The apartment was as I had left it—quiet, impersonal, the dim lighting barely illuminating the worn furniture and empty walls. My bag, heavy with cash and the stolen packages, hit the floor with a soft thud as I shut the door behind me, the deadbolt clicking into place. Outside, the muffled hum of Neo Lyon continued, a city that never truly slept, even when the shadows deepened.

I leaned against the door, catching my breath. The adrenaline from the fight still coursed through me, making my hands tremble slightly. But it wasn’t just the fight that had my heart racing—it was everything that came after. The tethering, the theft, the power I had wielded so effortlessly. My mind buzzed with the memory of the Red Hands’ confused faces, their bodies crumbling under the weight of the injuries I had inflicted, injuries that had been mine moments before.

I should’ve felt something—guilt, fear, maybe even a sense of regret. But all I could feel was… satisfaction.

The thought gnawed at the back of my mind as I pulled off my makeshift mask, tossing it onto the table. The black fabric of my suit clung to my skin, drenched with sweat and the lingering scent of the night air. My muscles ached from the fight, the wound in my arm just a phantom.

A mirror across the room caught my reflection—dark, hollow eyes, and a face I barely recognized beneath the grime and exhaustion. I didn’t look like Liz anymore. Not the girl who used to work quietly at Paul’s shop, keeping her head down and hoping the chaos of the city would pass her by. No, I looked like someone else now. Replica.

I pushed off the door and made my way to the small bathroom. The fluorescent light flickered to life overhead, casting a cold, sterile glow across the cracked tiles and faded walls. I turned on the faucet, letting the water run as I splashed it onto my face, the cool sensation momentarily clearing my head.

My reflection stared back at me, fractured by the beads of water dripping down the mirror. I studied my face, searching for some trace of the girl I used to be. But she was gone, replaced by someone who could hurt others without flinching, someone who had crossed a line tonight that she couldn’t come back from. I wasn’t a hero. I wasn’t even sure I was still a good person.

But I survived.

The quiet of the apartment was unnerving. The thrill of the fight was gone, replaced by an oppressive silence. I leaned against the sink, the chill of the porcelain biting through my gloves, grounding me. For the first time since becoming Replica, the weight of what I’d done settled heavily on my shoulders. The line between Liz and Replica felt thin, almost indistinguishable. I’d chosen to hurt others—to take control and survive by any means necessary. The satisfaction I’d felt earlier now wavered, a flickering ember I couldn’t decide whether to snuff out or stoke into a blaze.

“Why am I even doing this…?” I sighed, perplexed, lost.

The sight of my bag, slumped and spilling cash and packages onto the floor, pulled me out of my thoughts. My fingers twitched involuntarily, the idea of money holding a new significance now. I needed it for gear, for supplies, for a way to live without depending on anyone else. And yet, in this dim light, it looked grimy, like evidence of a crime. Maybe it was.

But I had bigger questions to answer. The packages, small and nondescript, were tucked into the side pocket of the bag, as if waiting patiently to reveal their secrets. I sat on the floor, picking one up and weighing it in my hand. What had the Red Hands wanted from that vault? It wasn’t just about money. They’d been prepared, and they were clearly aiming to retrieve something specific. Something worth the risk.

I peeled back the tape on the first package, the adhesive resisting at first before giving way with a soft tear. Inside was a small, glass vial containing a colourless liquid that caught the dim light in faint ripples. There was no label, no indication of what it might be, but the weight of it in my hand felt significant. I examined the other packages quickly—two more vials, identical to the first, and a small USB drive wrapped in thin tissue paper. No markings, no symbols. Nothing to indicate why the Red Hands would go to such lengths to retrieve them.

“What are you?” I whispered to the glass vials, twisting one in the light.

I considered the possibilities. With the resources the Red Hands' seemed to have spent for this particular heist, I’d wager this isn’t your average drug.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor, I carefully examined the vials one by one. The liquid inside was perfectly clear, almost mesmerising as it caught the light in subtle reflections.

I wrapped the vials back up and placed them carefully on the table, turning my attention to the USB drive. There had to be a reason it was hidden with these vials—some connection between them, maybe something that could explain their value. I reached into my bag for my old laptop, hesitating for a moment. If this drive was important enough to steal, it could be encrypted, or worse, booby-trapped with tracking software. But curiosity got the best of me.

I plugged in the USB drive, half-expecting my laptop to glitch or some alarm to go off. Instead, a single folder popped up on the screen labelled “GENESIS.” Just one word, in all caps, staring back at me. I opened it, finding several files—documents, images, and one video file named “PROTOTYPE_IX.mp4.” My pulse quickened.

I clicked on the first document. It was a research report, dense with technical jargon. But certain words stood out in bold: “biochemical augmentation,” “metahuman awakening,” “Tampered stabilisation trials.” I skimmed the paragraphs, piecing together what I could. Whoever authored these reports had been experimenting with creating metahumans.

A chill ran down my spine. Neo Lyon was already a fractured world with natural metahumans causing destruction—now, someone wanted to engineer more of them? I scrolled through more of the document, trying to absorb the dense language, though many terms were foreign. My heart thudded as I read phrases like “genetic manipulation” and “forced biological adaptation.” This wasn’t just experimenting on humans; it was the creation of something unnatural, an entirely new form of life that could be weaponized. Like in the 60s…

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

I clicked open another file, this one a series of medical records, each marked with a number instead of a name. They all detailed transformations, some successful, others… not. Words like “haemorrhaging,” “psychotic breakdowns,” and “cellular decay” leapt off the screen. They were willing to push people to the edge of death to force powers to emerge. It was horrifying. Whoever was behind this had no qualms about turning human lives into expendable test subjects.

The last file was a scanned image, a blueprint of what appeared to be a facility. It had rooms labelled “Containment,” “Regen,” and “Disposal.” I felt sick, imagining what those terms meant. The Red Hands clearly hadn’t been after money tonight. They were trying to retrieve this information for whoever funded this project.

Finally, I clicked on the video file, PROTOTYPE_IX.mp4, bracing myself for whatever it might reveal.

The screen flickered, the video loading slowly, and then a sterile white room, medical equipment lined along one wall, was shown. The camera was stable, right in the middle of the sterile room. A man entered the frame from the left, wearing a lab coat.

"...Subject 1000. Injection 4 of the Gen-IX serum," he muttered, consulting a tablet. His voice was clinical, detached, but his eyes held a faint, unsettling gleam. In his other hand, he held a small syringe filled with a liquid that looked identical to the vials I’d taken. He turned toward someone just out of frame, nodding.

A second figure moved into view—a young man, his arms restrained and head slumped forward, eyes glazed over. He looked barely conscious, beads of sweat glistening on his forehead under the stark fluorescent lights. The lab-coated man moved closer, holding the syringe up to inspect it. The silence in the room was almost reverent, broken only by the hum of the equipment.

“Subject 1000, this will be your final injection," the man said in a disturbingly calm tone. He leaned in, the needle hovering close to the young man’s arm. "Remember, once the serum enters your bloodstream, you must focus. Draw out the potential within yourself. No matter what happens, stay focused."

He pressed the syringe into the subject’s arm, and within seconds, the young man convulsed violently, his entire body seizing up. His veins darkened, spreading like ink across his skin, his muscles tensing as if an electric current was ripping through him. His mouth opened in a silent scream, his eyes wide with terror and pain.

The man in the lab coat watched, unfazed, his eyes tracking every muscle spasm, every laboured breath. The camera zoomed in on the subject’s face, contorted with agony as the serum’s effects intensified. Suddenly, his skin began to shimmer, the muscles beneath rippling unnaturally. His veins pulsed a deep, sickly green, and his eyes briefly glowed the same unnatural colour.

A moment later, the convulsions stopped, and he slumped forward, panting, seemingly exhausted. The man in the lab coat moved closer, adjusting a small device strapped to the subject’s wrist. "Subject 1000. Report your condition."

The young man looked up, his expression dazed. His breathing was shallow, his eyes unfocused, a kind of fur covering half his visage. He managed a nod, though his voice came out a rough whisper. "I… I can feel something… it’s like… if… it feels as if I had no weight…”

“Good,” the scientist answered, noting things on his pad. “Anything else? Do you feel any physical change?”

The subject paused, his gaze drifting as if he were searching for words. "It feels... like my bones are lighter, almost hollow." He flexed his fingers, the movement sluggish, uncertain, as though he were testing his own body for the first time. "And it feels like I can sense all air currents…? Wait, is that fur?!" The man exclaimed after looking at his arms.

And surely, there were patches of black fur, like on his face.

“It seems like your power came with physical mutations.” The doctor answered. “Seems like we have a 20% rate of mutants with this serum…” He then muttered, while taking notes.

“I am a mutant?! You told me I’d be a metahuman! You never said anything about mutations!” The test subject started struggling against his confines violently. “You monster! Like the League!”

As the test subject continued to trash, the video suddenly stopped. The last image looks as if the restraint were on the verge of giving out.

The screen went black, leaving me staring at my own pale reflection in the monitor, heart pounding with a sickening mix of fear and disbelief. The last few seconds of the video played over and over in my mind: the look of horror in the subject’s eyes, the calm indifference of the scientist, the grotesque transformation, and the implication that this was only one of many experiments.

I shut the laptop slowly, my thoughts racing. The Red Hands hadn’t been after money—they’d been after something far more valuable, a serum that could force metahuman abilities out of ordinary people, even if it twisted their bodies in the process. The mere existence of this substance made the vials I had stolen potentially worth more than anything else Neo Lyon had to offer. They were pure power, carefully contained in fragile glass.

But this power was a gamble, with consequences too horrifying to ignore. The man in the video hadn’t become a god or a hero; he had been transformed, turned into something grotesque. And he had been lied to, manipulated. Forcing powers out of someone, without consent and at such a brutal cost, went against everything I had told myself I stood for.

And yet...I couldn’t deny the allure of it. If the serum worked, if it could grant powers with minimal side effects, what would that mean for people like me? I already had my tethering ability, but what if this serum could enhance it, make me stronger, faster, able to push my power to its full potential without the limits I’d been grappling with? The thought made my skin prickle. I could become more than just a shadow in the night; I could become someone unstoppable.

I shook my head, trying to clear it. This wasn’t the time to entertain fantasies. These vials were dangerous, too dangerous to mess with until I knew more. The files on the USB drive had shown me that the side effects were unpredictable, sometimes fatal. The thought of using it on myself made my stomach twist with fear and intrigue in equal measure.

Pulling out a notebook, I jotted down key words from the documents I had read: biochemical augmentation, metahuman awakening, forced adaptation. I scribbled a few notes on the side effects, the high mortality rates, and the mutations. Then, underlined in bold letters, I wrote: League of Chaos?

Whoever was behind this was willing to turn people into monsters, possibly even mutants, for the sake of creating metahumans. Like how the League of Order did in the 60s. But with current international laws, this had to be done by a major Villain group.

“Their way of having fun or recruiting more people, maybe…”

Now with all this in my hands, I was unsure of what to do. I could search about this drug more but I didn’t want to be swept into too big of a metahuman storm yet.

It opened so many questions. How did this package get into the hands of a random nightclub? How did the Red Hands know about it? What were they going to do with it? Are the Red Hands working for a bigger organisation?

So many questions, and I had yet to sleep for work in 4 hours.

“Let’s rest, after all things always look better in the morning…”