Let's play.
The corridor ahead was long and quiet.
Zane moved slow, crouched low. The robo arm in his right hand buzzed softly — switched to 'Gun-Mode'.
HUMMNN
He activated his visors sensors, the low hum echoed against concrete and metal, picking up shape outlines, heat signatures, hidden seams.
Nothing yet.
His danger sense hadn't pinged.
That bothered him.
It was like standing at the edge of a cliff blindfolded — and not feeling the wind.
THMP.
A faint pulse at the base of his skull.
Zane froze.
'Left corner. Ceiling.'
He turned his head slightly and spotted it — a barely-visible glint. A micro-drone, embedded into the concrete like a wart.
'Is that a camera?....Just… watching.'
He frowned at the sight.
'Then why the warning?'
He squinted — and caught it.
A laser grid. One millimeter off the floor. Invisible unless you caught the faint shimmer from the lens of the drone bouncing off the wall.
Trip the beam, and you probably don't get a do-over....well....except for himself.
He grabbed a shattered tile from the ground and tossed it low.
Nothing.
Then another — slightly higher.
ZZZZZZT—
The beam cut it in half midair.
"Invisible ceiling razor grid. Classy."
He vaulted over the laser and kept moving.
---
The next room was pitch black.
Zane's visor adjusted immediately — night vision on.
But it didn't help.
A thick gray fog blanketed the room like wet wool. Too dense. Infrared wouldn't penetrate. Thermal, useless. Even sound bounced wrong here, his visor couldn't locate anything!
Yet he still took a step in.
THMP.
He felt his full body spike, that meant danger.
'But from where..!?'
Something scraped ahead. Then to the right. Then behind.
Zane ducked instinctively—
A spike of something fast ripped past his ear. A wire? A blade?
His danger sense screamed—sharp, frantic.
Without thinking, Zane dove sideways—click.
THWAM!
A piston slammed out of the adjacent wall like a piledriver, crunching into his ribs mid-air. The impact hurled him across the room.
CRACK!
He slammed into a wall, crumpling to the floor. Pain exploded in his side. Blood bubbled up in his throat as he coughed, sharp and wet.
"Shit—!" he wheezed. "That was too damn fast…"
He dragged himself up, groaning, one hand clutching his side. His body had moved on instinct—but not fast enough.
His Danger Sense wasnt perfect.
'It felt the danger from above. That's why I jumped. But the second threat came almost immediately after.
Back-to-back inputs. No time to react.'
His danger sense wasn't a traditional sixth sense. It was like his body experienced the next few seconds before his mind caught up. Based on those micro-impressions, it dodged outcomes that led to death or major harm.
But when multiple threats struck at the same time—when the future fragmented in more than one lethal direction—his reflexes hesitated. The instinct lagged.
"Stacked traps… They're trying to overload me."
The room wasn't just full of traps. It was changing its layout dynamically—tracking his heartbeat. Breathing. Sound.
And punishing any moment of hesitation.
He barely made it halfway before something sharp ripped through his gut.
He gasped, crumpled forward.
"Shit…"
His hand hit the floor, trying to crawl.
"Not enough…"
Darkness swallowed him.
---
REWIND
Gasp. Awake.
Back at his base, in his bed, he woke up with a start. Sweat forming on his brow.
"Okay. No playing blind this time."
He first started by going to Serlings home once again, even though he already knew she wasnt there, just so nothing changes before he even gets to the hideout this time.
He didnt want to make it harder than it already was.
After that, he dove through the same window. Same takedown. Same hallway.
But when he got to the fog room again, he yanked a canister from his belt — one of Artemis' smoke dispersers.
He tossed it in. A pressurized hiss. Fog cleared in patches.
This time, he saw it. Barely.
Dozens of razor-thin filaments — strung across the air like a spiderweb. Programmed to shift based on movement patterns. Too thin to see in most spectrums.
He moved different. Slower. Less linear.
The danger sense still pinged — but he made it through. Since he could atleast use his vison to anticipate the danger beforehand as well.
Of course, he still got caught off guard by one trap, having to reset before making it the third time.
"Okay, room one down. Barely."
---
Room 2
The second trap room was colder. Cleaner. Lit by old fluorescents that flickered on as he stepped inside.
The walls were smooth steel. The floor, tiles — old, but reinforced.
There was only one object inside:
A humanoid machine.
It stood still in the middle of the room, not powered. It looked kinda like a iron man armor from Marvel but more clunky.
Zane crept around it.
No danger ping.
"This one's a fakeout. Psychological trick. I'll just ignore it."
He reached for the next door—
THMP.
Too late.
The door opened itself—but not to let him through.
Instead, gas hissed down from the ceiling. Fast-acting. Thick. Familiar scent.
His vision blurred.
"Neuro-disruptor. Paralyses you!."
He started feeling the affects, for some reason his visor which had a filtration system, wasnt working.
'Its definitley still working, does Cadmus have some sort gas that works just based on skin contact?!'
Zane was actually correct, that they were using a Toxin that could infect you through skin contact.
The only part he got wrong was that it wasnt Cadmus that had this technology, but it was Provided by Lex Luthor. This type of gas was very exspensive to make, so only someone as rich like Luthor could use it for a simple test.
'Aww...Jeeezz.'
The machine moved.
Too fast.
The danger sense screamed, yet he couldn't move—
And then its fist punched through his chest.
---
REWIND
GASP.
Base again.
"FUCK."
He sprung uo from his bed once again, gasping for air.
He didnt feel danger from the vents when he entered, most likley because all the gas does is paralys you.
'Does my body not register that as a danger? I guess cause its not conscious. Fine, atleast I know now.'
He adjusted.
Smoke grenade. Bypass the fog room faster. Knew the path now.
Room two: Same Robot, same vent. This time he had a solution.
He swung his arm up, rotating the wrist module with a practiced flick. The Rapid-Seal canister clicked into place.
A short hiss escaped as the foam deployed — thick, industrial, expanding on contact. It sprayed across the vent grille in a wet spatter, clogging the slats in seconds.
Zane stepped back, watching as it hardened with a faint crackle. His breath came steady behind the filter.
Turning, he looked at the bot. Half expecting it to attack him, he already switched the Robo-arm to Combat Mode.
The bot stayed frozen.
'So you were only meant to attack if the neurotoxin activated, this is a more direct test of my foresight.
No one would be able to know that the vent would be releasing a gas if this was their first time seeing this room. At least not immediately like I did.'
He didnt like being dissected like this, but there's no other choice. If he was afraid of stuff like this, he'd be better off going to the Justice Leaugue directly.
Maybe if he can get Serling out of this in one piece, he would consider doing the whole thing over again. Fake them out.
Trying to act less prepaired than he actually was, like those chinese novels say. Playing the pig to eat the tiger.
Keeping his eyes on the robot, he slipped into the next room.
---
Control Room
The final room opened into a wide control center — monitors, servers, all made to observe all his tests.
Studying even the faintest clues they could find, from micro expressons to finger twitchs.
Zane walked in slow.
Two figures stood at the far end of the observation room.
One of them Zane recognized instantly — Lex Luthor.
You didn't grow up around comics, even vaguely, without knowing that bald dome and the smug aura it carried. In this world, he looked sharper. Real. More terrifying because he wasn't just a character anymore. No glowing green ring. No armor. Just a man in a sleek black suit — but somehow more dangerous than any supervillain cosplay.
He didn't need theatrics. He was the threat.
The other guy? Nothing. Zane's mind came up blank.
Average build, average face, a white coat hanging off his frame like he borrowed it from someone more qualified. Nervous energy clung to him like static — twitchy hands, half-sweaty brow, constantly glancing at the monitor like it might bite him.
Zane narrowed his eyes.
'Who the hell is this mob? Some Cadmus guy obviously, but i cant remember. Whatever, Ignore him for a second.'
His gaze slid back to Luthor.
There was no smug grin. No villainous monologue. Just that unreadable calm — like he'd already mapped out the next ten minutes of Zane's life.
"Impressive," Lex said. "I had expectations, but you've exceeded them!"
Lex gave a pretentious smile,"No normal human could do what you did, even someone like Batman would atleast be injured by one of those traps.
Yet here you are, Zane, unscathed if not a little tired. "
Zane stared, unmoved.
"This is the part where I say something clever, right?"
"Clever is unnecessary. I'm already convinced."
Desmond walked up next to lex, his pale face smiling grimly.
"You've been reacting to things that should be impossible to see. The last trap had zero thermal output. Zero noise. No tells."
Zane said nothing.
"I can see your body has some sort of instinct to avoid any attacks that come at you, but that can't explain you having knowledge of things yet to happen." Luthor smiled," You have some form of precognition."
That made Zane pause a little, but relaxed soon after. As long as his actually power about Death Rewind wasnt discovered, ty can assume all they want.
Even if his Rewind is discovered one day, hopefully he would'vealready mastered most of his Chrono Seed power.
"That's a hell of an accusation." Still, he had to play along.
Lex tilted his head. "Its a fact, but that asside. Zane, I believe we got off on the wrong foot."
Zane stared cold.
Lex continued, his voice smooth, persuasive. "You're not like the others. You're adaptable. Resourceful. And more importantly… you think ahead."
Zane didn't reply, but the silence didn't seem to bother Luthor.
"I don't care what Cadmus labeled you. Meta, experiment, anomaly — those are just words. I see something more valuable. Potential."
Zane's jaw tensed.
"I want you on my side, Zane. With your... foresight, and my resources, there's no limit to what we could achieve."
Zane gave a dry chuckle. "Yeah, I've heard this one before. 'Together, we can build a better world.' Right?"
Luthor gave a thin-lipped smile. "No speeches. Just reality. You're already a fugitive. Hunted. Alone. You won't last long without allies."
"Team up with you?" Zane snorted.
"What, so I can hear you monologue about Superman's pores for ten hours? Hard pass."
Luthor's showed no outward reaction, but he got quiet for a second, obviously Superman was his sore spot.
"Unfortunate."
Then his body clicked — a soft mechanical whirr as the skin peeled slightly near the jaw. Zane's eyes sharpened.
'Of course. He should've guessed.'
The voice didn't change. "You've made your choice."
Zane stepped back slightly, lowering into a partial stance. "Yeah, I've got a habit of not trusting robots."
Behind Luthor, Desmond flinched — then stepped forward.
Zane tilted his head. "So what, lab coat's the real deal?"
"Doctor Desmond has been instrumental in our more... aggressive research," the robot said. "He volunteered for field testing today."
Zane's stomach dropped a little. 'Doctor Desmond? Wasnt that the guy from epidoed 1 or 2 of Young Justice?'
Desmond's body convulsed.
Zane's danger sense flared hard, his memories as well. He remember axactly who Desmond was in the original show!
Veins bulged across Desmond's arms like thick cables. His skin rippled — no, shifted, as if his bones were cracking and reforming under the surface. His lab coat tore down the back, muscles exploding outward like something out of a nightmare. His eyes glowed a dull, monstrous orange as the transformation accelerated.
Zane took a step back. "Oh, hell no."
Luthor's robot turned, gesturing casually. "Project Blockbuster, Phase Two."
Desmond roared — deep, guttural, wrong — and slammed a mutated fist into the steel wall next to him. The entire room shuddered.
Zane blinked. "You turned him into a Hulk cosplayer."
Luthor's voice remained calm. "Now, I should get going. Stuff to do."
Zane's eyes narrowed. "Wait, wheres Serling!?"
The Luthor-bot's smile widened, synthetic skin twitching. "You care about the girl. Serling, right? You know, at first she was only a means to an end, however, we found out she actually quite competent."
Zane frowned, he remembered that Cadmus did kidnap her in the Original story.
"She's putting her talent to good use, so you dont have to worry about her well being. She wont be killed, atleast not yet."
The robot raised a hand and snapped its fingers. A nearby monitor flickered to life. Grainy footage showed Serling strapped to a chair, loaded into a van.
With a burst of steam, Desmond lunged forward with inhuman speed.
Zane barely rolled aside, his boots skidding against the polished floor as the mutated monster crashed down where he'd stood.
Luthor's image smiled on the screen, robotic eyes flickering. "Win or lose, your death will buy me valuable data. And hers... will make a fine control variable."
Desmond turned, now fully transformed — towering, monstrous, veins pulsating, eyes burning.
Zane exhaled sharply, danger sense screaming again.
"Alright then," he muttered, swapping his Robo-arm into Combat Mode with a click. "No more talking."
He glared at the monster.
"Let's dance, lab rat."