Disclaimer: Cryptic Studios owns the rights to City of Heroes, a massive multiplayer online game. Used here without permission. No other player's characters were used in this prologue.
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Shelly Hollins's prologue
Paragon City. The City of Heroes, or so it's been dubbed. And- as much as I adore my hometown of Chicago, it had been a welcome change.
This was some time ago, mind you. A good number of places of the city weren't open for visitation until later. It took me forever, after Wilde vanished, to track him down to this part of the globe. It wasn't like he'd ever really talked about going to Paragon City before. Things changed after the experiment, though. In my considered opinion, the troubled times began with - what else- the Ritki war itself.
We got off with relatively little damage to the city compared to Paragon City, or so I'm told. Chicago was still ravaged and humbled, though, it's recovery markedly slower than Paragon City. But a mere two years ago, Ivan, Terri, Wilde and I thought we were on top of the world. We were out to make the city a better place. We thought of ourselves as seasoned, experienced champions of justice.
Not really, as it turns out. We, like most of the world, were little prepared for what happened during those frightful times, that even today, are still fresh in the world's mind.
We were at whatever jobs we had at the time when those aliens invaded. To be honest, the whole time period's a blur right now. I do remember Wilde and I were doing some mundane task for my father, a small time wrestling promoter.
As much as I'd like to say we dove to the forefront of the battle, we were terrified when the action finally started. Several great heroes fell during those dark times. I watched as the aliens fared off against several members of Chicago's special Advanced Nano Technologies, a semi privately owned group of controversial heroes for hire.
Their world famous defense was shattered. I was horrified. The ANTs fought back, rather valiantly, but the Rikti proved near overwhelming. I took a nervous step closer, and was all too relieved when when a member of the ANT defensive ring yelled for Terri and me to take care of getting citizens out of harm's way. I'm thankful to this day Terri, may the Almighty one rest her soul, was along with us and Wilde that day. It was only a twist of fate she was with us at all. Her car had broken down, so she'd been forced to wait impatiently while Wilde and I tended to promotional tasks at Father's gym.
Wilde was the most terrified, at first . Once Terri and I managed to get him focused, he performed admirably. We later found out Ivan had been trapped when the book store he worked at collapsed. It was only through pure luck, miracle, and the unmatched professionalism of the Chicago Fire Department that he was rescued from the building almost two full days later, in the midst of a pitched battle between the Rikti and the hero assisted assembled Chicago police squads.
I couldn't get into further details about those dark times without distracting from the point of the story. Things started to change. I'm sure most of you will remember a war fought on a worldwide front against a neigh unstoppable alien made for some rather unhealthy conditions.
Terri fell ill a little over sixteen months prior to my arrival to Paragon City. The first few symptoms made it seem like a simple persistent cold. Then one morning she awoke to find herself in a hospital after suffering a near fatal fever. It lasted just over two weeks. We lost a lot of sleep after that one. Conditions seemed to vanish, and around a month later, we were feeling good about life in general.
It wasn't destined to last. Not once TaoYuan Inc and Woldcorp Enterprises snuck in our collective lives. We'd gone to them for a cure for Terri, and somehow got wrapped up in their mutant enhancement program. They were supposed to help cure Terri. It became obvious to us later that they hadn't.
That wasn't until some months later. They tried to parlay their "success" with Terri into influencing us to "upgrade" our powers, despite our repeated disinterest. I was rather proud of us for resisting temptation, despite their promises of power beyond our imagination. Then again, Terri and I were actually satisfied with our powers. Wilde and Ivan, on the other hand, found their resolve weakened by the harsh battle conditions of a post war Chicago.
Ivan's powers were increased via a technological helmet and backbrace, increasing his unfocused powers of illusions to the point he not only controlled lights and illusions, but he was able to focus it into actual physical attacks. Wilde's powers were altered totally. In short, instead of producing a physical substance, he produced powerful waves of energy on command.
To make an already long story less tedious, neither went well. The strain of their new powers resulted in a marked decline in their character. Both seemed testy. Easily aggravated, especially with each other. They got jealous, more violent.
Ivan eventually rescinded the mechanics which made him stronger. Wilde had no such option, however. The alterations to his powers were done via surgical alterations on his body. No longer did he produce a physical substance. After the experiment, he instead produced wave after wave of energy that was almost powerful beyond Wilde's belief. Wilde continued down that slide, until he eventually vanished one night altogether.
Terri, in the hospital at that point, died soon after. Consumed with a feeling of loss and emptiness, I made my peace with Ivan, and turned my attention to tracking down Wilde. The best I could do was track him down to Paragon City.. Unsure where to start, I adhered myself to the works of one of Paragon City's many civil service duties for extra powered individuals.
Although I was sent to start working with Antonio Nash of Atlas Park, fate conspired to send me down a slightly different path. It was not until sometime later I discovered the true irony of the deviation. The fates, I suppose, had been conspiring with irony when they laid out this day in Paragon City..
Not that I much believe in fate..
End Prologue
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My characters: Shelly Hollins, Wilde Tanke, Ivan and Terri
My hopefully original corperation ideas: Advanced Nano Technologies, TaoYuan Inc and Woldcorp Enterprises
City of Heroes IP: Paragon City, Rikti War, Antonio Nash, Atlas Park