Weeks Before…
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About four decades ago, the world changed.
The superpowers of the world had been previously engaged in a civil war that threatened to destroy humanity. Nuclear winter loomed, and millions lost their lives in escalating engagements and apathetic horrors that never seemed to end.
Until Starfall.
The scientists and space monitoring stations never noticed it. It was like one moment, the skies were blank and empty, and only the earth of the planet was soaked with the blood of innocents and filled with the sounds of explosions and gun fire.
The next moment, the skies tore open, and the meteors descended.
All over the world, even more people died that didn't need to as this flaming shower of luminescent rock bathed the world and destroyed everything in its path. Devastation reigned for hours, as they just kept coming, and falling, and coming.
Then, the meteors stopped.
There was silence. Silence, in the heart of catastrophe. Silent, as the world watched in shock; their cities, destroyed. Their neighbours, pulverised in the impact explosions set off by the meteors. Even the battlefields were quiet; some armies on the fields had been wiped out by stray impacts. Some just watched in shocked silence as their comrades were turned into burning paste upon black packed soil.
In this silence, the war stopped. The world consolidated.
And the Preterhumans followed. And the Titans followed.
Something changed in the world when Starfall happened. Individuals all over developed these strange, puissant abilities. Some could fly, some breathe flame, others were stronger than their peers. No one noticed at first, as the world was still reeling from the shower.
When the Titans arrived, mutated monolithic entities formed from animals and the natural debris of the world, the world listened. The world watched as these Titans destroyed their cities; then as powerful, glorious men and women rose to stop them.
The Preterhumans are worshipped as heroes.
Eiden wants to see them all dead.
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The man in the white lab coat walked in front of him, his heavy footsteps echoing loudly through the metal hallway.
"You will do nothing when you are attacked," the man pronounced in a no-nonsense manner. He was facing forward, his posture straight and stiff. There was nothing in front of him except a continuous stretch of grey metal flooring and walls, but he continued talking anyway. "The last time, your anger obviously got the better of you, so you punching GX-08 was excused. If you do it again, however…"
The man trailed forward, coming to a stop and glancing over his shoulder. Behind him, a slight, young individual also came to a stop, standing in stooped silence. The individual's face was obscured by strands of pure white hair as they fixed their gaze on the floor; from the general shape of their body, however, it was evident that the figure was male. They were dressed in almost featureless white clothes; shirt, trousers, everything was white, matching the sterility of their environment.
"If you do it again," the man in the lab coat continued, "consider your life forfeit. I expect that you will behave."
The boy whispered something inaudible. The man didn't say anything in reply; he simply raised his hand.
'SLAP!'
The sound of flesh meeting flesh rang like crystal in still water as the boy's head violently snapped back, his face glowing red with a developing bruise.
"When you speak, you will use your voice," the man growled, releasing his arm and looming over the boy. "Now, do you understand me?"
"Yes, Sir," the boy croaked with a hoarse voice, still staring at the ground.
The man grunted in vague displeasure and turned to continue walking. For a moment, the boy looked up. Blue eyes shone from beneath white strands of hair. They gleamed with eerie intensity as they watched the man walked away, the pupils dilating and the irises almost vibrating.
Then the boy looked down again and followed.
They approached the end of the hallway, where two doors loomed; one on the left side, and one straight ahead. The man entered the one on the left, with nary a glance at the boy. The boy was left alone for several moments. He stared at the door; a large slab of gunmetal grey steel, cold and emotionless.
Behind that door…
The boy clenched his hands when he noticed them shaking, and exhaled heavily in an effort to calm his palpitating heart. He glanced up at the ceiling, spotting the white camera knob fixed at the corner. The lenses dilated, then focused, fixed directly on him.
The boy exhaled. Then he pushed open the door and walked in.
He was instantly blinded by a searing white light that made him pause and flinch, squinting in an effort to see anything. As his eyes adjusted, it became evident that it wasn't light at all. Everything in the room was simply white. White flooring, made from some synthetic ceramic alloy that was extremely dense. White walls, white ceilings, white everything. A few glaring light fixtures placed at the ceiling beamed light that made the contrast even worse.
But the boy didn't notice any of that. In the centre of the room, standing loosely as if he didn't have a care in the world, was a boy. He was younger than the first, with pale skin and blood red hair that shone vividly in the all-white room; the contrast was incongruent.
He was shorter as well, with a slighter frame, thinner, as if he was on the edge of being malnourished.
But his physique didn't matter. The way he looked didn't matter. All that mattered was his presence, which filled the room in palpable, almost suffocating waves.
That presence seemed to increase tenfold when the boy slowly looked up…and met the eyes of the first.
"This again?" the boy spoke up, his voice thin, reedy and arrogant. "Why do I have to fight 02? He's weak! Where's that sister of his?"
"Subject GX-01 is considerably beyond your capabilities at the moment, 05. You will conduct this evaluation with 02, or you will be placed in the Icebox," a voice echoed from speakers placed in hidden corners, deadpan and patently unbothered.
The red haired boy, 05, grew angry at the uncaring words. He snarled at 02, who seemed calm on the surface, but was actually one second away from bolting. He was used to 05's ugly moods. He wasn't quite as skilled at navigating it as most of the other Subjects in the base, but he was used to it, and used to enduring the outbursts that followed.
"If that's how it's going to be," the air around 05 seemed to tremble even harder, and even through the reinforced ceramic floors, 02 could feel slight tremors running up his bare feet, "then I'm going to beat you down so hard that you won't be able to get up, and those white coats won't embarrass me again!"
05 raised his hand, and the world seemed to shatter into a million pieces.