Not Your Hero Jackson

At Jackson Easton Prep, Derik Jackson is the kind of Black boy adults brag about.

Valedictorian. College‑ready. Always polite, always careful. He knows exactly how he's supposed to move through the world-don't linger, don't talk back, don't give anyone a reason to see him as dangerous.

Then a routine stop at a discount store ends with reality...tilting.

The lights hum too loud. The air tastes like metal. For a heartbeat, the world bends around him-and something bends back.

An unseen star over his house flares white‑hot. A wrong‑shaped figure behind glass whispers, Found you. And a presence slides into his thoughts like a blade made of light.

Lumin is not human. Lumin remembers a network of shared minds stretching between stars-and the moment the U.S. government cut one of those minds out and locked it under white lights. Lumin remembers Derik's baby hands reaching for the glass.

As Derik's powers spike from awkward glitches to city‑wide surges, two truths slam together:

There is no clean line between being Black, queer, and alien. He has always been "other."
The people who built the facility don't want a person back. They want their weapon.
With his sister Hana staging the world's gayest graduation party in the backyard and federal eyes turning toward his neighborhood, Derik has to decide what kind of myth he's willing to become.

Government asset. Grinning superhero. Silent victim.

Or something entirely his own.