HxA

Come on Luke, it’s clear this place doesn’t care anymore about the heroes it produces. The Hero Association, this institution or sorry excuse for one that we are in today, isn’t the one we saw on TV when we were kids, the place we dreamed of going to. When I first saw the heroes from the Hero Association help save a thousand people from that train that smashed into three buildings on TV, I knew what I wanted to do with my power. That the Hero Association was the perfect place to learn how to beat up bad guys, get stronger and become the top hero myself. But the standard here now is trash, to say the least, I can’t believe they let weaklings like Marcus or Rae here, their powers suck, I mean, how does Rae being able to speak to animals help rescue anyone? “Well, animals like dogs can track people hiding in between concrete collapsed buildings and…”, Luke replies before being interrupted. That’s beside the point Luke, the Hero Association has become too concerned with quantity as opposed to quality and it ironically caused a decline in members joining since all these weaklings, wannabe heroes keep getting injured or killed. It’s ridiculous to think that this place was ever worth my time, maybe if we had come here earlier when we were kids. I mean, you see it to don’t you, how out of every 1000 heroes who join this place, only 1 of them is probably going to make it, only 1 hero would be able to change anything. Evil, the bad guys don’t work like that, anyone who wants to hurt innocent people can become a bad guy. Bad guys don’t have to endure fitness and mental test which push you to the limit. They just grab their nearest weapon and get to robbing and killing. The Hero Association was meant to combat against the rising rate of villains, supposed to give us what we needed to grow into heroes who could put a stop to all this but now I go as far as to say that even the instructors are as weak as we were as first years. Hell, I think I could easily take on any of the instructors now. “Careful, you’re beginning to sound like a villain rather than a student of the number one Hero training institution”, Luke replied. And so, what if I am, huh, what if I am better of as a villain, you know why the villains always seem to be one step ahead of us, it’s because they have something the Hero Association now lacks: power. We may not know if the villains have a leader or not but one thing for sure is that they are getting stronger, heroes are more likely to encounter level 2 or 3 demons now than level 1. It’s clear to see that villains are getting more dangerous and it’s only going to get worse. And for all we know the villains are growing in both quantity and quality, I mean, think about it, if we keep producing weak heroes to fight strong villains only for them to land up losing, it gives villain recruits even more confidence to become villains since they’ll be under the impression we all a bunch of punks in cosplay. “Wait what?”, Luke asks. If you ask me, we need to seriously up our game here. I mean, too many people are simply becoming heroes to play some status game or popularity contest, a fruitless endeavor that often costs them their lives. The Hero Association should just do them a favor by creating tests designed to kill anyone who isn’t strong enough, that way, hero recruits will either be too scared to join, die trying, or become real badasses just like in the old days. The villains are getting stronger cause only the strong villains survive whatever they go through, the weak ones die. I don’t see why we shouldn’t play the same game with us. Some may call it cruel but I’m doing those wannabes a favor, I’m using the fear of them losing their very lives trying to become something they aren’t into something they can be in another profession; fear always seems to get the job done and its surely something the villains use. “Okay, now you are beginning to sound like a villain”, Luke replies. Maybe…

Three years later, it wasn’t till three years later that Alex’s rant which seemed to be nothing more than mere complaining turned out to be a premonition as the rate of crimes and villains grew exponentially. It wasn’t long until the remaining heroes had to band together in a rebellion to help combat this new oppressing evil. Alex and Luke graduated two years ago and were inevitably caught up in the villain uprising, Alex and Luke had even encountered what seemed to be a representative for the villains, and Alex was lost in the battle, not killed but disappeared, Luke had tried to find him but to no avail. Now, the rebellion joins once again for what will be their final assault against this villain empire. An all-or-nothing stand for a new and better future, their last stand. “Alright people, if there was ever a time to fight, to do something about how we want to be remembered, here and now is your shot. There’s no question that the villains have all but dominated the majority of our collective strength, they’ve grown in power so rapidly with each possessing a more lethal ability than the last. We spent years pondering what was the cause of their rise to a newfound strength and we have located what can only be described at this stage as some queen, king, or leader monster which produces these villains, we believe that it acts as the source of all their strength and by taking it down, we can, in theory, disempower the new villains. Fortunately, we have managed to locate their base, in an abandoned city several miles from here. I needed everyone suited up and ready to move in an hour”, said the Rebel Leader. Like the others after hearing that speech, Luke feels amped at the prospect of this being over soon, of there being peace once more. Within the hour the resistance gathers all their last remaining heroes as they venture onto the abandoned city and split into teams of four. The members of Luke’s team including the other three individuals, Cleo, Axel, and Ethan travel together. Luke feels relieved, Axel is a well-known and prominent pro, with him on the team he may not die like most are about to in this revolution. He even remembers Ethan from a rival school however, it’s the first time he sees Cleo, I can’t wait to get to know everyone’s power Luke thought to himself. Before long, they were off, reaching the abandoned city was no difficulty there was no resistance whatsoever from the villains, it seemed to all be too good to be true. In hindsight, they’d all wish they paid a little more attention to how easy it was to enter the abandoned city. The city was already decimated, a modern ruin, yet at its center, there was a building that seemed to be unscathed by the city's decay. They were several teams, 3 teams would travel near each other to provide back-up if one team were comprised, they were given comms with a couple mile radius to keep tabs on one another and headquarters. Out of the two other teams which traveled with Luke one of them was at the entrance of this building before any other team. Luke could hear HQ yelling, cursing, and urging the team which was nearest to the building to fall back and wait for more reinforcements before entering the building. But drunk on pride and high on arrogance, the team disobeyed headquarters, and just as they open the door to the building, a huge explosion occurred, blasting the building and everyone near it to ash. The explosion was so big that Luke’s team, which wasn’t too far away, could feel the explosion's shockwave knock them off balance. Just then, as Luke recovers and gets back on his feet, he can hear a voice blasting through the microphone, screaming for help, he can only assume it’s the other teams that were probably closer to the explosion than they were. “Help they are taking us away…” Before Luke could register what was going on, an aerial assault had knocked him out took him and his team away. As Luke awakens he searches for his teammates and where he is, just then, a voice from the shadows says, “There’s no use, most of your so-called hero allies have been captured and are being processed at this very instance” Luke recognizes that voice and taking a guess says “Alex, is that you?” the voices reply “Hey Luke, long time no see, I was wondering when you would show up”

“Alex, what are you doing here?”, Luke asks

“Well, I got captured remember?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t save you earlier”

“Save me, oh Luke, being taken here was the best thing to ever happen to me, here, power is valued more important than anything, here the only the strongest survive, here is where I belong”

“What happened to you, Alex?”

“I had my eyes open to the truth, I am more powerful than any mere hero and grow day by day”

“What do you mean by processing, Alex?”

“I am about to do you and your friends a big favor, your welcome, you are all about to experience power like no other before by becoming monsters”

“You’ve been turning people into monsters?”

“Geez, Luke, I knew you weren’t the smartest but come one don’t the villains look slightly familiar to you, even a little, ever wondered why their abilities are more powerful and unique”

“Why are you doing this?”

“I don’t want to live in a world with good or bad guys anymore, not when the most superior force is power and anyone who has the most power, rules over everything. By creating an army of powered villains, we can dominate and remove all hierarchal forms of power. World leaders, democracy, please, don’t make me laugh, our power is absolute and deserves to rule overall, don’t you see, we are not just merely the good guys, we are gods”

“What you are is hurting people, killing people, just like the very people you told me you would stop with your power, I’m disappointed, to think the Alex, The Alex, would worship a power he thinks is stronger than his, that he’d become the very person he was to protect the world against”

“Shut up”

“Tell me, Alex, wherein all of this did you think you are actually doing good, harming millions to save a few, justifying the people you capture, torture, murder, and for what, what world could be worth all that bloodshed for?”

“I said, SHUT UP”

“I have to put a stop to it, Alex, to you, this ends today, NOW CLEO”

Just then, a portal from the rooftop opens up and drops down the entire resistance. Leading the pack, the resistance leader yells “Charge” as the villain base. Suffering only minor casualties, the heroes prevailed, with the attack being so unexpected the villains failed to make an effective counterattack. In addition to capturing the villains in the hideout, the heroes who were captured were saved and Alex was arrested. You would imagine that Alex would be furious, but he instead manically laughed as he said “You have barely scratched the tip of the iceberg, this goes far deeper than you could imagine, he is more powerful than you could ever imagine, enjoy your small win while you can, he’s coming, for all of you. “What is he even talking about?”, the Rebel leader asks. “I don’t know”, Luke replied “but I feel like this bu