Prologue (Part 2)

I don't know how long it had been since I was kidnapped and my family were murdered...but I do know that it had been countless amounts of gene therapy since then. Days, hours, minutes, seconds - all of it was spent strapped to a table with needles stuck into me.

But even with my hatred, even with all my anger, I couldn't refute the improvements the gene therapy was bringing to my body.

My strength, agility, coordination, stamina, and durability...all of it was sent beyond what I thought was possible. I could lift things, run quicker, perform gymnastic routines, and do it all for longer than I could before. To the point where my body didn't even feel like my own. It was like having my brain put into Superman's body - the difference was as clear as night and day.

Physical abilities weren't the only things to change, however.

My mind was quickly developing in a...dark direction. Pride and an insatiable battlelust were being born and bred in my psyche, etched into my bones and spread throughout my very blood. At first I had thought the anger brought on by how I was being treated - like a caged animal - was because of my normal human thought process but that seemed to not be the case when I thought about myself.

If before I was a decently confident person than now...I was arrogant beyond belief with such pride in myself that I feel like I can do no wrong.

Quite a few tests in, they began to train me. Well, when I say training, I mean they'd torture me by smacking me around the place with their superior numbers and their natural strength. My strength rose quickly from this, however. It seemed like my body learned every time it was injured and torn down. They threw me around every now and then but they needed the biggest and best of their Brutes to even put up a chance against me now.

In between each of these 'spars', they threw me into a room with heightened gravity. They never told me how heightened it was but it made everything feel much, much heavier than it was back on Earth. Even with my reinforced physique I struggled to even stand in that room. Or rather, I did.

Again, my body' adaptation period was just...insane. But they continued to increase the gravity of the room whenever I got used to what it was before. It made my already strong body rocket even further ahead of the curve.

Standing up from the bed I was currently lying on, I moved to the door just as the hatch opened and a tube of pills was pushed through. I ignored the sneer of the monkey-man looking through the gap at me and picked up the tube before tearing the cap off and pouring the contents into my mouth. These were hyper-dense food pills. They're given to the armies of the Kin, so they can go on prolonged campaigns without worrying about wasting space on rations.

Thing is, that the Kin and therefore me (someone spliced with their Progenitor's genes) eat a lot. Especially so for me. I eat more than a squad of Brutes and a single Brute probably eats more than a family of four do at a single sitting.

Crunching the slightly bitter pills until they were a bitter mush, I swallowed them before turning and looking in the mirror in my cell.

I used to have blond hair and blue eyes. I used to be athletic-looking but still normal-looking. But now? I had red hair and red eyes, while my body had undergone a complete metamorphosis. My entire musculature had bulked up considerably and my body had not an ounce of fat on it. I'd also grown into the 6 foot range quite easily over what I would have to assume is the past few years. Though I can't be sure for certain.

But there was one thing that hadn't changed. Not even after the torturous sparring sessions and not even after the mind-numbing genetic therapy.

Deep in me, was a fire, a burning inferno that existed for one purpose:

To kill the Kin for what they did to me and my family.

My new pride had only made that fire and hatred burn even brighter. It spoke whispers in my head, asking who the Kin thought they were to take something of MINE away from ME. But even with all my new power...I could barely do a thing.

The Kin weren't just very strong individually, they were also great in number and their technology surpassed even my body's defenses.

But I could feel myself reaching some kind of limit. Not a limit that would stop me from growing in strength...but quite the opposite. I felt myself reaching a level of strength where I'd explode forth with power. Where I'd go through an evolution of some kind and become...better. Even if my pride couldn't think of a way that I could get better.

Looking away from the mirror I sat back down on my bed, looking toward the door to my cell, waiting and planning for a day where I would have the opportunity to break free and slaughter everyone on this godforsaken ship.

Then I'd have to figure out a way to get back to Earth.

...If I'd ever be accepted there again, after becoming what I am now.

. . .

And that's how I got to where I am now, where I'm questioning what my name is.

I'd started counting days from that point onward as well, so I knew that it had been around 2 years, 3 months, and 26 days since then. In these 2 plus years I'd been put through the ringer, honestly. If I had to describe it, it was like they were trying to kill me.

They sent Brutes in physically enhancing Mechas in to fight me, the gravity in the training room was set to such a level that it felt like I'd shit out my spine...and the gene therapy became so invasive that I'd actually grown a tail, red in color just like how my eyes and hair were. But tail fit into my plans as it actually gave me a boost in power. It was a weak-point - the Mecha-Brutes grabbed it and used it against me when I first got it. But after some training in higher gravity, I soon got it under control and kept it from their cunning attacks.

Though when I killed a few of the mecha-Brutes with my boosted physicality, they began to keep me in an advanced (and extremely heavy) straight jacket and chained me to the wall of my cell. Sooo, no more bed for me.

They kept the combat practice to a minimum after that, and any gene therapy was done in my cell.

The main change, was how they treated me. I was treated like some kind of malevolent God.

God because they prayed to me and kneeled in front of me. I'd even seen them sacrificing small, snake-like animals in front of me. Why malevolent? Because they kept me chained up and treated me getting loose like the end times. They probably just realized that I still held a grudge about them killing my entire fucking family.

A sudden crash boomed through the hallway of the ship and I saw a plume of fire blast through it. I quirked an eyebrow before I closed my eyes and concentrated my senses.

I wasn't like Superman with his x-ray vision and being able to hear from miles away but my senses were sensitive enough to hear throughout most of their space station. I could shouting, screaming...and punching?

Someone's fighting their way into the base, and I can only guess at one group equipped to do that against the Kin:

The Justice League.

...I'm honestly not sure about how to feel about these so-called Heroes. I know it's unfair of me to blame them for my family's death but...why couldn't they have saved them just like they did to every other person I'd seen on the news, speaking about how Superman swooped in out of nowhere and took the 'bad guys' out. Or when people spoke about how Batman came from the darkness, destroyed the thugs, then disappeared. Especially Batman. My family were killed in Gotham - I'd expect him to know that an entire family was being slaughtered in his 'jurisdiction'.

...Even then, I knew I was being unfair and childish.

But they were my family!

I strained at the chains, wanting to release my anger, my frustration...my hatred.

The door slid open, breaking me from my thoughts, and the crazy doctor ape that experimented on me the past few however-long-I'd-been-here, came blasting in, the door closing behind it as it leaned against it. It's breathing was heavy and rough - and it stunk of fear. It's black eyes turned to me and it quickly kneeled to the ground.

"Test subject--No, Mighty Saiyan God, please protect us, your humble servants, from the outside threats coming for us! Thousands of us are being slaughtered--!" it was cut off by my unfathomably cold voice, it's black eyes widening as it watched a cold smile spread fully across my face.

"Good."

"O' Mighty Saiyan God, please show mercy and forgive us for our transgressions! We only wished to elevate you to what you should have been! Please--!" it was once again cut off but not by me this time as the door was practically torn off it's hinges to reveal a figure I knew all too well:

Wonder Woman. My little sisters favorite superhero.

The very thought sent a twitch across my face and a throb of unreasonable anger through my chest.

"Vermin--!" the crazy doctor tried to speak but a quick punch to the jaw sent it sprawling. It seems that even with it's enhanced physique, even if it were nothing compared to a Brute, was nothing in front of Wonder Woman. At this sight, I felt a familiar burn begin in my chest as I felt myself want to fight Wonder Woman. Not even because of my irrational anger at what she hadn't done to save my sister, but because I genuinely just wanted to fight someone strong.

Wonder Woman's piercing blue eyes bore into me, confusion and caution spread over her face. She lifted a hand to her ear before speaking, "Superman, Batman, I have a prisoner of the Kin. Please come to my location to discuss what we should do," she said before pulling out a lasso I'd also seen countless times on the news.

She walked toward me and spoke slowly, obviously mistaking me for a Kin. This sent a familiar, yet all too different burning through my chest, "Hello, my name is Diana - can you understand me?" she asked nicely enough but I just snapped back.

"Yes, I understand. I was born on Earth after all, Wonder Woman," I snarled, my voice having changed over the years as well. It had become deeper and a bit more wild sounding.

She looked shocked but still nodded. Just as she stepped forward, a familiar man appeared next to her and held her back. He was dressed in blue and red, and had a big 'S' on his chest.

Superman.

His blue eyes looked over my body, obviously using his famous x-ray vision. His face morphed into a frown as he finished his scanning, his eyes looking up and staring into my own, "From a look at your muscles and bones, it looks unlikely that you were born on Earth. Your physiology is...very inhuman. Just your muscles and bones look like they're made for a world with gravity hundreds, if not thousands of times stronger than Earths, and it looks to be something it's constantly reinforced. So it's unlikely you came from Earth."

"Do a scan of the ship. You'll find a room that can increase in gravity. Though thousands of times? I never knew it was that heavy. If you want to know why I'm like this...ask that thing," I gestured to the ape doctor with my head before looking back into the blue boy scouts eyes with my own deep red ones, "Now, where's Batman?"

"I'm here," a deep, hoarse voice spoke up from beside Wonder Woman, and I turned to see a man dressed as a bat. His costume had changed - it looked tougher and much more advanced than it had been the last time I'd seen it. He pulled out a scanner and a flash of light went through my body.

But I ignored that and looked right into the white where his eyes would be if it weren't for his mask.

"Say, Batman, did you ever have a case you couldn't solve back in Gotham? Because I used to be in Gotham. Before I was kidnapped, of course. The case parameters would have probably gone like this: Mother of the family was found armless and jawless, the oldest sibling of the family was found with a piece of wood impaled through her chest and torn in half...I don't quite know what happened to my dad but I'd assume he was found brutalized," I said, my voice calm but my insides tearing apart as I had to explain all this in vivid detail. It was like reliving a nightmare.

Wonder Woman and Superman looked disturbed and like they were pitying me after I mentioned that it was my family but Batman...well, I'd say he looked a little shocked. But I ignored all of that and carried on.

"The second oldest sibling would be missing, alongside the youngest. I'd say the second oldest sibling was possibly held suspect for the murder but you probably never believed that. Please, stop me when I've got any of this right," I said, trying to sound witty but really...I just didn't want to carry on speaking about how my family were killed.

Batman held up a hand before looking to Wonder Woman. She nodded before slipping the lasso around my neck. Knowing the drill, I just told the truth, "Everything I just said is the truth. That was my family who was slaughtered. I was kidnapped and used as an experiment," I said all I needed and Wonder Woman took the lasso off of me.

Superman apologetically looked at me, although his pitying gaze was annoying as hell, I ignored it and just stood there as he undid the straight jacket and chains holding me.

Seeing his displays of strength, I really wanted to fight him.

But that would have to wait.