Hello, and welcome aboard. This train will be traveling to the city of New Berk, one of the many gifted cities throughout the world. In case you're unfamiliar with gifted, here is a brief history of them and the cities in which most now make their homes:

The gifted are individuals whom have been blessed by the gods themselves with extraordinarily abilities. Each gifted is unique in the gift they receive and the power it grants them, many years ago when the first gifted was born the world believed it was the beginning of an age of superheroes, however this was soon dismissed as many gifted received abilities that were unsuitable for a life of fighting crime; after years of study the answer came in the form of Odin and Thor themselves descending to earth and proclaiming that every god in Asgard had chosen humans around the world to grace with a bit of their power. This led to the naming of these individuals as The Gifted, in time the number of gifted would increase as the existing gifted grew older and had families; at this time the gifted make up roughly 17% of the world's population.

As the number of gifted increased, concern arose that their abilities would begin to affect those ungifted in the workplace. This concerned was validated by several groups of people losing their jobs in favor of a single gifted who could do the same job as an entire team alone. After several deliberations the governments of the world came to an agreement: they would build cities meant exclusively for the gifted in which they are free to make the most of their abilities without worry of bias over the ungifted. These cities, such as New Berk, would be completely self sufficient just as any other city. They chose their own leaders and pillars of their communities, the only true difference is that their gifts are often used to help with these decisions.

All gifted cities do however have a liaison assigned by their government, an ungifted representative that works closely with the city leaders to ensure that everything within these cities is running smoothly and that the people are happy living there, should this not be the case it is that liaison's responsibility to fix any issues if possible. There has one been one time when a liaison could not fix a problem: when the city of Uglythug decided they were better suited to run the country then the government, they attempted to conquer a nearby ungifted city and were met with a military response. The city's residents forced the military's hand and were sadly exterminated, this led to accords between the remaining cities and their governments to avoid such tragedies in the future.

Now lets learn about the city of New Berk, where you will be arriving shortly: New Berk is built over the ruins of what is now known as 'Old' Berk. After the breaker purge just over twenty years ago the city had been left in ruins and completely uninhabitable, however with help from the ungifted cities surrounding them the inhabitants of 'Old' Berk rebuilt their homes and bestowed its current name as a sign of faith in a fresh start. It is also the only gifted city to have open borders with the ungifted cities near it; allowing ordinary humans to visit freely and better understand the gifted society. The mayor of New Berk: Stoick Haddock has been working with the government through his liaison to open up other gifted cities to encourage better relations between gifted and ungifted, a movement that has gained a great deal of support especially in ungifted towns and cities that have gifted living among them. There will be a vote in the coming months to determine whether or not this movement will become a bill, we here with the New Berk Information Center wish him the best of luck in this venture.

New Berk is also one of six battle cities, in which gifted of different age groups an fight one another to increase their ranking within their ago bracket. Currently the most popular is the 17-20 bracket, where top ranked Astrid Hofferson is making waves with her undefeated record, a feat that no one has been able to achieve for their entire time in a bracket since the mayor himself. Her ability to generate a magnesium flame stream from her hands has a blinding effect on her opponents that even sunglasses cannot protect them from! Miss Hofferson has stated her goal is to be the absolute best fighter in her bracket until she finishes all the professional brackets at the age of 26, after which she plans to become a teacher and coach future fighters how to make the best of their gifts like her late uncle once did for her. We here at the NBIC wish her the best of luck at the upcoming showdowns were the best fighters from other battle cities will be traveling to New Berk in order to have friendly matches that aim to help better the connections we have with our fellow gifted around the world.

At this time if you look out your window you will see the wonderful city that is New Berk, we will be arriving soon. If you are an ungifted or a guest gifted for the showdowns coming to visit our fair city we hope you have to grandest of trips; and if you are a gifted coming in search of a place to belong, we welcome you with open arms to what we hope is your new home.

Now please sit back and relax as we finish our final approach.

The small holo screen being projected from the seat in front on him cut out. A young man, nineteen years of age looked out the window at the sprawling city the train was rapidly approaching, these cities had far more advanced technology that was constantly advancing due to those gifted with mental abilities allowing them to do years worth of research and studies in mere weeks. Holo-vision was a more recent invention, despite how it may look from the outside, the world's of gifted and ungifted were rather tightly knit together, the gifted never hoarded their advanced technology for themselves. Instead they opted to patent and sell them like any other businesses but at much more affordable prices due to the reduced staff involved in making them. The global economy was constantly improving with each new level they reached. The auburn haired teen looked down as his duffel back and backpack, pretty much everything he owned stuffed into them, he really hoped this was the right call.

Digging into his pocket the boy pulled out a piece of paper, on it was written a couple of addresses and names that his dad had left him. It had always been a promise to come here when the he was twenty, however life cruelly changed that plan through the act of some punks looking for cheap thrills. Now he was on his own and had to make the journey himself.

"Well..." the teen said to himself as he looked out at the window as they entered the city, "I guess my life is about to get much more interesting."