Prologue (First Scene)

--- Joshua ---

His head throbbed, a mechanical beat of brutality echoing painfully in the back of his mind as he blinked the fuzziness out of his eyes.

“Good you’re finally awake.”

He forced himself to sit up as he turned to a blurry figure sitting across from him at the metal table.

“Who are you?” He tried asking, but his mouth was so dry and full of cotton that he barely made it through the first word.

“Mm, who I am isn’t relevant, at least not yet.” The blur told him with what sounded like a masculine voice, though the pounding in his head made it hard to tell for sure. “You on the other hand are far more important to this discussion.”

“Why?” He was a nobody, a side character in someone else’s show. (Probably the victim that used to make the teen hero look more impressive, all things considered.)

He was mildly surprised how clear his thoughts were despite the fuzziness filling his feeble limbs.

“Your bloodline for one.” The blur answered.

That confused him a bit.

There was nothing special about his family or his bloodline. In fact, he knew for sure everyone in his family could be considered small time by the standards of the world or even just the city’s stage. The only one who might be an exception was- (He knows.)

His eyes shot to the man across from him. “Chris.”

“Mm-hmm, Christian Durand the hero of Santa Rosa.” The man nodded, opening a file with several pictures of his brother. “At least until, the… let’s call it the ‘incident’.”

(That’s one way of putting it…) He purposely ignored the picture with two painfully familiar dead bodies and forced his attention onto the man across from him. “I don’t know what you want. I didn’t inherit my brother’s powers.” (Though I wish I did…) (They’d put on one hell of a show.)

He gripped his head as another wave of pain pierced through his mind.

“You may not have inherited them, but you still share the genetic markers for genetic Deviation. What that means is, even if you don’t have powers yet, you could.” The man explained, before snapping his fingers. “Especially with a little… help.”

A man in black wearing a mask placed a suitcase on the table and opened it, before placing a vial of some black and red substance on the table.

“What is that?” He asked, something instinctive both repulsed and attracted to the substance in front of him.

“Malice, or a consumable version of it at least.” The man answered. “Theoretically, this should kickstart whatever powers you have.”

“Theoretically?” He didn’t like the sound of that.

“The reason we wanted you specifically. You see we have a fair amount of data on how our Malice serum interacts with every Deviancy save those based in Madness. What we need is data on someone who has Madness powers but has yet to unlock them.” The man elaborated with a little more depth. “Of course, at the end of the day it’s your choice whether you drink the serum or not.”

(My choice?) He scoffed, his glancing at the clearly armed guard next to the table. (Sure, we can call it that if you want. I don’t mind. Really.)

He eyed the vial on the table, before looking up at the man once more. “What exactly is this going to do to me? I mean I know you said it’d kickstart any powers I might have, but how is it going to do that?”

“Madness, begets madness.” The man shrugged. “Your brother has madness-based powers ergo exposure to the… let’s call it liquid madness in the malice should trigger yours. Though it is admittedly far more likely that it’ll merely send you on a… trippy dream and leave you with a bad hangover afterwards.”

“Already feels like I’ve got one from whatever you drugged me with.” He almost growled, at the steadily pulsing pain still pounding at his skull.

“The first dose.” The man admitted. “If there’s going to be any notable side effects it’ll take more than one.”

“If, if you were going to drug me either way… why bother asking for my consent here?” If he was going to be just a lab rat to these people he’d prefer to be out of it for the duration.

“Like I said any notable side effects will take more than one dose.” The man repeated. “If this is successful in unlocking your powers, we want to be able to measure it over the coming months to see how you progress. A task much easier with your… cooperation.”

“And why not just lock me up where I can’t get out?” He couldn’t help but ask in a fit of morbid curiosity.

“We’ve done more than enough lab tests.” The man spat out, something finally breaking through his stoic demeanor. “It’s time for us to move on to field testing with an active agent.”

“Why not have one of your own guys do this then?” It didn’t make sense to leave this to chance with someone they’d kidnapped off the streets, especially since he might (will) break away first chance he got if they gave him powers.

“Mad blood as potent as yours is far rarer than you seem to believe.” The man chuckled bitterly. “If I round the current studies out for you, the necessary genes appear in somewhere around one out of a hundred thousand. Meaning there are maybe three people with your potential in this city, and one of them already runs the Gamers Guild.”

(Lucky bitch.) (Going to have to steal their show.)

He blinked as the pounding in his skull intensified once more.

“What if I want to unlock my powers without your malice?” He couldn’t help but ask, trying to focus on the part of him repulsed by the vial and ignore the part that craved it like nothing else he’d ever experienced.

“Hmm, you’re free to keep trying if you want but…” The man tsked in a faux-sympathetic way. “Well do you really want to waste your life on a maybe, we you’ve got a guarantee right here.”

“Guarantee…” He frowned. “I thought you said this is probably just going to give me a drug trip and that’s it.”

“If you take only that dose, yes that’s all you’ll get.” The man nodded. “But we know for a fact that people develop powers after a few doses, even if those powers are temporary.”

“So, a guaranteed temp, or a longshot permanent?” He considered, feeling like both options were the universe screwing him over.

“Not quite.” The man argued. “The powers we give you will last until you run out of Malice, and like I said earlier we want this to be a long-term project. Meaning as long as you’re willing to take the serum we’re willing to provide it.”

“No strings attached?” He asked in sarcasm.

“If you develop any… useful abilities, we may be willing to pay you with extra vials of the serum for a job or two.” The man admitted as if he wasn’t pressganging a teenager. “Though if you were to draw unwanted attention to our dealings, well… we’ll take that as a less than formal resignation from the project.”

(And I bet I’ll get one hell of a severance package for it.)

He rubbed at his eyes, seriously wishing he didn’t have to make this choice with such a pounding headache. (Probably why they drugged me earlier, to keep me from thinking it through. Then again, I don’t think I could say no even if I could think it through clearly.) The armed guard was proof of that.

He stared at the vial on the table, his mind replaying everything he could remember his brother doing before he ‘retired’ and like so many times before some dark part of him wanted that for himself.

“Screw it.” He took the vial in hand, before looking at the man. “Just drink it?”

“We could inject it straight into your bloodstream for quicker results of you want. Though that will reduce the odds of permanence due to your body not breaking down key components in the proper order.” The man explained as if it didn’t matter one way or the other to him, just so long as he consumed the malice.

Not wanting to give himself time to change his mind, he unscrewed the vial’s cap before downing the whole thing in a single gulp, a flavor somewhere between copper and strawberries just brushing over his tongue.

He gasped as he set the empty vial down, already feeling something beginning to shift inside him. Though if he was being honest, he was pretty sure that whatever it was was just in his head.

“So… how long until this stuff kicks in?” He asked a sort of anxiety filling him now that his decision was made and he was forced to wait.

“Mm,” The man checked his watch. “Usually the hallucinations begin fairly quickly, with the biological changes kicking in about forty to fifty minutes later.”

“Biologica-gh!” He cringed feeling something twisting his stomach into agony. “What’s… happening?!”

“I suppose your mad blood is accelerating the change… Mm, given madness’s tendency towards growth and evolution this isn’t too much of an outlier from our projections.” The man admitted, eyeing him more in curiosity than sympathy. “Though I suppose it is an unfortunate side effect that you’ll be fully conscious during the changes rather than just sleeping through them. We’ll have to be sure to get a thorough report out of you about it at some point.”

He wanted to curse the man in front of him, but he found the pounding pain in his skull had become an entire musical number as from the back of his mind he heard a sweet symphony.

A spasm tore through him as the twisting in his stomach only grew worse, sending him flying out of his chair and crashing into the hard floor of the warehouse. He barely made it onto his hands and knees, as something began tearing its way up his throat, and a black substance spewed out of his mouth and onto the floor beneath him.

“Now that’s different.”

He tried to glare at the man before being distracted as the color slowly drained from his sight, leaving the world around him in black and white. Before he could even begin to process what this meant, another spasm sent him crashing into the puddle of black bile beneath him.

Something else began to bubble up from his chest, until despite his best efforts a laugh broke free of him, followed by another and another, the sound mad to even his own ears as his spasms steadily grew worse as slowly sunk into the black bile, its inky abyss drowning him as it slowly stained him with its touch.