Chapter 3: POWER SURGE
[DEO Headquarters, Containment Cell — September 2016, 3:47 PM]
The nightmare came without warning.
One moment I was sitting in the cell, hands folded in my lap, watching afternoon light filter through the reinforced windows. The next, I was back on the rain-slicked highway, headlights screaming toward me.
The impact was silent. No crunch of metal. No shattering glass. Just a moment of unbearable pressure—like being compressed into a single point—and then nothing.
Not darkness. Nothing. The absence of everything.
I'd read about it. The space between heartbeats when someone dies but hasn't yet stopped. The cosmic blank page before something—anything—writes itself into existence.
In the dream, I stayed in that nothing for an eternity. Time didn't exist there. Space didn't exist. Just consciousness without context, screaming into void that couldn't even hold echoes.
Then the pod.
The alarm shrieking. The body that wasn't mine. The crash, the lights, the woman in the cape—
I woke up gasping.
The restraints had shattered.
Metal fragments embedded themselves in the wall behind me. The chair groaned beneath my grip, buckles bent into unrecognizable shapes. My hands shook violently—too much strength, no control, everything happening before my brain could process.
Alarms screamed. Red lights strobed through the cell. Voices shouted in the corridor beyond the glass.
I pressed myself against the wall, palms flat, trying to make myself small. The nightmare still clung to me—the nothing, the silence, the horrible certainty that I'd stopped existing and somehow started again.
I died. The thought was sharp and cold. I actually died, and this is what comes after.
The door burst open.
Agents flooded in, weapons drawn. I recognized the rifles—modified energy weapons, the kind designed to hurt things bullets couldn't touch. They fanned out in standard formation, creating overlapping fields of fire.
"Hands where we can see them!"
"On the ground! Now!"
I didn't move. Couldn't move. My whole body trembled with the aftermath of panic and whatever surge of strength had destroyed the restraints. If I tried to get down now, I might put my hand through the floor.
"I can't—" My voice cracked. "I don't have control—"
An agent stepped forward. Training took over; she saw a threat and moved to neutralize it. Her finger tightened on the trigger.
"Don't."
The word came from behind the formation. Alex Danvers pushed through, hand raised, authority clear in every line of her body.
"Lower your weapons."
"Agent Danvers—"
"I said lower them." She didn't look away from me. "He's not attacking. He's panicking."
The agents exchanged glances but complied. Rifles dropped to ready position but stopped pointing at my chest.
Alex approached slowly. Each step deliberate. Non-threatening.
"Mon-El." Her voice was calm. Steady. The voice of someone who'd talked down frightened aliens before. "What happened?"
"Dream." The word came out raw. "Bad dream. I didn't mean to—the restraints just—"
"Broke." She glanced at the metal fragments. "Yeah. I can see that."
"I'm sorry. I didn't—" A shudder ran through me. My hands still trembled against the wall. "I can feel everything. Hear everything. It's too much."
"Sensory overload." Alex nodded like she'd expected this. "Kara went through the same thing when she first arrived. It takes time to build filters."
She reached into her pocket. Produced something small and metallic. Earbuds, I realized. Simple design.
"These won't block everything, but they'll dampen the worst of it. Think of them as training wheels."
She held them out. An offering. A tiny gesture of trust.
I took them carefully, hyper-aware of how easily I could crush her hand. The earbuds slid in, and immediately the world contracted. The distant heartbeats faded. The electrical buzz dimmed. Still present, but manageable.
"Better?"
"Yes." I exhaled. "Thank you."
The door opened again. J'onn entered, moving past the agents with the casual confidence of command. He took in the scene—broken restraints, damaged wall, me huddled in the corner—and his expression remained completely neutral.
"Stand down," he told the agents. "Return to stations. I'll handle this."
They filed out. Alex remained.
J'onn crossed to the shattered chair, examining the twisted metal. He picked up a fragment of restraint, turned it in his fingers.
"These were designed to hold a Kryptonian at half power," he said quietly. "You snapped them like string."
"I didn't mean to."
"I know." He set the fragment down. "Nightmares?"
I nodded.
"About?"
The truth wouldn't work here. But something close to truth might.
"Dying," I said. "The planet. The escape. I don't remember it clearly, but in dreams... I remember the fear. The certainty that everything was ending."
J'onn studied me for a long moment. Then he did something unexpected.
He sat down on the floor.
Not on the remaining furniture, damaged as it was. On the bare floor, legs crossed, putting himself below my eye level. Making himself smaller. Less threatening.
"On Mars," he said, "we had a word for the dreams that come after trauma. K'hym. It translates roughly as 'the mind revisiting wounds.' Our psychics used to guide survivors through them, helping integrate the experience." He paused. "I haven't had a psychic guide in centuries. The k'hym still comes."
I found myself sliding down the wall, mirroring his posture. Sitting on cold floor felt grounding. Normal. Human.
"Does it get better?"
"No." His answer was blunt. "But you learn to carry it. The weight becomes familiar. It stops surprising you."
Silence stretched between us. Not uncomfortable. Just present.
"The strength," I said eventually. "It scared me. I didn't know I could—"
"You're still learning what this body can do." J'onn rose smoothly, offered me a hand. "We'll get you new restraints. Lead-lined, this time. They'll be uncomfortable, but they should hold."
I took his hand. Let him pull me up. His grip was firm—testing my control, I realized. Seeing if I'd accidentally crush his fingers.
I didn't.
"Lead-lined?" Something in the word made my skin crawl. An instinctive reaction, physical and visceral.
J'onn noticed. Of course he noticed.
"You felt that." Not a question.
"Yeah. It's..." I searched for words. "Like standing too close to a fire. Or smelling something rotten. My body knows to avoid it."
"Lead is lethal to Daxamites. In high enough concentrations, it can kill within hours." He watched my reaction carefully. "The restraints will be low-concentration. Enough to dampen your powers, not enough to harm. But you need to understand—this is a real vulnerability. One enemies could exploit."
I thought about the show. The season two finale. Lena Luthor's device flooding the atmosphere with lead, driving all the Daxamites away. Driving Mon-El away from Kara.
"I understand."
"Do you?" J'onn's gaze sharpened. "Because right now, you're an unknown quantity with strength that rivals Supergirl and no control over it. Some people in this organization would prefer to neutralize that threat permanently. I'm arguing for giving you a chance. Don't make me regret that decision."
The words should have felt like a threat. Instead, they felt like honesty.
"I won't."
New restraints arrived minutes later. I held out my wrists and let them bind me again. The lead compounds in the metal made my skin itch immediately—low-level discomfort, like a persistent rash. My powers didn't vanish, but they felt... dampened. Muffled.
Still strong enough to break out if I really tried. But the edge was gone.
"Better?" Alex asked.
"Define better."
She almost smiled. Almost. "Can you sleep without destroying the furniture?"
"I'll try."
They left me alone in the cell. The lights dimmed to evening levels. Through the window, I could see the last traces of sunset painting the sky orange and gold.
Yellow sun. Solar energy. My cells drank it in even through the lead dampening, slower but persistent. A trickle instead of a flood.
I flexed my fingers in the restraints. Felt the power coiled inside me—vast and terrifying and completely unfamiliar.
Daxamite physiology. Solar absorption. Super strength, speed, durability, senses. The show had made it look easy. Fun, even. Mon-El cracking jokes while punching aliens through walls.
This didn't feel easy. This felt like being handed a loaded weapon with no safety and told to run an obstacle course.
I thought about Kara. The suspicion in her eyes. The weight of centuries-old hatred between their people—our people.
I thought about J'onn. The patient wisdom. The hidden pain. The willingness to give chances even when experience argued against it.
I thought about the nightmare. The nothing. The moment of death stretching into eternity before something yanked me back into existence.
Whoever I'd been before—whatever name I'd carried, whatever life I'd lived—that person was gone. The car crash had ended them. The transmigration had created something new.
Not the original Mon-El. Not the human who'd died on a Denver highway.
Something else entirely.
The door opened.
Kara stood in the entrance, backlit by corridor lights. She'd changed out of her suit into civilian clothes—jeans, cardigan, glasses perched on her nose like some kind of Clark Kent tribute.
"J'onn told me about the nightmare," she said. "About the restraints."
"Word travels fast."
She stepped inside. Let the door close behind her.
"When I first came to Earth, I broke everything. Doors. Dishes. My sister's arm, once." A ghost of a smile crossed her face. "I was so scared of myself. Of what I could do without meaning to."
"How did you learn control?"
"Practice. Patience. People who believed I could be better than my worst moments." She stopped a few feet away, close enough to study my face. "You're scared too. I can see it."
I didn't deny it. Couldn't.
"I don't know what I am," I admitted. "What I'm capable of. Everything about this place—this body—it's all wrong. But it's also all I have now."
Kara was quiet for a long moment. Then she sat down on the edge of the damaged bed, careful not to get too close but no longer maintaining the rigid distance of before.
"My mother used to tell me that fear is just the mind preparing for action. It shows you what matters." She met my eyes. "What matters to you, Mon-El?"
The question hit harder than expected.
What mattered to the man who'd died on a rainy highway? Family. Work. The daily comforts of an ordinary life. All of it gone now, erased like fog in morning sun.
What mattered to the prince of Daxam? Power. Pleasure. The luxuries of nobility. A life I'd inherited but never lived.
What mattered to whoever I was now?
"I want to be worth something," I said slowly. "Not because of where I came from or what I can do. I want to matter because of what I choose." I paused. "Is that enough?"
Kara studied me for a long time. I had the sense she was weighing something—my words, maybe, or the sincerity behind them.
"It's a start," she said finally.
She rose, moved toward the door. Paused with her hand on the panel.
"Tomorrow, J'onn wants to run controlled tests on your abilities. Strength. Speed. The other things that make us... us." She glanced back. "I'll be supervising."
"Is that good news or bad news?"
"That depends entirely on you."
The door closed behind her, and I was alone again.
But the silence felt different now. Less like a prison. More like a pause between movements.
Tomorrow. Tests. Kara watching. My body learning what it could do.
I lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Forty-two panels. The same as before. But somehow, counting them felt less like desperation and more like ritual.
I want to be worth something.
The words echoed in my mind. Not quite a promise. Not quite a prayer.
Something in between.
The lead restraints itched against my wrists. My cells hummed with stolen sunlight. And somewhere beyond these walls, a city full of people went about their lives, unaware that an alien prince—or whatever I was now—was learning how to be someone new.
I closed my eyes.
Tomorrow would come whether I was ready or not. Best to face it rested.
For the first time since crashing on this planet, I slept without dreaming.
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