Chapter 2: CONTAINMENT
[DEO Headquarters, Containment Cell — September 2016, 8:15 AM]
The ceiling had forty-two panels.
I'd counted them three times during the night. Forty-two off-white rectangles separated by thin metal strips, each hiding a fluorescent light that never fully turned off. The glow seeped through even when they dimmed the room, making true darkness impossible.
Not that I could sleep anyway.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the headlights. The rain. The spinning streetlight. And then nothing—that horrible blank space where death should have been, followed by awakening in flesh that didn't belong to me.
I flexed my fingers in the restraints. The metal groaned. Not because I was trying to break free—just because my grip naturally exceeded human parameters. Daxamite strength. Kryptonian cousin species. Under a yellow sun, we developed abilities similar to Superman's.
We. Already thinking of myself as we. As if I belonged to this species. This body.
The cell door hissed open.
Alex Danvers entered first, tablet in hand, expression carved from granite. Kara followed two steps behind, arms crossed, watching me with eyes that couldn't decide between curiosity and contempt.
I straightened as much as the restraints allowed. Cleared my throat.
"Good morning." The words came out clearer than yesterday. The Daxamite vocal cords were learning. Or I was learning to use them. Hard to tell.
Alex stopped three feet from my chair. Close enough to observe, far enough to react. Professional distance.
"Let's start simple. Name."
I hesitated. Which name? My real one? The one I couldn't remember? Or the one that belonged to the body I was wearing?
"Mon-El," I said. It felt strange on my tongue. Wrong. But it was the only truth I could safely offer.
Alex made a note on her tablet. "Planet of origin?"
"Daxam."
Both women went still. Kara's expression shifted—something dark flickered behind her eyes before she locked it down.
"Daxam," Alex repeated carefully. "You're claiming to be Daxamite?"
"Not claiming. Am."
"Interesting." Alex's tone suggested it was anything but. "The pod you arrived in was Kryptonian design. How does a Daxamite end up in a Kryptonian vessel?"
I could explain. The show had covered this—Mon-El's bodyguard stole the pod during Daxam's destruction, sacrificed himself to save the prince. But knowing that required admitting I knew things I shouldn't.
"I don't—" I started, then stopped. Frowned. Sold the confusion. "It's hazy. Pieces. The planet was dying. Someone put me in the pod. After that..."
"Convenient amnesia." Kara's voice cut like a blade. "Why am I not surprised?"
I met her gaze. Those blue eyes—familiar from screens, completely different in person. Sharper. More intense. No camera could capture the weight of intelligence behind them.
"I'm not your enemy."
"You're from the planet that waged war on mine for centuries. You'll forgive me if I don't take your word for it."
The hostility was expected. Kryptonians and Daxamites had history—ugly history. Ideological conflict that spanned generations. Her people saw mine as hedonistic slavers. My people—Mon-El's people—saw hers as self-righteous hypocrites.
Both sides had points. Neither was entirely wrong.
"The war ended," I said quietly. "Both planets are gone. Whatever happened between our people... does it matter now?"
Something flickered across Kara's face. Pain, maybe. Or recognition. She'd lost her world too. Knew what it meant to be the last of her kind.
Then her expression hardened again. Whatever vulnerability I'd glimpsed, she locked it away.
"Tell us what you remember. Everything."
I told them a story. Mostly true, carefully edited. Waking in the pod with alarms screaming. The crash. Crawling through wreckage. Sensory overload. Surrender.
I left out the part about dying in a different body on a different planet.
Alex asked detailed questions—timeline, personnel, technology. I answered what I could, deflected what I couldn't. The amnesia excuse bought me room to breathe, but I could see the skepticism in her eyes.
"We'll need to run additional tests," she said eventually. "Medical scans. Blood work. Verify you are what you claim."
"I understand."
She turned to leave. Kara didn't follow immediately.
"You're afraid," she said.
Not a question. An observation. I wondered if she had some Kryptonian ability I'd forgotten—emotion reading, maybe, or enhanced intuition.
"Terrified," I admitted. "Wouldn't you be?"
For a moment, her mask slipped. I saw the girl who'd crashed on a strange planet, alone and lost, clinging to a cousin who'd already grown up without her.
Then the mask returned.
"Don't give me a reason to be afraid of you," she said. "I won't ask twice."
She left without waiting for a response.
[DEO Headquarters, Medical Bay — Two Hours Later]
The tests were invasive but efficient. Blood draws. Tissue samples. Neural scans. A woman named Dr. Hamilton—human, professional, slightly nervous around alien patients—ran the equipment while armed guards watched from the corners.
I sat through it all with practiced stillness. The body didn't flinch at needles—too durable—but the psychological violation of being poked and prodded like a specimen wore on me.
"Blood composition is unusual," Hamilton murmured, studying her screen. "Similar to the Kryptonian samples we have on file, but not identical. Different metal binding properties. And this..."
She trailed off. Frowned.
"What?"
"Your cells. They're absorbing solar radiation even through the walls. Storing it." She looked up at me with scientific fascination barely concealed beneath professionalism. "How much stronger will you get?"
I thought about the show. Mon-El's power levels. Comparable to Kara once fully charged, but starting from a deficit after years in deep space.
"I don't know," I said honestly. "I feel... hungry. Like there's an engine inside me that needs fuel."
"The yellow sun," Hamilton said, nodding. "Kryptonian physiology works the same way. Except—" she checked her readings again "—your absorption rate is different. Faster in some ways, but less efficient. You're wasting about seventy percent of what you take in."
New body. New abilities. Learning curve.
Made sense.
The door opened. J'onn J'onzz entered, and the temperature in the room dropped several degrees.
The Martian Manhunter wore human guise—dark skin, sharp features, the kind of face that could be friendly or terrifying depending on his mood. Right now, it was carefully neutral. He carried a tablet with what I assumed were Hamilton's preliminary results.
"Leave us," he said.
Hamilton and the guards filed out without protest. The door sealed behind them.
J'onn studied me for a long moment. I had the uncomfortable sensation of being seen—not just observed, but seen, in some deeper sense. Martians were telepathic. If he pushed, would he discover the truth? That the consciousness piloting this body wasn't the original occupant?
"You're not what you seem," he said finally.
My stomach dropped. "I'm not—"
"Daxamite." He said the word like it tasted bitter. "The blood work confirms it. Your cellular structure is distinct from Kryptonian, but clearly related. A cousin species, as we suspected."
Relief flooded through me so intensely I nearly laughed.
"I wasn't lying."
"No." J'onn set the tablet aside. "But you're not telling the whole truth either. I can sense it. There's something about you that doesn't... fit."
I thought about the body I wore. The soul that was supposed to inhabit it. Somewhere, in whatever cosmic bureaucracy governed these things, Mon-El's original consciousness had been displaced or destroyed when I arrived.
Was that murder? Theft? Accident?
"I don't understand everything that's happening to me," I said slowly, choosing each word with care. "I woke up in that pod with no clear memory of how I got there. My planet is gone. My people are dead. And now I'm here, in a place that's alien to me in every possible way, being treated like a threat."
J'onn's expression didn't change, but something in his posture softened marginally.
"I know what it means to lose a world," he said. "To be the last of your kind. It doesn't make you trustworthy. But it does make you understandable."
"I'm not asking for trust. Not yet. Just... a chance to prove I'm not your enemy."
He considered this. Behind those human eyes, I sensed the ancient Martian intellect processing, weighing, deciding.
"Kara doesn't trust you. The Daxamite history makes that difficult for her."
"I know."
"Alex is suspicious by nature. She'll look for any excuse to lock you away permanently."
"I know that too."
"And me?" J'onn stepped closer. "I've seen civilizations rise and fall. I've watched good people become monsters and monsters become martyrs. I don't trust anyone immediately. But I try to be fair."
He held out his hand. Not for a handshake—for a different kind of contact.
"May I?"
My heart hammered. If he read my mind, he'd see everything. The car crash. The show. The knowledge of things that hadn't happened yet. The transmigration.
But refusing would confirm his suspicions.
I placed my hand in his.
The touch was brief. A brush of consciousness against consciousness. I felt him at the edges of my mind—gentle, probing, not invasive but definitely present.
He pulled back.
"Interesting," he murmured. "Your thoughts are... fragmented. Disorganized. Consistent with trauma and memory loss." He paused. "Or very sophisticated mental shielding."
"It's not shielding."
"I didn't say it was." J'onn released my hand. "I said it's interesting."
He gathered his tablet and moved toward the door.
"You'll remain in containment for now. We'll conduct additional tests. Determine the full extent of your abilities and limitations. Once we have a complete picture, we'll discuss next steps."
"And until then?"
J'onn looked back over his shoulder. "Don't give us reasons to consider you a threat, Mon-El of Daxam. The universe has enough of those already."
The door closed behind him.
I sat alone in the medical bay, listening to my heartbeat—too strong, too slow—and wondering how long I could keep the truth hidden.
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