The whiteness wasn't peaceful.
It pressed against Ryan's consciousness like a physical weight, suffocating and alive. He tried to move, but his body didn't exist here. No limbs. No breath. Just thought suspended in an endless void that somehow felt familiar.
Then the voice came.
"Ryan."
His father's voice cut through the emptiness with surgical precision, and despite everything Ryan had seen, everything he'd become, that sound still made something inside him fracture.
"Dad?" The word escaped before he could stop it, raw and desperate.
"This is the second activation," his father said, ignoring the emotion in Ryan's voice. "You're stronger now. Faster. But strength without understanding is just destruction waiting to happen."
The whiteness rippled, forming shapes—memories that weren't his own. Laboratories. Subjects strapped to tables. Children screaming. And through it all, his father's face, younger but already haunted.
"The power I gave you comes with a burden," his father continued. "You cannot use it recklessly. Every activation burns through your humanity a little more. Use it for revenge, and there will be nothing left of the son I loved."
Ryan felt anger surge through the void. "They killed you! They turned me into this! And you want me to show mercy?"
"I want you to survive," his father said quietly. "Revenge is a fire that consumes everything, Ryan. Even the person holding the torch."
The images shifted—showing Ryan as he was now, eyes burning blue, surrounded by corpses. Then the same scene, but the eyes were empty. Dead. A monster wearing his face.
"This is your choice," his father said. "Use your power to protect, or let it turn you into the very thing we fought against."
"I don't need a lecture," Ryan snapped. "I need answers! Who were those subjects? Why is T.A.S.C hunting me? And who the hell was that girl?"
Silence stretched between them.
"Find Doctor Norton," his father finally said. "He has the answers I cannot give you. But Ryan—"
The whiteness began to crack.
"—don't trust anyone. Not even the ones who save you."
The void shattered.
Ryan's eyes snapped open.
He was back in his apartment, sprawled across the couch, every muscle screaming. Sunlight streamed through the windows—morning had come while he was unconscious. He sat up slowly, checking himself for injuries.
Nothing.
The wounds from the university attack had vanished completely. Not even scars remained. His body had reset itself like a corrupted file restored to factory settings.
For a moment, everything was quiet.
Then the laughter came.
It started as a chuckle, low and bitter, but quickly spiraled into something darker. Ryan doubled over, laughing until his sides hurt, until tears streamed down his face. The sound echoed off the walls, manic and broken.
When it finally stopped, he sat in the silence, staring at his hands.
So many questions circled his mind like vultures. Why was his father still speaking to him from beyond death? What had T.A.S.C been trying to create? Were there more people like him out there—people with powers that defied nature? And those subjects, those twisted experiments, who had they been before they became monsters?
Most importantly—who was the girl who had saved him?
His phone rang, shattering his thoughts.
Dr. Xero.
Ryan answered immediately. "I need to talk to you."
"Then talk," Xero replied, his voice tight with urgency. "Because we have bigger problems than your existential crisis."
Ryan explained everything—the attack at the university, the subjects, the mysterious girl, his father's warning. He held nothing back. If there was anyone he could still trust, it was Xero.
When he finished, the silence on the other end stretched uncomfortably long.
"Ryan," Xero finally said, "you need training. Real training. Not the mercenary work we did before—this is different. You're operating at a level that most humans can't even comprehend. If you don't learn to control it, you'll either burn out or become something worse than the enemies you're fighting."
"What do you mean, worse?"
"I mean," Xero said carefully, "that power without discipline turns men into gods. And gods forget they were ever human."
Ryan closed his eyes. "Where do I go?"
"My location. I'll send you the coordinates. And Ryan?" Xero's voice softened slightly. "Don't hesitate. The world isn't going to wait for you to figure yourself out. Your enemies certainly won't."
The line went dead.
Ryan stared at his phone for a long moment, then stood. There was no point in delaying. If he wanted revenge—if he wanted to survive—he needed to become something more than a weapon that only worked when he was dying.
He needed to become unstoppable.
Across the city, Meera sat in her apartment, unable to shake the images from her mind.
She'd barely slept. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw them—the subjects, their twisted bodies, their empty eyes. But worse than that, she saw him.
The boy in the armor. The one who had saved her.
His eyes.
Even through the mask, she'd seen them. Bright blue, glowing with inhuman intensity. There was something familiar about them, something that tugged at the edges of her memory, but she couldn't place it.
She'd seen eyes like that before. She was certain of it.
Meera pulled up her university records, scrolling through student profiles. She didn't know what she was looking for exactly, just... something. A connection. An answer.
Her phone buzzed. A message from an unknown number.
UNKNOWN: Stay away from Ryan Hale.
Her blood went cold.
Ryan Hale. The quiet student who sat alone. The one who'd helped Julius. The one who...
The one whose eyes she'd never really looked at.
Until now.
Meera's hands trembled as she pulled up Ryan's profile photo. It was a standard university picture—neutral expression, unremarkable. But when she zoomed in on his eyes, even in the photograph, there was something there. Something that made her skin prickle.
"No," she whispered. "It can't be."
But deep down, she knew.
The boy in the armor and Ryan Hale were the same person.
Miles away, in a classified government facility that didn't officially exist, chaos erupted.
Bodies littered the pristine white corridors. Blood painted abstract patterns across walls that had been spotless hours before. Alarms shrieked uselessly—there was no one left alive to respond to them.
At the center of the carnage stood the girl who had saved Ryan.
She moved through the facility like death incarnate, impossibly fast, brutally efficient. Guards fell before they could raise their weapons. Scientists scrambled for exits that no longer existed. She wasn't just killing them—she was sending a message.
In the main control room, one scientist remained, pressed against the wall, shaking so violently he could barely stand.
She approached him slowly, deliberately. Her footsteps echoed in the sudden silence.
"Please," he sobbed. "Please, I have a daughter—"
"So did Subject 47," she said coldly. "Before your experiments killed her."
She grabbed him by the throat and lifted him effortlessly off the ground. His feet kicked uselessly in the air.
"I'm letting you live for one reason," she said, her voice devoid of mercy. "You're going to deliver a message to your superiors. To the government. To everyone who thinks they can play god with human lives."
He nodded frantically, unable to speak.
"Tell them the Alpha is coming," she continued. "Tell them we're going to hunt down every person responsible for what happened to us. We will expose them. We will destroy them. And we will make sure that no one—no one—ever has to suffer what we suffered."
She dropped him. He collapsed, gasping and crying.
"Run," she commanded.
He scrambled to his feet and fled.
The girl stood alone in the blood-soaked control room, her expression unchanging. Then, slowly, a smile crept across her face—not one of joy, but of dark satisfaction.
"Oh," she said softly, as if to herself. "And one more thing."
She pulled out a tablet, scrolling through classified files until she found what she was looking for.
A photograph.
Ryan Hale. Eyes glowing blue.
"We found you," she whispered. "The key to everything."
She turned and walked out of the facility, leaving behind only corpses and the promise of a reckoning that had just begun.
In his underground training facility, Ryan stood before Dr. Xero, ready to begin.
"How far are you willing to go?" Xero asked.
Ryan's eyes flickered blue for just a moment.
"As far as it takes," he said coldly. "I'm going to kill every person responsible for what happened to my father. And I'm going to enjoy it."
Xero studied him for a long moment, then nodded slowly.
"Then let's make you into something they'll fear."
The training began.
But somewhere in the darkness, watching through hidden cameras and encrypted feeds, other eyes observed Ryan's transformation.
And they were already planning his end.
To Be Continued...