Lucien was eight years old when he finally became aware of himself.
He lived in a comfortable middle-class—maybe upper-middle-class—home with his parents and his two-year-old sister, Lucy.
His parents had named him Lucien. Maybe they wanted a girl first and got the boy first?
A little corny they definitely were, but loving.
People say that some could remember the exact instant they first gained consciousness. That wasn't too strange.
What was strange was that Lucien had remembered twice.
Because this time, he remembered everything from a previous life.
It felt unfair in a cosmic sense, but he wasn't about to complain. If fate wanted to hand him a second chance, he'd take it every advantage, every early head start he could find.
At the very least, he could breeze through school and maybe spot where this world's timeline or technology diverged from the one he used to know.
He was a loner in his previous life and a foster loner at that so the loss of his previous life wasn't much, although he did just start getting his life together….
Silver linings.
So he spent half a day doing what any newly self-aware eight-year-old with a backlog of adult memories would do—
sitting on his bed, theory-crafting the rest of his life trying to think of every advantage,
Then the smell of something cooking drifted in from the kitchen, tugging him back to reality. From the living room came the soft hum of a television newscast, his mother's voice murmuring occasionally between the clatter of dishes.
He barely listened—until a sentence made him freeze and double take.
"—and thanks to the efforts of Track Star, the casualties were kept to a minimum—"
Track Star?
The name bounced around in his mind like a loose marble. He turned toward the television. The screen showed a shaky clip of a man in a dark blue suit, blurred mid-motion, the camera barely keeping up with his speed.
the anchor continued, "the legendary speedster once again assisted in today's rescue operation, arriving before first responders could even reach the scene."
A speedster. A real one.
Lucien's throat went dry.
The footage slowed: Track Star stood still now, chest heaving, face half-hidden by his visor yet unmistakably younger than the version Lucien remembered.
Chase.
That name, that look—the accelerated aging, the heroic pose that kinda looked like a dab?
This was it.
He'd seen this before, not in life, but in Dispatch: the comics, the game, the lore.
No way.
Then he noticed it the tiny emblem in the corner of the broadcast, the white letters framed by glowing blue circuitry.
SDN.
Superhero Dispatch Network.
He knew that logo. It had been on every mission screen.
Lucien didn't just remember his past life anymore.
He wasn't merely in a world with superheroes.
He was in Dispatch.
"Oh brother"
"Look hon, our boy likes track star, his mouth is open so cute"
"Haha that's great"