"You were born with everything… and yet you act like you want nothing."
That sentence echoed in Ethan's mind as he watched the rain streak down the cafeteria window. The water crawled slowly, endlessly, like the dull rhythm of that grey school that smelled of mold and punishment.Blackgate Boarding School, on the outskirts of Gotham, was no ordinary institution. It was where influential families sent their children when they were too embarrassed to try yet another prestigious academy.
Ethan Vale was there entirely by his own merit.
He had already been expelled from two previous boarding schools — one for fighting, the other for hijacking the classroom sound system during a lecture on civil behavior, replacing it with recordings of demonic screams. His disciplinary record was thicker than the books he refused to read.
Now, freshly seventeen, Ethan was just another problem child to the school counselors and a walking cautionary tale to new students: "Don't mess with Vale."
The clang of a lunch tray hitting the table broke his thoughts.— "The dark king still brooding over his eternal pain?" Trey mocked, one of the few classmates still brave enough to sit with him.— "Not now, Trey," Ethan muttered, eyes still on the window.— "You know the principal's going to expel you if you lay hands on someone again. And come on — that new kid was hearing-impaired, man. Swapping his headphones for heavy metal at max volume? That's twisted, even for you."Ethan shrugged.— "He started it. Asking too many questions about my family and our 'business' with LexCorp."— "Dude, keep this up and your mom's gonna show up with a psychiatrist and a straitjacket."
Silence. Ethan set his fork down.— "She wouldn't come."
Ethan's dorm was a mess — but an oddly methodical one. Torn books and scattered notes covered the walls, like he was piecing together an invisible puzzle. On the floor lay dismantled tech — busted radios, burned-out motherboards, modified transmitters.
His desk was a chaos of loose wires, sloppy soldering, and cracked screens. In the center, a locked tablet hinted that he'd been trying to breach some local system.
Ethan wasn't a genius — not in the academic sense. But he had always handled machines like he understood their secrets by instinct. He'd taught himself to crack devices, pirate software, and build improvised gadgets. Maybe that was why he underestimated everyone else's intelligence, treating people with sarcasm and disdain.
He lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling.
"You were born with everything…""…and yet you act like you want nothing."
The voice of his older brother echoed again, from three years ago at their last family dinner.
Nathaniel had buried himself in the family business, running several ValeTech branches. But Ethan only found out his brother was in the city that very morning — by accident.
Coming back from physics class, he overheard — through the half-open teachers' lounge door — some rich kid bragging:
"My dad's on the new LexCorp project — molecular manipulation tech. Representing Luthor himself, can you believe it? It's happening right here at ValeTech's Gotham branch — all the company's directors and shareholders are involved! Mark my words: we'll be out of this dump and in Metropolis in no time!"
Something in that sentence stuck in Ethan's head: "all the directors and shareholders involved."
Nate.His brother.
Nathaniel Vale was the only active family director left — the only one with enough authority to be part of something like that. And until that moment, Ethan hadn't even known Nate was in town.
His jaw clenched. Three years without a single call. No "how are you?", no "happy birthday".
Three years of frozen silence since that disastrous family dinner, where everything had fallen apart.
It was Nate who had him sent here.It was Nate who said, "Some decisions have to be made with a cool head."
Cool like the corporate messages they exchanged once in a blue moon. Cool like the look Nate had given him that night.
— "So that's it," Ethan muttered, staring at the floor as if to drill through it. "You've been here the whole time… and couldn't even bother to tell me."
Maybe he wanted answers.Maybe he just wanted to see his brother's face again.Maybe… he was just tired of feeling invisible.
That night, with the dorm halls steeped in silence and the smell of damp walls clinging to the air, Ethan made a decision.
He was going to the branch.Even if it was the last thing he did.
Later that Night
The dorm was quiet except for the fine rain tapping against the window. Ethan dressed without hurry: a worn, heavy black leather jacket that had weathered both fights and storms, black cargo pants with deep pockets, and scuffed combat boots still steady underfoot. With one last glance at the broken tablet on the desk, he killed the lights.
Getting out of the dorm wing wasn't hard when you knew every inch of the place. Ethan had done it before — sometimes out of rage, sometimes just to taste freedom while the rest of the world slept.
Gotham City didn't sleep. Gotham simmered.
Alleys breathed steam and rot. Cans clattered, lights flickered, shadows writhed like worms. In the distance, sirens wailed and tires screeched around some random corner.
Ethan walked like a native: head down, steps steady, body hunched under his jacket. In Gotham, it was easy to disappear when you looked like the city itself.
At one point, stepping out of an alley, his eyes lifted to the night sky.
Up above, cutting through the dark with spectral light —The Bat-Signal burned against the heavy clouds.
A silent message: Batman was hunting someone. Again.
Masked criminals, lunatics with ridiculous names, wide-grinning psychopaths who laughed too much. Gotham was a play performed in endless cycles by monsters.
Even with the symbol in the sky… the city was still a dump.
A dry smirk touched Ethan's lips.— "Even the bat must be tired of all this…"
He exhaled sharply through his nose and moved on, boots splashing into dark puddles. The city swallowed him whole.
ValeTech – Gotham Branch
Reaching the ValeTech building wasn't hard — not when you had too many memories of it.
He'd been here as a kid — dragged to family meetings, charity events, useless corporate presentations. Back then, none of it made sense. Now, it made even less. The only thing he cared about was that Nathaniel was inside.
The building's façade loomed: black glass reflecting urban chaos, the company's logo glowing cold blue.
But Ethan didn't go through the front.
Circling the block, he slipped between side walls, climbed a low fence behind a dumpster. As expected, the rear ventilation duct hadn't been replaced — the same one he'd used years ago to escape boring events with his father.
He forced the grate and slipped inside.
The interior was dark and stuffy. His breath echoed in the metal, as did the faint jingle of coins in his pocket.
He crawled for meters, guided by memory and maintenance labels, smelling ozone and burnt metal.
Light seeped through cracks. Technical voices echoed, bouncing from every direction.
"Initiating stabilization sequence."
"Containment rings at sixty percent."
"Energy's stabilizing… but there's an oscillation!"
"Hold it. We're going all the way."
Ethan kept crawling until he reached a grate that, in theory, opened to a corridor.
Too late, he realized his mistake.
Maybe it was a wrong turn, maybe a poorly lit junction.
And so, Ethan leaned on a newly installed grate…
At the wrong place.At the wrong time.
Test Chamber – Molecular Manipulation Core
He landed in the center of a circular white room, surrounded by armored glass and metal platforms.
Above him, three massive rings spun around a pillar of blue light, like moons caught in the gravity of an artificial sun.
The reactor.
The room froze.
Every eye turned toward the boy in the dark jacket, standing dead center in the chamber.
Behind the glass — his brother.
Nate's eyes locked on him, frozen in disbelief.— "Ethan…?" The word escaped as an impossible whisper.— "NO, NO, NO!"— "SHUT IT DOWN! NOW!"
Engineers scrambled for the control panels.
Ethan glanced around, bewildered.
The reactor's energy swirled around him, almost alive.
It was as if the world… was breathing.
Then he looked at the core.
And the core pulsed again.
And something broke.
A wave tore through the lab. Glass rattled. Lights flickered.
The reactor's structure spun in reverse. Bolts of lightning ripped through the air, clawing at walls and ceiling.
Ethan was thrown off balance, blood trickling from his nose. He looked at Nate behind the glass, screaming something he could no longer hear.
Another pulse hit.
His ears rang. Blood now spilled from them too.
His gaze turned back to the core as the sound became unbearable—
And for the first time in a long while…He felt fear.
💥 Then, silence.
A blinding flash consumed everything.
No sound.No color.No pain.
Only darkness.