- Prologue

"Happy birthday to me, I guess," Gus said sarcastically.

Finally, he was sixteen. Finally, he could join the military academy situated in a station above Earth.

With the clock striking midnight, and signifying the start of a new day, Gus rolled over and went to sleep. He had a big day ahead of himself tomorrow, and he had to be ready for it.

A decade ago, humanity seemed at the apex of the galaxy. Expansion had begun into a multitude of new systems, and humanity had conquered all challenges that were thrown against it. Whether it was alien life, hostile environments, or new diseases, humanity had always found a way to survive the problem, overcome it, and continue out into the galaxy.

New resources were uncovered, which led to advancements in medical and technological departments. Newly discovered alien life was studied by leading scientists, which further pressed humanity's advancement.

In total, humanity had colonised ten systems including their home system, and had begun the long colonisation process in many more. It was in one of these systems where they had their first contact with intelligent life.

At first, humanity was repulsed by the Trellior. It was only natural, after all humanity had spent decades being wary of creatures with six legs. When you put a humanoid body on top of that, as well as make them six feet tall, that wariness turns to hostility.

Luckily, the hostility was contained before it could become any more. Upon reaching an agreement, humanity began efforts to colonise the system for the benefit of the Trellior, with the aliens sacrificing diplomatic independence.

It wasn't until the second contact where things started to go wrong. During colonisation efforts of a faraway star, humans encountered a thin monkey like species that stood at about five feet tall. Having learned from their encounters with the Trellior, they attempted to open diplomatic communication.

However, these monkey like aliens were already in a galactic alliance, and immediately began hostilities with humanity. War erupted through the heart of the only planet humanity had a foothold on in the system, and it soon spread to nearby stars.

Eventually, the entire frontier of expansion outside the ten systems was engulfed in war. By the time news had reached the homeworlds of humanity, it was too late for any defensive efforts to be taken. In the years since, this space has turned into a hell of crime and violence, with the human remnants there unwilling to give up their freedom to the enemies.

Thanks to the advanced warnings given to the central governments of the human race, countermeasures for the war were prepared. Advancements, both medical and technological, were suddenly changed and adapted for military application.

Desperate for answers, humanity turned to its scientists for help. Many technological leaps, expected to take decades, were made in a matter of months and years. But one stood out above all others.

Andrew Braye, along with twenty other leading scientists, began a project that was said to take humanity's next step along the evolutionary process.

Since the work they were conducting was dangerous, testing first began on criminals, specifically those tried and convicted of such heinous crimes that they would never see anything but their cell even if they lived for the next thousand years.

Over the course of three years, numerous tests were run, and countless expendable prisoners lost their lives. But it was without success, as the men and women in charge of the process failed to make any meaningful changes to those they had experimented on, and therefore had failed in their promise to grant humanity that next step forward. As a result, the project was shut down, funding was cut, and the labs they use were declared abandoned.

Despite this, the scientists never stopped their efforts. They believed that the eventual good this would do for humanity was sufficient enough to justify whatever evils that they needed to do, but only if they succeeded. In desperation, they turned to their own children.

Preliminary testing was promising, with the physiology of the children reacting far more positively to the stimuli of the tests. And eventually, after countless hours, results were obtained. It was determined that the tests had to happen in children below a certain age, as powers were observed to bloom as a part of puberty. Before more tests could be carried out on a second wave of children, the tests were deemed immoral and were thus outlawed by the human government. At the end of testing, nineteen out of twenty of the children were considered successes.

Their powers manifested in different ways, but they were easily categorised.

A type children manifested strength based powers; B type powers were based on speed; O type powers enhanced the mind, rather than the physical; and AB type powers were an amalgamation of all three, although to a lesser extent of all three individually.

These new 'evolved' people needed a name, so that they could be categorised by the rest of humanity. Not much debate was involved, as the Evolved moniker seemed to stick fairly easily. With the introduction of these to the war, it seemed humanity would be okay.