Preface: A World Oppressed

The Strange War was a confusing time for the world, not just in governance as Olympius was divided from its colonies, but the sudden emergence of gifted in mass quantities during the destruction created internal strife and chaos that no country could ignore. Crime rates rose as super powers were utilized to serve individuals that were struggling immensely or had experienced great losses, which forced the war to end without a proper victor. This period of instability following the Strange War was an equally complex one, taking place during the late 60s all the way to the early 2000s. For this document, the primary focus will be Minerva and its methods for dealing with the rise of deviant criminals and how the appearance of “conditions” was handled by the government.

In the 60s, the Minervan government backed out of the Strange War in order to resolve the deviant crisis, with propaganda associating the appearance of deviants in relation to the war against Renastursia. This was able to put out the immediate fires, but all that did was delay the smoking cinders out of sight from setting the whole forest ablaze. In order to actually deal with the problem, the government started a nationwide initiative investing in private investigators, geneticists, police departments and the FBI in order to create a group that would look into and detain deviants for study and containment: Deviant United Protection, aka the DUP.

The DUP conducted investigations with various degrees of success, with none so effective as Galvero, the capital city of Minerva, which brought about an iron noose that wiped out most if not all deviant presence in the area. Unbeknownst to the public, the government was not interested in fully eliminating the presence of conditions but rather the understanding and weaponization of them. This was even present in the DUP itself, as many deviants were given reduced sentences or volunteer positions in the DUP to help hunt down their fellow people. Behind closed doors, human experimentation to understand superpowers, referred to as “conditions” was underway as well, taking place over decades.

It was this experimentation that led the deviants not only to fear the government and DUP, but resent them. As the scales balanced and it appeared as though deviants had been fully suppressed, victims of the experimentation were no longer willing to tolerate the inhumane mistreatment and torture that had been executed in order to “understand what was wrong with them.” The pot had boiled over, and decades of torment came back to bite everyone, even those unwitting to the suffering of the deviants.

Chapter 1: The House of Steel

September 16th, 2002- The Fall of the DUP and Galvero

A man by the name of Adam Westworth was taken in by the DUP due to a tip off from a non-deviant that he had a condition. They looked into the matter and, discovering its truth, they took him in for testing and analysis. The nature of Adam’s gift was highly destructive, and the government wanted to use it to the best of their ability. It had the power to disintegrate people who come into contact with his body, and in the interest of utilizing this power for warfare and espionage, the DUP higher ups and the Minervan government approved him for “rehabilitation surgery.” He was then skinned, with sections of his skin being used in order to create 20 bullets which (not including those used for prototypes) could instantly kill anymore they made contact with. This butchering of a person, and the grief and trauma that spawned from it solidified Adam’s perspective and in a terrifying evolution of his condition, he broke out of his containment and went to war with Minerva… and the entire world.

That night, deviant prisoners inside DUP HQ in Galvero were released one after another, and together alongside Adam they ravaged the entire research facility, all DUP agents who were present, and anyone they deemed complicit in their atrocities. This mass murder then spilled out into the streets where Adam ordered the slaughter of any and all non-deviants in Galvero. Driven by rage and vengeance, this catastrophe cascaded until all people in Galvero were either evacuated, murdered, or Deviants. Moving with urgency, knowing what was to come, Adam directed his newly forming army to go to nearby prisons and destroy them, freeing prisoners and more deviants that had yet to either be processed or were regarded as unimportant to the DUP for torturous experimentation.

By the end of the night, Galvero had become a fortress, and its occupants had started to organize into rank and file, led by Adam who was no longer going to allow any more deviants to be hurt for pointless research. The Minervan government also did not stand idly by as Adam’s army overturned their capital, and sent multiple battalions to retake the city. Aerial bombardments commenced prior to land forces moving in, but terrifyingly, the Deviants somehow maintained air superiority with their city undamaged against some of the most advanced warfare technology in the world. Seeing that missiles and jets were unaffected, troops were moved in alongside heavy armor to try and eliminate the deviant occupation, but it became clear that conventional warfare was now entirely obsolete. The deviants destroyed the entire attacking force, with Adam himself on the front lines, decimating trained soldiers with his bare hands while taking bullets and refusing to go down. His infamous title, The Deathgripper, was coined in this battle as accounts from the massacre say that death was certain if he ever got his hands on you.

Broadcasting to the entire world after the Minervan military was stopped, in his speech colloquially known as the “Echoes of Humanity,” Adam declared that deviants would no longer be pushed under the feet of monsters who see them as nothing more than weapons and sick. He called his group the House of Steel, and welcomed all deviants who wished to rise up from their shackles and stand against the tyranny that had for so long treated them like lab rats. His first action as the leader of the House of Steel was declaring Galvero a safe zone for all deviants who wanted their freedom. Then, he renamed it Bastion City, for this new purpose it served was protecting the very souls who he wished to liberate from their suffering.

This broadcast was enough to overturn the entire DUP organization as deviants rose up in various cities. Containment was no longer the priority, as was protection and evacuation of civilians. In the chaos, many more deviants escaped via the large number of refugees migrating to new homes following terror attacks on large population centers. Only a handful of cities remained standing in proper capacity after these attacks, namely Halcyon City and Nova-Gaias. Nova Zures had always maintained a strict measure when it came to allowing deviants to even enter their city, much less the DUP, so when the rebellion started they managed to take control of the situation quickly and deployed their robotic sentries to stop deviants from attacking en masse. In Halcyon, their rather lax treatment of deviants had actually allowed the reverse, with many deviants taking up positions to protect civilians from those who were lashing out in response to Adam’s broadcast. This vigilantism was the most effective defense measure against the new deviant crisis that threatened to destroy world order as it stood.

As more deviants gathered in Bastion, so too did the government recollect its bearings and attempt several assassinations, bombings, and attacks on Bastion. It got to the point where they even launched ballistic missiles to try and level the city, but to no avail. As more deviants appeared, the stronger their defenses and the more competent the House of Steel became. Once Adam had collected enough strong individuals to deliver his will, he named them lieutenants of the House of Steel, and they each took control of large portions of the population of Bastion that aligned with their respective ideals. These groups were then sent out to make connections with other deviants and groups willing to support their operations, while also destroying non deviant cities.

This contact included correspondence with Renastursia’s government, which encouraged their support in continuing the conflict with the empire of Olympius, while also establishing strong relationships with Minerva’s Carleo Mafia and Feng Zhu’s Yakuza. This further bolstered the House of Steel’s forces and pushed an unstoppable tide of violence into every corner possible. Crime rates couldn’t be applied as worldwide terror destabilized order and made it difficult to do… anything. The first few years of the Age of the Fallen were a one sided disregard of life.

But in Halcyon City, the tide was receding. In its wake, something new was born.

Chapter 2: Vigilante Rebellion

Halcyon had become the temporary capital of Minerva, with corporate interests and private motivations still too extreme in Nova Zures which had practically walled itself from the outside, this city was the only one left that had managed to resist the House of Steel’s takeover. This was in no small part due to vigilantes with conditions fighting back against terrorists and protecting civilian lives. The rise of deviant vigilantism pulled back the red tinted glasses that had displayed deviants as sick people with a propensity for violence created by Renastursia for subterfuge, and instead it showed them as they ACTUALLY were… just people, who were hurt by the atrocities of the last several decades, yet still willing to fight for causes they believed in. Including deviants created during the march of the House of Steel, resistance began to grow, and public support of deviants was officially on the upswing.

Internationally, the war between Olympius and Renastursia had started again, but this time the odds were stacked against the empire from both a numbers and firepower standpoint, with the warmongering nation pushing back the borders of one of Olympius’ central territories, Byleran, through use of soldiers wielding their own conditions… that Renastursia labeled “armaments.” It was this push that equally force Olympius to finally relent on its own strict treatment of deviants, and it began allowing deviant volunteers to fight alongside knights in the conflict. This choice proved critical, as alongside the knights of the round table, the first signs of Renastursia’s wave stopping were viewed in battles where deviants stood on the front lines. While federal treatment of deviants in Feng Zhu was similarly structured to Nova Zures, the rise in vigilantism against the technologically advancing Yakuza had also encouraged their government to embrace deviants, and slowly the battles were changing from pure slaughters to a back and forth effort. Hope that survival wasn’t an impossibility lead to more people who had been hiding or defeated joining the cause.

In Minerva, with public opinion shifting, deviant protectors were being harbored and supported in cities and towns where Adam’s influence was weakest. The increase in these fighters was enough to officially regard the deviants who stood against Adam’s rhetoric a force of their own. Operations in Western Minerva were steadily growing in size and number, while the East coast had garnered a following behind one particular deviant: Gentry Ward, the Godfather, who acted as the leader of this vigilante movement in Halcyon. His strength was enough to push out the occupying lieutenant of the House of Steel, the Evolutionary, from the city, and in the largest coordinated vigilante operation to date at that time, the protectors managed to drive out the House of Steel from Halcyon entirely. Unlike Adam’s resounding broadcast, though, Gentry did not announce this victory internationally. He knew that this would not be enough to deter Adam, and this was proven only a week later as Adam arrived alongside his most trusted attendants to destroy Halcyon and crush Minerva’s government for good.

Adam’s attack on Halcyon was a perfect representation of what the House of Steel had become in the 10 years since the Age of the Fallen had began. Rather than a group prioritizing the freedoms of people and a new age, their barbaric destruction of people and property displayed that they were now pursuing victory above all other things. Adam even had one of his most loyal lieutenants, Jano the Datamancer, broadcast this attack to the world as proof of his strength. The vigilantes of Halcyon did not yield easily, and fought not only to survive but to protect the people of the metropolis. The violence had only been weathered as much as Adam’s own pursuit of domination had been, and in order to stop him, the Godfather himself moved to battle him. Their combat was fierce, shaking the city with every exchange, and concluding with a clash of powers as Adam’s armored body, imbued with the conditions of slain antithetical deviants, repelled Gentry’s own ultimate attack, and ruined an entire section of the city. This would come to be known as “The Outlet,” and the damages were never truly recovered from.

The Deathgripper had defeated the Godfather, and this should have been the end of the war in Minerva, but one hope remained. A golden flame emerged from the sea of darkness that had enveloped the world, and stepped in for the defeated Gentry Ward. In a storm of blows, displaying his power for the first time, a previously hidden vigilante stepped into the limelight and managed to force Adam to retreat. This was the first time in the Age of the Fallen that Adam himself had been defeated, and this defeat had proven to the world that he wasn’t just indestructible in philosophy but also on the battlefield.

The hero who had stood up to Adam in humanity’s darkest hour would come to gain monikers such as “The Boxer Hero” and “The Golden Champion.” He was not a weapon, nor a vigilante, but someone wearing a costume like heroes of the Justice Conglomerate comic books. A model of the ideal world that superpowers could bring if treated with the right care and used for the right purpose.

Captain Fist, the first true hero, and the one who would defeat Adam Westworth.

Chapter 3: Embers In The Ashes

More powerful deviants emerged following the arrival of the Captain Fist, on both sides of the war.

In Olympius, a young Aldrin Nova, who would take up the title of Moon Bat after claiming a spot in the Round Table, was climbing the ranks of knights quickly, rising in power and influence as he repeatedly entered the front lines of Renastursia and destroyed essential infrastructure like their armored train railways and reinforced entrenchments. The Blue Dragon was a name that was growing in Feng Zhu, as the Yakuza’s underground operations were being brought to light. The arrival of powerful vigilantes worldwide was enough to shift the public perception of deviants even more. This included the Minervan government, who had been hesitant to fully embrace deviant law enforcement and protection up to this point. However, Adam’s defeat had swayed the house of representatives of Minerva, and they had decided to put all their chips on deviants to defeat the House of Steel.

Founding the Superlative Association for Victory and Indiscriminate Optimal Reformation, using remaining DUP investigators and operatives, on top of new deviant and federal volunteers, Janette Augustine was tasked with counterintelligence and espionage against the House of Steel by forming alliances and providing intel to the previous spread out and mostly disorganized vigilante resistance. By infiltrating cells of the House of Steel, who had been comprised of people promised absolute freedom determined by their own power, they weren’t exactly closed lipped, allowing more and more of their attacks to be repelled by vigilantes.

RoseTech CEO Therian Hayden and Vision CEO Anthony Williams also shifted efforts to supporting the vigilantes rather than maintaining the neutrality like they had been. Vigilante equipment and weaponry improved in quality, AND quantity, supplementing condition weaknesses and also enabling civilians without conditions to fight alongside their deviant protectors with the introduction of the Iron Legion and exo-suit armor for SAVIOR. This was enough to make the House of Steel buckle, but it wasn’t a one sided slaughter for the vigilantes.

Two powerful villains joined the side of Adam after the battle: The Evolutionary and Purgatory, whose respective abilities to deceive the enemy and mutate civilian humans into monstrous deviants caused a massive back and forth. Jano’s own creations, the Children of Jano, entered the battlefield and began not only killing vigilantes but capturing them alive, so that their abilities could be siphoned for evil purposes. Battles became more and more dangerous, as heavy weaponry and more volatile deviants joined the fray. The underhanded tactics of the mafia and yakuza only grew, and the war in Renastursia prevented Olympius from providing any more support. Supply lines were being devastated as deviants went on self sacrificial missions at the behest of the lieutenants.

What finally managed to give the last push the public needed for full support was the political campaign of Gentry Ward. President Pelion’s term was concluded following the war, and so this was the chance for deviants to make a change on a national and international scale. Gentry’s campaign was focused around support for the refugees, instating new policies to reduce the strain of damages from deviant powers used for protection, and of course giving more rights to deviants as a whole, wishing to make voluntary deviant law enforcement long term. This culminated in a speech which coined the term that renamed the deviants and paved the way for the final effort.

”These powers aren’t ‘conditions,’ they aren’t something to be cured. They are a gift, and these gifts must be used for the good of mankind.”

Chapter 4: The Dusk Before Dawn

In the last few years before its resolution, the Age of the Fallen became more brutal and bloodsoaked than it had in the previous 15.

Heroes had officially become the title of the protectors of the world, as Gentry’s political campaign continued to grow and expand. Militarizing gifted allowed Olympius to fully overturn the Renastursian armada and sends them packing, pushing all the way to the geographical border of Byleran by 2017. Feng Zhu had reclaimed the seat of its power and more gifted were joining federal operations to push out the criminal underworld from many communities. The Carleo Mafia had been reduced to practically nothing as villains in Minerva were being crushed nationwide. With everything to lose and their backs against the wall, it was no longer a matter of reestablishing world order or even defeating rebelling deviants. The House of Steel decided to go scorched earth, leaving nothing but ruins and cinders in order to achieve their victory, even as their outposts were being entirely overran and they retreated from city to city to Bastion.

To destroy their support, the first objective of the villains was to ruin the corporate backing that the gifted had garnered thanks to their public support. The villains Monoxide and ████████ were sent to Nova Zures and they hunted down Anthony Williams and Therian Hayden. Gas bombardment smoked out evacuation tunnels from Las Gaias and forced the city into a full lockdown, allowing cybernetically enhanced yakuza death dealers to slip through and kill the CEO of Rosetech in his home while he slept. Unfortunately, this awoke a sleeping giant, as Therian’s adopted son Thomas swore vengeance and moved like a storm of blades, cutting down the villain presence in Las Gaias before heading to Feng Zhu to kill as many yakuza as he could. This also opened the door for Joseph Katahara to step in and take over Las Gaias as its new Oyabun. As for Anthony, ████████████████████████████████████████

The heroes managed to maintain the support of their tech companies, but the villains were not finished now that their allies were scattered. In forkrest, the Children of Jano ransacked the city for civilians, and the only heroes nearby that could resolve the issue were the two apprentices of Anthony Williams, The Legionnaire and the Golden Phoenix. The Phoenix arrived first, only to encounter another even more ferocious villain, Anastasia Lada, “The Woman with 1000 gifts.” Their battle was fierce, but Anastasia came out on top. To cement her fate, she destabilized the arc reactor in Golden Phoenix’s suit, and detonated it. This explosion killed hundreds of thousands, leveling Forkrest. The city never recovered, and while the Legionnaire arrived, Anastasia did manage to escape.

Blake Davis, the Cleanser, was hunting villains in Highbrook, before being ambushed by The Datamancer, and reports say that his body was in pieces when they located the site of the battle. Carmen Rodriguez, the Crimson Phoenix, was murdered while being on patrol in Halcyon, but there were no reports as to who killed her, only that her death was the result of falling despite her gift granting flight and her face was stuck with a petrified look of terror. Caroline Smith, Morrigan, was caught evacuating civilians fleeing from Bastion that had been liberated by heroes, and was turned into a monster by The Evolutionary, which Dagda had to kill in order to protect both retreating allies and civilians. Limelight was murdered by Hexenjager, who was relocating his top secret research material back to Bastion. The battle cost him his limbs and family, but he managed to take Limelight in his vengeance before Purgatory recovered him and returned him to Bastion.

Having lost all outposts and allies externally, the last forces of the Age of the Fallen remained in Bastion City. The final battle, aptly named The Battle of Bastion, was the most gruesome event in the entire war. The strongest remaining heroes swore to their allies that they would lead the charge into the city and defeat Adam, in order to guarantee that the House of Steel would collapse. For their bravery, and duty, this group of heroes earned the title of “The Vanguard,” and the heroes who participated in this front line assault consist of familiar names and names of those who had quickly risen to the challenge, ready to put their lives on the line.

Captain Fist, The Golden Champion.

Red Dawn, The Fallen Angel.

Mira, The Battle Beast.

Major Emerald, The Boy Wonder.

Seraphim, The Lightbringer.

Legionnaire, The Living Machine.

Dagda, The Mighty Lion.

Moon Bat, Artemis’ Chosen.

Blue Dragon, Feng Zhu’s Lion.

These 9 heroes charged headfirst into the defensive lines of Bastion City, but it wasn’t as simple as just breaking through. Thousands of gifted, manipulated and convinced of Adam’s rhetoric, unwilling to surrender the freedom that they had secured for 2 whole decades would never back down. Every last citizen of Bastion got up and fought without mercy. Some were simply berserkers, throwing themselves at heroes no matter the injuries in order to slow them down or injure them so more powerful villains could destroy them in collateral attacks that hit entire areas of the city. The bloodshed was endless, and for nearly 24 whole hours, the heroes marched into the city all the way to its rotten heart.

When the Vanguard arrived at the Unhallow, the repurposed DUP headquarters, they encountered the entirety of the lieutenants of the House of Steel, including the Rotted Man, Lady Lust, The Datamancer, Apophis, The Evolutionary, Hexenjager, Purgatory, and their leader… The Deathgripper himself, Adam Westworth. It was now or never for the heroes, and they gave every last bit that they had left to defeat as many lieutenants as they could. While the majority of the Vanguard held back Adam’s strongest allies, Captain Fist stepped in for The Legionnaire and Red Dawn. Their final battle, during its last throes, stopped all fighting in Bastion as the entire city felt as though it was experiencing an Earthquake. When the quakes subsided, Adam was on his knees, having removed the Mask he had worn since nearly the very beginning of the conflict. The heroes had come out victorious, and a new dawn rose.

Epilogue: Burst Forth

The hero's victory had not assured zero conflict. In fact, all it had done was stop the rise of villainy… yet the mafia and yakuza had not been fully eliminated, and new gifted would always rise in the shadows. The same was true for the light, as the sun rose on August 6th of 2022. The foundations that had been built this day would go to become the very means through which the modern world and the age of peace that followed would be built. This era, the Age of Heroes, did not forget the losses of the Age of the Fallen. Every single individual, not just the most prominent heroes or even just the heroes, but every sacrifice, ruined city, ruined childhood, would not be disrespected.

Gentry Ward took office in January of 2023, becoming the very first gifted president, and following through on his promises made during his campaign. The world was going to change, and change for the better, forever.

The heroes followed through on the slogan that the earliest vigilantes would yell as they ran into battle against the impossible odds of the early House of Steel. A promise to the civilians they would risk and give their lives to protect, and a promise of a future that they would assuredly claim at any cost. Burst forth into a better tomorrow…