"Wyvern," Marcus corrected. "Level 140, domesticated. Your mother wanted peacocks. I insisted on something with better security applications."
The wyvern—because of course they had a pet wyvern—lounged on a platform of crystallized air, occasionally breathing smoke rings that formed stock tickers. Its collar alone could have funded a small nation's military budget.
They passed through the Atrium into the Family Wing, where the real money started showing. The hallway was lined with portraits, but these weren't paintings.
Each frame contained a pocket dimension where the subject existed in perpetual motion—ancestors perpetually frozen in their moments of greatest triumph. Great-great-grandfather Luther Cross strangling his first Level 100 monster. Great-aunt Patricia (same name as the Aunt Patricia) discovering how to crystallize shadow.
"Your portrait's being updated," Marcus mentioned casually. "From null readings to Apex Grade. The artist is having a nervous breakdown. Apparently, the paint keeps trying to 'escape'." Whatever that meant.
They passed the Casual Dining Room (only sat forty), the Lesser Ballroom (for gatherings under two hundred), and the Children's Combat Arena (where young Luther Crosses learned that second place meant second class). Each room was a testament to wealth so absurd it circled back to almost making sense.
But it was the power infrastructure that really set the estate apart.
Every surface was infused with Genesis Energy conduits. The walls themselves could amplify abilities, turning a Level 50's attack into something resembling Level 80 output. The security system included tamed specters, quantum encryption, and at least one entity that technically didn't exist but still collected a salary.
"The family's gathering in the Fortune Hall," Marcus said as they approached double doors made from crystallized space-time. "Fair warning—it's been renovated since you were last there."
"How renovated?"
"Your mother added a direct gate connection to her favorite shopping dimension. Also, the floor now shows real-time net worth calculations for everyone standing on it."
"Of course it does."
Marcus paused before opening the doors. "Remember, these people spent seventeen years calling you worthless. They're about to learn that net worth isn't just about money."
"No," Jayden agreed, electricity dancing between his fingers. "Sometimes it's about reminding people that worth can be measured in voltage too including you, dear father."
The doors swung open, revealing forty-three relatives arranged like a tribunal of genetic superiority. The Fortune Hall lived up to its name—the floor literally displayed numbers that shifted with market fluctuations, showing each person's contribution to the family empire.
Under Jayden's feet, the numbers went crazy, calculating and recalculating as they tried to quantify Apex Grade potential in dollar signs.
Every eye turned to him. Aunts who'd whispered. Cousins who'd laughed. Uncles who'd suggested creative disposal methods.
"Family," Marcus announced, his smile sharp as shadow, "look what evolution dragged in."
The silence was worth more than everything in the room combined.
Welcome home, indeed.
The silence lasted exactly three point seven seconds. Jayden knew because his speedster perception made every microsecond feel like a small eternity of barely contained violence.
But first, before the politics and power plays, came the universal human reaction to unexpected beauty.
"Holy shit," someone whispered—Cousin Sophie, probably. "Is that really—"
"He's..." Aunt Clarissa, his mother's sister, actually dropped her wine glass. It shattered on the fortune floor, each shard reflecting a different angle of what Jayden had become.
Even Uncle Harrison, mid-preparation for his dismissive tirade, stopped with his mouth half-open. The seventeen-year-old cripple they remembered—soft, bitter, unremarkable—was gone. In his place stood something that looked like it had been carved from lightning and sex appeal.
"Fuck me," Cousin Rebecca muttered, then blushed furiously when she realized she'd said it out loud. Her boyfriend glared.
Even Melody, for all her preparation to hate him, couldn't stop her wings from fluttering—the involuntary response she'd always mocked others for.
He was so hot~
Then Harrison's brain caught up with his eyes, and seventeen years of contempt overrode basic human appreciation.
"This is ridiculous." His voice carried the same dismissive tone he'd used for seventeen years. "We're supposed to believe this family cripple suddenly manifested Apex Grade? Marcus, what kind of stock manipulation scheme—"
"The aura's wrong," Cousin Amelia muttered, squinting at him like he was a bad stock option. "One second it feels like Level 30, then 25, then—what the fuck?"
"It's jumping all over," Uncle Geoffrey agreed, sweat beading on his forehead. "That's not how power works. It doesn't just fluctuate like a fucking heartbeat."
"You're looking at fraud." Aunt Patricia's shadows writhed with indignation. "Nobody jumps from null to that in two weeks and looks so hot like he's now from the disgrace we once knew. It's biologically impossible."
"Unless Marcus paid for it." This from board member Catherine Walsh. "Gene therapy? Stolen enhancement serums? We all know the lengths you'd go to for the stock price—"
"The stock price," Marcus interrupted smoothly, "has already jumped twelve percent on rumors alone. Imagine what it'll do with confirmation."
"So you ADMIT this is about money!" Harrison stood, the floor beneath him cracking with his agitation. "You parade this—this actor in here, probably hired from central casting—"
"I'm standing right here you know," Jayden said mildly, electricity dancing between his fingers.
Half the room flinched. The other half scoffed.
"Voice modulators can do that light show," Cousin Derek sneered. He'd spent years making sure Jayden knew the pecking order. "Any amateur with a Tesla coil could—"
"The sensors don't lie," Amelia insisted, but her voice wavered. "Though the readings make no sense. It's like trying to measure a lightning strike with a thermometer."
"Because it's FAKE!" Aunt Patricia's shadows lashed out, stopping just short of Jayden's space. "Marcus finally found a way to forge sensor readings. Probably cost billions, but what's money compared to removing the family shame?"
The younger generation was starting to shift nervously. Cousin Sophie—always kind when no one was watching—bit her lip. "But what if it's real?"
"Then he can't just walk back in!" Melody finally spoke, her wings flaring with agitation. "I've been here. I've been training. I've been preparing to lead this family while he was playing with cars and pretending to matter!"
"Your preparation is noted," Adrian said dryly, flames flickering around his hands. "All those memorial service plans must have been exhausting."
"Fuck you, Adrian. At least I didn't throw tantrums at Father like a child."
"Children," Victoria's light pulsed warningly, but even she looked uncertain, her glow fluctuating as she studied her youngest son.
The board members were already on their phones, voices overlapping:
"—need to halt trading immediately—"
"—liability if this is exposed as fraud—"
"—but if it's real, the implications for succession—"
"ENOUGH!" Uncle Harrison's shout came with a localized earthquake that rattled the chandeliers. "I don't care what the sensors say. I don't care what light tricks he can perform. That boy" —he pointed at Jayden like identifying garbage— "was certified null for seventeen years. Tested annually. Confirmed powerless by the best geneticists money could buy."
"Maybe the geneticists were wrong," Jayden suggested, his voice carrying that speedster hum that made reality skip.
"Wrong? WRONG?" Harrison's face purpled. "Do you have any idea what we spent? What we endured? The Sterling family laughing at every gala? The Voughts suggesting we check the mailman's genetics? And now you waltz in here—"
"Waltz is generous," Jayden interrupted. "It's more of a speedster's glide."
Derek stepped forward, power building. "You think this is funny? You think you can just—"
"Derek, no!" someone shouted, but it was too late.
Derek launched a kinetic blast meant to knock Jayden on his ass. Prove the fraud. Establish dominance. Show everyone that the cripple was still a cripple.
Jayden didn't move. Instead lightining hummed and am invisible field was created when he vibrated.
The blast hit his lightning field and dispersed like water hitting a bug zapper. Energy sparkled harmlessly around him, leaving him completely untouched.
The room erupted.
"He blocked it!"
"That was a serious attack!"
"Defensive fields that strong—"
"It's still fake somehow!"
"But how do you fake that?"
Aunt Patricia's shadows surged forward. "Enough games! If he's real, he can handle this!"
"Patricia, stand down!" Marcus commanded, but she was beyond listening.
Her shadows wrapped around Jayden like living chains. "Let's see your lightning work when you can't move, fake nephew."
Jayden looked down at the shadows binding him. Then up at Patricia. His smile was all teeth and static.
"Okay."
He didn't break the shadows. He didn't fight them. He just... stopped being solid where they held him. His body flickered between states, partially phasing as electricity found the spaces between shadow.
"What—NO!" Patricia poured more power in, but it was like trying to hold lightning with a net. "That's impossible! You can't just—"
That's when eight-year-old Timmy—someone's kid, Jayden couldn't track all the spawn—wandered too close. Patricia's wild shadow whip, meant for Jayden, swept toward the child instead.
Time slowed in Jayden's perception.
The shadow whip moving at normal speed looked like it was swimming through molasses. The child's eyes widening in slow motion. The nearest adults too far away, too slow, too late.
Jayden moved.
To everyone else, he simply vanished from Patricia's shadows and appeared holding Timmy, ten feet away. To Jayden, it was a careful dance of phasing through shadow, solidifying just enough to grab the kid, then accelerating them both to safety.
He set Timmy down gently. "You okay, buddy?"
The kid nodded, eyes wide. "You're fast like the Flash!"
"Faster," Jayden corrected, then looked at Patricia. "Want to try again? Maybe aim better this time?"
The room exploded into chaos.