V1-033

No matter which direction I chose to look, all I could see were bodies, with each person's face coated with confusion and fear. Young, old, fat, skinny, there was no discrimination, and that simple thought caused my heart to freeze.

What's more, everyone wore the same drab blue, loosely fitting clothing as I had noticed Renton, Dad, and me were, and like the three of us, the crowd bobbed up and down, floating helplessly in the void.

Floating in the endless void, more people continued appearing, and between the eerie silence, and the similar tear-filled and frightened expressions, time dragged on until after what seemed like an eternity, Trumpets sounded, and a very familiar and annoying fanfare played not through our heads.

"Oh, you've got to be fucking kidding me," Renton and I half yelled, half groaned as our minds seemed to be in perfect sync to a point where our voices seemed to have merged.

When the fanfare ended, the most terrifying sight I've ever seen, even to this day, appeared above everyone in the void. Floating above the masses was a Giant head, the head I had the unfortunate privilege to see multiple times on television over the past few hours and previous months online; the disembodied head belonged to nonother than Niklaus Fastay, The Cyber Bombardier.

A bit of humor was attached to his sudden appearance, though, because as I looked around, I saw people giving him the middle finger and yelling wordlessly at him.

Enmass, hundreds of thousands of people even went so far as to attempt swimming through the void to get to him for the off chance of harming the giant floating head.

"Oh my, it looks like I've angered a few of you; proper manners and decorum dictate that I am supposed to say I was sorry for offending you; unfortunately, I am not." Raising an eyebrow and looking down in our direction, Niklaus's voice boomed into our heads as if we were sitting in the front row at a rock concert.

Then, with a casual snort out of his massive nose, all those people, who had tried swimming up to him, suddenly appeared back where they started, only now, they seemed either too scared to move or paralyzed.

"Let me clearly state this and get it out of the way here and now; I feel absolutely zero remorse for my decisions and actions which have brought you here before me on this day."

"Heck, maybe in the not-so-distant future, most of you will even end up groveling on your knees and thanking the sky, where you picture me to be like some Deity, thanking me for opening your pitiful existence to a greater meaning."

"Hmmm…one…two…yep, everyone is here, and when I say everyone, I mean everyone who was alive on the planet Earth when my toys detonated."

"The only exception is those who died due to unforeseen circumstances, but I suppose we can just chalk their deaths up to collateral damage." Niklaus's eyes scanned left and right as his lips curled into a sinister smile.

"So, I guess now is as good of a time as any to break the bad news to you all, soooo…hm, how to say this… for starters, thanks to the detonation of my toys, every single one of you has been infected with the Requiem Virus."

If there wasn't visible panic in the masses before, now, with that bombshell dropped, there was.

Beside me, Renton released a slew of curse words in response to Niklaus's provocations while I could only sigh in annoyance.

Having figured out the designation code on the missiles earlier, I already concluded we would be subjected to a viral attack, but that didn't make hearing it from the horse's mouth any easier.

"HARK, there is still a sliver of hope for a good majority of you…for you see, some of you, 50 percent of the human race, in fact, are immune to the virus and, as such, will live the rest of your days as you did before." He chuckled evilly, seemingly enjoying the palpable hope his statements brought to the sea of people.

"Well…I say that, but only in a physical sense, so yeah, technically, half of you will walk out of this event completely unscathed; congratulations, woohoo." Adding cadence to the fake happiness he exhibited for those immune to his virus, Niklaus's head spun around like a ball, and there was another trumpet fanfare.

"Although I've toppled most of the world's governments, it's not like I actively sought to kill everyone, so technically, if you can band together and set aside any cultural differences, I suppose it is possible to reestablish life and society as it was."

'Bull shit, even a fucking elementary school kid knows how impossible that is; this bastard is toying with us now.' I grumbled mentally, causing my brother to scoff in agreeance.

"But I haven't even gotten to the best part of the Requiem Virus. Those who aren't immune to my Virus will soon notice an earth-shattering change in your bodies when I release you from the Requiem Void; that is to say, if you didn't already understand that you were changing before being brought here."

"BTW, that's the name of this place, the Requiem Space, aren't I clever HAHA!."

'No, you are insane, not clever, just a madman who is acting like a fucking clown in front of the entire world.' Renton chirped, making me snicker.

"These changes are both extremely complicated and simple at the same time, but if I were to boil it down to laymen's terms, the Virus only has one goal, restructure the building blocks of the human race and awaken your hidden potential."

"The human genome is capable of accomplishing the most outstanding things that otherwise would never come to fruition, no matter how far we advance down the path of evolution."

"But that is only grazing the surface of what those not immune will obtain. Not only does the R-Virus activate your innate latent potential, but it will give you access to abilities you never knew were possible."

"The R-Virus I have created will unlock your natural abilities, the kind of abilities that used to only exist in comic books, cartoons, and video games." The longer and more in-depth Niklaus went into his explanation, the more skeptical I became of the truth behind his words.

'There is no way a simple virus could give us superpowers.' Wishing I could cross my arms, my mind whirled into conspiracy theory mode.

'Now, if he said something to the extent of "some of you would become zombies," THAT I could believe, however superpowers, that's entirely out of the realm of possibility.'

"Wow… really Dean, we are floating in a huge space with billions of other people in matching outfits without the ability to speak vocally and instead with telepathy, with a giant, floating head talking to you, yet you still don't think superpowers can be real?" Renton stated with dead and unimpressed eyes, invading my thought process and causing me to glare at him.

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