FLASHBACK – 25 Years Ago
Location: Somewhere Between Life and Death 🤣
The light came first. Not the warm, spiritual kind that people wrote about. This one was clinical. Bright. Cold. Like a ceiling bulb in an ER room. Then came the pain. A ripple of white-hot static was bursting across every nerve in his body.
Then silence.
Then… crying.
His own.
He was in a crib. His legs didn't work. His arms flailed on instinct. His throat was raw from screaming, and his sight was blurry, but even then, he knew.
This wasn't a normal birth. This wasn't a normal second chance.
He had died.
And now he was here.
But not just anywhere.
The first clue came six years later.
[Age 6 – New York City – Public Library]
Raymond sat cross-legged between two dusty shelves, a thick biology textbook on his lap. No pictures. No kiddie fonts. Just dense words and diagrams, most of which made sense to him.
His perception was the kind that couldn't be explained. He understood the complex studies. Patterns spoke louder than language. Everything was like a piece of cake to just eat up and digest.
But that wasn't what haunted him.
What shocked him was the newspaper.
A cop stood in front of a busted-up warehouse. There were men in cuffs behind him, officers moving in formation, and crates of plastic-wrapped bricks being hauled out. Drugs. Guns. Trafficking rings. The headline read: Detective Raymond Holt Leads Major Cartel Takedown in Queens.
At that moment, he thought that it could be just a coincidence. But what if it isn't? The world of Brooklyn 99... He wonder... What are the chances that there were other series involved?
[Age 10]
The world was starting to make sense. Or rather, it made too much sense. School was a joke. Math was child's play. He could memorize a book in one read. Understand tactics by observing birds in flight. He saw angles others didn't.
But what made the world strange wasn't his mind.
It was the world itself.
TV shows bled into real life. Faces he recognized from TV shows walked the same streets he did. News footage showed police raids carried out by officers he swore were fictional, except they weren't.
SWAT > From the news and his dad.
High Potential > He saw Morgan in a supermarket.
Brooklyn 99 > Terry's picture from the newspaper.
All of them are real.
[Age 14]
His father's funeral was quiet. No full procession. Just six men from SWAT, standing rigid, giving folded flags and empty comfort to a boy who didn't cry.
Raymond stood by the casket and stared at the polished metal. It was supposed to reflect closure. All he saw was failure.
His father had been a good man. Honest. Brave. But even so, he died in an alley on a botched hostage rescue, his body left cooling behind a dumpster while the higher-ups scrambled for a narrative that wouldn't spark outrage.
Raymond didn't just lose a parent. He lost faith in justice.
But that loss lit a fire.
His past life doesn't matter anymore. His present, yeah, it matters more than anything, and he was going to use all his abilities to get out there and do the unthinkable. He would never let this world chew up people like his father again. Not if he could outthink it. Outsmart it. Outmaneuver it.
[Age 18]
He turned down every Ivy League offer that came knocking. Joined Quantico instead. Broke records in analysis, hand-to-hand, interrogation, and infiltration. But always kept his profile low. Always acted like he was doing just enough.
Because the real test wasn't the academy. It was the field.
Then he was recruited to a black-badge unit. Off-books. Ghost division.
Not much is known about them or what they did out there.
The file on Ivan Preston landed in his lap during his third year. Raymond already knew the name. The crimes. The shadows.
[Age 20 – Downtown Manhattan | 11:14 PM | November Rain]
The bar was a hole-in-the-wall off Canal Street. Neon lights buzzed against the wet pavement. Raymond sat in a back booth with his hood up, nursing a drink he wouldn't touch. His eyes scanned every reflection: glass, chrome, puddle. Always watching. Always calculating.
His informant was late.
Not unusual, but it never sat right with him.
The guy, known on the street as "Lark", was ex-cartel muscle turned informant-for-hire. And tonight, he had intel on Ivan Preston's Bronx network: stash houses, shell corps, compromised officers. If Raymond got the files, it'd cut Ivan's operations in half.
But something was wrong.
That's when the gunfire started.
[Outside – 11:17 PM]
Jake Peralta and Rosa Diaz were in pursuit. A stolen van with two armed robbers had ditched halfway through Chinatown. They were now on foot, ducking into alleys and weaving through traffic. NYPD cruisers boxed the blocks.
Rosa moved like a predator. Controlled. Focused. She rounded the corner just as the robbers slipped into the alley behind the bar.
Jake shouted into his radio. "Suspects moving westbound, heading straight into club territory! Get backup at..."
POP–POP–POP.
Gunfire from the alley. Shouting. Then...
Chaos.
[Inside the Bar – 11:18 PM]
Raymond was already moving before the third shot rang out. He stood, dropped his untouched glass, and pushed through the side door into the alley.
The informant was there. Lark. Running, panicked, bleeding from the shoulder. One of the robbers had mistaken him for backup and clipped him.
Raymond caught him just before he fell.
"You have it?" Raymond asked, trying to pull him out of the alley.
Lark fumbled at his jacket. "Inside pocket... encrypted drive… just..."
A shadow loomed. One of the fleeing gunmen, cornered, reckless, wild-eyed, turned and opened fire.
Raymond spun, shielding Lark.
A bullet slammed into Raymond's lower back.
Pain ripped through his spine. He collapsed, dragging Lark down with him. He wanted to gun those bastards down but had to keep his identity a secret because once exposed could ruin years of hard work. But this situation was out of control.
From behind came shouts... "NYPD! Drop it!"... and more gunshots.
Rosa came around the far end of the alley, breath ragged, gun raised. She rushed into the bar. She saw movement, two figures tangled on the ground, and one armed shooter fleeing into a back doorway.
She had one second. Maybe less.
She fired.
The shot missed the suspect by inches.
But it didn't miss Raymond.
He felt the second impact like a hammer. Left side. Ribs.
He gasped, but couldn't scream. His vision turned blurry. Everything happened so fast. But he managed to keep his identity secret. He'll be categorized as a regular civilian.
Next to him, Lark bled out, the drive clutched in a lifeless hand.
Civilians who had taken shelter inside the bar screamed as stray bullets shattered windows. In the aftermath, five people were dead: two gunmen, three civilians. One man paralyzed.
///
[Hospital – 12 Hours Later]
Beeping monitors. The hiss of a ventilator. Antiseptic air.
Raymond lay in a bed with more tubes than limbs, his chest bandaged tight, lungs laboring through each mechanical breath. Blinding pain throbbed behind every pulse. He couldn't speak. Couldn't move. Could barely think past the fog.
But he remembered.
He remembered her face... Rosa Diaz, gun raised, eyes locked in, but it wasn't hate he felt. Or fear. It was recognition.
She didn't know what she'd done.
And he didn't blame her. Not really.
Because this wasn't about blame.
It was about purpose.
He had failed.
The drive was lost. The suspect vanished. Lark was dead. And his body, this second chance he'd been gifted, was broken.
[3 Days Later – ICU Ward]
A quiet conversation outside the door.
"He's stable but unconscious."
"And the prognosis?"
"…not good. Bullet missed the spine, but the second collapsed a lung, tore through an artery. He coded twice in the ER. Even if he survives, full recovery is unlikely."
A pause. Then a voice Raymond knew: cold, clinical, the man from the task force.
"Make sure the records say he was a civilian."
"Yes, sir."
"And scrub any mention of his assignment. He's out."
"What if he pulls through?"
"He won't. And if he does… he won't be useful to us again."
[Recovery – Months Later | 21 Years Old]
The first step out of bed broke him.
He screamed.
The pain was worse than dying. Muscles atrophied, bones like glass. The doctors said he might walk again if he was careful. But running? Climbing? Combat?
No.
"You'll never be operational again," one said gently. "The damage is permanent."
Raymond smiled through bloodied teeth. "We'll see."
Days bled into weeks. Weeks into months. Physical therapy became an obsession. He taught himself to breathe through pain, to count every step like a battle won.
He learned to rebuild himself, physically and mentally. A second rebirth. This time, earned.
And every night, as he wrapped his ribs and stretched torn tendons to their limits, he watched footage of Ivan Preston's crimes. He memorized names. Patterns. Gaps in the data. Every missed shot, every blind spot in every investigation. He lived it. Breathed it. Became it.
Ivan Preston had escaped justice.
Raymond had escaped death.
Now it was time to balance the scales.
He went back and joined the force again. He found three moles inside his team and killed them. One of them was a high-ranking officer, who was on Ivan's payroll and the one who threw him out of the force. That bastard also faked Ivan's death and closed the case. Well, not for long.
Now, it was Rosa Diaz's turn.
Well, he did forgive her and hoped to see her accept her mistake. There was a press conference, but there was no mention of Rosa shooting him. Everything was pinned onto the robbers.
"That bitch!" Raymond crushed the remote in his hand in anger. "Saving their faces, huh?! Alright. Very well. I'll see you soon."
Luckily, Ivan's footprints were traced again in New York again. Raymond resumed his mission.
///
[Present Time | Rosa's Apartment – Bathroom]
The bathroom light flickered once before settling into a dim, yellow glow. The air was thick with steam from a shower she never took. Rosa gripped the edge of the sink with white knuckles, her breath uneven, her skin cold.
She had just thrown up. Her stomach still twisted in knots, acid burning her throat.
She stared into the mirror, but the face staring back wasn't the one she wore at the precinct. It was the one she kept buried. The one that still flinched when a shot rang out in the distance. The one that couldn't forget.
Six years. She had buried it for six years.
But it clawed its way back tonight.
That alley.
That shot.
That man.
She ran cold water over her hands, but they still shook. Her eyes dropped to the sink basin. For a moment, she could see the blood again. The chaos. The echo of gunfire. Screams. She had thought it was just another takedown gone sideways.
But now, Raymond White's voice echoed in her head.
"You don't remember me, do you? Think hard, Detective Diaz."
She did.
And she remembered.
Not all of it. Just flashes.
She had fired. The suspect had disappeared into the shadows. And someone else had gone down. Civilian, they told her. Wrong place, wrong time. The paperwork had been clean. No internal inquiry. The brass had rushed it through. Told her it wasn't her fault. They took the full credit, buried the real truth, and glorified the NYPD.
And she believed them.
Or tried to.
But deep down, she had always known. What she did was wrong. What they did was wrong.
She splashed water on her face, trying to snap herself out of the spiral. But her hands trembled too much. She leaned over the sink again and took a slow, ragged breath.
Is he here for revenge?
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