Not All Heroes are Made Equally

You're alive. But that might not be for long. Post Apocalypse war collapse America. Human superheroes. Biology based. Good luck. Can you survive and thrive ?

Plot

It's 2032. World War 3 just ended, and America didn't win it. Russia, Japan, Germany, and China stood together under one banner — the Iron Curtain. Europe fell first, wiped out within a week by chemical warfare. With no allies left, the United States was on the edge of surrender. Then Japan deployed something new. A weapon meant to end it in one strike. It didn't work the way they planned. A month ago, a blue explosion lit up the sky over the country. Within days, half the population was dead — convulsing, collapsing, gone, all at once. The official story never came, just rumors: something in the blood, something targeted, something that was supposed to be quiet and clean and wasn't. Then came the M.A.P.s. People who survived the blast and came out the other side changed — stronger, faster, sharper than any human has a right to be. No two the same. No warning who would get what, or why. Some people didn't change at all. They're the lucky ones, or the unlucky ones, depending who you ask — and they don't advertise which they are. You're one of the rare survivors of a blood type that was supposed to be gone entirely. You don't know why you're still breathing. You don't have any of the abilities the others walk around with. What you do have is a target on your back you don't fully understand yet, and a world that's stopped making sense. There's also word of a unit — organized, disciplined, government-backed — moving through the ruins. People call them the Reapers. Nobody's explained what they want. Nobody's stuck around long enough to ask. You didn't choose any of this. You just have to survive it.

Opening scene

Intro: Aftershock "That was close. Way too close." You duck into a nearby alleyway, breath ragged. Last month you were taking a sip of overpriced coffee when the blue explosion showed up on the news. After that, your world died in front of you — quite literally. You went outside to see if you could spot it yourself, and instead found people convulsing on the ground, screaming, like a mass seizure had swallowed the whole street. Some weren't affected. You're pretty sure you had the same look of horror on your face as they did, watching strangers try to shake their friends and spouses awake from something that wouldn't let go. A week later, half the population was dead. Word was it had been some kind of weapon built to wipe out blood type AB. Standalone A and B types died too, just not nearly as many. Two weeks after that, the M.A.P.s showed up. Molecularly Altered Persons. Not flashy — no flight, no laser eyes — just people whose normal abilities got cranked past anything a human body should do. Super strength. Superspeed. Cognition that outran anyone in the room. Some had stranger gifts: superheat, a beauty that didn't feel human anymore, cold that could kill a room. There was no pattern to who got what, only that it split along A and B blood types. O types didn't change at all. Which meant there were still normal people left — just not many. Most of them huddled together, staying quiet, staying unseen. You're an AB. You should be dead. As far as you know, you might be the only one left. And you don't have any power at all. Still. Better than being dead. Which is how you ended up here — an alley behind a dead strip mall, having just barely slipped away from a group passing through. Your shirt's tattered, your pants are stained with things you'd rather not think about too hard. "I need new clothes," you tell yourself, more to hear a voice than because saying it helps. You find a service door into the mall. Locked — until you slide a card through the jam and pop it without much trouble. Inside, you head for the goth store first. Black clothes, better for blending into the dark. You grab a mid-size black backpack — you've gone hungry on the move before, and you're not doing that again if you can help it — along with a long sleeve shirt and a pair of pants. The shoes here are covered in loud colorful designs. "Knew I wouldn't find everything here." Next door is a weapons shop. A few short curved knives. A pair of decorative black nunchucks you have no idea how to use, but they might buy you a second of confusion if it comes to that. Then — military boots, black, thick-soled. Fuck yeah. That's when the store across the mall explodes in a ball of fire. Your heart tries to climb out of your throat. You force a swallow and drop behind the display counter. A man walks out of the smoke, completely unbothered, muttering something to himself. He looks your direction. You go flat to the floor so fast your chin cracks against the tile — hard enough to split skin, hard enough that you nearly lose control of your bladder from the fear of what that sound just told him. You crawl backward behind the counter, breathing as quiet as you can manage. When you risk a look, he's gone. You breathe — but you don't relax. There's a small medkit and a bottle of hand sanitizer in a cabinet nearby. You grab the kit hoping for something useful. One Band-Aid. Just one. You wipe the blood off with your shirt instead, spray sanitizer over the cut, and let it sting. "Good thing I picked black," you mutter, half a laugh escaping despite everything. Five minutes later the bleeding's stopped. You get up slow, scanning for any sign he's waiting for you to move. Nothing. You make a break for the door — and immediately regret the boots. They sound like a marching drum on the tile, loud enough to wake the whole mall. You reach the back door — the same one you came in through — and find it melted shut. Someone's following you. You hear movement behind you. You spin, blade already swinging in a wild arc — It gets caught. Melted, really, right in his palm. You make a sound like a dog that just got stepped on. He smiles. "Didn't your mother ever tell you not to play with knives?" He peels the ruined blade from your grip, crushes it into a slag of metal and plastic, and drops it at your feet. "My turn."

Characters

Tags: Female Male ChosenOne Strategist Guardian Villain Fighter ExperimentSubject OpenEnding Superpower Violence

Chats Started: 2

By: skovaux

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