Utopia, the name of the ideal city, where everyone had the right place for them according to their skills and experiences. The place where everything was justice and its inhabitants helped each other.
At least that was the idea when the first citizens named this metropolis.
Nothing could be further from the truth, Utopia was the opposite of what its name represented. Ruled by a corrupt mayor who helped local mafias control the territory in exchange for protection and favors. With a police department that served the will of the mayor and other powerful men of that city. With inhabitants who only cared about themselves and their well-being and never looked at others misfortune.
"Kane is going to launch his reelection campaign and, of course, he will have Randy Orton's support." Seth almost rolled his eyes. "You know, bread and circuses to the citizens and they will let him control their lives. This city is a fucking hell."
"Heard there are worse places, in other countries. At least we have democracy here, or something similar..." Dean replied looking at the documents in a folder. "So I think we still have time to control this disaster. Especially if we get Kane to lose the election."
"That would be a masterful move. But there are no strong candidates, much less honest. We still have a month to find someone and sponsor him." Seth took out another folder full of documents and started going through them.
"You should be his opponent. Everyone knows you in this city, you are the perfect candidate." Dean said as if it was the obvious thing to do.
"I can't. As mayor I would have more attention on myself and I don't need it." Seth handed Dean several pictures and documents. "You know that since we started The Hounds of Justice, I can't afford to lead such a public life."
Dean looked at the files carefully, making a frowning at the pictures. "So, this guy's name was Titus O'Neil, Utopia's heavyweight boxing champion. His body was found on the river bank, beaten and almost shred. The police report says the condition of the body is due the fall and the strong flow of the river ".
"Only a fool would believe that. The police are covering up whoever is killing these men." Seth snorted "We have to find out why they are kidnapping these guys. By now we know that they all have in common being athletic men, practicing some kind of martial art or fighting sport, being big and strong, and they all end up dead in the same way".
"This proves that this city definitely needs us." Dean added: "Even if many don't recognize us as heroes."
"Because we are not heroes, Dean. We are The Hounds of Justice. We are not here to save anyone, we are here to end injustice." Seth said seriously. "These people would kill each other for money or power, they don't deserve heroes and I'm far from being something like that."
Dean sighed, wondering if Seth would ever see things differently.
Dean had met Seth when they were both children. Seth was the only son of David and Julie Rollins and heir to a millionaire empire. His father had industries dedicated to commerce, manufacturing, and even science. Julie was one of the most famous scientists who received many awards and had her own laboratory.
They were both very busy people, so they had left their only son in the care of Jon: Dean's father, who was their most loyal employee and also the boy's bodyguard.
Jon was a young widower who was in charge of his only child. He was Seth's father figure, whom the young millionaire looked up to as if he were a hero, because Jon had saved their lives many times. Seth rarely saw his parents, but he always saw Jon. And along with Jon was always his young son, Dean, who had become Seth's best and only friend, as his parents raised him privately inside the mansion.
Twenty years ago...
"I don't like charity events." Seth, a seven-year-old boy, complained. "Can Dean come with us?"
"Only if he wants to." David replied.
"I would like that. Besides, Dad will take care of us, he is a hero." Little Dean laughed.
Upon arriving at the event, Allen Jones, Julie's young assistant in the lab, greeted both children. They both had to hold back their laughter, Allen was a weird boy, he wore huge glasses, metal braces, he had very short hair and his face was full of acne, he also wore very ugly clothes. However, Allen was a prodigy, he was 18 years old and in college in a very advanced course for his age. Also, he was working with Julie on a very important and expensive project.
And although Allen worked with Ms. Rollins, he seemed to ignore many of the details of the project. Apparently it was something so secret that not even her assistant had all the details.
Shortly after, Bob Orton and his family arrived, they were as rich as the Rollins. Bob was the example that the end justifies the means and David hated the way Bob did business. The people he related to were the worst, and Bob seemed unscrupulous about getting money and power. They approached the Rollins to greet them.
"Little Sethie and the friend he bought because nobody wants to be around him." Randal, Bob's son, smirked.
Randy liked to mortify others, especially if they were smaller and weaker. Randy was 14 years old, he was much older than both kids. And that was another reason David hated Bob, since he hadn't taught Randy to respect anyone.
"Seth, Dean, stay close to me." Jon walked over to both boys and glared at Randy.
The party went smoothly. They raised a huge amount of money for the city hospital and the most important families were there to show their support.
But unexpectedly, the room was invaded by an armed group. Apparently they had fooled the strict security that had been hired for the event.
It was the gang of thugs known as D-Generation X. They were led by the criminal known as Triple H.
"Just look, the richest and most powerful people in town. My guys want charity too, so we'll take that money." Triple H scoffed.
The thieves took the money, the jewels and everything valuable that they could get. Triple H approached the Rollins who were the last to be attacked.
"Julie Rollins, scientist, philanthropist and also the most beautiful woman in this city." Triple H grabbed Seth's mom's arm and brought his face close to hers. "I should take you with me."
She spat in his face.
Triple H wiped his face and slapped her, the woman was bleeding on the floor.
"Boss, police is coming, we should go." One of the henchmen yelled.
"I have to go, but I'm not leaving without teaching this bitch a little lesson." Triple H smirked at Julie. He pointed his gun at Seth.
Triple H raked the gun and fired. Jon lunged at the criminal, deflecting the shot toward the glass ceiling. Pieces of broken glass fell on the people gathered at the party and everyone was screaming and losing control.
Triple H's henchmen threw Jon away from him and the criminal pointed his gun at Seth.
Seth heard his mother's screams and then the shot. The boy closed his eyes waiting for his death, but nothing happened. It was then that he opened his eyes and saw Jon's body lying on the ground and Dean crying as he hugged his father. Jon had freed himself from the hitmen and used his body as a shield to save Seth and consequently got a bullet in the head.
The criminals fled with the money.
That was the first time that both children had to face injustice.
The next day was Jon's funeral. Dean and Seth were hugging while crying heartbrokenly, they both loved Jon and were hurting for his hero.
At that moment, Julie made a decision that would change the lives of both kids. After the funeral, she approached Dean.
"Dean, you know we are all affected by this, right? We love your father."
"I know. He was a hero and he died like heroes die, saving lives." Dean said through tears.
Julie swallowed hard, what she was going to do was terrible amd selfish. But she had to do it if she wanted to save the her son's life.
"Do you want to be a hero like your father?" She proposed.
"Of course." Said the boy innocently.
"Come with me then, but you can't say anything to Seth or my husband. This will be our secret." She hugged Dean.
The boy nodded.
She took Dean to the lab. It was Sunday afternoon and no one was there. Julie went with the boy to the office where she was developing the project she had been working on since the first time they were targeted by criminals, when Seth was only one year old.
"I'm going to give you a umm... medicine. You are a brave boy, right?" She asked sweetly.
"As brave as my father." Dean nodded vigorously.
Julie tried to contain her emotions. She felt very bad for using Dean in this way.
"If everything goes well, this experiment will be a blessing in the life of Jon's son." She thought herself as she prepared everything. "But if it goes wrong, Dean is going to... No, everything will be fine."
Before applying the 'treatment' to her own son, she had to experiment with another body, and being a boy about the same age as Seth, Dean was the perfect candidate.
"I'm going to put you to sleep, Dean." She was trying to hold back the tears.
"Don't cry, Ms. Rollins. I know you guys loved my father, I don't blame you for anything." Dean said honestly.
Julie felt her heart shrink. However, there was no going back, she put Dean to sleep and after almost six hours of hard work, she had done the experiment.
She sat waiting patiently for the boy to wake up and see the result.
"All the animal experiments were successful, but Dean is a boy." She thought.
Soon after, her husband arrived at the laboratory. He had been looking everywhere for Julie and in the end he deduced that she would be there. Such was his surprise when he saw Dean lying on a bed and the surprise turned to outrage when his wife confessed what she had done.
"Our duty is to protect Jon's son!" David was screaming. "He died saving our son's life and you pay him by using his son as a guinea pig."
"He's asleep, he hasn't had any adverse reaction to the serum, maybe it worked and I gave Dean a gift." Julie was trying to justify her actions.
"But what have you done to him?" The man claimed in pure anger.
"It is a serum that I have worked on for years, it will give him more strength, speed, agility, and it will make his body much stronger than that of a normal person, without speeding up his metabolism or damaging his internal organs. Well, that is what I hope to achieve." She whispered.
"Do you hope?" David was livid. "You used an 8-year-old to find out if your serum worked, even if there was a chance it wouldn't. How could you do something like that?"
"Because one of us must do something to protect our son!" She cried desperately.
Dean woke up, they both stopped arguing and approached the boy.
"How are you feeling, son?" David asked.
"Well, I rested very well. I am very hungry." The boy smiled.
The following days, Julie did all kinds of tests on Dean. The boy was perfectly healthy, he was more intuitive and even curious and it was obvious that he was stronger than normal, he had accidentally destroyed several things. Dean did not understand why and he did not care, he was too young and naive to worry about that.
David had to admit that his wife was successful. That's when they agreed to do the same experiment with Seth and then they would get rid of the formula. It was too dangerous a knowledge and if it fell into the wrong hands it would be a disaster. Fortunately, the only one who knew of the existence of that serum was Julie.
However, as he grew up, Seth was filled with resentment towards his parents for his lack of ethics in having subjected them to such an experiment, for not being able to grow up as normal children and having to live hiding things.
Due to such resentment, Seth was never close to his parents and had left the country as soon as he was of age, and Dean had followed him, since he was the only one who could control his brother's wild bahavior.
When Seth was 20 years old, D-Generation X attacked again. Murdering David and kidnapping Julie in a confusing incident. Both boys were out of the country when this happened and upon hearing the news, they returned as quickly as they could. They asked the police for help, who promised to help but the investigations did not progress.
For a month they were behind the case but the police did not help them. Until one morning they found Julie's body, she showed signs of having been tortured.
This fact deeply hit both of them, since if they had been in the country they might have been able to avoid it. Now both boys had lost their entire family to the same group of criminals who had the city under their control.
And no one had done anything about it.
They didn't know why after so many years these men had decided to attack Seth's parents. Why had Julie been kidnapped? And... why had they killed her?
And that was the ultimate motivation to do something on their own, as the police didn't help. They knew that they were not like the others, what Julie had done to them gave them an advantage over others and they would use that advantage to avoid further injustices.
But although Dean and Seth had a common cause, they both had different motivations. Dean wanted to be a hero like his father, he wanted to save lives. Seth wanted to be a punisher, to destroy of all criminals and murderers. Dean wanted justice and Seth wanted revenge.
Currently, in another part of the city...
"Seriously?" The tattooed man smiled. "This desk is in perfect condition. It looks like this dent was made on purpose."
"What if it was?" The handsome scientist smiled back. "What if it's just an excuse to see you, Roman?"
The Samoan smiled. "Dr. Styles, are you flirting with me?"
"Call me AJ, when you call me Dr. Styles you make me feel old." AJ walked toward to Roman, staring intently at him.
"Thirty-eight years is not being old." Roman didn't seem bothered by AJ's flirting. "Especially when you look better than a lot of younger men."
"You don't care that there is ten years difference between you and me." AJ stroked Roman's face.
"There are ten years of experience that we could take advantage of." Roman looked at AJ like he wanted to eat him.
And that made AJ wince. The scientist bit his lip, he was totally crazy about Roman. They had been flirting since AJ hired him to fix some shelves in his house and since then he was looking for any excuse to hire him again, even destroying his own furniture. The two of them stared at each other intently as their faces were dangerously close, the sound of the door opening interrupting them.
"I come to see how the progress of our project is going and I find you flirting with the carpenter." Randy Orton walked into AJ's office, looking at Roman like he saw trash.
The Samoan rolled his eyes. Oh, he did hate Orton.
"What I do with my private life is not your problem Randy. Your project is developing, that's all that matters" AJ pursed his lips.
Roman smirked. Randal looked at him with contempt, the millionaire heir detested the working class, considered them inferior. Even if Roman was very handsome, to Randy he was nothing more than trash and he wanted to keep him as far away as possible.
"You must be happy you found a sugar daddy, right Reigns?" Randy smiled. "Now get out of here, I need to speak to AJ in private."
Roman wanted to smash Randy's face, but that would ruin his life. He was trying to make a career in mma, he was still a long way from fighting for an important title but he was progressing in his career and maybe soon he could stop being a simple carpenter. If he hit Randy, the millionaire would bury him inside a prison, everyone knew that Randy had bought the police. Also, hitting Randy would also hurt AJ's work and Roman liked the scientist very much, he didn't want to ruin his work.
Randy went to the lab and AJ apologized to Roman.
"Hey, I'll make it up to you for this." AJ led Roman to the door. "I'll go watch your next fight."
"That's an amazing idea. I'll be waiting for you." Roman flirted back and left.
AJ leaned against the door. "What have you done to me, Roman Reigns?"
The scientist rolled his eyes as he remembered that he had to deal with Randy and his pedantry. However, Randy paid him a small fortune for his services, so he went to the lab. There, Orton was going through the files.
"Another failure." Randy said angrily.
"Curiously, Julie left the project twenty years ago. In those twenty years we could have fixed all this and now we would be successful." AJ explained. "But she decided to dedicate her life to being a mother and wife and left science."
"To have tortured her to give us the formula was useful, but in seven years we have not made much progress." Randy complained. "The only difference is that the bodies of the guinea pigs no longer explode. But they deteriorate horribly and die before they can be of any use to my plans."
"I'm doing what I can. I've made some corrections to the formula. We have to get another victim. As strong as the boxing champion was." AJ stated coldly.
"There's a guy named Luke Harper, he's a wrestling champion. He'll be next on the list to try the serum." Randy smiled. "Hopefully this time it works."