Marcus stood before his bathroom mirror, water dripping from his face as he studied his reflection. Three days had passed since the Awakening Ceremony. Three days of being treated like damaged goods by his parents, pitied by neighbors, and avoided by former friends who'd awakened powers.
Three days of secret experimentation.
He pulled up his shirt, examining his torso. To anyone else, his skin appeared normal. But Marcus could feel them—seventeen microscopic monsters burrowed beneath his flesh, feeding on his blood cells, growing stronger. Each no larger than a dust mite, but each a miracle of biological engineering that would have taken his previous life decades to achieve.
"Seventeen from hair follicles, dead skin, and fingernails," Marcus murmured, prodding his stomach. A small bulge shifted under his skin as one of his creations moved. "Primitive, but the foundation is solid. Now I need real resources."
His phone buzzed. A message from his mother:
*Your father and I are working late. Dinner in the fridge. We're here if you want to talk about... everything.*
Marcus deleted it without responding. Their pity was suffocating and useless. They'd already written him off as a failure, their disappointment hanging over the house like a funeral shroud. His father barely looked at him anymore. His mother tried too hard to be supportive, which was somehow worse.
*Good,* Marcus thought, pulling on a black hoodie. *The less attention, the better.*
He had plans tonight. Important plans.
---
Neo-Seattle's education system separated students by awakening status. Those who manifested powers attended Apex Academy, the premier hero school where future S-ranks were forged. The powerless—the Nulls—were redirected to standard high schools, their dreams of heroism crushed before they could begin.
Marcus would start at Lincoln Standard tomorrow. But tonight, he had more important things to do than worry about his academic future.
The warehouse district sprawled across Neo-Seattle's eastern sector, a maze of abandoned industrial buildings left over from the pre-awakening era. Most citizens avoided it—crime flourished in the shadows here, and heroes rarely patrolled unless specifically called. Too much effort for too little reward.
Perfect for Marcus's purposes.
He moved through the darkness with practiced ease, his microscopic monsters serving as extensions of his senses. They couldn't see or hear in the traditional sense, but they detected heat signatures, vibrations, chemical changes in the air. Through them, Marcus perceived the world in ways no normal human could.
*Three heat signatures ahead,* Marcus analyzed, crouching behind a rusted dumpster. *Two humanoid, one smaller. Elevated heart rates. The smaller signature is struggling.*
He rounded the corner and found exactly what he'd hoped to find.
Two men had cornered a woman against a brick wall. One held a knife, the other blocked her escape route. Her purse lay discarded on the ground, its contents scattered.
"Please," the woman begged. "I gave you my money. Just let me go—"
"Shut up," the one with the knife snarled. "Maybe we want more than money."
Marcus's previous life had made him intimately familiar with human cruelty. He'd dissected serial killers, studied sociopaths, used criminals as test subjects for his experiments. These two were nothing special—just predators who preyed on the weak because they could.
*Perfect test subjects.*
"Hey," Marcus called out, stepping into the alley.
All three turned. The woman's eyes widened with hope. The criminals' expressions shifted to annoyance.
"Get lost, kid," the knife-wielder said. "Unless you want some too."
Marcus studied them clinically. The one with the knife was approximately six feet tall, heavily built, possibly awakened with minor physical enhancement based on his musculature. The other was leaner, more cautious, watching the alley entrance—the smart one. Both had crude tattoos indicating gang affiliation: the Red Fang Syndicate, a minor criminal organization that would be destroyed within two years by a B-rank hero named Crimson Blade.
"I'll make you a deal," Marcus said calmly. "Let her go, and I'll let you live."
For a moment, silence. Then both criminals burst into laughter.
"Did this Null just threaten us?" The lean one grinned, cracking his knuckles. Blue sparks danced between his fingers—electrical generation, F-rank at best. "Kid, I awakened last year. My buddy here has super-strength. You're just a powerless nobody. Walk away before you get hurt."
The woman took advantage of their distraction and ran, her footsteps echoing as she fled into the night. The criminals didn't even try to stop her—they had a new target now.
"I warned you," Marcus said.
The electrical user struck first, lunging forward with crackling fists. Marcus didn't move. At the last second, his skin erupted.
Seventeen microscopic monsters burst from his pores, growing exponentially as they fed on the Essence-rich air. In less than a second, they'd transformed from dust-mite size to the size of large dogs. They resembled a horrific fusion of spider and mantis, with blade-like forelimbs and too many eyes.
The electrical user's scream cut off as three monsters descended on him, their mandibles shearing through flesh and bone. Blood sprayed across the alley wall.
The strong one dropped his knife, eyes wide with terror. "What the fuck—"
"Test subject one," Marcus said clinically, pointing at the dying electrical user. "Insufficient resistance. Test subject two—let's see how you fare."
The criminal tried to run. He was fast—super-strength came with enhanced physical attributes. But Marcus's monsters were faster. They swarmed over him like a living wave, dragging him down. He thrashed, his enhanced muscles crushing one monster entirely, but the others adapted, targeting joints and nerve clusters.
"Interesting," Marcus observed, walking closer. "You destroyed Unit Seven, but the others learned from its failure. They're avoiding direct confrontation with your strength, focusing on weak points instead. Emergent behavior from collective consciousness."
"Help—someone—heroes—" the man gurgled through blood.
"No heroes are coming," Marcus said, kneeling beside him. "Do you know why criminals like you thrive in places like this? Because heroes have better things to do than patrol warehouses. You're not worth their time."
He placed his hand on the dying man's head. "But you're worth mine."
Through his touch, Marcus activated the true depth of his power. The microscopic monsters that had remained in his body surged through his arm and into the criminal's skull, burrowing into his brain. The man convulsed once, then went still.
But he wasn't dead. Not yet.
Marcus closed his eyes, sensing the transformation beginning. His power worked on multiple levels. The first—creating monsters from raw materials—was crude but fast. The second level was more sophisticated: conversion. Taking living beings and rewriting them on a fundamental level, transforming them into monsters while preserving their Essence, their awakened abilities.
It took three minutes. Three minutes of watching flesh ripple and bones crack, of hearing sounds no natural creature should make. When it was finished, what remained was no longer human.
The creature stood seven feet tall, humanoid but wrong. Its skin was dark grey, covered in chitinous plates. The super-strength had been preserved and enhanced—Marcus could sense the raw power in its muscles. But now that strength served him absolutely.
"Subject Alpha-One," Marcus named it. "Can you understand me?"
The creature nodded, its jaw full of shark-like teeth clicking together. Through their connection, Marcus sensed intelligence—limited but present. It retained fragments of its human memories, enough to understand language and follow complex commands.
"Perfect." Marcus turned to the electrical user's corpse. "And you'll serve a different purpose."
The remaining monsters descended on the body, consuming it entirely. As they fed, Marcus felt them growing stronger, their Essence reserves increasing. This was the third aspect of his power: evolution through consumption. His monsters could devour other awakened beings and integrate their abilities.
When they finished, three of his monsters crackled with weak electrical charges.
"Proof of concept successful," Marcus said, satisfaction cold in his chest. "Monsters can inherit consumed abilities. The effect is weak now, but with proper subjects, with stronger abilities to consume..."
The possibilities were infinite.
He checked his phone. 11:47 PM. The woman would have called the police by now, but they'd find nothing. His monsters had consumed every trace of blood, every fragment of evidence. And Subject Alpha-One would come with him, hidden in the abandoned subway tunnels he'd scouted earlier.
"Return to base form," Marcus commanded.
His dog-sized monsters shrank back to microscopic size and burrowed into his skin. Alpha-One was too large to hide that way, but Marcus had prepared for this. He pulled out a small glass vial containing a clear liquid—a chemical compound he'd synthesized from memories of his previous life.
"Drink."
The monster obeyed. Within seconds, its body began compressing, shrinking until it was no larger than a rat. It would return to full size when the compound wore off in six hours, but that was enough time to relocate it.
Marcus picked up the miniaturized monster and placed it in his backpack. "Welcome to my collection, Alpha-One. You're the first of many."
As he walked away from the alley, Marcus's mind was already racing ahead. He had his first real monster now, created from a powered human. The process worked. But he needed more—more subjects, more resources, more power.
And he knew exactly where to find them.
---
Marcus arrived home at 1:00 AM. The house was dark, his parents asleep. He crept to his room, locked the door, and released Alpha-One in the corner. The creature expanded to its full size, silent and watchful.
"Stay here," Marcus commanded. "Don't make noise. Feed only on what I give you."
The monster settled into the shadows like a grotesque statue.
Marcus sat at his desk and opened his laptop. His previous life's memories provided him with knowledge of the next ten years—every major event, every hero's rise, every villain's fall. But more importantly, he knew the locations of hidden resources that history had forgotten.
He pulled up a map of Neo-Seattle and marked several locations:
**1. Blackwater Processing Plant** - Abandoned in 2143 after a chemical spill. In 2147, a villain named Toxic King would discover rare mutagenic compounds in the facility's underground storage. But Marcus would get there first.
**2. Redfield Cemetery** - In 2146, grave robbers would accidentally uncover an ancient burial site containing crystallized Essence from the pre-awakening era. Marcus knew the exact location.
**3. Old Metro Tunnels, Sector 7** - A failed experiment by the government had left them contaminated with unstable energy. Perfect for accelerating monster evolution.
**4. The Slaughterhouse** - An illegal underground fighting ring where low-rank villains and criminals fought for money. Marcus knew it would be raided in four months. But before then, he could harvest plenty of test subjects.
He created a priority list, cross-referencing with his current resources and capabilities. With Alpha-One, he could handle minor threats. But to truly accelerate his plans, he needed more. Better subjects. Stronger abilities to harvest.
A knock on his door made him minimize the screen.
"Marcus?" His mother's voice, concerned. "Are you awake? I thought I heard something."
"Just studying, Mom. Go back to bed."
A long pause. "Okay. Goodnight, sweetie. And... we're proud of you, regardless of the awakening. You know that, right?"
Proud. The word was hollow. They were ashamed of him—he'd seen it in their eyes, heard it in their careful words. They just didn't have the courage to admit it.
"I know, Mom. Goodnight."
Her footsteps retreated. Marcus turned back to his screen, then glanced at Alpha-One lurking in the shadows.
*Proud,* he thought with cold amusement. *Wait until they see what their powerless son becomes.*
---
The next morning, Marcus prepared for his first day at Lincoln Standard High School. He dressed simply—jeans, a grey shirt, nothing that would draw attention. The goal was to be invisible, forgettable. Just another Null accepting their mundane fate.
His parents had already left for their hero duties. His mother had left a note: *Good luck today! Remember, not having powers doesn't define you. Love, Mom.*
Marcus crumpled it without reading completely and threw it away.
He checked on Alpha-One, now compressed in his backpack again. The creature would stay dormant until needed. His microscopic monsters were distributed throughout his body, ready to deploy at a moment's notice.
As he walked to school, Marcus observed the world with new eyes. Other teenagers passed by, some showing off their abilities—a girl making flowers bloom in her palm, a boy casually lifting a car to retrieve a dropped phone. They lived in a society obsessed with power, where your awakening determined your worth.
*They're all so comfortable,* Marcus thought. *So confident in their superiority. They have no idea how fragile their world is.*
Lincoln Standard was a depressing contrast to Apex Academy. Where the hero school gleamed with state-of-the-art facilities and billion-dollar funding, Lincoln Standard was just a normal school—aging buildings, standard classrooms, nothing special. This was where society sent its failures.
Marcus joined the crowd of new students filing into the auditorium for orientation. Most looked defeated, their dreams crushed. A few tried to appear optimistic, as if being powerless was somehow fine. Others glared at the world with resentment.
Marcus felt nothing. These people were irrelevant.
The principal droned on about opportunities for the powerless, how they could still contribute to society in meaningful ways. Office jobs. Technical support. Manual labor. All the positions that powered individuals didn't want.
Marcus tuned it out, his mind focused on tonight's plans. The Blackwater Processing Plant. The mutagenic compounds. If he could retrieve them, his monsters' evolution would accelerate exponentially.
"Hey," someone whispered beside him. "You're Marcus Vail, right?"
Marcus turned. A girl, perhaps seventeen, with short black hair and sharp green eyes. She wore the same bored expression he did.
"Do I know you?" Marcus asked flatly.
"Sarah Chen. We went to the same middle school. I awakened thermal resistance—F-rank, basically useless for hero work." She shrugged. "Saw your name on the Null registry. Guess we're both stuck here."
Marcus remembered her vaguely. Smart girl, decent grades, nothing exceptional. In his previous life's timeline, she'd die in 2148 during a villain attack, one of many civilian casualties.
"Guess so," Marcus said, returning his attention to the principal.
"Most of the Nulls here are pretty depressed," Sarah continued, seemingly immune to his disinterest. "But you don't seem bothered. That's either really healthy or really concerning."
"I'm fine with it."
"Liar." Sarah smiled slightly. "Nobody's fine with being powerless in a world run by the powered. But hey, at least we're honest about our misery. Want to grab lunch later? Might as well make friends in hell."
Marcus was about to refuse, then reconsidered. Having an acquaintance wouldn't hurt. Someone to maintain his cover of normalcy, to provide social camouflage. And if she became inconvenient later...
"Sure," Marcus said. "Lunch."
Sarah seemed surprised by his acceptance but nodded. "Cool. See you then."
As the orientation continued, Marcus felt Alpha-One stir in his backpack. The creature was restless, hungry. Tonight, he'd feed it properly. Tonight, he'd take the first real step toward his goal.
Because while society saw him as powerless, Marcus knew the truth:
The most dangerous predators were the ones nobody saw coming.
---