Chapter 1: The Beginning

Disclaimer: I don't own anything except for my OC's, any characters and references from Infamous and DCU belong to their respective owners.

"This is speech"

'This is thought'

Not much was visible from my room in an apartment on the edges of New Marais. I had been infected with the mysterious plague that had spread throughout the entirety of the city. None of the doctors that my father had me visit knew anything about it, or how to treat it.

"I'm sorry, but there's nothing we can do." I had grown sick of hearing those words.

I prayed and prayed, wishing more than anything that I could be cured of the terrible disease that had ruined my life. A kid that hadn't even reached 12 years didn't deserve to die in such a fashion, while murderers and rapists and pedophiles were out there having the time of their lives, taking advantage of the chaos, remaining ignorant of the pain that good people were suffering in their place.

In hindsight, I suppose I should have paid more attention to the saying, "Be careful what you wish for."

I don't think I was the only one that watched in fear as The Beast walked through the city. It's massive form towered over the buildings, and it could be seen from all the way across the city. Entire neighborhoods fell to ruin as it traipsed through them. Hundreds, if not thousands, died, and The Beast didn't give the slightest regard.

I remember a sudden blinding light, originating from a point somewhere near The Beast, but illuminating the entire sky with its splendor. I felt a wave of energy pass through my body, taking something with it as it passed, and then there was a sudden relief throughout my entire body, like a large weight had been lifted. My lungs felt clearer, my heart beat just a little bit stronger. I absentmindedly noticed that the Beast was gone.

For the first time in weeks, my body didn't instantly seize when trying to get out of bed. With shaky knees, I started walking towards the door to my room. I stumbled a little, but eventually made it across. My short, brown hair clung to my forehead with sweat. A tentative smile started to grow on my face.

"Dad!" I shouted, "Dad! I think I'm cured! I feel alright now! What happened? I saw a light, is everything alright? What happened to that giant rock monster outside?"

When no response came from downstairs, the smile quickly disappeared from my face. I rushed down as quick as I could. My legs, still weakened from being in bed for so long, prevented me from moving too fast, almost forcing me to the ground. But my conviction prevailed, I had to see my dad, to tell him the good news.

As I neared the living room, a heavy breathing could be heard, along with the smell of something burning. I finally entered the room and gasped. A body was lying on the ground in front of the couch, facing away from me, smoke coming off it like a campfire. A faint orange glow could be seen surrounding it, growing dimmer by the second. A tear fell to the ground.

"Dad?"

Turning the body over, the reality of the situation seemed to finally set in. My dad was dying, his condition growing worse by the second. Faint tremors passed through his body, like he was fighting off a figure. A faint orange glow could be seen in his eyes, a stark contrast to his completely ashen face. He seemed to be staring intently at his palm, where a small flame was flickering. As seconds passed, the flame grew smaller, until eventually it was extinguished. At that moment, the eyes with the strange glow finally seemed to notice me. As they passed over my face, his lips curved into a smile. Weakly raising his hand to my cheek, looking as if this was the first time that he laid eyes upon me, he whispered, "David... Son..."

Then, to my bewilderment, he started to chuckle, as if he had said a joke. His laughter echoed throughout the halls, it seemed mocking. Soon, he stopped laughing, his eyes looking directly into mine as they grew dimmer. All before his body gave one final spasm and his eyes ceased to glow.

I stood by his body for what felt like hours, refusing to believe that my dad, the person that had always seemed so strong while I was so weak, was dead. Trying to wake him up was a futile venture, not that I didn't try.

It wasn't long before the events of the last few moments caught up with me, and I passed out, my eyes red from tears

A white ceiling greeted me as I opened my eyes. A hospital. Sitting up, I remembered what had happened, but no tears came this time. I was beyond tears. All that I felt was a numbness throughout my entire body.

Everything that happened afterwards felt like it went by in fast-forward. After leaving the hospital, I was quickly sent to a foster family. A woman and her husband whose names I never bothered learning took me in. They gave me their condolences, saying how sorry they were that I had to go through such a thing, and how grateful I should be for my miraculous recovery. But they didn't really care.

Weeks went by. My quiet, somber demeanor seemed to be what they expected for the most part, but as more and more time went by, they seemed to grow impatient at my behavior. They probably expected a child that would be sad for a while, but would quickly grow out of it and be grateful to them for their help. Unfortunately for them, I had no plans to stop grieving and become the cheerful little scamp they wanted me to be anytime soon.

Weeks turned into months, and somewhere along the line the couple decided that they no longer wanted anything to do with me, and I was sent to a different foster home, and then another.

For almost 6 years I was passed back and forth through many different foster families. Most of them weren't too bad, but they all expected me to act a certain way, to conform to the vision that they had of me. I refused to give into their expectations, and I was soon sent away.

Years of being handed to different families finally culminated in me being sent to a Mr. and Mrs. Thorn. At first they seemed like all the others, smiling and expressing their condolences for my loss. They even had a nice house in the new suburbs that were built after the destruction caused by The Beast. But it wasn't long before they revealed their true nature, and everything went to shit.

I woke up with a start, looking around wildly, then sighed.

'Another nightmare, and here I was thinking that I'd finally gotten over it.'

Over the past 6 years, the pain from my dad's death had mostly faded, and I was able to function normal, but thinking about it still hurt.

Deciding that a cool glass of water would probably be best right now, I headed towards the kitchen. The cool air from the refrigerator washed over me, but I ignored it, grabbing a chilled water bottle and heading to my room. A loud thud, like something heavy being dropped, stopped me still. I turned towards the direction it came from and frowned. This was a common occurrence that started a few weeks ago. Mr. Alex Thorn, a scientist (he never mentioned what it was he studied), started going down into the basement every second that he could. It wasn't too bad at first, but then he started missing meals and became quite abrasive whenever questioned about his work. Every time someone mentioned the loud noises at night and what they were, the smile that he usually wore would turn into an ugly scowl and he'd tell whoever was asking to mind their own business and to stay away from his workshop, which was in the basement.

My frown quickly became more curious than annoyed.

'Just what is it that he's working on down there? Despite his serious need for an attitude adjustment, he doesn't seem like the type to do anything illegal, so what is it that's causing him to be so secretive?'

My curiosity was too strong to resist, and I soon found myself opening the door to the basement. It was locked initially, but I knew where Thorn kept the key, he wasn't anywhere near as stealthy as he thought he was. Heading down, I found my body shaking in anticipation, what would I find?

As I reached the bottom, a small workshop could be seen. There was a multitude of machines, all serving some unspecified purpose, scattered throughout the entire room. Mr. Thorn was nowhere to be seen, weird. Upon the table there was a series of notes. Most of it was scientific gibberish, terms and phrases that would take weeks of study to even begin to understand. A few words like RAY FIELD and CONDUIT were underlined and bolded.

Conduits, I had heard about them. The news talked about them as if they were criminals, freaks, all because they could do things that others couldn't. It never made any sense to me, but perhaps I was biased. My father had been one after all. Besides, what could I do? I was just some random orphan that couldn't get a family to like him enough to adopt him. Not that it mattered much anymore, in less than a year I'd be an adult and finally be able to go out on my own. I shook my head and moved on from those thoughts, looking upon a table that was to the right of the one I was facing.

A small tarp could be seen covering something, a faint purple glow emanating from beneath. As I neared the tarp, I could feel this energy that seemed to excite every individual cell in my body. I lifted the tarp and stared in surprise at the glowing, purple crystal that was sitting there, attached to some machine.

A loud, shattering noise from behind startled me and I quickly turned around, becoming much more nervous when I saw Mr. Thorn standing there on the opposite end of the room. Shattered glass could be seen on the floor.

"David?"

His surprised expression quickly turned into one of rage

"What are you doing here?! Didn't I say this room was off limits?!" He shouted, advancing towards me.

I tried to back up, but the table prevented me from moving back further than a foot. My elbow brushed against the purple rock, and a faint shock spread throughout my entire body. Mr. Thorn looked behind me and seemed to notice the uncovered crystal. If anything, he grew even more enraged.

"Why is that uncovered?! What did you touch?! ANSWER ME!"

By this point, his face had grown as red as a tomato. He was clenching his fists as he kept slowly moving towards me. Then, suddenly, his eyes widened and he seemed to calm down. I could see him thinking hard, muttering something under his breath.

I had to get out of here, but to get out, I'd have to get past him. I needed time to think of a way out of here.

"What is all this?" I asked. "And why were you being so secretive? Nothing here looks illegal or anything?"

He scowled and narrowed his eyes.

"Wouldn't you like to know? Fine, I suppose I can indulge your curiosity a little, you've already seen too much for me to consider letting you go. That crystal there was once part of a device that was able to unlock the potential hidden within a select few, allowing them to use powers beyond anyone's wildest dreams. I managed to... come across some notes from a rather genius man. He was one of the few that knew how the device worked in its entirety, and I have been attempting to recreate his work."

"But why all this secrecy? Can't you just work for the government? They'd probably be thrilled to have someone with your knowledge and resources working for them."

Thorn snorted, "Don't you think I've already thought of that, you idiot boy? Do you think I like working in secrecy? No, working with them would be too restrictive, I wouldn't be allowed to do things my way. But that's enough of that. You should have listened to my warning, I can't have you going around talking about my work, they'll find it and confiscate everything, and that can't happen!"

A manic gleam could be seen in his eyes. His condition was much worse than his wife and I had thought, his obsession with his work had consumed his mind, just what was so special about this crystal?

Seeing that Thorn was done with his explanation, I quickly grabbed the purple crystal behind me and raised it up, my arms shaking slightly from its weight, as well as my anxiety.

"Don't come any closer, or I swear I'll break it!"

Thorn stopped for a second, looking slightly fearful, before quickly schooling his expression, that dangerous gleam in his eye never disappearing.

"Please, like a fall from that height will break the crystal, I know it's much more durable than that. And machines can be rebuilt. My continued secrecy is worth far more than a small setback."

He pulled a small pocket knife from his pocket and sighed, "I'm sorry it's come to this, it really could have ended quite differently, but that's how it is."

As he got closer, I could hear and feel the blood pumping through my veins, the noise drowning out all other sounds. My muscles tightened up and my breathing became shallow. I couldn't die, not like this. Not after everything that I'd been through. Everything I had yet to do.

My arms momentarily grew weak, and I almost dropped the crystal, catching it before it had even fallen a foot. In my panic, I didn't even realize that I had flipped a switch on the device by accident, and a low, quiet hum started emanating from it.

The blood pounding in my ears suddenly quieted down, and everything seemed to become much clearer and slower. It felt as if the entire world had gone into slow motion. I could see the knife and it slowly inched its way towards my chest. As it made contact, I heard a small explosion, and a sudden burst of energy fill my body. Thorn was blasted back as a purple glow started to surround me. Small sparks of electricity burst from my body, as the energy actually started to lift me up into the air. The smell of ozone hung heavy in the air. Scared, I tried to drop the device, but my hands wouldn't comply, they refused to let go. The energy coursing through my body continued to rise, until it finally culminated in a giant explosion that shook the entire house. As I fell back to the ground, the last thing I heard before blacking out was a cry of pain.

Waking up, all I felt was pain. Every nerve felt like it was on fire and every bone felt crushed and broken beyond belief. As I laid there, the pain slowly started to recede, but not completely. I slowly started to get up, groaning as the pain flared again.

'I... I have to get out of here.'

Looking up and around the room, I winced when I noticed Mr. Thorn's body, impaled on one of his own machines, blood flowing from the wound, his blank eyes looking in my general direction.

That's when I felt it, a sort of... yearning. I started walking towards Thorn's corpse, my hand outstretched. There was no thought behind the action, just a sort of primal instinct that awakened when I saw the blood flowing from his wound. When I was within arm's length, I reached out and touched my hand to the wound. I watched, transfixed, as the blood slowly started crawling towards my hand, disappearing into it as it made contact. As more and more of the blood disappeared into my hand, I began to feel more and more invigorated. The pain ebbed away before finally disappearing. As the pain vanished, so did the yearning, and my mind started to clear.

I was simultaneously horrified and fascinated by what had just occurred. And I knew more than ever that I had to leave. I had touched the wound, and they would probably find other evidence of my being there. I could be convicted of murder, and spend the rest of my life in prison. I had to go.

I turned away from the now bloodless corpse and headed back up the stairs. I quickly found my way to the entrance of the house and stepped out. Taking a quick look around the neighborhood, I noticed that the explosion seemed to cause a power outage, it was also eerily silent. I started running down the street, ignoring everything but my strong desire to get away as fast as possible. As I ran I slowly started to pick up speed, everything around me becoming a blur. It only took an hour or so for me to make it to the outskirts of the city, right by the highway, where I finally stopped running and just sat down against a random light post.

Everything felt heavy. I had just killed a man, no matter how inadvertently, and then drained him dry of his blood. That wasn't normal, not in any sense of the word. It was criminal and insane. The only comfort I had was that it was in self defense, but even that wasn't much. I was a conduit, a freak, they would look for any excuse to put me away forever.

I buried my face in my hands and groaned. My entire life had just gone to shit. I was barely even 17 and I was out on the streets. But I refused to breakdown. That wouldn't help me at all. What I had to do was hide. Hide until all this blew over and then start a new life, preferably somewhere as far away from here as possible. My new... abilities could help keep me safe long enough for me to get a fresh start. But to survive in whatever place I ended up, I would have to learn to defend myself, my powers could only get me so far, and against another conduit or other super powered person they would only even the playing field, the rest was up to me. I had no delusions that I wouldn't eventually be found, but until then I had to get ready.

The only question was, where would I go? I trudged my way closer to the highway, hoping that there would be a sign, a metaphorical one or a literal one, I didn't care, that would show me where to go. As I neared the highway, I looked up at a sign.

'Huh, well, if there's any place one can go to disappear for a while, that's definitely it. Gotham City... 235 miles.' I sigh and stick my thumb out to the side, the universal sign for hitchhikers. This is going to be a long trip.