Note : Arc continues tomorrow.
Origin 5 : The Chemicals
*[FLASHBACK - 14 Years Ago]*
The fall seemed to last forever.
Alex plummeted through darkness, his small body bouncing off pipes and machinery before splashing into something that burned like liquid fire. The chemical tank was deeper than he'd expected—over his head even when he found his footing on the bottom. Whatever filled it ate through his clothes in seconds, turned his skin raw and screaming.
He surfaced gasping, choking on fumes that made his lungs feel like they were dissolving. The taste was indescribable—metal and acid and something organic that made his stomach heave. Above him, through the open hatch, he could hear his father's killers arguing.
"Should we check if he's dead?"
"In that soup? Kid's already dead, just doesn't know it yet. Crane Industries' special cocktail—byproducts from the weapons testing division. Stuff dissolves bone."
Their voices faded as they walked away, leaving Alex alone in the dark with chemicals that were supposed to kill him slowly and horribly. He tried to climb out, but the tank walls were too high, too slick. Every time he got a grip, the chemicals made his hands slip, sent him splashing back into the burning liquid.
Time became meaningless. Alex floated in agony, feeling the chemicals work their way through his system. His skin blistered and peeled, then somehow began to heal, then blistered again. His vision blurred, cleared, shifted in ways that shouldn't have been possible.
He should have died in the first five minutes. Then the first hour. Then the first day.
Instead, something else happened.
The chemicals weren't just burning him—they were changing him. Rewriting him at a cellular level, breaking down what he was and rebuilding something new. Alex felt his bones stretch and compress, felt muscles twist into new configurations, felt his brain firing in patterns that hurt to experience.
He was dissolving and reforming, dying and being reborn, over and over in an endless cycle of transformation. The pain was beyond description—like being turned inside out while every nerve in his body screamed. But worse than the physical agony was the mental dissolution. His memories fragmented, scattered, reformed in new patterns.
He remembered his father's murder with perfect clarity now—every word, every gesture, every detail burned into his mind with chemical precision. But he also remembered things that weren't his memories, absorbed from the organic compounds in the chemical soup. Fragments of other victims who had ended up in these tanks, their final moments, their terror, their rage.
Days passed. Or weeks. Or months. Time had no meaning in the chemical darkness. Security guards checked the area occasionally, but they never looked in the tanks. Why would they? Nothing could survive in there.
But Alex was surviving. More than surviving—he was evolving.
His body learned to process the chemicals, to metabolize them, to incorporate them into something new. His skin became resistant to corrosives. His organs adapted to filter toxins. His nervous system rewired itself to handle impossible amounts of sensory input.
And his mind... his mind grew sharp in ways that eleven-year-old Alex Thorne could never have imagined. The slow, struggling child who'd had trouble with basic math suddenly understood complex chemical interactions, molecular structures, biological systems. The boy who'd been confused by simple concepts now grasped the intricate connections between power, money, corruption, and violence.
When he finally climbed out of the tank—weeks later, thinner but somehow stronger—Alex Thorne was no longer entirely human. He was something new, something adaptive, something perfectly designed to hunt the monsters who had created him.
He made his way through the abandoned facility, his new senses mapping every chemical signature, every structural weakness, every security flaw. The place was empty now—Crane Industries had written off this section after the "accident," cordoned it off as too dangerous for regular operations.
Perfect.
Alex found clothing in the security office, food in forgotten storage rooms, medical supplies in first aid stations. He established himself in the depths of the facility, in places too toxic for normal humans to survive, and began to plan.
The first thing he did was practice his new abilities. His body was malleable now, responsive to his will in ways that defied biology. He could stretch, compress, alter his appearance, even absorb organic material to fuel his transformations. The chemicals had made him into something between human and predator, perfectly adapted for stalking prey that thought itself untouchable.
The second thing he did was study. His enhanced mind devoured information—chemistry texts, security manuals, corporate documents left behind in the evacuation. He learned the bare minimum how Crane Industries operated, who worked for them, how they'd covered up his father's murder. Nothing important but still progress.
Local news had reported David Thorne's death exactly as Senator Crane had planned: "Chemical Plant Worker Dies in Mental Health Crisis." Alex's own disappearance was blamed on his father's "psychotic break"—the boy had probably run away in terror and died somewhere in the city. Very tragic. The family was described as unstable, prone to paranoid conspiracy theories.
His mother's death came two weeks later. "Suicide by drug overdose," according to the official report. "Grief-stricken nurse unable to cope with family tragedy." In reality, Alex knew, they'd probably forced the drugs down her throat to eliminate the last witness to their crime.
Sarah Thorne was buried in a pauper's grave while Senator Crane gave speeches about mental health awareness and the importance of supporting troubled families.
Alex Thorne was officially dead. His family was officially crazy. Their evidence was officially destroyed. The system had officially protected itself by devouring the people who'd tried to expose its corruption.
But in the chemical darkness beneath Crane Industries, something new had been born. Something patient and intelligent and absolutely without mercy. Something that would spend years growing stronger, smarter, more dangerous, while the men who'd created it forgot he ever existed.
They'd tried to dispose of him like toxic waste.
Instead, they'd created their own worst nightmare.
And when Alex Thorne finally emerged from the shadows to collect the debt they owed, he would do it with abilities they could never have imagined and a intelligence they could never match.
The boy who'd believed in heroes was dead, dissolved in chemical fire.
What remained was something far more terrible and far more effective.
Something that would never again make the mistake of trusting in justice, mercy, or the goodness of mankind.
Something that would become justice itself—cruel, patient, and absolutely final.
Note: Alex Thorne is officially dead—but somehow, his identity still exists in the story. How? His tragic backstory makes him the perfect suspect in case the Batman does a background check. Stay tuned for more origin chapters to see how this plot hole is filled.
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Advanced chapters on bmc/patre*n
DC : Architect of Vengeance
patre*n*c*m/Lord_Meph1sto
buymeac*ffee*c*m/lord_Meph1sto