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The sun broke over the skyline in thin lines of gold and ash, a dirty sunrise filtered through city smog. He sat cross-legged on the edge of a construction scaffold, two stories above the street, eating a lukewarm breakfast burrito and watching the world move.
Heroes flew overhead like they were late for brunch. Civilians wandered, heads down, eyes locked on phones. Somewhere far off, a siren wailed—but it was background noise now. Just more white static in a city built on tension.
He tapped his fingers against the steel beam. He wasn't just people-watching.
He was timeline-watching.
From the news crawl to the billboards, from podcast snippets to overheard bar chatter—he was triangulating the moment.
Mark Grayson was still powerless.
Omni-Man still played house.
The Guardians were alive.
That gave him a window. A short one.
If the timeline played out the same way, he had maybe two, three months before blood hit the water. Before the Guardians were wiped out. Before Mark flew for the first time. Before the world started unraveling.
He didn't know how much variance to expect. Was this an exact mirror of the show? Did the butterfly effect already start just by him existing here?
It was like trying to predict a bomb detonation after someone had jostled the timer.
But he did his best. Every piece of intel he gathered got scribbled into the notebook. Timeline theories. Character notes. Potential allies. People he could not—would not—trust.
And at the top of the page: Cecil Stedman.
He'd watched the man in the shadows of the show. Ruthless. Tactical. Always two plays ahead. Now that he lived here, felt the weight of the world on his own bones, he understood Cecil a little more.
But that didn't mean he trusted him.
Because people like Cecil didn't see individuals.
They saw weapons. Problems. Assets.
And Isaac—or whatever name he eventually took—refused to be any of those.
He was mid-thought when a shadow fell across his perch.
A teenager, hovering.
Not flying, but hovering—awkwardly, like he didn't quite trust gravity yet.
Brown hair, soft features, that awkward hunched posture of someone still getting used to a changing body.
Mark Grayson.
"Hey," Mark said, squinting at him. "You're not supposed to be up here."
He blinked, caught off guard. "You… are?"
Mark dropped with a thud onto the scaffold beside him. He looked winded. The hovering had clearly taken effort.
"I just started flying," he said, like he couldn't hold it in. "Yesterday. Took off like a bottle rocket. It was awesome."
So it had started.
The dominoes were tipping.
He played it cool, tucked his burrito wrapper into his jacket. "That explains the landing."
Mark grinned sheepishly. "Still figuring it out."
"What's your name?"
"Mark. You?"
He paused. A dozen names spun through his head. A few seconds too long.
"Ward," he said finally. "Jay Ward."
He hoped Mark wouldn't know Isaac's name. That would mean his death—or replacement—had gone unnoticed.
Mark didn't react. "Cool. You uh… a cape?"
Jay shook his head. "Nah. Just... watching the world go by."
"Same," Mark said. "Well. Not for long, I guess."
Jay studied him. The kid was sincere. Eager. Not yet hardened by betrayal or war. Still believed the world could be saved by punching hard enough and flying fast enough.
"You tell your parents yet?" Jay asked, keeping his tone casual.
Mark nodded. "My dad's super happy. My mom cried. Weird mix."
Jay gave a noncommittal shrug. "That's families for you."
They sat in silence for a while. Mark eventually stood.
"Well, uh… if you ever start flying or whatever, maybe I'll see you up here again."
"Maybe," Jay said.
And then Mark was gone, launched skyward in a wobbling arc like a firework.
Jay leaned back and exhaled slowly.
It had begun.
He spent the next few days in full prep mode. Gathering supplies. Mapping routes. Testing powers harder than before. He focused on precision now—adjusting angles on the fly, curving trajectories, redirecting force mid-air. It was easier with practice. The vectors responded faster when he anticipated motion instead of reacting to it.
He picked up a cheap burner phone. Created a new identity on the dark web—fake employment records, a falsified tech certification. Something low-profile but useful. He needed to exist, but not stand out.
He slept little.
A few times, he dreamed in force diagrams. Woke with kinetic equations scrawled in his head like graffiti on a chalkboard.
One morning, his powers surged unexpectedly—an entire streetlamp bent sideways as he passed by, unprovoked.
He panicked. Hid. Waited for sirens. None came.
It was unstable. Still tied to emotion. He'd have to learn control, not just raw strength.
Then, late one evening, he saw the headlines.
"Teen Hero: Omni-Boy?"
"Mark Grayson Makes First Public Save!"
"Son of Omni-Man Rescues Busload From Bridge Collapse."
Jay leaned back in the diner booth, coffee going cold in his hands.
So the kid was in the spotlight now.
And with that, the sharks would start circling.
Robot would take interest. Cecil too. And the Guardians?
Dead men walking.
He had maybe days.
He considered intervening. Warning the Guardians. Telling Robot. Exposing Nolan.
But it was too early. No one would believe him. Worse, he'd paint a target on his back.
He had no credibility. No allies. No defense against a god-tier sociopath.
So he waited.
And when the day finally came, when the news anchors wore black and the headlines screamed tragedy, he didn't cry.
He just sat on the rooftop and watched the stars blink to life one by one.
"They never had a chance," he whispered.
He would not forget them.
And he would not let it happen again.
But for now, he stayed still.
Because the moment you move too early in a rigged game… the system learns your face.
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End of chapter 3