Issue 1
Issue 1: Ty Wilson - Before
Ty was walking with his two friends, although to him they were more like brothers. Their names were Manny Gonzales and John Topper (or JT, as he liked to be called). Ty’s hands were incessantly beating a rhythm against his legs. It got so loud at one point that Manny was forced to say something about it. Ty shot him a dark, annoyed look and rolled his eyes, but he quit tapping on his legs. Instead, he resorted to just fidgeting with the Zippo lighter he carried. He flipped it open in one hand only to close it a second later. Once closed, he would flip it open again. He walked as he did this and while Manny wasn’t super thrilled with this new annoyance, he put up with it.
“The Eyez keep trying to encroach on our territory,” Manny was telling them both.
Ty wasn’t paying attention though.
“You’d think they’d back off after--” JT started to say as he scratched the patchy beard he was trying to grow out but Ty cut in.
“That guy got what he deserved,” Ty practically shouted. He didn’t wait for JT to finish what he’d been saying, instead interrupting him mid-sentence.
“Quit interrupting me,” JT snarled. He punched Ty on the shoulder and not lightly either.
“Ow,” Ty yelped.
“Quit interrupting me then,” JT replied. “You really gotta quit that shit. That irritates the piss outta me.”
Ty didn’t reply. Instead, he started tapping his hands on his legs again. Both Manny and JT decided to ignore it this time. It seemed the easier route to take with their younger, somewhat hyperactive friend.
“Anyway,” Manny started to say. “They’d be dumb as hell to try anything on our turf. We’d only hit ’em back and even harder. We got the numbers. They lucky we don’t take what’s theirs. I don’t know why Yaz doesn’t. To be honest, that dude is looking weak right now with the Eyez taking pokes at us. If it was me…”
“Shut up,” JT said.
“I was just sayin…” Manny started to explain.
“Well don’t,” Jt shot back, interrupting him again.
Ty kept his mouth shut. He was the youngest of the three and although he was the least experienced, he was also the one willing to do almost anything to stay in Third St, the notorious street gang that controlled (you guessed it) Third St and most of the surrounding blocks. His “initiation” even involved him running into a group of three or four Eyez and trying to beat the shit out of them. No one even told him to do that though, but the event did earn him some respect and was the first evidence Yaz saw of the boy’s inherent craziness. At the time, Yaz looked at the boy and saw a wildcard. Others in the gang, however, looked at him and saw a punk kid that ran his mouth and annoyed nearly everyone around him.
Everyone except Manny and JT anyway and even then, it was a close call.
The two kind of took Ty in like a family takes in a stray dog. He looked up to the two older boys (although not much older). Manny was nineteen and fresh out of high school while JT was eighteen and would have been graduating in a couple months if he hadn’t dropped out to sling dope on the streets full time for Yaz.
“Ain’t nobody here gonna say shit to Yaz about what I say,” Manny said after a long pause. He tried to sound confident but couldn’t quite hide the questioning tone to his voice. He was looking for some kind of affirmation from the other two but neither one said a word. “Seriously? That how it is?”
“It’s not like that,” JT said. Although he might be younger than Manny, he had a more mature air about him. “I just know Yaz does not tolerate his people questioning him. And by not tolerating it, I mean, he kills motherfuckers if he even hears a tiny ass tinge of doubt in them. So, watch your mouth.”
They just started down a quiet, emptier section of the street. There were at least three light posts that were dark and one that was flickering.
“Well don’t you dare say a fuc…”
Manny’s words were abruptly cut off by the loud and sharp sounds of rapid gunfire. Ty saw a brief, split second of confusion in Manny’s eyes (more like bewilderment, he would later realize) and then a score of bullets ripped into his body and most of his head. He collapsed to the ground like he was a toy whose batteries suddenly died.
“Run Ty!” JT yelled right as bullets ripped into him too.
Then Ty’s body jerked several times, rapidly. Something buzzed through his left ear. It left a hot trail of heat across his cheek and his ear exploded into pain. He slumped to his knees in complete shock and looked down to see what had become of him. There was blood pouring out of dozens of bullet wounds.
He could see it! All of it! It was coming out of him and he cupped his hands beneath his wounds as if to try and catch it and maybe put it back inside him where it belonged. He glanced at JT and Manny and saw that both were deader than dead. Only he was left and by the look, he wouldn’t be for much longer.
As he sat there on his knees, a group of four Eyez trundled up to him, each armed with a gun of some type. They all had their normal set of eyes but then each one also had a third, directly in the middle of their foreheads. They weren’t real, of course. They were tattoos and each one was the same eye symbol in flat black ink. They were plain looking things but to Ty, in that moment, they were also absolutely horrifying to look at.
“You three fucks are gonna make a nice message to Yaz. The Eyez see all and now we’re gonna take all.”
Ty wasn’t even sure which of the assholes was talking and as more and more of his consciousness slipped away, the less he cared. He looked over at JT and Manny again. His friends. His brothers. The only two people that seemed to care about him other than his parents (who only ragged on him and his terrible grades - “ADHD is not an excuse!” his dad would often say). He hadn’t known them long, but he’d instantly felt a bond with them.
Now they were dead.
And he was about to be.
One of the Eyez leaned in closer to him. This one’s eye tattoo was a bit different than the others. It had a bit of color to it. Blue, Ty realized. On the inside circle.
“Enjoy hell, bitch,” the man said.
Then Ty fell over, his vision going black.
The Eyez left the Third Streeters on the ground like the dogs they were and walked away. Ty was, in their eyes, as good as dead.
They should’ve made sure.
Ty was unconscious, but he was still alive. Barely. As his heartbeat was steadily getting slower, a bright green glow suddenly lit up the entire sky above him. That green light seemed to sink and get closer and closer to the earth. As it did, people realized the strange phenomenon that looked like billowing clouds was moving and darting like some kind of weird animal. The clouds (which enveloped not just Ty’s city but the entire globe) sank over everything and everyone (even eating through buildings, cars, and most anything else). As reporters across the country interrupted various programs to report on the mysterious global event, Ty’s body was enveloped in the green, misty clouds.
His heartbeat, which was almost non-existent at this point, took a beat then waited several seconds and then took another beat and then waited even longer and then took another beat.
The green stuff, however, didn’t just envelope him, it sank into him. Into his entire being. It flowed through his blood and did...something. His heart was on its last beat, but the green cloud changed all that. It flowed and swirled through his blood, found the bullets still inside his damaged and ruined body, and merged with the metal in them. His blood stayed red for a few seconds and then turned silvery and resembled, more than anything, mercury. The damage to Ty’s body was also repaired and the silvery blood flowed out of the bullet holes and plugged them. In a few short moments, the holes in his body looked like they were covered by plates of silver that blended seamlessly into his skin.
Around him like a corona, were arcs of lime green electricity. They crackled over him like he was in some weird cocoon.
The electricity flared up.
Ty’s heart jumped as the electricity flared.
The electricity flared again.
Ty’s heart, once again, jumped.
The electricity stayed for a few more seconds, but then Ty’s heart beat on its own. Then it got faster and stronger. As it did, the electricity crackled one last time and then dissipated.
As soon as that electric cocoon was gone, Ty’s eyes flew wide open. His body arched up. His hands clenched into fists. His mouth opened in a soundless scream.
And the now silvery blood inside him seemed to explode out of his pores. Ropy tendrils of the stuff flowed out and wriggled through the air for a few seconds. Some of them sharpened into points. Others flattened and expanded several times. Others curled into balls. It was random and only lasted for a minute or two. Then Ty’s blood fell and returned to where it was supposed to be...inside his body.
He shot up from the ground, gasping. His eyes were open and if someone had been looking, they would’ve seen the irises of his brown eyes change slightly. Little flecks of silver floated up into them and swirled around a bit before settling.
He glanced down at himself, his black hair hanging in front of his face. He held his hands out in front of him, turning them over. Then he patted himself. One hand brushed against the smooth silver of a plugged bullet hole. He looked down at it in complete awe.
“W-what the,” he asked himself, shakily.
Then his blood shot of his pores again, seemingly of its own accord. It waved around for a little bit, sharpened into points, and then returned back into his body.
His silver-flecked, brown eyes widened again.
“W-what the,” he asked again. “What is this?”
As if in answer, the blood came out once again, but this time it completely encased his lower left arm. Then it lengthened into a sword-like weapon.
Comprehension, or some semblance of it, was starting to dawn in his eyes. The look of shock and complete wonderment at what was happening to him disappeared.
It was replaced by a somewhat crazy, eerie glint to his eyes.
