WaDisclaimer: I don't own DC Comics or any of it's trademarks. And I don't own Atlanta, the only thing I own is Isaiah Butler and a few other cast members.

Arc 1

Nightmare - Metropolis, DE

John Stewart's eyes slowly opened as he felt pain. A sense of pain all over his body, a tingling sensation that caused him to groan as he rose up to his feet grunting in pain. He looked around at the city seeing it was in ruins. Buildings destroyed, cars destroyed, dead bodies lying around.

He frowned as he looked at the bodies of several of his allies in the league. Allies that he thought could never be in the state that they were. Batman, Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Flash, Hawkman, Vixen, Martian Manhunter, Shazam, Green Arrow, Black Canary, Black Lightning and Aquaman all dead. Their bodies lay in a heap. He turned his head seeing a sight that made him stop in his tracks. It was Shiera. Dead. The woman he loved. The woman with whom he saved the world numerous times with was dead. And he couldn't stop it from happening. He couldn't save her.

"No, Shiera." He said dropping down to his knees over her body. Tears began to build in the corner of his eyes as he looked over her body. Shiera was one of the few people that could actually draw out emotions from John. As much as he cared for everyone and wanted to save everyone she was one of the few people that he actually loved. And she wouldn't want him to be shedding tears over her body. He wiped away his tears and rose up to his feet.

He took a few steps forwards and turned to look back at her body, giving off a sigh as he looked down and continued on his way. He walked on looking around at the city seeing how chaotic it was.

"How the hell did it get like this?" John asked himself looking around. "Clark would never-" John was saying but stopped in his path as a sense of shock came over him. It was Superman. It was Clark. The reason the city was in shambles was right in front of him. It was a sight that John never thought he would ever see. It was Superman dead. His crystal blue eyes open staring directly into John's soul while blood dripped out of his nostrils and on the sides of his mouth.

There were only a few possible things that would be able to kill "The Man of Steel". Kryptonite, Magic and Doomsday. And he didn't see any of which lying around or sensed any of which making him frown. Maybe it was Darkseid. But Darkseid had never killed Superman before or been able to. So that left the question: How did Clark Kent, one of the strongest beings in the universe, die?

"You've escaped me long enough and now it's time you join the rest of your friends and meet your destroyer." John heard a familiar voice say from behind him making him frown in confusion as he turned around. Around to see a blinding, blue energy coming towards him making him shield his eyes away as everything faded to black.

(!)-(!)-(!)-(!)

Atlanta

John quickly sat up in shock with a frown on his face as his eyes glowed green while his ring glew with green energy. He looked up seeing a nurse who looked at him with fear as if he were about to harm her. He sighed and lowered his fist while his irises returned to their normal brown color.

"I'm sorry, I just had a bad dream, that's all." John apologized while she sighed as she went back to checking on his nephew.

"I understand, Mr. Stewart. Given that you're a hero, I imagine you see some things that keep you up." She wasn't lying when she said that. When he was in the Marines, he had seen a lot of things that he wasn't prepared for. Things that change you forever. He had done things that had chipped away at his humanity. And being a Green Lantern, he had seen even worse. Battled even worse. A big piece of his humanity was lying in the hospital bed at the moment in front of him. Another piece was nowhere to be found, currently away. That piece, ironically was an alien from Thanagar, Shiera.

"In a way, I know a little bit about what you're going through. 38th division."

"Army?"

"Yep, 3 tours in Afghanistan. After that, it was time to come home."

"I heard that. Lemme ask you a question, when you came home, how long did it take you to adjust?"

"A while luckily I had a supportive husband who helped me through it."

"Yeah, lucky you. My war never stopped. I traded in my marine uniform for this." He said, raising his fist as his ring glowed. The nurse turned towards him nodding her head in agreement.

"And the world thanks you for that. But if I may, it would be wise to take a break. I don't know who the woman you were with but she seems to like you and not just as friends. Maybe take some time and take her to take your mind off all the hero business." The nurse suggested as she turned back to get back to her work.

Coincidentally the woman he was just thinking about came to the door knocking on it, making him look up to see her holding two plastic bags with two white styrofoam cups.

"I saw you were sleeping and I got hungry so I went to go grab some breakfast. And I brought you some." Shiera said, walking into the room and handed him his bag and his cup before she took a seat next to him.

"How's he doing?" Shiera asked. John looked at Shiera with a small smile on his face. He liked the concern she had for his family. She didn't even know his nephew but the fact that she was invested, meant something.

"Well, his vitals are good. Heart rate's 89 BPM, Blood pressure 110 over 13 times per minute and oxygen saturation is currently at 96. We gave him a few scans while you two were sleeping and we found nothing wrong. So it's just a matter of time until he wakes up."

"Alright thanks for the update." John expressed as the nurse nodded offering a small smile right before she walked out of the room leaving the two heroes alone with John's nephew.

"Thanks and not just for the food. For everything."

"John, I told you before I got your back. Whether it be me saving your ass in the field or off the field, I got your back."

"I thought we were having a moment but you had to ruin it." He joked making her chuckle and she reached into her bag to start eating her food. John did the same starting to dig into what probably was his only meal in the past 24 hours.

10 minutes had barely passed before there was more knocking at the door making both John and Shiera turn their heads to see John's girlfriend, Mari McCabe AK Vixen walking into the room. She was slightly taller than Shiera, standing at 5'9 and had caramel brown skin with short brown hair and brown eyes. Her beauty and majestic aura had captured the attention of John leaving him speechless.

"Mari." He said standing up, walking towards her. She wrapped her arms around him, holding him tight in her embrace.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't be here any sooner. I got held up in Kenya and I couldn't get over here in time but I'm here now. Is he okay?"

"Yeah, he's good. We're just waiting for him to wake up now that's all."

"Good. He's cute just like his uncle." Mari said as she pulled away from John and turned to look at Isaiah lying down in the hospital bed. The tension in the room was a bit awkward as both women that loved John were in the same room.

"Hey Shiera."

"Hey Mari. I'm gonna step out and make a phone call and leave you two alone." Shiera said standing up and walking out of the door, turning back to give one final glance at John and Isaiah. John and Mari took a seat beside the bed holding hands as they began talking to each other recapping the past 24 hours.

(!)-(!)-(!)-(!)

Back at Isaiah's home, things in the house were a bit tense. Cass and Anne were both worried about Isaiah but they both had different ways of coping. Cass' old ways were drinking her feelings away but since 2007, she had stopped drinking and hadn't had a drink in over 10 years.

Anne's way was diving herself into her work but in this case, her work ,in a way, put Isaiah in the hospital in the first place. So now she was focused on finding a way to help him. She sat in the kitchen with her laptop on the kitchen island looking to find a solution to the problem that was stressing her and her wife out.

She logged into the Horizon Lab's mainframe to look at some of the camera footage from the incident. The footage would be painful to look at but it would be something to help her with her work. She sighed as she clicked play on the video. She watched as the Atlatron, her prized creation, started to glow brighter than it had ever done before. She watched as a beam of energy came from the Atlatron going straight for Lex until Zay stepped in front of him, taking the blast. She paused it looking away as tears began to form in her eyes.

It was painful seeing what might as well be her son, being hurt. Being in pain. A pain that she couldn't stop him from being in. But she could try to stop the pain he was in now. She wiped away her tears and turned back to look at her laptop screen. She had the video paused at the exact right moment, paused at the moment when Zay took the blast.

She looked down in her notes about the Atlatron reading as she searched for an answer. The Atlatron was created to be an unlimited source of unlimited, clean energy that could be harnessed in different ways. The amount of energy in the Atlatron should've disintegrated Isaiah's body but it didn't. He should've been dead but he wasn't.

She frowned as she looked up from her notes onto her screen seeing the video. She played the video in slow motion watching as the clothes on his body began to burn off. They looked closely as it looked as if the energy to flow through his body and into his veins.

"What the hell?" She said as she rewinded the video 3 seconds before to watch the footage once more. She gasped, watching as the energy went into his body. It finally hit her as to why Isaiah was unconscious in the hospital. His body was metamorphosing. For him to be able to survive the blasts from the Atlatron, he had to have a meta-gene. A gene that would allow him to have extraordinary abilities like a metahuman. His meta-gene must have been lying dormant until the Atlatron jump started it. Anne turned her own nephew into a metahuman by accident.

"Cass!" Anne shouted standing up from her stool in the kitchen as she walked from the kitchen into the living room looking around the room for her. She frowned as she ran up the steps seeing Cass sitting on Zay's bed with a bottle of Jack Daniels in her hand. Cass looked up with tears in her eyes at her wife who stared at her with worry in her eyes.

"Don't worry, I haven't had a sip. Although the old me would've probably drunk this whole bottle by now." She said as she placed the bottle on the nightstand. Anne walked into the room sitting down on the bed next to her wife. She wrapped her arms around her wife supporting her emotionally and physically as she began to weep. Anne knew the struggles Cass went through. Anne knew how much Cass had changed when Zay entered their life. Zay truly was the hope that Cass and Anne needed for their life and for their relationship, so to see him like this was causing pain to them both but luckily Anne had a bit of hope in the form of an answer to their problem.

"We're gonna get cleaned up and we're gonna get ready to head on out to go see Zay, I got some information that may give us hope." Cass nodded as she wiped away some of her tears. Anne leaned in giving her a soothing kiss on the cheek.

"We're gonna be alright." Cass told herself as she stood up walking out of the room with Anne standing up watching as she walked away, sighing in relief.

(!)-(!)-(!)-(!)

Cass and Anne walked hand-in-hand out of the elevator, stepping out onto the floor that Zay's room was on. Cass sighed as Anne nodded her head walking forward leading the way to the room, walking past medical officials who couldn't understand what was wrong with the boy but she could and she did. Anne and Cass made their way into the room seeing John and Mari sitting there. John stood up greeting his sister with a small smile and a hug and doing the same for his sister-in-law.

"Anne, Cass, this is Mari. Mari, this is Anne and Cass." John introduced his girlfriend to his sister and his wife, getting a confused look from the face of Anne who had to quickly play it off. Mari stood up and walked towards Anne who held her hand out for a handshake.

"John has told me so much about you two." Mari smiled, shaking hands with Anne. Anne nodded her head smiling wishing she could say the same but unfortunately she couldn't. Cass simply smiled and nodded shaking hands with the Green Lantern's girlfriend.

"Any updates?" Cass asked.

"Nope, same old same old."

"Well, that's about to change. Mari, would you mind giving us the room?" Anne asked.

"No, not at all." Mari said walking past the family and out into the hallway leaving them alone as she closed the door behind herself.

"Alright, John take care of the camera's please." John frowned looking at his sister with a confused frown. He exhaled as his eyes began to glow green while his ring glew while the ring made a construct to conceal the camera.

"Alright, I can only hold it for 5 minutes before it gets suspicious so hurry up."

"Well, I went home and I tried to sleep but I couldn't so I decided to dive into my work and try to find a solution. I logged into the Horizon Lab's mainframe getting a chance to look at the footage of the incident that put him in this bed. And as I watched the incident, I noticed something. The Atlatron was supposed to be an unlimited source for clean unlimited energy."

"And your point?" John asked, folding his arms.

"I'm getting there. The amount of energy that hit Isaiah's body should've disintegrated his body but it didn't which brings me back to what I noticed. Isaiah's body seemed to absorb the energy. I believe that the energy he absorbed jump started a hidden meta-gene that Isaiah has always had that we never knew about. So Zay's body is currently metamorphosing in front of our very eyes. His cells are loaded and packed with energy and it's changing his entire physiology but it can't be done overnight."

"What are you saying?" Cass asked, turning to look at Isaiah with a look of concern in her eyes.

"I'm saying his body is changing. And at this point, the only thing we can do is play the waiting game and see how long it takes."

"Do you have any idea how long it'll be?" John asked.

"No, it could be today, tomorrow, 2 days from now, next week or the week after that or even months. Whenever he's ready, he'll wake up."

"Do we know what his abilities will be when he wakes?" Cass asked.

"No but it'll definitely be something to do with energy, I do know that. But hopefully, John could help train him on how to use his abilities once he gets them."

"Of course, anything to help."

"But let's all agree, no one tells anybody else about this and we don't let him know that we know. It's to protect him."

"Agreed." John said, accepting the agreement.

"Cass?" Cass said nothing, turning to look at Anne, nodding in agreement only to turn her head back looking at Isaiah. The light coming from John's ring faded away as the construct around the camera faded away.

"Alright that settles it, now we just wait. Wait for him to wake on his own." It was only a matter of time until Isaiah woke up and just like she said, the only thing she could do is wait for him to wake on his own. But the question on everybody's mind in the room right now: if the Atlatron was an unlimited source of unlimited energy and Isaiah managed to absorb that energy, then just how strong will Isaiah be? And the answer would be proven over time.

A/N: So if you read this chapter in its entirety, then you'll notice a few things. John Stewart and Mari McCabe have public identities, meaning everybody knows who they are just like a few other characters who will be written in my story. John and Mari are dating just like how they were in Justice League Unlimited. And just like it was in Justice League Unlimited, John ,despite daring Mari, will always have a special place in his heart for Shiera. So the year is 2017, I don't know if I said that or not in previous chapters but it is set in August of 2017. This chapter was basically written to set up the next chapter which will feature a slight time-skip to further progress the story.