Everything that lives must die, every living being knows that cold, harsh truth, and no one knows it better than the United States. The plague struck America with no regards for the millions of lives that it took and the billions of others that it affected through those deaths. People started to signs of having the disease and in the later part of the day, they suddenly fell to the ground with glassy eyes that weren't even aware that was the last time that they would see. So many people were afflicted with this strange brutal virus that it became common to see people falling sporadically and then being hauled off by others wearing masks to the nearest graveyards with awaiting graves.
There were no funerals, many felt that it was pointless seeing as it was only a matter of how soon it would be before they would see their loved ones. The antibiotics and the other treatments provided by the hospitals and clinics would only serve to deny the inevitable and most civilians refused to take any, viewing medication as a means to prolong a battle when the war was already lost.
Hell even the countries that once allied themselves with the American people cut their ties with them, but didn't dare even try to extract their ambassadors out from the forsaken place for fear that the disease that was making America draw its last breath would follow their people back to them.
So it was exactly like Empire City, instead of a city being quarantined from the nation for fear of an outbreak, it was the nation being isolated from the world.
The few that did take the medications were because they were just in denial of that simple fact: that they were to die soon, that their time was to end so abruptly with no means to live through it.
…That is unless you were a Conduit.
Yes at first the idea that some people could survive the very thing that was killing millions every second, but seemed unable to touch a selected few brought the hope that was dying back to full blast. Over time however when people that were confirmed to have the Conduit gene also seemed to die, panic flooded the very hearts of people, it seemed that the disease was the Reaper in disguise as it never seemed to fail kill anything it came in contact with.
The misunderstanding was cleared up soon as The Beast had publicly shown the people via T.V. broadcast that only Conduits that had their power activated could survive it. You can imagine the looks on people's faces that it took an explosion that exerted some the same kind of radiation, though at a larger concentration and in a quick amount of time, and the sacrifice of others for a Conduit to gain his/her powers and to be free from death's skeletal hands. .
When people learned that The Beast was going round the U.S. looking for Conduits to save, they had mixed feelings for the red-glowing superhuman.
Some thought that he was a modern-day messiah, most thought that he was a threat greater the plague itself.
So the ones that viewed him as a horseman of the apocalypse sent waves of attacks at him and his followers, each attempt ended in failure. Volleys of missiles were shot down by orange lightening from the sky or the palm of The Beast's hands. Infantry men were fried, frozen, butchered, pummeled, and massacred. Tanks exploded before they even fire a shell and C4 explosions were absorbed and released towards the soldiers that opposed the evolution of humanity.
So before long things fell into routine again with some differences, people still slumped to the ground lifeless and dropped into hastily made graves. This time though people also looked out for the ice woman with dark blue hair and startling light blue eyes. She was the herald to one's survival and a hundred's deaths.
Life goes on… until Cole MacGrath is given a new yet familiar power and confronted with the same problem of a man named Kessler.