The year is 2038 and the world now is... different, and before you start visualising flying cars and the usual cliche themes when envisioning the future, let me tell you that most of the things you are thinking of are probably ideas born on a fantasy, flying cars did get created but they never got sold to mass market, this was because of the resource costs and the outrageous prices to run them, the companies that developed them with their concept experiments classified the projects as unmarketable and void of benefits therefore the idea was dropped, ah, let me get back to the main topic..
2023 was when things started to change, an asteroid which strayed off it’s predicted route struck the earth at 30,000mph, the asteroid was the size of a small house and the point of impact was in the middle of the pacific ocean, fortunately.
This meant that there wasn’t as much damage as one would expect from an asteroid of this size and speed, tidal waves and the preceding consequences of this event were the only real damage from the bizarre occurrence.
The asteroid was chalked up by scientists to have a 1/1,000,000 chance of straying off path and an even bigger chance of impacting the earth, these odds accentuate that it was theoretically close to impossible, but who knew that it would actually stray thus beating the odds.
The Asteroid was nicknamed ‘Iris’ by scientists because of it’s appearance and shape, it’s appearance made it look like it had wings which it used to fly through space, the angular shapes of the rock made ‘Iris’ a fitting name.
Following on, after the impact, scientists and government agencies from around the globe monitored Iris and eventually it was being probed and sampled by every assuming party, however, they found nothing but data on different minerals unseen before within the rock, this was to be expected as the universe was a vast place, and there is a lot of undiscovered entities within it.
The scientists studied this new mineral and found it was much like Sulphur, but dark yellow and contained different properties within as one would imagine that a different mineral would.
A year later scientists discovered Iris had been emitting minor radiation into its surroundings undetectable by geiger counters, the radiation was bizarre due to it’s high potency but low emission, it was a never before seen type of radiation thus undetected by regular geiger counters hence the late discovery.
Moreover, precisely 4 months after the revelation three out of the hundreds of early scientists who were exposed to the radiation found they had unusual abilities, some useful, some not.
Furthermore, this was a turning point for the whole world, as of 3 months after the revelation media reports concluded that around the globe, albeit rarely, people were reporting they had abilities or for better understanding ‘superpowers’, most were useless and weak but some extremely lucky people contracted abilities of what one would expect from a super hero, super strength, flight, eyes that shoot laser beams and the list goes on, to combat the threat of terrorism and the abuse of powers the governments of all major superpowers came together and put all their manpower and resources into creating an organisation called ‘The Circle’, they named it this because a circle has profound and deep meanings that every human understands intuitively from the moment they are born, the planet is circular, the sun is circular, the cosmos is circular and our race as humans seem to be in an everlasting circle of rebirth and death, it has a deep meaning to life and our very nature, thus the unification of countries used this name to signify the importance of the organisation.
The Circle was set up to judge, monitor and prosecute the abusers of superpowers, the Circle employed ‘Heroes’ to take the role of judge, jury and in some cases, executioner, against the abusers.
Back to the present, 2038, and The Circle has evolved into an organisation that eclipses governments and monarchs, it’s an independant organisation which has powers to even prosecute Presidents and Prime Ministers, the headquarters of The Circle was built in the middle of the pacific ocean right above where Iris resides, it protects and monitors Iris to this day, the headquarters was built using state of the art technology and is tens of miles in radius, due to it’s sheer size it’s treated as a manmade island and has it’s own controlled airport and military, in addition to this it has the Heroes who work for the organisation, ranked 1 to 10 in terms of power, rank 1 is the lowest and rank 10 is the highest, they capture/kill power abusers, super terrorists and super villains.
The Circle’s influence is global, the organisation has authority all around the world due to it’s connections and power, the interlinking of major governments and organisations joined forces to create this organisation thus it has evolved into an entity that eclipses the power of countries or alliances, the reason for this fast growth is the leaders of the organisation, a group of 10 people who call themselves ‘Judgement’, the 10 of them are much like the ruling body of a major company or government but extremely powerful and clever in their own right, these 10 oversee and control The Circle from the inside.
The contraction of super abilities was extremely rare, no one knows the precise numbers but in all of the United States there were only a couple thousand known contractors and around the world there is reportedly around 30,000 contractors, and as time passes fewer and fewer people are contracting, this may be due to the potency of the radiation dying down over the years.
I’m one of those unknown contractors living in the city of New York, they say if you find yourself with abilities or powers then it’s the law to report to The Circle and get registered so they can ‘monitor’ you, I know this is so they dispose of you easily if you abuse your powers thus the reason why I didn’t register.
My opinion on The Circle is.. neutral to be honest, they prance around like gods of judgement and the heroes that represent The Circle are mostly justice freaks, the truly inspiring super heroes like I used to watch on the TV as a kid have all but been sucked into the void that is power and have never come out.
They do make a difference however, petty crime has all but vanished and the public security of towns, cities, countries, you name it have increased due to the ‘Hero patrols’ if that’s what I can call them, the Hero patrols are more or less just members of The Circle searching for people to fight.. and well.. most of the time they find them.. which says alot about the rivalry with superheroes and supervillains.
Supervillains and organisations associated to them are the main force that fight against The Circle, albeit they usually don’t last long, the only Villain association that The Circle can’t even seem to touch is a group who named themselves ‘Pyth’ after Pythagoras’s math cults for god knows what reason, but they are extremely powerful and exclusive hearing from what information I’ve picked up about them, they say you can only join on invite and the invite has to be approved by all members thus having few members but each member is extremely powerful.
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I’ve been researching a lot about the organisation's recently due to my ‘awakening’ as I call it, a couple days ago I found myself with abilities, coincidentally a couple of days ago I also turned 18 years old, technically now an adult.. well I’ve technically been an adult since the age of 12 when both my parents died in a car crash thus leaving me to fend for myself.
I was in and out of foster homes for around a year after their death, no relatives wanted me.. the family was never close so I would of felt guilty for burdening them with my presence but they could of at least offered though, right?
Anyway, After being in and out of foster homes, on my 13th birthday I decided enough was enough and proceeded to rely on the only person who I could trust, myself.
I lived off the inheritance my parents left, which wasn’t much, and bought myself a small apartment in the poorer areas of the city, I never went to school since my parents died due to the cost of the daily commute and the added burden on my shoulders, working was the better option for me, mowing lawns, washing windows, cleaning cars, you name it and I did it, I continued doing this to keep myself supported until I found a proper job at age of 16 in the local restaurant called ‘Jerios’, a bland name? I know. The place was just as bland, the job was bad pay but it kept me going, working lots of hours made up for the bad pay and the owner was nice enough.
Thinking back I never did have any friends, because of the circumstances I was in I matured faster than other kids my age therefore they didn’t accept me and bullied me instead, as I learnt painfully, kids don’t like those different than themselves and tend to shun them.
By the age of 14 I was an adult in mind but not body, when I did go to school before the accident I was the top student in my school, getting near full marks on every subject, this was due to my compulsive nature to study and having continued to self study I was a lot more intelligent than other kids my age, this was also a major contributing factor to being the loner I was whilst growing up.
As I was thinking back to my past I heard a knock at the door, the knock was loud and seemed to shake the old apartment with sound vibrations coming through the walls and floor, *sigh* I really need to get this place fixed up.
I opened the battered door and the sun seemed to peek out the clouds in reaction to my appearance and proceeded to blind me, squinting I spoke to the figure in front of me who was the suspect responsible for waking me from my reminiscence.
“Yes?” I said in a slightly higher pitched, inquisitive tone.
The figure in front of me, who I could not see very well due to the partial blindness one gets when blinded by the sun seemed to straighten the posture of his or her body and reply to my open question.
“Ah, yes, are you Mr Eden Lily?”, as soon as the figure spoke the sun decided it had enough of blinding me for one day and hid behind a cloud, as my eyesight returned I scanned the person in front of me, he was a middle aged bald office worker, his tone was light and he wore a black suit as one would expect from such an unassuming character.
“Uh, that’s me, how can I help you?” I replied, my tone a bit lower this time, I always thought my name was feminine therefore didn’t like it when it was said in full, it was to put it lightly, embarrassing.
“Here, I have a letter for yo-”, the man pulled out a letter from his pocket and just as he was about to finish his sentence it slipped out his hands, must be a clutz I thought to myself.
I picked up the letter for him and smiled at him as to say ‘don’t worry’ and then went to close my door, “A-Ah! wait!” the man stopped me from closing the door, I looked at him with a ‘hmmm?’ look and he straightened himself together.
“Mr Lily, As per customer service, I wish you a good day and enjoy your evening, bye now!” he smiled like he’d done me a favour and then turned around and trotted off.
He stopped me for.. customer service..? I don’t think he was the sharpest tool in the shed, rather enthusiastic, actually sickeningly enthusiastic.
I sighed and closed the door with a white envelope in tow and walked back to my computer desk where I was beforehand.
Reaching my Desk I minimised the tabs I was browsing and opened the letter.
‘They’re probably trying to sell me something..’ I thought, but as I unveiled the letter it turned out to be a piece of paper made of exquisite design, it looked of pure silver and had intricate patterns all over it with a strange crest in the top right corner, I recognised this crest.. somewhere..
Opening the letter further, the body of writing on the silver leafed paper was written in a red colour, similar to blood, it looked an awful lot like blood anyway, suspicious was the first word that came to my head.
I proceeded to read the body of text,
“Mr Eden Lily
Or do you prefer to go by Nyx instead? you have been invited to our humble little group,
you will be contacted in due time.
Yours sincerely, Ithax, ~ affiliate and member of Pyth ~”
My mind went blank, is this a joke? Pyth is that organisation of super villains that even The Circle has limited information on, could it be they found out about the abilities I possess? this is likely. ‘Nyx’ was the secret identity name I came up with when I awakened my abilities, I haven’t told anyone at all, the rumours aren’t true, Pyth is likely far more incredible than rumoured.
I still my shaking hand and calm my excitement, this is definitely a real invitation, the letter is silver leafed and the writing is also unique, ah! it hit me like a lightning bolt, I did recognise this logo, it’s actually the logo for Pyth, the logo is an owl biting into the neck of a snake, it was unique, strange and breath taking, simply fit for this organisation.
I wonder how they’re going to contact me? as if the heavens were answering me I heard an alert that I’d received a new email on my computer, maximizing the previously minimised pages I went to my email account and there it was, an email from a sender called ‘Pyth’, how bold, they knew The Circle monitors the web but still they flaunt their name.