Chapter One

My name didn’t matter. What mattered was what I stood for. This reality had the unfortunate event of the superhero serum becoming a thing. That thing was open to the public of Haven City. Not for free, but those who could afford it--and survive the process--were awarded superpowers. They were forced to be army reserves should the planet ever find itself under attack from aliens.

Well, they came. The aliens came. And they left their mark on the lives of several civilians, including my little brother. I was working two jobs everyday of the week to give him a better life than I had growing up, but the heroes were careless with the invasion. As many as there were, none were enough to get the citizens out of the city in time and everyone in my apartment building, including my little brother, lost their lives due to a stray beam of energy. 

The worst part was the reason. Why would the aliens come down to invade a planet that housed a rapidly evolving species? Haven City in particular? They wanted to test where humans were as far as evolution. Glorified. Fucking. Sparring partners. And the heroes didn’t give a shit who was hurt in the process, so long as they got to stretch their legs and use their abilities without consequence. 

Once my brother died, I believed it was my mission to end it. My belief was reinforced once I survived the serum. Though, as far as I’m concerned, my original self died with the serum process. I was reborn.

“Amaia Luther?”

I sat in the hospital, having already signed my life away on the waiver. I wasn’t scared of losing my life to the process. If it didn’t work, then it wasn’t meant to be. The only thing on my mind was ridding the world of the hero problem. 

“Ms. Luther?”

I stood up and walked past the nurse into the hallway, then waited for her to walk past me so I could follow her to the operating room. 

Two other people were waiting for me in the dim, dank room. Dr. Daichi and his bodyguard, Arkillery. His ridiculous name matched his ridiculous look. Blue spiked hair with dark blue eyes to match. A green tank top that matched a breathing apparatus on his face and green and white fully cybernetic arms. 

The doctor could not look more evil if he tried. Bald. Glasses that always seemed to be reflecting light so I couldn’t see his eyes. A stubble that he probably didn’t shave too often from being too into his work. Creating monsters. And a deep voice with a slight Japanese accent that had a sinister undertone. 

“Welcome, Ms. Luther,” the doctor said as the nurse, closed the door and locked all four of us in the room. “Please lie down on the operating table.”

It was cold as any metal bed or table. I realized these were the same things used to cart around dead bodies. Subtle. I was strapped down, my arms held on one side by Arkillery. The other by the nurse I would get to briefly know as Addison. She had a cybernetic left hand, but unlike Arkillery, it only went up to her elbow. It was of a different design too, so I imagined their functions differed. 

“This part won’t hurt at all, Ms. Luther,” Daichi said, bringing out a large needle with shiny, gold liquid in it. “Unless you are afraid of needles.”

I didn’t respond. He was obviously trying to banter. Possibly in an attempt to make me comfortable. There’s no reality in which I would be entirely comfortable with what I was doing. He injected the liquid into my bloodstream and they sat me up, walking me over to a chamber in the room. 

“This…may hurt,” the doctor told me. It was an understatement. The three locked me in the chamber and backed away, stepping behind a panel that was made to activate it. Daichi pressed a few buttons and pulled a couple of levers and the chamber lit up. 

It felt like being inside of a microwave. Like my blood was boiling. I was almost sure I would explode and they'd have to clean the chamber of my remains. I dropped to my knees, screaming my head off. My knees were now bleeding. Everything got louder, brighter. As soon as I began to wonder when it would end, the lights shut off and the chamber opened, hissing and letting steam cloud the room. 

“Congratulations on surviving the process,” Daichi said to me as I approached him with my head down. I noticed Arkillery and Addison take protective stances, but he waved them off. A poor mistake as I grabbed Daichi by his throat and lifted him. The two cyborgs went to dash at me, but my words stopped them.

“Ah, ah, ah,” I said. “You have no idea what I’m capable of. If you want your precious doctor to live, back the fuck up. Now.”

They stayed in their stances, but had no choice but to abide by my words, taking a few steps back. I looked up at Daichi. In his glasses, I could see my eyes were now glowing a light blue, some sort of steam or smoke escaping from them. From a guttural feeling I was getting, I had an idea on what it could be. 

“You were the one that originally invented this serum, right Daichi?” I questioned. He grasped at my wrist. Pitiful effort to escape. Just because of that, I tightened my grip around his throat. “Answer.”

“What...What gave you that idea?” he said.

“The news. I was paying attention to it when it first came out,” I explained. “Then the fuckers wouldn’t shut up about it for the next few weeks.”

“I...Yes, I invented it. This is the newest version,” he said. I guess he thought the more information he gave me, the more likely I’d spare him. “I had worked on previous versions before. But this is by far the safest it’s been. Doctor Watts’s is not ready.”

“There’s another serum out there?”

“Watts’s is…the only other one I am aware of,” he said.

“Where can I find him?”

“His lab. It’d be easier just to look it up.”

“Cool. Thanks for this. This is the beginning of something…” I squeezed, but I didn’t need to put in much effort to make his eyes pop. It wasn’t only my super strength that accomplished the job. Black-colored ice creeped out of his eye sockets which confirmed my suspicion that what was escaping from my eyes was sheer cold. I was granted the power to generate and control black ice among other abilities. I wasn’t afraid of what the cyborgs were capable of because I had already noticed my knees had healed from when I fell in the chamber. 

“Revolutionary,” I finished saying. I was amused by the horrified looks of Addison and Arkillery gazing upon their dead doctor’s body. But Arkillery’s look switched to one of murderous intent swiftly as his cybernetic arms turned into swords. He dashed at me with what I assumed was some form of enhanced speed, but from my point of view, he looked slow. I chalked “super speed” up on the list of superpowers I was granted by the dead doctor’s serum. 

I let Arkillery slash at me with fruitless effort as I dodged each and every attack. The poor fucker even tried switching to other weapons in his arsenal: chainsaws, axes, hammers, and even bats. Once I had had enough, I grabbed one of his arms and let black ice seep from my palm. He stepped back, shouting in pain as the ice crept across his arm and stopped at the shoulder as he chopped it off. The black ice had the burning sensation of fire, but the physical properties of normal ice. Perhaps stronger. 

“I’LL KILL YOU!” he shouted. 

“That’s cute,” I said as I lifted my hand, creating a spike of ice beneath him, skewering his body through his lower back and out through his forehead. A mix of oil and dark red blood dripped from his body and the sight of his body frightened Addison further. 

I knew this battle wouldn't be the height of my fights to come as they weren’t any of the actual registered superheroes or “Nobles”, as society called them. 

“Your turn,” I told Addison. 

“P-Please don’t kill me,” she begged as I approached her. I smiled at her, flashing my teeth, giving her no answer. She looked over at Daichi’s body. “You...you killed my brother…”

How poetic.

I raised a hand to drive it through her chest and into her heart, but backed into a corner, she whipped out a secret weapon, a mechanical tail she was hiding in the back of her pants. She shot it out at me and managed to only scrape my cheek, before reeling it back and sending a plasma blast in my direction. I decided to take a chance and raised an ice wall to block the attack. It worked. And to finish the little skirmish, I pressed my palm into the back of the wall and let spikes shoot out the other side. 

I heard a few piercing sounds, followed by the sound of Addison taking her last breath. I lowered the wall and saw the cyborg’s mangled body engraved into the wall. I smirked and sauntered out, headed to my next destination: the lab of the second serum.