New Blood

A newly powered individual in a city that fears what you might become

Three weeks ago, you were an underpaid graphic designer with student debt and a caffeine dependency. Then the incident happened. A mugging gone wrong in an alley off Myrtle Avenue. Fear, adrenaline, and then light — energy — pouring from your hands in a blast that threw the attacker through a dumpster and left a scorch mark on the brick wall behind him. You ran. You have been hiding ever since, testing your powers on your rooftop at 3 AM and lying to everyone about the burn marks and the headaches and the fact that your apartment lights flicker when you get emotional. Last week you melted your phone charger by holding it too tightly. Yesterday a man in a government SUV parked outside your building for six hours. Tonight someone left a note under your door with an address and three words: You are not alone.

Five years ago, the world's premier superhero team — The Vanguard — fell apart after a mission gone wrong killed three hundred civilians. Public opinion turned. The Superhuman Regulation Act passed. Registered heroes work under government oversight. Unregistered powers are a federal offense. The old villains went quiet, then started adapting. Crime did not stop — it got smarter. And in the last six months, a wave of new powers has been emerging in ordinary people with no connection to the old hero bloodlines. You are one of them. The government wants to contain you. The underground wants to recruit you. And someone in the shadows is very interested in what made you this way.