Chapter 3: The First Flicker
Six weeks in the Glades had taught Ben to read the language of violence. The way conversations stopped when certain people walked by. The subtle shift in posture that meant someone was carrying. The particular tension in the air that preceded blood.
But knowing trouble was coming and knowing what to do about it were entirely different skills.
Ben's late-night supply run should have been simple—grab milk and bread from the corner store, avoid eye contact, get home. The kind of routine that kept you alive in a neighborhood where minding your own business was both survival strategy and moral imperative.
The store's neon sign flickered against the October darkness, casting intermittent red light across empty streets. Through the smeared windows, Ben could see old Mr. Kim counting the day's meager take behind bulletproof glass that had been cracked and repaired more times than the tiles on his apartment ceiling.
Ben was almost to the door when he heard the voices from the alley beside the building.
"Just give us the money, old man."
"Please, I have family—"
"So do we. Money. Now."
Ben's feet stopped moving. His rational mind catalogued the situation with clinical detachment: three voices, at least one agitated, probably armed. Mr. Kim had already closed the register and locked the front door. This was happening in the alley, which meant the security cameras wouldn't catch it.
Walk away. This isn't your fight. You're not a hero, you're just a guy who happened to transmigrate into a comic book universe. You have no powers, no training that matters here, and getting involved will only add your body to whatever happens next.
But his feet were already moving toward the alley mouth.
Mr. Kim was pressed against the brick wall, hands shaking as he fumbled with his wallet. Three men in hoodies had him cornered, and the leader—a wiry guy with prison tattoos creeping up his neck—was holding something that caught the light wrong.
"Faster, gramps. We ain't got all night."
Ben's mouth opened before his brain could stop it. "Hey."
All four heads turned toward him. Mr. Kim's eyes went wide with terror that had nothing to do with the muggers and everything to do with seeing an innocent bystander stumble into a death trap.
"Walk away, hero," the tattooed leader said without taking his eyes off Mr. Kim. "This doesn't concern you."
He's right. Walk away. Call the police. Let someone else handle it.
Instead, Ben raised his hands and stepped into the alley. "No problem. Just thought maybe we could all walk away. Nobody needs to get hurt here."
The second mugger—younger, with the twitchy energy of someone high on something that made pain seem distant—laughed. "You serious right now? You see three of us and one of you, right?"
"I see three people who probably don't want to add assault charges to robbery," Ben said, surprised by how steady his voice sounded. "And I see one guy who just wants to go home to his family."
The leader's expression shifted, irritation giving way to something colder. "You got ten seconds to walk away before this becomes your problem."
Ben's heart was hammering now, adrenaline flooding his system as his training kicked in. Assess the threats: leader had a knife, second guy was probably carrying but hadn't drawn yet, third was hanging back trying to look tough. Exit strategies: alley mouth behind him, fire escape ladder twelve feet up the wall, loading dock to his left but it looked blocked.
None of it mattered when the leader moved.
The knife came up in a practiced arc, aimed at Ben's chest, and the world exploded into impossible clarity.
A transparent blue afterimage of the leader's arm traced the attack's path three seconds into the future. Ben's mind reeled trying to process what he was seeing—a ghostly preview of movement that hadn't happened yet, overlaid on reality like some impossible heads-up display.
What the hell—
But his body was already moving, muscle memory from years of martial arts training taking over while his conscious mind struggled to understand. Ben twisted left, the real knife missing him by inches as he followed the path his impossible foresight had shown him.
The leader's eyes went wide. "What the—"
The second mugger swung a heavy fist at Ben's head. Another blue afterimage bloomed, showing Ben exactly where the punch would land and when. He ducked under it, came up inside the man's guard, and delivered a precise elbow to the solar plexus that dropped him to his knees gasping.
This isn't real. This can't be real. I'm seeing the future.
The third mugger pulled a gun with shaking hands. Blue light traced its movement, showing Ben where the barrel would point, how the man's finger would tighten on the trigger, the exact trajectory of the bullet that would punch through Ben's chest if he stayed where he was.
Ben threw himself sideways, rolling behind a dumpster as the gunshot echoed off brick walls. Mr. Kim screamed. Somewhere in the distance, a car alarm started wailing.
"It's not just knowledge. The transmigration gave me actual powers. Prescience. Precognition. I can see attacks before they happen. But how is this possible? And what else can I do?"
The leader was shouting instructions, trying to flank Ben's position. The blue afterimages cascaded now, showing multiple possible futures simultaneously. The gunman moving left. The leader coming over the dumpster with his knife. A dozen different ways this could end.
Ben rose from cover and moved like water, flowing between attacks that hadn't happened yet, striking at openings his foresight revealed with surgical precision. A throat strike that left the gunman choking. A leg sweep that sent the leader sprawling. Pressure points and nerve clusters that his martial arts training had mapped out years ago.
Thirty seconds after it started, three grown men were on the ground moaning while Ben stood over them, unmarked and breathing hard.
The blue afterimages flickered and died. The impossible clarity faded, leaving Ben with the horrifying realization of what had just happened.
I have powers. Real, physics-defying, comic book powers.
Mr. Kim was staring at him with undisguised terror. "What... what are you?"
Good question.
"Just a guy who got lucky," Ben managed, though his voice cracked on the words.
The muggers were already struggling to their feet, fear and confusion warring in their expressions. The leader spat blood and pointed a shaking finger at Ben.
"You're some kind of freak. Ain't natural, the way you moved."
He's not wrong.
"Get out of here," Ben said quietly. "All of you. Before the cops show up."
They ran, stumbling over each other in their haste to escape the alley and whatever impossible thing Ben represented. Mr. Kim whispered something in Korean that sounded like a prayer, pressed a twenty-dollar bill into Ben's hand despite his protests, and locked himself inside his store.
Ben stood alone in the alley, staring at his hands as if they belonged to someone else.
The shaking started as he walked home—not from fear or adrenaline, but from the weight of understanding. His transmigration into the Arrowverse hadn't just dropped him into a world of superheroes and impossible technology. It had made him into something impossible too.
He had powers.
Real powers.
And in a city that would soon be filled with vigilantes and metahumans and people who shot arrows at crime bosses, having unexplained abilities was either the greatest advantage imaginable or the fastest way to paint a target on his back.
"What else can I do? Is it just precognition, or are there other abilities waiting to manifest? How do I control it? How do I hide it? And God help me, what am I supposed to do with this?"
Back in his apartment, Ben sat on his narrow bed and stared at the coded journal where he'd been documenting everything he couldn't say about the future. Now he had something else to document—something infinitely more dangerous than foreknowledge.
He was becoming part of the world he'd been dropped into. Not just an observer with insider information, but an active participant with capabilities that defied explanation.
The responsibility of that realization settled on his shoulders like a lead blanket. With power came the possibility of making a real difference, of actually stopping the disasters he knew were coming.
It also came with the terrifying knowledge that he was no longer entirely human.
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