Five years had passed since the night Tyrone's world collapsed a second time. Five years since laughter in his home was replaced by silence, since he tore apart the last pieces of his father's dream and buried them under anger and grief.
Now seventeen, Tyrone had certainly matured a-lot. He walked through the tall gates of National City High School, shoulders slouched beneath the weight of his backpack.
The morning sun bathed the cracked pavement in gold, but to him it felt distant, indifferent, just another day in a city that chewed up kids like him and spit them out.
Clusters of students filled the courtyard, buzzing with conversation. Tyrone caught fragments as he passed by.
"Superman just punched a ship out of orbit, bro, did you see the footage?"
"Wonder Woman was with him! Man, she's crazy fine. Did you see her fight with Cheetah?"
"Cheetah? I saw that with one hand,"
"Yo, Justice League don't play. Earth's safe as long as they're around."
Tyrone's jaw tightened. He kept his eyes low, weaving past them like a shadow. There was Aliens falling from the sky, Gods and Goddess walking among men, speedsters faster than lightning.
It was a combination of various DC Stories, a true world where miracles existed and heroes could do anything and everything.
So why couldn't anyone stop a couple of bullets in Brooklyn?
Why did gods watch over Metropolis, while his father and brother rotted in the ground?
He said nothing. Just walked past. Nobody stopped him. Nobody even noticed.
Inside, the classrooms felt no different. Teachers droned, chalk scraping against boards. Pages flipped in textbooks. Pens tapped against desks.
Tyrone sat alone at the back, staring at formulas he understood too well. He could answer every question on the board, but he didn't raise his hand. He hadn't in years. What was the point?
"Mr. Johnson, can you wake her?" The teacher, Mr. Elliot said as he noticed the sleeping student next to Tyrone.
The boy sighed and shook the girl for a whole 5 seconds before she woke up, her hair was a mess as her eyes were lidded with tiredness.
"Uuuhhh what is itttt..." she said, slurring her words as if she were drunk.
"Umm, Kara, class is in session," Mr.Elliot tried to say hesitantly,
"Yeah...I ace all the exams anyway, math is easy," she said, slamming her head back into the desk and quickly falling asleep once more.
That was the end of that slight story as Tyrone quickly filtered back to irrelevancy in school, the day bleeding together. Bells rang. Crowds shifted from room to room. He coasted through it all, unseen, unheard, until at last the final bell freed him.
He walked alone down the steps of the school building. Kids spilled out laughing, joking, planning weekends. Tyrone shoved his hands into his hoodie pocket, head low, drifting into the city streets.
National City was alive in its own way, the shouts of vendors on corners, the squeal of bus brakes, music blasting from cracked car speakers.
But woven into the rhythm were darker notes, the low whistles of lookouts, the slouched figures in hoodies at every corner, the gleam of guns tucked beneath waistbands.
Gangs.
Always there.
Always watching.
Tyrone's stomach knotted. He knew how fast the calm could break, how quickly laughter could turn to screams and bullets. He quickened his pace, cutting down side streets, trying to get home before nightfall.
But the block ahead was too quiet. No vendors. No music. Just the hum of a lone streetlight flickering overhead.
He felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise.
SCREECH
A dark van swung around the corner, tires screaming against asphalt. The door slid open before it even stopped. Shadows moved inside.
"What the, " Tyrone turned, but too late.
Hands grabbed him. A rough cloth yanked over his head. His shout muffled as he was dragged off the sidewalk, tossed hard into the van. His backpack spilled against the pavement, textbooks scattering across the ground before the door slammed shut.
The engine roared. The world outside blurred away.
Inside the van, the air was hot, suffocating. Tyrone struggled against the ropes biting into his wrists, his heart pounding with raw panic.
"Lemme go! What the hell are you doing?!"
A voice answered, deep and cold, the kind that made his blood run ice.
"You're perfect."
The hood was yanked up just enough for Tyrone to see a man sitting across from him, shaved head, scar over one eye, a black uniform with no insignia. Military, but not. Something worse.
"No family. No friends. Just another forgotten one." The man smirked, as if stating a fact. "You'll make an excellent subject."
"Subject?" Tyrone spat, pulling at the ropes.
The man leaned closer, eyes glinting in the dim light of the van.
"Welcome to CADMUS, kid. You'll be useful to us."
Tyrone quickly was knocked out by the man, his last thought being CADMUS. He knew he'd heard of it somewhere, maybe in his past life, but his memories didn't ping by time he was out cold.
***
Tyrone woke with the taste of iron in his mouth.
His head throbbed, his wrists raw from struggling against restraints. The van was gone. He was lying on a cold steel gurney, bright fluorescent lights stabbing down into his eyes. The air was sterile, humming with the faint buzz of machines.
For a moment, panic surged through him, a million thoughts went through his mind.
Where am I, where am I, where,
Then he remembered the scarred man's words.
CADMUS.
Now, he remembered where he knew of CADMUS. Wasn't that the villain of some Justice League show? New Justice or something, he didn't watch it so he didn't remember, but he knew it was owned by Lex Luthor or something.
It seemed he'd die here. Surviving Lex Luthor was basically impossible for someone without powers like him.
He forced his eyes to adjust to the light as he thought this. The room wasn't empty. Rows of gurneys stretched out on either side, some with other teens strapped down, some already lifeless and still.
And to his right, someone was sobbing.
He turned his head and saw her.
A blonde girl, no older than him, her wrists bound to the table, tears cutting lines down her pale cheeks. Her body shook with every broken breath. She tried to hide her face, but the sobs kept breaking through.
"Hey," Tyrone whispered, his throat dry. "Hey,"
Her eyes flicked toward him, wide, terrified, blue as glass about to shatter. For a moment, she looked at him like she'd just seen a lifeline.
Before either could speak again, the steel doors groaned open.
Men in white coats filed in, followed by guards in black body armor. The scarred man from the van walked at the front, barking orders in clipped tones.
"Prep the next pair. Subjects 28-B and 29-A. Begin infusion immediately."
Guards descended on Tyrone and the girl, wheeling their gurneys side by side into the center of the lab. Massive tubes of glowing liquid loomed overhead, one pulsing a deep, shadowy black, the other burning with piercing white light.
Tyrone's gut twisted. Something was wrong, something wrong at the very core of this place. The machines hummed like cages, like hungry beasts.
The blonde girl fought against her restraints, voice breaking.
"Please! Please don't—I don't want this, I just want to go home! Please!"
Her cries bounced off the sterile walls. Nobody listened. Nobody cared.
Tyrone clenched his fists until his nails bit into his palms. Rage boiled through him. He'd seen people ignored before, heard them cry for help while the world kept walking. He'd lived it.
And now he was strapped down, powerless, forced to watch it happen again.
The scientists moved quickly, attaching thick cables to the gurneys, connecting them to the vats of black and white energy. The room grew colder, the lights flickering.
"Compatibility test with the serum-commence," one of them muttered.
Tyrone's heart hammered as a needle slid into his arm, icy liquid burning its way into his veins. His vision blurred. The world tilted.
On the gurney beside him, the girl screamed. A sound so raw it sliced through him.
Darkness flooded Tyrone's chest—heavy, suffocating, endless. His lungs seized as if the night itself was crawling inside, wrapping around his heart. Shadows coiled over his skin, whispering promises of power, of hunger, of fear.
At the same time, the girl arched back against her restraints. Light burst from beneath her skin, blinding, pure, lancing through the sterile lab with searing brilliance.
White and black.
Light and dark.
Two forces not meant to touch.
But they were being forced together. The machines groaned, alarms shrieking as the lab began to quake. Scientists shouted, scrambling for control. Guards raised rifles, panic flashing in their eyes.
Then,
BOOM
The chamber exploded.
Darkness and light erupted in a violent storm, swallowing the lab whole. The blast ripped through steel and concrete, tearing machines apart, hurling bodies like ragdolls. Black tendrils of shadow lashed against walls, while searing daggers of light carved the air.
Tyrone felt himself ripped free of the gurney, falling into endless black. His body convulsed, his mind burning, as if every nightmare he'd ever had had come alive inside his chest. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't scream.
And then, through the chaos, a glow.
He turned his head, barely conscious, and saw her, the blonde girl, floating in the storm of light and dark. Her hair flowed like molten gold, her skin radiant, but her eyes wide with the same terror he felt.
Their gazes locked. For a single heartbeat, it felt like the storm itself bent around them.
Then everything went white,
And black,
And nothing.
When the silence finally fell, the lab was gone. Reduced to ruin, swallowed in shadow and seared in light.
And in the center of it, lying among the wreckage, Tyrone Johnson and the girl stirred. Their breaths shallow, their bodies trembling, but alive.
No longer ordinary.
No longer human.
The shadows clung to Tyrone's skin like a second body, pulsing with hunger. His eyes opened, two pits of darkness,
The girl beside him glowed faintly, her trembling hands releasing sparks of radiant energy. The tears still clung to her cheeks, but her eyes… her eyes burned with living light.
Neither understood what they had become.
But the world would never be the same.