In a concrete womb beneath Washington D.C., where names were filed away in steel cabinets and screams went unheard, a project was born.
Project CROC/WND-01.
The result of splicing Waylon Jones' DNA—Killer Croc—with something far more ancient. Not just a mutant, not just a monster, but a curse in genetic form: the Wendigo strain, extracted and barely stabilized from the ruins of an isolated Canadian blacksite where no one made it out sane.
It wasn't supposed to work.
But it did.
Against every ethical wall, every law of nature and man, the embryo thrived.
The surrogate mother—an expendable volunteer, paid in fear and silence—was not expected to live. But somehow, she did. No broken spine. No shredded insides. Only trauma in her eyes and a check with too many zeroes.
She was let go. Vanished from records. Her name was never spoken again.
The child was… wrong.
He didn't look like Killer Croc. No rows of jagged teeth. No thick scales or overgrown limbs. Just a frail thing with pale olive skin stretched too tightly across his ribs. Hairless. His mouth too small, eyes too large and dark.
Only his heels and shoulders bore soft green scales—delicate, almost decorative. Like nature had only just begun sculpting a monster and then changed its mind.
He cried. Constantly.
For days into weeks, and weeks into months.
Only milk would quiet him.
Even that, Waller noted, wasn't hunger. It was something else. A need. An anchor.
They named him Troy. The files said "Troy Jones," for record purposes. A subtle nod to Killer Croc's real name. But even then, Amanda Waller suspected… this was not Waylon's son. Not truly.
At four years old, they introduced his first trainer. A man pulled from the Task Force's psychological warfare unit. Cold. Efficient. Had no children of his own.
They told him: "Don't teach him love. Teach him control."
For weeks, it went smoothly. The trainer spoke. Troy nodded. Half-listening, eyes more often fixed on plastic army men or plush toys. He wasn't aggressive. He wasn't hostile.
He was... distracted.
But on the thirty-second day, something changed.
The trainer got frustrated. He raised his voice.
"You're a tool, Troy. That's all you are. You exist to be used."
Troy didn't flinch. Just looked at him for a moment, then back to the teddy bear in his lap.
That's when the man shot the toy.
One bullet. Straight through the cotton chest.
The stuffing sprayed onto Troy's face.
He froze.
No scream. No lunge.
Just a whimper. Then a sniffle. Then...
A sob.
His left eye began to glow—not red, not blue, but a sickly, unnatural yellow, like a dying star.
His left hand raised slowly.
He pointed.
"Don't," was all he whispered.
But the man didn't have time to respond.
His skin peeled away. His bones melted. Not with heat, not with force.
His entire body rearranged itself into colorless plastic, then shattered into hundreds of tiny butterflies, fluttering weakly, trying to fly on wings that weren't built to live.
They dropped to the floor, lifeless.
Waller saw it on camera.
And for once in her career, she didn't speak.
Not for five minutes.
Then, finally: "Bring him snacks. And new toys."
She paused, adjusting her glasses, eyes hard.
"No punishments. No reprimands. Just… compliments. Obey his emotional patterns. No yelling. Ever."
A pause. Then the final order:
"We do not make a mistake with this one."