. Trading. The financial markets didn't care if you could fly or shoot lasers. They only cared if you could read patterns, manage risk, turn probability into profit.
He'd also walked the fine line between failed prince and criminal, finding thrills in the illegal racing scene he'd created. Life and death at 200 miles per hour was the closest he could come to flying.
The money had been easy. His family provided a limitless card—their way of keeping him quiet and out of sight. Spend whatever you want, just don't embarrass us further. Stay in the shadows at important gatherings. Don't remind people that the mighty Luther Cross line produced a dud.
And quiet he'd been.
At least in public.
But in LA's underground? He was the small king. Funding races, both indoor drift competitions in the Den and street races throughout the city. He'd made a name in financial markets too—a prodigy trader, though not famous enough to interest the family. Which was perfect.
He'd had money. Peace. Everything he needed.
But with this awakening...
Did he have peace anymore?
He was a Luther Cross. Being a cripple had let him hide in plain sight. But not anymore.
Even if he was just Level 0 but arguably an Apex Grade, the family would come calling. But Apex Grade wasn't even close to what he was. He could feel it in every crackling cell, every surge of power. Whatever he'd become, it was beyond their scales.
He was supposed to be happy, right? Seventeen years of being nothing, and now he was *something*.
So why did he feel like he was drowning?
Blue lightning pulsed brighter as his meditation deepened. In the markets, emotion was the enemy. You had to be cold, analytical, divorced from hope or fear. But this wasn't a trade he could close. This was his life, fundamentally rewritten in an instant.
The Luther Cross family would come. They'd want to test him, use him, parade him as proof of their genetic superiority. "See? Even our cripple becomes a god eventually."
The other Legacy Families would reassess, recalculate. The balance of power shifting.
The government would want him registered, controlled, directed.
Everyone would want a piece of Jayden Luther Cross, the Late Bloomer, the Miracle, the Prodigal Son finally coming home.
But what did *he* want?
As he sat in the ruins of his carefully constructed life, electricity dancing across his skin like living tattoos, Jayden realized he had no idea.
For seventeen years, his goal had been simple: survive outside the family's shadow while finding something that made him feel alive.
Now he had power that could reshape the world, and all he felt was empty.
The meditation wasn't working. In trading, there was always a right answer hidden in the data. But this? This was chaos without pattern, power without purpose.
Jayden opened his eyes. The blue glow illuminated the devastation he'd caused. His empire of circuits and screens reduced to melted plastic and shattered dreams.
Maybe that was the answer. Maybe destruction was all he was good for now.
The thought should have disturbed him.
Instead, he smiled.
If the world wanted Jayden Luther Cross the superhuman, they'd get him. But not as the grateful late bloomer. Not as the prodigal son returning to the fold.
They'd get exactly what seventeen years of being called "cripple" had created:
Someone with the power of a god and the gray morals of a futures evil god.
Someone who'd spent his whole life learning that power was the only currency that mattered.
Someone who finally had enough currency to buy whatever the fuck he wanted.
The smile widened, electric blue reflecting off his teeth.
From the broken, lightning rose, not a blessing. Not a miracle. Just lightning. Beneath the ruins, the world witnessed its first omen lightning—the First Spark—the Spark of Primordial Prince of Sins!