In Blakemore City, most of the children strived to be heroes. They dreamed of having superpowers enabling them to fly, break through walls or tech to help them fire off beams to disable their enemies. Many of their parents still hoped that they themselves would discover some long lost powers.

This city like many others contained these kinds of individuals. And despite this seeming like illusions of grandeur, superheroes did actually exist. And they had done so for quite a while.

Ability users had been public in times long past until after a while it was becoming easier for others find them. Many kings, emperors and other organisations tried to use their services by threatening their friends and family. Eventually many of them decided to operate in secret to protect themselves and their families.

This proved to be mildly successful until the 1900s. During the events of the First World War, many heroes decided to go public in order to boost the morale of the troops as well as to be able to use their abilities more effectively. Heroes such as Kaiser and Fuhrer defected from Germany, when they realised that the war would grow into a stalemate that would last for centuries or until both sides were too weak and would have reached a point where the lands and people were nearly non-existent.

Their abilities alone made them stand out from the majority of people. And with the loss of such powerful figures. The tides of war changed for the German side.

Whilst there was much jubilation for these powerful figures who had helped their side to victory, there were those who were slightly worried. The governments and successful businesses grew weary of letting such powerful figures being loose and not under their control. After all, if figures such as Kaiser and Fuhrer were to decide to take over and convinced other ability users to join them, it would be near impossible to stop them.

Soon there was legislation passed in order to curb these supermen carrying out their vigilante activity. You became required by law in Western nations to sign up. Anyone who did not answer to the government’s call would be arrested and attacked on site. Many other heroes soon went underground again in order to avoid being controlled.

Germany in the meantime had focused on cloning the genes of Kaiser into several new born babies. However they severely lacked suitable carriers. Once Hitler rose into power he used the Jews as subjects for testing. Those who were successful, were them dissected and harvested for their parts in order to try and improve their army.

Soon they began mass experiments in the gas chambers in the attempt to alter the genes of the participants. Those who survived these were coerced into fighting for them.

He then proceeded to offer ability users a safe haven in his empire if they joined, which helped him to turn the tide of the war. Many soon defected to his side after the treatment they had received from their home countries. This enabled him to advance quickly to take over the other surrounding countries.

The legislation soon put the other nations in trouble. After a promise to rescind their decision and a public pardon and apology from their countries, some ability users soon came to fight in the war against the Germans. However, many distrusted the governments and instead went away to other lands. Germany had become the literal superpower capital allowing them to start winning. Eventually, even with the intervention of American allies, the rest of the Western alliance were still losing.

In fact, it was not until Fuhrer mobilised the other countries and nations such as India and Africa mobilising their extensive manpower and ability users did the tides of war change once again.

After the end of the war, many of the nations tried to take the information contained about the German experiments, but those involved soon began to be wiped out, until America began recruitment as to learn how to replicate the experiments. The rest of the information was generally considered lost.

The Western governments soon had to commit to their promises that they had made at the start of the war. However, they delayed using all sorts of excuses and as a result, many unscrupulous ability users began to grow on the rise. Many locations soon became territories owned by these people and it was evident the governments did not have the resources to deal with them.

Soon the government struggled to cope with the rise of these villains and eventually there were pardons called for the heroes, if they agreed to affiliate themselves with the government. However many of them refused to be part of their local countries governments citing that it would be a conflict of interest if the government was to use them as a show of their military prowess.

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After a lot of public support and approval heroes were allowed to run independently from governmental control in the 1950s, but they had a commission setup to keep them in line. The Hero Corps was established and held liaisons with the governmental bodies. They went around protecting the interests of the public.

With many new children starting to manifest abilities in new ways, schools soon began to be setup in the 1960s, to help train them. The hope was that they would fight against those who turned from the path of good, as well as to ensure they had ways to stop those who decided later on not to abide by their moral compass.

There were the popular independent Hero Schools, which many of those involved in the Hero Corps were a part of. The government ran their own schools which they used to train people in the hope they would work for their agencies and army services. Many smaller independent schools were also existed, but they tended to compromised of the elite.

Entry into these schools required you to be one of the following categories:

Espers: Those with high mental powers

Physicals: Those with powers pertaining to body augmenting abilities

Creationists: Those who created something from nothing

Energy: Those who used internal or external energy based attacks

Geniuses: Those with high IQs and were considered super geniuses

Tinkerers: Those who created useful gadgets

Techies: Those who used technology to

Divines: Those with religious based powers

Spiritualists: Those with spirit based powers

Legacies: Those who received power which was handed down to them

Summoners: Those who summoned things to do their bidding

Mechanized: Those with prosthetics attached to them whether robotic or non-human

Reality twisters: Those who could change reality slightly in order to help themselves

Many abilities were usually combinations of the various things, so many had different category ranks.

This criteria was used up until the 1960s when many people protested at the lack of normal children attending. A lot of those who did so, wanted to live out their dreams through their children. Eventually an agency known as the Bright Collective decided to pool their resources together to find children, normal or otherwise who had the potential to become the greatest heroes.

In the 1970s, other realms and secret places such as Atlantis soon appeared before the human public. They soon become integrated into human society, but tended to operate under slightly different rules to the rest.

Many of their children were eventually sent to these academies officially as a show of goodwill and to be an ambassador for their people. But the real purpose was to show off their strength as a warning to the rest of society.

In the 1980s an international tournament was held, both a singles and team tournament, to help boost the enthusiasm of the children to work harder. The incentives included a chance for super teams to scout potential apprentices for their team selections.

They also allowed the winners a chance to gain additional powers. The secret to that was however untold to the public. But generally the winners went on to be at the top of the hero industry.

Fuhrer had changed his name to Paragon and was in charge of Hero Corps. His own special team was called Virtue, and consisted of an international selections representing people from the different countries. It was by far the most popular and extensive group, but was also very hard to get into. Kaiser on the other hand had disappeared from the public view. It was believed that he may have either died, or he was stuck fighting in an unknown realm.

The two were known as the forefathers of modern heroism. Many people looked up to them as an example of doing the right thing. They were well respected for putting the needs of others over their own and were generally loved by all the future generations.

This tale however is not about Paragon nor Kaisers past. This tale is hardly about them. It is about the trials and tribulations of a new generation of heroes. A murderer, a disappointment, a rebel, an overachiever and a person who did not know his own past.