|Weak Hero| Weaktober 2022

Day 14: Nuclear

As a baby, he had been thrown into a vat of toxic waste at a nuclear power plant. His birth parents had never wanted him so they thought throwing him into the vat would dissolve his body and erase all the evidence.

But he survived. The members of the cleaning crew had witnessed the attempted murder, pulled him out of the toxic waste, restrained his birth parents. They quickly washed the chemicals off of him, but damage had already been done.

His body had changed. The changes hadn't been immediate, but rather started to prominently show after a month. He had stronger durability, stamina, speed, and strength. The nuclear waste had turned him into a superhuman.

Growing up, he had been raised as a weapon. At four years old, one of the scientists along with the help of the same cleaning crew as before, helped him escape. They gave him a new identity and he was adopted by a distant relative of one of the cleaning crew.

His new name was Jeremy Park.

Jeremy, who moved to Korea with his family, hid his powers. It was mostly out of fear of being caught and his family being used as hostages against him. But it was also because he wanted to live a normal life.

At Byuksan Middle School, Jeremy witnessed a whole lot of bullying. Sometimes he was the victim too. With his enhanced durability, he didn't even feel their hits, but he pretended to be a weakling.

In his third year, Jeremy saw Oswald Yang and Bryce Oh bullying Stephen and Gray. He was the only one in their class that didn't speak ill of them in the class group chat Bryce had created. The only reason Jeremy had joined was because they would know if he wasn't a part of the chat and then he'd be targeted too.

Still...Jeremy had seen how Stephen was genuinely kind and caring of others. He was a good guy and didn't deserve to suffer like this. Jeremy managed to reveal the chat's existence to Gray, but was too afraid to do anything else.

He had the strength to beat all of the bullies up, but Jeremy was terrified. He was afraid he might overdo it and accidentally kill someone. He was afraid that his family would suffer the backlash from Oswald Yang's father. He was afraid that he'd become the new target.

For a while, Jeremy was just a bystander.

However, when Jeremy overheard Oswald and his gang forcing Stephen to the roof, Jeremy had a bad feeling and followed them. When he heard Oswald order Stephen to stand on the ledge, intending to instill fear into him, Jeremy's body acted on his own and he burst through the doors.

"Leave Stephen alone!" 

"Jeremy!?" Stephen exclaimed.

"Huh? Who's this loser?" Oswald asked.

'Why am I helping?' "I said," Jeremy took a step towards them. 'I wanted to live a peaceful life,' "Leave Stephen alone, you bullies!"

The first punch was thrown and Jeremy easily dodged it. He threw his own punch, purposefully holding back so he wouldn't deal a fatal blow. He let Oswald, Bryce, and that unnamed third bully get a few hits in but he fought back and soon, he had defeated all three of them.

Oswald tried to get Jeremy punished. But to everyone's shock, more people began reporting Oswald and his gang. They even brought their parents, the police, and even the press! Jeremy, someone who everyone had thought was just a weak nerd, had inspired the rest of the school to stand up against Oswald Yang.

This was the toughest prompt to write about but I decided to go with nuclear waste and nuclear revenge.