Chapter 1: Prologue: A Dark World (2/2)

People with h the skies faster than jets, lift entire buildings, engulf entire cities in flaical wonders only seen in the realm of science fiction films

All of these powers carowths that would coans

With the mass spread of powers, chaos and turoverne new pheno before particularly powerful Altered individuals sought to use their powers to rule the world around them Naturally, other Altered individuals rose up to e-old conflict between villains and heroes

Clashes between heroes and villains left the world in mass disarray So for peace in the world and for huress Others saw their newfound powers and believed the a piece of the world for themselves Still others, driven th, became little more than unpredictable forces of nature

Yet, it is telling that this period of hue of Villains', for ainst the heroes

For alht and triumphed and won and lost in cycles, but no side could ever triumph, and the endless conflict made many believe the world was to break under its pressure

Major governlobal nuclear annihilation came and went Countless ence of those developing powers far beyond even all others

Superhus that shone shoulders and heads above even ordinary Alterhue, unenhanced hu these ht who donned the first proper costu to superhero tradition that previously was only in the doth, he brought peace bit by bit to the world, for no villain could ever challenge hiuard ended the Age of Villains in 2040 by striking down Zahak, the htiest villain of all whose power to freely take, manipulate, and alter powers made him worth a thousand Alterhumans by himself

Yet, Zahak's death was not the end of it

When Zahak fell, quite literally, into the depths of the earth, some say a volcano, others say a fissure or even an underwater trench, so in him, perhaps it was the stolen powers of countlesswith the earth itself

Froinning of the greatest crisis known to

Monsters known as Variants e with the planet, and soon, they proliferated around the entire world, spawning from the dirt or seas with unique powers of their own

In atte to beat back the Variants, heroes and villains alike had to band together, and in the end, after ten grueling years, the strongest Variants were beaten back to a few select deep rifts in the world, though the threat of variants spontaneously spawning all across the world never truly ended

The Monstering left humanity with just half its populace and le to survive becaether, huency was forulate supers, and the Panopticon, a coalition of technology-oriented Alterhuress and developanizations, societies restructured in the new and harsh world

World governain, and a sense of normalcy returned

Now, fifty years later, at the turn of 2100, the start of yet another monumental century of human, no, superhuman history, the world seems to ruuard's disappearance in 2090 catalyzed a return of villainy that only ever simmered beneath the public eye

But now, cri advantage of Vanguard's absence

On top of this, Variant spawning rates have accelerated dangerously, as if sensing Vanguard's loss, threatening cities all across the world at a rate not seen since the Monstering began

This is the world where Aldrich was born into

A dark world full ofvillains without any powers of his own Though, as he would find out later, he would not be so powerless after all