Beyond the Limit [DC fanfic]

Joseph Bell woke up with clenched fists, frustration gripping him like iron chains. The remnants of another nightmare clung to his mind, heavy and suffocating. Anger simmered beneath the surface, a familiar and almost welcome force. It was easier than fear. Fear made him feel small—helpless. Anger gave him something to fight with.

The dreams had started months ago, and every night had been a battlefield. They weren't just nightmares; they were twisted reminders of what had been done to him. Each time, he fought back. Each time, he won. But victory never brought peace—only exhaustion and the bitter realization that sleep had become another fight for survival.

His waking life wasn't much better. He had tried talking to his mom once, but after weeks of sleepless nights, they both knew it was futile. No one would believe him—not with the truth buried beneath corporate files and legal loopholes. LexCorp would never pay for what they had done. That was just the way things were.

Joseph distracted himself with a video on his cheap smartphone—Superman versus Metallo. He wasn't usually into superhero fights, but this one had caught his interest. The villain disturbed the peace, and the hero violently restored it. He watched in awe, wondering what it would be like to wield that kind of power. If he had strength and speed like that, maybe things would have been different. 

His mother, Mary Bell, lay asleep on the couch, exhausted from another late shift as a trucker. The alarm on her phone rang, barely stirring her.

"Mom," Joseph called gently.

She groaned, forcing her eyes open. "Mmm?"

"If you don't sleep in your bed, you're gonna hurt your back."

She chuckled sleepily. "I'll go next time. What's wrong?"

"Can you drop me off at my school?"

"Yeah, just give me a minute." She yawned and stretched, moving sluggishly to the bathroom.

Joseph flipped on the TV. The news blared another grim update:

"—Joker has escaped from Arkham Asylum in a terri—"

His jaw clenched. How many times was this lunatic going to break free? How many more people had to suffer before Gotham got its act together?

Mary returned, rubbing her eyes. "Alright, let's go."

"You know, you don't have to work so late," Joseph muttered. "I can help with expenses."

Mary sighed, pulling him into a hug. "No, son. You shouldn't even be working. You're only fifteen. Just focus on your studies, okay?"

Joseph pulled away, his chest tight. She never let him help. She never let him take on even a fraction of the burden she carried alone.

"Whatever. Let's just go."

**

That tonight's gonna be a good, good night. A feelin', woo-hoo—

Joseph barely had time to react. A glint of metal in his peripheral vision. A battered van pulling up beside them, gang insignia emblazoned on its side.

Firearms. Heavy machine guns. Assault rifles.

Shards of glass erupted as a rocket slammed into the vehicle ahead. The truck—marked with STAR Labs' insignia—flipped wildly.

They were headed straight for it.

Then—darkness.

**

Paramedics blurred past him. Joseph's vision swam as he caught sight of his mother's overturned van, smoke curling into the sky. He tried to move—tried to reach her—but his body refused to obey.

His breath was ragged. Blood and some unknown chemicals filled his mouth.

He couldn't breathe. He couldn't think. Death loomed as unconsciousness took hold.

Yet, even as his body failed him, LexCorp's twisted experiments still haunted his mind. The "vaccin" forced upon him—their so-called cure—was still in his veins, still rewriting his biology. He wasn't just a victim. He was their experiment.

But Joseph Bell was no one's pawn.

"If you want to kill me, LexCorp," he vowed through the pain, "then come and try."

He didn't know how he would win. But he would.

LexCorp had turned his body into a battlefield of hidden subroutines and lethal protocols. The experimental vaccine they had forced on him monitored his every move, waiting for him to slip. But Joseph had spent years outmaneuvering them, hacking his own biology with nothing but instinct and desperation. Now, with death creeping in, he had only one option left.

Run.

He had always been fast—faster than their puzzles, faster than their control. Now, he had to be faster than death itself.

Somewhere deep in his mind, the barriers that kept him shackled began to crack. He wasn't sure if it was adrenaline, fate, or something greater, but he felt it—a surge of raw speed, beyond anything he had ever known.

He ran.

Through the digital maze LexCorp had built inside him, through the firewalls meant to keep him leashed. Every equation, every failsafe they had implanted in him, blurred past. The AI meant to control him couldn't keep up.

Then—he broke through.

A vast yellow expanse unfolded before him. It wasn't just data. It wasn't just code. It was something else. A force beyond logic, beyond science. A place where speed, thought, and reality itself bent to his will.

Two figures stood before him—one was himself, shrouded in pure speed. The other was an intruder, a blocky, fragmented AI guardian sent by LexCorp, bound in chains of corrupted data.

Joseph didn't hesitate. The force was running out. He reached out, rewriting its core protocols in an instant. The AI disintegrated, merging into him, forming a helmet of shifting voxels around his head. The newfound processing power flooded his mind, running infinite calculations in the blink of an eye.

He saw the path. He saw the future. For a single moment, he saw the speed force.

Then—

Darkness.