The irony wasn't lost on Alex 'Al' Maxwell, even as the world dissolved into a searing white agony that felt like every nerve ending was being simultaneously ignited and ripped apart. He'd always been a bit of a thrill-seeker, chasing storms for the perfect photograph, the kind that made you feel the raw, untamed power of nature. This time, the storm had chased him. One moment, he was fumbling with his camera settings atop a lonely hill, a skeletal tree his only companion against the bruised purple sky. The next, a blinding fork of lightning didn't just strike nearby; it struck him. There was a sound like the sky ripping in two, an impossible pressure that felt like his skull would crack, and then a profound, terrifying nothingness. Alex Maxwell, aged twenty-seven, chaser of storms, was obliterated.
Or so he thought.
The nothingness was mercifully brief, a fleeting pause before an absolute sensory annihilation. There was no gentle awakening, no soft light filtering through eyelids. One instant, the void; the next, pandemonium.
A deafening explosion ripped through the air, so close it felt like his eardrums were being perforated by superheated needles. He was on the ground, not soft moss, but hard, unforgiving rock and jagged scree, the acrid stench of smoke, burnt flesh, and something else – ozone, but sharper, metallic, like blood and batteries – burning his nostrils and throat. Screams, not just shouts, but raw, agonized shrieks of men dying, warred with the vicious shriek of metal rending metal and a strange, resonant hum that vibrated through his bones, making his teeth ache.
His eyelids, heavy as tombstones, snapped open. Not to a quiet room, but to a goddamn slaughterhouse bathed in firelight and the eerie glow of unnatural energies.
Fire. Everywhere. Men in gleaming, strangely articulated plate armor, their polished surfaces reflecting the carnage, clashed with figures in dark, agile gear that seemed to absorb the light. Swords, axes, and more esoteric weapons sparked and bit. He saw an axe cleave through a breastplate with a sickening crunch, followed by a wet gush of crimson. Beams of pure, incandescent energy lanced out from intricate, rifle-like devices wielded by soldiers in more modern-looking combat attire, the beams exploding against shimmering, translucent shields that flickered into existence around some of the heavily armored warriors, sometimes failing with a catastrophic pop that sent bodies flying. A winged creature, scaled like a nightmare lizard and the size of a small car, shrieked overhead, its leathery wings beating a furious rhythm. It unleashed a torrent of viscous, blue flame that washed over a group of soldiers, their screams cut short as they were reduced to blackened, twitching husks. The stench of cooked meat joined the cacophony of smells. This inferno was met by a volley of what looked like laser fire from a fortified position on a nearby ridge, the beams stitching across the creature's hide, drawing roars of pain and black, ichorous blood. Magic, swords, and science, all locked in a brutal, horrifyingly effective dance of death.
Panic, raw and primal, clawed its way up his throat, tasting of bile. Where the fuck am I? What happened? He remembered the lightning, the pain, the death. This couldn't be. This was a fever dream, a hallucination born of trauma.
He tried to scramble up, to make sense of the sensory overload, his limbs feeling like unresponsive meat. A hulking figure in dark, pitted armor, wielding a wickedly curved falchion that seemed to drink the light, its edge dripping with a black ichor that sizzled and smoked where it touched the blood-soaked earth, broke from the melee. The warrior's helmet, shaped like a snarling, demonic wolf with glowing crimson optics, swiveled, and those malevolent red eyes fixed on Alex. A predator spotting wounded prey.
Time seemed to stretch, to pull like taffy.
Alex saw the warrior begin its charge, heavy, clawed boots kicking up clods of earth and gore. He saw the glint of the falchion as it was raised, the black ichor flinging off in an arc, aimed for a decapitating blow. He felt an overwhelming, instinctual urge to not be there, a full-body clench of pure terror.
And then the world snapped.
It wasn't a conscious thought, not a decision. One micro-second, the blade, trailing that nightmarish substance, was whispering towards his exposed neck, promising oblivion. The next, he was twenty feet away, his back slamming against a scorched rock face with enough force to drive the air from his lungs in a ragged whoosh. The wind wasn't knocked out of him by an impact in the traditional sense, but by the sheer, disorienting shift, the violent inertia of his own body being somewhere else entirely without traversing the space between. The warrior, its momentum carrying it forward, stumbled past where Alex had been, its guttural roar a mix of fury and confusion as its blade met only air.
Alex stared, his heart hammering a rhythm so fast, so powerful, it felt like a trapped bird trying to batter its way out of his ribcage. His limbs tingled with a bizarre, almost painful electric hum, like every nerve was a live wire. He looked down at his hands – pale, unblemished, utterly unfamiliar. He was in a different body, lean and younger than his own, clad in simple, torn clothes that offered no protection whatsoever, already stained with someone else's blood.
He hadn't just moved. He'd… blinked. And reality had warped around him.
Another explosion, closer this time, rocked the ground beneath him, showering him with dirt, rock splinters, and hot, wet shrapnel. A piece of jagged metal, glowing cherry-red from the blast, spun through the air directly towards his face, large enough to take out an eye, or worse.
No time to think. No time for anything but that primal, desperate react.
The strange energy, that coiled spring deep within his core, unwound with ferocious, untamed intensity. The world didn't blur; it simply… stilled. The lethal shrapnel piece hung suspended in mid-air, inches from his left eye, its rotation slowed to an almost imperceptible, lazy crawl. He could see the heat shimmering off its edges, the tiny imperfections in the metal. The screams of battle became drawn-out, distorted moans that seemed to hang in the air like tangible things. The flickering energy beams were frozen streaks of lethal light, beautiful and deadly.
He could see the individual particles of dust and ash dancing in the smoky air, each a tiny world unto itself. He could see the grotesque strain on the face of a distant combatant as a sword pierced his gut, the slow-motion bloom of blood, the dawning horror in eyes that hadn't yet registered the fatal blow. He could see the trajectory of every projectile, the subtle shift of muscle before a strike.
It was like the universe had hit a celestial pause button, and only he, Alex-but-not-Alex, was exempt, a ghost in a frozen tableau of carnage.
This new body, this impossible, hellish situation, this… power. It was beyond terrifying. It was a violation of every known law of physics. And yet, a tiny, cold spark of something else ignited within the terror – a wild, savage exhilaration.
Alex Maxwell was gone. Utterly and irrevocably.
But someone, something, was very much alive. And in this brutal, nightmarish world of clashing swords, reality-bending arcane energies, and devastating scientific marvels, he possessed a power unlike any other. A power born from a lightning strike, a power that felt like the raw, untamed energy of the Speed Force itself was thrumming through his veins, a torrent threatening to consume him.
The moment of absolute stillness couldn't last. He didn't know how he was doing it, or how to control this insane perception. With a ragged, involuntary gasp, the world crashed back into full, brutal speed. The shrapnel piece whizzed past his ear with a searing hiss, close enough to singe his hair and leave the smell of burnt protein in its wake. The cacophony of battle – the screams, the explosions, the clang of steel – slammed back in with physical force.
He was exposed. Vulnerable in a body that felt alien. But he was also, impossibly, terrifyingly, fast.
And in this brutal, new world, where death was dealt wholesale, that speed might be the only fucking thing that could keep him alive long enough to figure out what in the seven hells was going on.