Lucien’s eyes opened to the beeping of a machine, his gaze shifting to take in his surroundings. White walls and a white ceiling greeted him, illuminated by warm lightning through halogens from above. His first thought was ‘hospital’ when he took note of the medical equipment, but the shape of the room and the familiarity of what was within it dispelled that thought. Not hospital, the Washingtons’ in-home medical bay.

His eyes wandered down to his body, and he hissed in air as he saw himself. He wore a short-sleeve silk shirt and leggings, with bandages and casts visible across three of his four limbs. Only his left arm was unencumbered, instead held in tight bandaging stained faintly red from blood, as the rest were. Breathing was mildly uncomfortable, a fact he noted once his sense of self properly adjusted, but that was likely due to the nature of his injuries.

Fucking Jason.

He attempted to lift his left arm to reach for the little remote left carefully on his abdomen, and pain lanced through his body as he did. He hissed at the shock of it, wincing at the pain in his chest from the sharp intake of air. Yeah, that was gonna be an issue. His eyes moved instead to the table on the right side of his bed and he looked for his phone, momentarily dismayed at not finding it — until he remembered that Morris had crushed it. His eyes rolled upwards as he considered how shitty the entire situation was, wincing at the heat in his body.

It was suddenly unbearably hot in the room.

His left hand moved towards the remote again and this time he steeled himself against the pain, grabbing it after a few seconds of breathless agony and then resting his hand. Slow, steady breaths followed as he carefully thumbed down the buttons by memory, trying to recall what did what from his last visit to the room. After a few moments of trial and error he located the ‘temperature’ button and subtly shifted his head with a suppressed grunt, turning to properly look at the monitor next to him.

The numbers on the screen made no sense: 23 c / 73 f. That was, by all estimation, a fantastic temperature. He should have been in his element and yet his body only felt more and more uncomfortable. He wiggled his toes reflexively as uncomfortable heat continued to rise within him, slowly sliding his thumb along the controller again to find the ‘call assistance’ button. He was hardly knowledgeable in medicine, but randomly feeling extremely hot in ideal temperatures did not strike him as something to be ignored.

His thumb depressed the button at the same time as he spasmed, sending arcs of agony like lightning across his body. “Wh-what the fu—?!” Another spasm rocked him and he cried out, feeling as if his body were turning to a furnace, as if his bones were boiler plates and his blood the water. Agony ran through him in a tidal wave, and he spasmed again and more viciously. A sound like tearing met his ears and his eyes went as wide as they could go, followed by a full-throated scream he couldn’t suppress.

Blood sprayed the air as the wet ripping sound continued, and Lucien looked down at his body in horror. The bones of his fingers protruded from the tips of his hands, glistening and white in the overhead light. Bile rose in his throat as he felt the bones of his feet erupt through the flesh of his toes, and the skin of his legs rip and sunder as his limbs rapidly grew. Agony unlike anything he’d ever imagined filled him, along with a still-growing heat that felt as if it were liquefying his insides.

He tasted blood in his mouth, and his vision turned blurry from screaming. Vaguely he thought he heard the door opening, thought he heard a familiar male voice shouting in panic and alarm, but it was lost to the madness of his new torture. More shouting voices, and what looked like a scuffle at the edge of his vision as a door closed — taking whoever had arrived with it, in spite of yelled protests.

Lucien’s back arched and he screamed so hard he felt his throat tear itself open, felt his back snap and realign itself. He felt new bones growing into place, felt old ones fusing to sudden additions. His nerve endings were a simulation of slaughter, a continuous re-enactment of a chainsaw massacre as they were eviscerated, stabbed, cut, and mutilated over and over again. The sound of tearing plaster assaulted his ears as he unwittingly flexed his arms and legs, erupting the casts from around them.

His own gurgling was a symphony of suffering in his ears as he felt his body contorting and twisting. The violent agony of his self-destructing limbs was replaced by intense and blinding heat, followed by savage stabbing pains. Pins and needles walked their way down his body as he writhed in the bed without feeling it. At one point in his madness he thought he was floating, twisting and turning in the air like some simulacrum of the old Exorcist movie from the 1970s.

The heat filling him felt like nothing he could ever fully explain.

It felt like lightning in his bones, like magma in his blood.

The pressure building within was like the birth of a Star.

He knew these things to be the exaggerations of a tortured mind, and yet he knew them to almost be true. Newtonian reality be damned, a Sun was erupting inside his chest. His mortal coil was the centre of a supernova, and he knew with certainty that all the power within would surely kill him and everything else from horizon to horizon. He gnashed his teeth and tossed his head as he thought of Tiberius, of Vanessa, of Leonidas and Harper. He howled through a ruptured throat and his fists curled in on themselves as he fought to keep that terrible force contained within.

The heat reached its peak, and Lucien offered one final cry as the world turned white.

Silence dominated everything. The pain was a distant memory as he floated in the darkness of his own subconscious. Had he failed? Had that terrible power been unleashed upon an unsuspecting New Avalon? His heart raced at the potential destruction he had caused. His godparents dead. His best friend dead. His first love dead. His home, his district, his city… Millions of people scorched and obliterated by the unyielding force of that impossible cosmic magnificence rooted within his trembling form.

“Lucien, wake up!”

No. He didn’t want to face what he’d see.

“Lucien!”

Go away. He didn’t need that burden. He couldn’t handle it.

“Lucien, dude, wake up!”

Fuck off Ty. He froze as he said — thought? — the words. Ty? Ty’s calling me?

“Come on man, you need to wake the fuck up!”

If Ty’s calling me… If he’s calling me, then I didn’t fail? I didn’t kill everyone?

Lucien opened his eyes to the brightness of the unfiltered sun. He cried out in pain, clamping his eyes closed as he felt someone shake in shock. He could smell the overwhelming scent of cologne, sweat, grass, and sea water. “Too bright!” He complained, before wincing harshly at his own voice. His own words echoed in his ears like an angry trumpet, causing him to snap his hands over them to protect them.

“Dude…” Tiberius said, his voice a strange cadence even as it penetrated his shielded ears. “Dude, look at me.”

Lucien slowly, hesitantly opened his eyes at Tiberius’ urging to squint at his friend. He continued to squint, in fact, until the brightness from overhead became more bearable — until his eyes adjusted to it. Only then and after considerable hesitant blinks did he fully focus on his best friend, and suck in a breath of shock as he did. Ty looked terrible. He had bags under his eyes, faint ridges of stress on his cheeks that Lucien knew could precipitate zits if his pores weren’t properly cared for. He could see the clear cracks of worry spiderwebbing out from his eyes, too.

“Dude, you look terrible.” Lucien said, before pausing. His own voice sounded alien to him; masculine and deep, a baritone that had fully passed through puberty and come into its own. That was puzzling. He was used to his voice cracking with pubescence, not sounding so… smooth. So strong.

“Compared to you, so would Hyperion.” Ty said with tight eyes, placing a hand on Lucien’s shoulder.

He shivered at the touch, feeling every ridge and callous on Tiberius’ fingers through the soft material of his silk shirt, which itself had so many fibres he could count them in his head immediately. It was like his skin was a hypersensitivity plate. He slowly looked at his surroundings as Ty watched him, and what he found nearly took his breath away. Lucien could see every dent, scratch, or stroke from the paint on the walls. Every mote of dust in the air, each bit of moisture from the running air conditioning — which itself roared and revved in his ears, until he abruptly managed to tune it out.

“Ty. What the hell is going on?” Lucien asked in a whisper, his voice finally reduced to normalcy in his own ears.

“I was hoping you’d know.” The other boy answered wearily, his shoulders tense with uncertainty. “Dude you need to get in front of a mirror. I… don’t really know how else to explain.”

Lucien furrowed his eyebrows but natural trust for his best friend saw him move to stand — and then suddenly he was. One moment he was lying on the bed fighting off his hesitation, and the next he was standing next to a frozen Ty, watching in bewilderment as his god-brother continued to stay at his bed as if he were still there. What the hell?

He lifted his hand to wave in front of Tiberius’ face before putting his hands on his hips and opening his mouth to speak. Abruptly Ty jumped, and the blanket on the bed blew off the surface, fluttering into the air as Lucien turned to gape at it. “What the…?”

Lucien turned back to Ty, looking down to meet his gaze with a frown, before freezing in place again. Looking down? Since when did he look down? Ty had three, nearly four inches on him. Had Lucien stepped onto a stool or something? He glanced down to check and his eyes widened as he did. His silk shirt, which he’d barely been paying attention to, looked like he’d picked it off the rack three sizes too small. It was comically tiny on him, revealing a healthy amount of midriff… and a perfectly symmetrical, olive-skinned six-pack.

“What the fuck?” Lucien exclaimed again, reaching down to touch his stomach in awed bewilderment. “Is this a dream? What the hell is going on?”

“Mirror, Luc.” Ty said again, more insistently. “Come on dude, the sooner the better.”

Still recovering from his shock at his body, Lucien blinked at Ty and then nodded. With a tight smile his god-brother led him from the medical room and out into the main house’s ground floor. Following along in a daze, Lucien couldn’t help but marvel at the brightness of the world around him. He’d never noticed how colourful everything was. The walls, the decorations, the paintings, even the subtle handprints, stains, and marks across the house. Those he more wrinkled his nose at, but there was wonder nonetheless. It was like he was seeing the world properly for the first time.

When Ty stopped in the living room Lucien joined him, turning to face one of the decorative mirrors that Vanessa had put up to face the couch and sitting area from the far wall. He glanced at Ty once more before properly directing his attention to it, and the other boy simply jerked his chin towards the mirror once more. Steeling himself, Lucien turned to it. What he saw nearly made him jump backwards.

A beach-tanned teenager stared back at him, dressed in a comically ill-fitting pair of silk pyjamas. His legs were exposed from the bottom of the knee down, and the shirt not only exposed his midriff but had ripped around his biceps. Holy shit, I have biceps! His eyes were a striking scarlet, matching with his obsidian hair which had taken on a thickness and vitality he’d never before had. It was already set in an attractive, stylishly unkempt manner: Naturally falling in a way most movie stars would envy.

His jaw was squared and strong, with defined cheekbones that flared out symmetrically and gave him an exactness to the balance of his features that was… bewildering. The fact he could tell they were symmetrical at a glance was, also, somewhat shocking. His comprehension of everything he saw and how he processed it seemed leagues beyond what it had been before. “Ty.” Lucien said tightly, watching the stranger in the reflection — himself, he remembered immediately — mimic his speech. “What the hell happened, Ty? I’m... I’m…”

“You’re fucking hot, bro.” Ty supplied simply, grinning as Lucien looked down at him. “You were never ugly, man, but… Well I gotta be honest, you definitely look infinitely better now. Shit.”

In spite of what some might have called a backhanded compliment, Lucien knew Ty well enough to understand the clarifying intent behind the other boy’s words. “Dude your parents are gonna freak.”

“Actually, they already know.” Ty said, almost hesitantly. “You uh… You’ve been asleep for a while man.”

Lucien blinked and turned to his friend, heart racing as he sought clarification. “How long is a while?”

“Um, three weeks.”

Lucien felt the floor drop from under him and he staggered as if hit, catching himself on the couch nearby. “Three weeks…? What… How am I not emaciated?”

“I don’t know, man. It was super weird.” Tiberius said as if struggling to really comprehend it himself. “You were screaming and your body was like destroying itself. I came running when you accidentally hit the button next to the bed and I saw you just… dying. At least I thought you were dying. You were flailing and there was blood everywhere and your bones were sticking through your skin and…” He took a breath, clenching his fists as if controlling himself. “Dude I was so scared. I thought you were a goner, and then mom and dad showed up and they pulled me out of the room.” Ty’s eyes turned a little vacant as he recounted the story. “I was shouting and screaming at them to help you, and they just kept saying it was ‘destiny’ or whatever the fuck.” His friend seemed to grow angry as he repeated it.

“Dad called in some emergency time off from work and we stripped the bed, used sponges and stuff to clean the blood and shit… Dude it was crazy. I could see you healing. At first I thought I was losing my mind, you know?” Lucien nodded as Ty spoke, riveted by the other boy’s tale. “I was sure the stress or whatever was doing my head in, but you really were healing. Day by day you got a little bit better, and bigger, and I wasn’t the only one that noticed it. What weirded me out is that the parentals didn’t seem surprised, just… resigned.”

Tiberius shook his head, running a hand through his hair — hair that, Lucien noticed, had grown and been left unmaintained. That was rare for Ty. He must have truly been worried to have let it get to that state, and that fact alone made his heart swell with affection for his god-brother. “It was crazy man. It was so crazy. One moment you’re lying there this battered mess, and fuck I was so angry when I found you on the beach… But then next thing I know you’re growing muscles, and a six-pack, and looking like some sort of American Adonis or something.”

The term ‘Adonis’ stirred something in Lucien’s memory, and he thought he remembered the smell of brownies. Before he could grab hold of it, however, the thread of memory slipped from his grasp. He refocused on Tiberius as he continued, holding in his questions and comments for the immediate moment.

“So we just waited, and watched, and I thought you’d starve or dehydrate, but mom just said that it was ‘part of the process’ and told me to keep an eye on you.” Tiberius sagged, as if retelling the story was exhausting. “So I watched and I waited, and then today after I went to get some grub, I came back and saw you moving… So I tried to wake you, and I guess here we are.”

“I see.” Lucien said in full awareness of how lame the response sounded, reaching up to brush his fingers through his hair. Each strand was soft and smooth, far softer and smoother than they had any right to be after three weeks of lying in a bed. The thought shocked him until he realised that it was just another inexplicable reality. “So… Do you know why this happened? Like… You know, what does it mean?”

Tiberius looked at him wearily and laughed, genuine mirth breaking through his exhausted veneer. “Come on dude, we’ve both read enough comics and seen enough origin story interviews to know exactly what this means.”

“Ty…” Lucien said, voice halting. “It may not mean what you think it means. I could have been exposed to some chemical, or some medical disease no one’s heard of, or—!”

“Dude, I already talked to the parentals. They confirmed it.” He sighed and shook his head, rolling his shoulders to loosen them. “They apparently know shit we don’t, because they didn’t even seem surprised — they tried to, but I could tell. They expected this.”

“I…” Lucien said, struggling for the words. “I can’t believe this is real.”

Tiberius walked over as he spoke, reaching out to put a hand on his shoulder. “Nothing’s changed, man. You’re still my brother. I still have your back.”

“But it’s going to be different, man. It is. We can’t just pretend that I’m not a… Not a…”

“A Meta, Lucien.” Ty said simply, his green eyes sparkling with an echo of nerdy glee. “Dude. You’re a goddamn Superhero.”

And Lucien knew, down to his soul, that his god-brother was right.