A few minutes earlier.

As the pillar of light encapsulated the night sky, Braun traversed the dense forest at incomparable speeds. He slid through the gaps between trees, ducked through hanging branches and leaves, and leaped over bushes and shrubs with the agility of a beast.

In the far distance, his eyes locked in on a certain clearing where an orange flame flickered, illuminating the surroundings with a warm glow. Braun grinned upon seeing the campfire and rushed through the leaves and bushes, arriving at the clearing where a white van was parked.

He rushed over to the campfire and grabbed the remaining fish being cooked on top of the flame and ate them with large bites. As he kicked some dirt onto the flame so that no light could be seen, he finished eating the fishes, giving himself a bit more calories to burn.

The wounds all across his body healed at a visible rate, with minor wounds slowly closing and some more serious gashes reforming with brand-new tissue. Although it wasn’t enough, the fishes provided a bit of help to his physical recovery.

Braun then pocketed the sharp sticks from the fishes and went over to the white van. With the door still open, he entered the white van and walked over to the driver’s seat.

He closed his eyes and a series of memories flashed in his mind, a random memory where he curiously watched a guy give a tutorial on how to drive a car online.

“This is going to be so fucking scuff,” Braun murmured with a laugh and took out a key from his pockets.

After having killed Albert, Braun made sure to grab everything valuable he could get, and managed to acquire four certain valuable loot: The gun, Albert’s wallet, Albert’s phone, and the keys to the van.

He inserted the keys into the keyhole of the van and rotated it, causing the engines of the car to whirl to life. He felt the whole vehicle vibrate for a moment before the shaking smoothed down, showing just how advanced and high-quality the van was.

Braun unhesitatingly grabbed the stick beside him, recalled the memories of the tutorial guy online, and followed the precise instructions without making a single mistake. He pressed the pedal with his right foot, and the car began to move backward.

A relieved smile appeared on his face as he controlled the car to switch directions, turning the face of the white van to the dirt road leading to the outside of the forest. He almost turned on the lights of the car along the way but decided to not do so in consideration that Christopher would be able to spot him easily in the middle of the night.

So, with his foot pressed down on the pedal all the way through, he drove through the darkness of the night in a forest with trees all around. There was no fear to be seen in his confident gaze as if it was barely a challenge for him, and that was just the truth.

At this point in his rapid growth, Braun’s senses were beyond the limits of humans, with his mind processing information at a speed far beyond any human genius, with the world moving at a rate akin to slow motion if he so wished. Although his strength and speed aren’t so “superhuman”, they were still impressive, with a running speed far faster than the fastest human in the world and physical strength capable of defeating the mightiest human martial artist with brute strength alone.

The white van crossed through the dirt path of the forest at blitzing speeds, and as his eyes glowed with a green hue, green flames spewed out of the palms of his hands which drilled into the handle of the van, into the haul, until the engines, wheels, and the inner workings of the white van was burning green.

Then, as he intuitively used his strange power just like before, the white van explosively burst forward at breakneck speeds, crossing tens of meters in a couple of seconds with no signs of slowing down—instead, the white van became faster and faster that it even made Braun place more of his focus onto driving the vehicle.

As he drove past the seemingly endless row of trees through the darkness of the night, the clouds above covering the moon in the sky slowly drifted apart, revealing the layer hidden behind them—the night sky, with its ever-mysterious and mystical presence.

The white van burst out of the forest to reveal an endless meadow of green grass and a mountain range covering the distant lands. The starry night sky twinkled with endless stars, shedding light onto the dark planes, with the full moon hanging high in the middle, like an eye observing every organism beneath the heavens.

Braun’s eyes lit up as he saw the beautiful night sky, but was more so shocked because the stars didn’t just remain stagnant, they fell—an uncountable number of stars fell, converging and splitting apart into numerous different groups as if an advent of a new age was about to befall Earth.

It was terrifying. It was exhilarating. It made his heart and soul churn with an unexplainable emotion akin to an intense flame.

Although they appeared no different from a normal meteor shower, Braun knew for certain they weren’t just normal meteors. He knew for a fact what those falling stars meant.

It was the beginning of something new, a brand new age, a brand new story for the whole world.

Or maybe not. Braun’s smile turned cold as, with his partially successful escape giving him more space to think, he began to think of certain possibilities his future held.

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Just what secrets does this world hold? How are superpowers even real? What even is this power of mine? Why did the meteor shower occur? How is that crystal correlated to granting powers?

So many questions, yet no answers.

…

Christopher hurriedly flew into the sky, his eyes glowing bright with white sparks continuously crackling around him. His vision pierced through the cover of the trees and the darkness of the night, revealing details hundreds of meters away.

Slowly, his terrifying idea, that scary thought in his mind began to become truer and truer. No matter where he looked, no matter where he tried to see, Braun wasn’t there. As time passed and seconds ticked by, there were still no signs of his dear friend’s presence.

He didn’t attack. He didn’t try to launch an ambush. It was just a deafening dead silence with the occasional whooshing winds and rustling leaves.

Although he can’t fully articulate his fears, he knows for certain that if Braun was allowed to escape, was allowed to wander around the world with that strange power of his, then chaos was in store.

It wasn’t just some random gut feeling or instinct, no. Christopher knew his friend well—he knew the person known as Freidrich Braun well. All those years he had spent with the one single person he could consider his best friend wasn’t just for naught.

That guy, although normal and sane for the most part and wouldn’t commit crimes, there was a part of him that was… abnormal.

Braun is a normal high school boy with a friendly yet introverted personality. He has a couple of friends here and there but only likes to be really close to a certain few. He’s an academic achiever but not an overachiever. He gives the bare minimum amount of effort he can give to remain afloat in his grades and puts in the hard work when needed.

He’s a kind older brother who likes to tease his little brother; he’s a pious son, but doesn’t scare away from disobeying his parents when he needs to; he’s a diligent student with high grades and is near the top of the standing in his class and even the whole grade; he’s a goofy, funny, slightly narcissistic friend; he hates to waste his time; he likes reading, writing, working out, and improving himself to the best of his capabilities.

He’s the type of person who would like to stand out of a crowd and be far away from the very definition of mediocrity. He hated that word, really hated it.

And that’s probably where his abnormality stems from. Christopher could feel his heart drop to his stomach, his mind racing, trying to put together just what kind of horror was unsealed.

Braun was normal, was normal, for the most part, but that tiny little bit of him not wanting to be average held a lot of impact on his true self. It was a side of him barely shown, barely seen; only after years of being close, in fact, being Braun’s closest friend did he manage to see signs of this more… blemished side of his friend.

Over the years, he noticed the signs—his strained smiles, his twitching ears, his clenched fists, his flexed fingers, teeth gritted behind his poker face, the way his eyes squint and his pupils dilate—it all seemed so minor, but put together, it created a picture that he could vaguely perceive.

Braun hated his mediocrity. Although to the public he appeared an aloof genius, Christopher knew the amount of effort Braun puts in to achieve his level. He knew the number of hours Braun spent developing his skills, shaping his body, curating his appearance, leveling his fashion with his frankly pitiful budget, studying with methods he had mastered over the years—he achieved all of that not through some god-given talent or luck, it was pure, utter, hard work.

Now, imagine being that guy, and being friends with the most talented prick you could ever find.

Although Christopher didn’t want to admit it and subconsciously avoided that topic in his mind time and time again, he knew, somewhere deep down in his heart, that he contributed to Braun’s growing madness.

Over and over again, Braun’s effort appeared insignificant in the face of overbearing talent. Hours of effort were nothing more than just mere minutes for Christopher. What took Braun years to master was something he could learn in under a week and be skilled at in a month.

If things continued that way, it would only be a matter of time before Braun cracked, and Christopher tried his best to remedy that situation. He intentionally acted dumb, lowered his grades, and made mistakes, all in the hopes Braun’s envy would disappear, or at least mellow down.

Unfortunately, when the meteor arrived, he knew Braun had truly gone mad.

It wasn’t just some mere grades or being better at some sport, no.

It was a literal difference in the fate they were given.

Christopher was chosen by the heavens or some sort of mysterious power, and Braun was cast aside as a side character, forced to watch as some monstrous bastard perfect at everything ascended to a higher position, granted some supernatural fucking abilities.

Braun was smart. Before he had even touched the meteor, he knew for a fact that Braun had already deduced that the meteor was a turning point in his life.

What would have happened if I didn’t touch that meteor? What if I had instead let Braun touch it? Christopher wondered, his eyes turning hazy.

Normally, that would have been it. Christopher got some amazing superpowers and he would dedicate his entire life to finding a way to give Braun a superpower too just so that his dear friend doesn’t grow insane from the unfairness of reality, but it seems like his hatred grew beyond what he could have ever expected.

Somehow acquiring powers of his own, Braun was truly reborn. Shed from himself was his mediocrity, and born anew was a monster given limitless possibilities.

Released into the world was Braun’s true self, a side he barely knew, a side that contained murky darkness full of vile negativity.

In the process of his god-given talent growing even further, Braun overturned his fate, and now the world would, and will pay its price for its unfair treatment of a singular, mediocre existence.

He didn’t know what Braun would do next, the kind of chaos he would brew, but Christopher knew one thing for certain—he had to stop Braun.

This was his mission. This was his purpose. This was his fate.

Maybe this is the price I have to pay for being such a bad friend… Christopher looked up to the sky, his eyes teary with regret and grief.

Don’t worry, Braun. The last thing I’ll do as the friend who had disappointed you is to put you back on the right track. I don’t know if I’ll have to kill you one day, but I sincerely pray to whatever higher being there is that I’ll never have to do that.

…

A few hundred meters away from Civer City’s boundaries, Braun munched on a protein bar and watched as the white van exploded with a burst of flames burning brightly within.

Putting his evolved gun inside his pockets, Braun grinned and looked into the distant horizon, his eyes glowing malevolently with green light.

“Mother, father, I hope you didn’t miss me,” he murmured and started to walk. I admit, you guys can blame me, you but you should also blame the fact that this world really just felt the need to have superpowers.

Hahaha… who knows, maybe one day, you three will be my weakness. He squinted his eyes and grabbed the handle of his gun inside his pockets, with his finger pressed lightly on the trigger.

Whatever happens next, it’s not going to be pretty.