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The Wretched: Ascent of An Anti-Hero

A golden man screamed across the sky and laid waste to the Earth. He appeared out of nowhere, striking down cities with golden blazes of light. Then, he disappeared. Where he went nobody knows. In the aftermath, the Powered emerged. Humans granted superhuman abilities that transcend all logic and physics. The world is in tatters, communities spread across the globe with limited contact, ruled by battles between humans and villains. All the while monstrous creatures known as the Wretches stalk the barren, scarred wasteland. With incredible powers of my own saving the world is a journey of putting one foot in front of the other. Come check out the Discord to chat with the author and other readers: https://discord.gg/BEJgcRVVev

MattHarris · Fantasy
Not enough ratings
123 Chs

The Juniors

The Juniors.

They were the heroes that we were seemingly destined to fight. A group of kids who were all around my own age, if not younger in some cases.

If things had turned out differently I might have ended up on the Juniors team straight away, but then no one would have any chance at taking Hypogean down.

"Okay, let's start with the leader of the Juniors, we're talking Gestalt," Lauren said, bringing up the Junior's page on the site. As with any Junior, the information was severely lacking.

"Gestalt is a biokinetic," She explained, "He has the ability to morph his own biology in practically any way that he wants. That includes rapid healing, increased strength, and if he does something crazy like growing wings then he can even fly."

On the one hand that sounded pretty dangerous, on the other it sounded like a budget version of Wildthing's power and I already knew that I could deal some serious damage to her with a blast from my gauntlet, and considering how far away Thursday was I was sure I could make some serious upgrades before then.

"I see that look on your face," Lauren cut through my thoughts, "You're thinking that you can take him down nice and easy with a blast of your Gauntlet, well, it won't work like that. Gestalt isn't just some bruiser, he's wicked smart. His body is filled with redundant organs that can be swapped in and out at a moment's notice. Taking him down will be difficult, even for someone like Becca."

Redundant biology was a smart application of the Junior's power.

No matter what you did to him if there was a built-in redundancy for it then he could just switch over to the pack up, and since he was a biokinetic he could then force his body to regenerate the original.

"So how do we put him down for good?" I asked, it seemed like an impossible challenge.

"You don't, dumbass," Becca snorted from across the room. "You leave him to me. One of my beasties will keep him out of the fight, and I won't be holding back."

"As long as you don't kill him, we don't need that kind of trouble on our door," Greave cut her off, and I could almost feel the disappointment radiating off of her.

So that was Gestalt. While his power was definitely strong and incredibly versatile, the key to beating him was actually kind of simple. Just throw something strong enough at him that he can't easily disengage from the fight.

"Second on the list is Pester," Lauren continued. "Very simple power, basically the ability to project needles that they can fire from the palms of their hand. Think a porcupine that can launch their spines, while controlling them in flight."

"That sounds simple enough to deal with," I remarked, "But surely they wouldn't be so high up in your list of threats if things were that simple."

Lauren shot me one of her trademark grins, "You're right, there's a catch, and it's a pretty big one too. Those needles have the ability to pierce through literally anything. It doesn't matter how thick your armour is or how many strange crafter tricks you use to make it, a needle from Pester will pierce straight through it without any issue at all."

People often called powers ridiculous or broken, but Pester seemed like one of the ones that truly fit into that broken category. Because Pester was a hero it was likely they wouldn't do anything that could cause large amounts of harm, but in the right circumstances, they wouldn't need to.

"What's Pester's range and maximum size?" I asked, perhaps they'd only be able to use one or two needles at most. That'd make things a lot easier to deal with.

"Functionally unlimited on both counts," Lauren revealed.

The number of ways that such a power could be used bordered on the insane, and Lauren had called her abilities easy to deal with?

"Dealing with Pester will be down to me," Greave said, "She's strong, but one of the very few things that her needles can't pass through are my barricades. They don't even leave a scratch."

"That's the sort of thing you lead with instead of making me so scared," I said with a long sigh of relief.

"Third heavy hitter is Miasma, and their name fits their abilities perfectly," Lauren went on. "His power is to create a toxic gas cloud that can cover an area in moments, incapacitating anyone who stays inside its radius for more than a few seconds."

This power was actually simple, but that didn't make it any less dangerous. If you were knocked out in the middle of a fight between Powered's then you're either going to get arrested pretty quickly or if you're fighting against villains you could get killed.

"I should be able to do something about that," I said, "If I were to craft up a set of rebreathers, when Miasma's fog is released they should be able to filter it out!"

I liked the feeling of being useful, I liked the fact that I was being helpful to villains a lot less.

"That's what I like to hear, Tristan!" Lauren exclaimed with an overexaggerated fist pump. "Last but certainly not least, we've got Driscol. While I've left her for last, she's the one that we're going to have the most difficulty fighting against. She can literally convert matter into thought waves, making it so that the world around us looks, feels and smells like whatever it is she's imagining at the time."

That was… absolutely absurd. She could manipulate reality? Make it so that everything operated the way that she imagined it to? How were we going to fight something like that?

"Driscol can be countered by Allen, though, so we should be alright," Lauren said, alleviating my fears just as quickly as they arrived.

Though how you counteracted a reality warper on that scale I had no idea.