Chapter 1 - Chapter 1: The Apex Glitch

The rain in Gotham didn't just fall; it felt like the sky was trying to drown the city's sins in industrial runoff. It was cold, needle-sharp, and smelled of rust and rotting fish.I woke up face-down in a puddle that tasted like copper and diesel. My last memory was the screech of tires, the smell of burning rubber, and the blinding white light of a truck's grill slamming into my chest at sixty miles per hour. I was twenty-one, a shut-in who knew more about the T-Virus and DC lore than I did about my own bank account. I should have been a smear on the pavement in my old world.Instead, I was shivering in a Gotham alleyway.I tried to push myself up, and my heart gave a sudden, violent thud. It wasn't a heartbeat; it was a rhythmic punch against my ribs. My hands hit the pavement, and instead of scraping my palms, the asphalt simply... disintegrated. My fingers sank into the ground like it was made of wet cake."What the hell..." I croaked. My voice was a deep, gravelly rasp that vibrated in my teeth.[Syphonis System Initialized.][Host: Leo][Status: Stabilized Prototype.][Bio-Mass: 0/100% (Until Evolution: Nemesis-Type)]Blue text flickered in the corner of my vision, sharp as a razor. It wasn't a dream. I stared at my hands. They looked human, but beneath the skin, I could see things moving. Blue and purple veins pulsed with a life of their own. The Super Soldier Serum had fortified my mind, keeping the T-Virus from eating my brain, but the virus... the virus was turning my cells into a war zone.[Warning: Host is in a state of 'Viral Starvation'. Biomass required to prevent cellular decay.]The hunger hit me then. It wasn't in my stomach; it was a screaming void in my marrow."Hey, look at this. A fresh one."I looked up. Three shadows were blocking the exit to the alley. They looked like the standard Gotham bottom-feeders—worn leather jackets, eyes yellowed by cheap drugs, and the kind of overconfidence that only comes from holding a weapon. One had a rusted crowbar, another a switchblade. The third, a fat guy with a greasy ponytail, held a snub-nosed .38."This is a private alley, kid," the one with the crowbar sneered, stepping closer. "Contribution fee is your shoes, that jacket, and maybe an ear if you keep staring at me like that."I didn't have shoes. I was wearing the rags I'd died in. I looked at the guy, and for the first time in my life, I didn't feel fear. I felt... annoyed. And hungry."I don't have anything for you," I said. My voice was getting deeper, the vocal cords thickening. "But if you don't leave, you're going to have a very bad night."The fat guy laughed, pointing the revolver at my face. "Big talk for a guy sitting in a puddle. Let's see how much talk is left after I put a hole in that chin."He pulled the trigger.BANG.The sound was deafening in the narrow alley. I felt a sharp sting on my forehead, right between the eyes. My head snapped back, and I slumped against the brick wall."Dead as a door nail," the gunman spat. "Check his pockets."The guy with the crowbar walked up and reached down. I opened my eyes.The scream he let out was the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard. I reached up and grabbed his wrist. I didn't even mean to squeeze, but the T-Virus didn't care about "accidents." There was a sickening crunch—the sound of a dry branch snapping. His wrist flattened like a tube of toothpaste, blood and bone shards spraying out from the skin."AGHHHH! MY HAND! HE'S GOT MY HAND!"I didn't let go. I stood up, and the power in my legs was terrifying. I felt like a coiled spring made of titanium. I swung my free hand—a clumsy, wide-arced haymaker. I had zero technique, no training, just raw, viral hate.My fist caught him in the side of the head.His skull didn't just break; it exploded. Brain matter, teeth, and fragments of the temporal bone painted the alley wall in a wet, red spray. His body was launched six feet sideways, hitting a dumpster with a heavy clang before sliding into the trash.[Biomass detected. Beginning passive absorption.]Small, microscopic tendrils, invisible to the naked eye, reached out from my knuckles, drinking the blood spray mid-air. I felt a surge of heat—like a shot of pure adrenaline straight to the heart.[Bio-Mass: 4/100%]The other two were paralyzed. The gunman fired again. Bang! Bang! Bang!I felt the bullets hit my chest. They stung, sure, but they didn't penetrate. I looked down. The 9mm rounds were flattened against my skin, dropping into the mud like discarded pennies. The holes in my shirt revealed greyish-pink muscle that was already sealing shut, pushing the lead fragments out."My turn," I growled.I exploded forward. I wasn't running; I was a blur. The distance between us—twenty feet—disappeared in less than a second. I reached the gunman and didn't punch him. I just ran through him.My shoulder hit his chest at thirty-five meters per second.The sound was wet. His ribcage collapsed instantly, the sternum driven back into his lungs and heart. He didn't even have time to grunt before he was folded in half and sent tumbling down the alley like a ragdoll. He hit the pavement, bounced twice, and lay still in a mangled heap of limbs.The last guy—the one with the knife—dropped his blade. He didn't even try to run. He just fell to his knees, pissing himself as he stared at the red ruin of his friends."Please... please, man... I got kids..."I walked toward him. My shadow stretched long under the flickering streetlamp, looking more like a monster than a man. The hunger in my blood was screaming now. It wanted the DNA. It wanted the data.I reached out and grabbed his head. My fingers sank into his scalp. I didn't feel like a hero. I didn't even feel like a human. I felt like the Apex."I have kids too," I lied. I didn't. I had a hard drive and a cat. "But they're hungrier than yours."I squeezed. The sound of his skull fracturing was the last thing I heard before the system pinged again.[Bio-Mass: 10/100%][Physical Limit reached for Tier 0. Seeking Higher Genetic Data.]I stood in the center of the carnage, the rain washing the gore off my face. My skin was tingling. Within minutes, the bodies in the alley began to look... withered. The T-Virus was extracting everything.In the distance, the wail of a siren broke the silence. High above, through the swirling Gotham smog, a giant bat-shaped light hit the clouds. The Bat-Signal.I looked at my hands. The blood was gone, absorbed into my pores. I felt faster, stronger, and more alive than I ever had at twenty-one."Let him come," I whispered, looking up at the signal. "I'm the only virus this city can't cure."I turned and vanished into the shadows of the Narrows, my eyes glowing a faint, predatory crimson in the dark. Gotham was a city of monsters, but they had never seen a king like me.