Not many people could say that, and even fewer could remember the exact moment so clearly. For him, it came first as sound—the screech of tires on wet pavement—followed by headlights cutting through the evening glare. A little girl froze in the crosswalk, too shocked to move.
Kael didn't think. He shoved her out of harm's way.
He didn't shove himself.
The impact hit like a wall. Pain flashed once, sharp and absolute, and then everything turned weightless and quiet.
After that came light.
A white light, warm and endless, brighter than anything a human eye could hold. It wrapped around him like a second sky.
Then a second light rose behind it—golden, deep, and vibrating with a power that felt almost ancient. The two lights circled each other as if they were alive.
A voice came from the white light, gentle yet everywhere at once.
"You were never meant for a small world."
Another voice came from the gold, carrying the weight of a mountain and the tone of a prayer.
"You see farther than most. Your mind reaches where others cannot."
Kael tried to ask who they were, but his voice scattered like dust.
The white voice continued. "When fiction and reality bleed together—"
The gold voice finished the thought. "—you will walk between them."
Both lights folded into each other, and Kael blacked out.
He opened his eyes again as a newborn.
He lay in a hospital room in Queens, New York, in the arms of new parents he'd never met. His name—Kael Arista—was chosen for him. His body was new. His life was new. But his mind was not empty.
He remembered being twenty years old.
He remembered the truck.
He remembered the girl he saved.
And most of all, he remembered the white and gold lights.
He didn't know why he had been chosen. But he didn't forget.
Growing up in Queens felt ordinary on the surface. He went to school, played outside, watched TV, did homework. His parents called him smart, quick, curious. But Kael noticed things that didn't add up.
It began with names.
The Daily Planet logo appeared on a building during a news broadcast. A Stark Industries advertisement followed right after. A billionaire couple named Thomas and Martha Wayne were murdered in Gotham. A teenage genius named Lex Luthor won an international science prize. A documentary host named Diana Prince looked suspiciously like a real Amazon.
Then came talk of a crashed spacecraft in Kansas.
A school in Westchester for "gifted youngsters."
A vigilante in Gotham.
A man seen swinging between skyscrapers on some kind of line.
Marvel and DC characters existed here. All at once. All blended together into one world.
By the time Kael turned seven, he knew something was wrong with reality. This wasn't the world he came from. This was something built, patched together, forced into a single timeline. Something unstable.
On his eighth birthday, he saw Peter Parker for the first time. A skinny, shy kid with messy brown hair and a backpack too heavy for someone his size. Kael walked past him in the hallway.
For a moment, he saw a faint shimmer near Peter's shoulder. The outline of a spider glowing like a spark.
When he blinked, it disappeared.
A year later, Jean Grey visited his school with her classmates. As she walked by his desk, Kael felt a strange pressure in the air. Something brushed against his mind—soft, curious—and recoiled instantly as if burned.
Jean flinched.
Kael did too.
He wasn't normal.
And the world around him wasn't normal either.
By age twelve, he understood three things clearly.
His mind was shielded. Even powerful psychics seemed unable to sense him.
His soul felt… larger than it should be, quiet but deep.
And something was waiting for him. Something tied to the white and gold lights.
Kael studied everything he could. Martial arts. First aid. Engineering. Magic theory. Alien biology. He never let himself stand out, always keeping his grades and behavior safely average. It was better to be invisible in a world full of superpowered threats.
Everything changed when he turned fifteen.
It started with three separate events. A pulse from a Mother Box on the Justice League's Watchtower. A Stark Industries test involving a prototype reactor. And a sudden psychic surge from a sleeping Jean Grey. The pulses collided above Queens.
Kael felt them before he saw them.
The air grew heavy.
The ground vibrated.
Then the world went white and gold again.
Time seemed to stop.
The voices from his death returned.
"Now," whispered the white light.
"Walk," murmured the gold.
A window appeared in front of him—transparent and glowing with symbols he somehow understood.
OMNIVERSAL TRADER
A Class Chosen for You
By White and Gold
By Two Who Are One
You are the only bearer of this Class.
You will walk the Omniverse.
You will hold its ledger.
You will trade in all things.
Do you accept?
There was no choice to make.
Kael whispered, "Yes."
And the system awakened inside him like a new heartbeat.
The Market.
The sense for value.
The pathways of energy.
The subtle connection to worlds beyond this one.
Kael Arista, fifteen-year-old boy from Queens, became the first and only Omniversal Trader.
And though the world kept moving as if nothing happened, nothing would ever be the same again.