July 4th, 2038

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         Adam Warman soared through the sky, his golden cape billowing out behind him like a stream as he sailed above the Earth’s cloud layer at a sustained supersonic speed. The world was silent at his altitude, devoid of the terror and panic that had been spreading across the globe like a disease for the better part of two decades. Lost in the peace of the great blue, cruising between the Stratosphere and Mesosphere; Adam found himself able to divest of the growing despair that had slowly gripped him as the years wore on.

         At barely twenty years of age, the amount of suffering he’d had to confront had defied the expectations of even the most pessimistic of veterans. Not since the First and Second World Wars had tragedy on the scale of the last two decades been experienced, and not since the ascension of the Third Reich had the freedom of humanity and the very soul of the species been so at risk.

         Lost in the heavens as he was, it was easy to think of such concepts as distant and removed from his immediate reality. He wasn’t able to fully dismiss them, but he could push them away and compartmentalise. It allowed him to just enjoy being twenty, sailing across the early morning sky a few miles west of Manhattan. His body tingled in response to the ultraviolet light it was drinking in before the radiation filtered down to the Stratosphere, his pulse quickening in pleasure at the feeling of strength suffusing his physique.

         Adam knew he’d need all of it, every last drop of power, for the task he was to face. His arms spread wide as he rotated languidly onto his back, crossing his ankles together while his eyes looked up and out at the infinite dark of the cosmos. He’d gone into true orbit only twice before, following his mentor’s advice to familiarise himself with the vacuum of space. His superhuman durability and the way his abilities defied Newtonian physics meant that entering and exiting earth’s atmosphere posed less of a challenge for him than, say, a space shuttle… But it was still not an overly pleasant experience.

         The decompression of the darkness felt like a deific fist attempting to simultaneously compress him into pulp and pull him apart. The stellar particles and drifting detritus not incinerated by the atmosphere of his mother planet felt like hammer-blows against his skin. The man-made debris and shattered creations littering the Earth’s orbit — so much of which the populace was wholly unaware of — were like walls of steel smashing against him no matter how slowly he flew through their clouds.

         Space was, in truth, terrifying.

         The fact he could even visit it, however, was humbling.

         Adam’s reverie was disturbed by a glimmer of brightness, forming into the first sign of the properly rising sun. He smiled as he saw it, shifting his position to watch as the fingers of red and gold pierced the light-blue darkness of the lower atmosphere and banished the lingering hold of night that had held court above the sea of white clouds. His pulse quickened and he slowed his speed from a little over two thousand, to instead several hundred miles an hour, observing the sunrise with a peace he rarely felt.

         He laughed into the silence of the sky as he flipped over, turning his eyes to the cloud cover and abruptly arcing upwards. He came to a sudden halt seconds later, killing his velocity with a deadening of inertia that likely caused Hawking, Einstein, and Newton to turn in their graves, as he spread his arms and tilted back his head to bask in the light of the rising sun. It suffused and caressed him, the majesty of its radiance granting him a level of strength that the simple act of passive radiation absorption never quite could.

         Super Strength, Speed, Durability, Senses, and the ability to project concentrated solar fire from his eyes comprised the main arsenal of his capabilities — alongside a capacity for flight, which was by far his favourite of the impossible set of gifts he’d grown into on his eighteenth birthday. He’d been asked more than once if he’d trade it all for a life absent the pain and hardship he’d endured since his manifestation, and his answer had never changed. No matter the circumstance or the change in his situation, he’d always said the same thing whenever prompted.

         Not even for a second.

         His peace was abruptly interrupted by an elegant female voice in his right ear, speaking through the advanced earpiece nestled inside. “Tempest to Hyperion, we’re assembled. What’s your ETA?”

         Adam, glanced down at the ocean of white stretching out beneath him. He paused a moment to consider, and then grinned mischievously. “I’ll see you in thirty seconds.”

         It wasn’t his voice, specifically, as much as the vibrations of his voice-box under the linked throat-band that conveyed his words — but judging from the quiet sigh on the other end of the line, the message had been received. Still grinning, he crossed his arms over his chest like a diver and cut his flight completely. For a second he remained suspended in the air, cape fluttering in the high-altitude currents, before gravity reasserted itself. His armoured golden sabatons punched through the clouds a moment later, leading him into a world of white, wet nothingness as he dropped like an anchor.

         He emerged back into the world seconds afterwards, rapidly accelerating as he descended towards the earth below. At his altitude, it was like looking down at a simulacrum of reality, with vague grey dots and greenery marked by ugly black scars. Scars of war. Scars of tyranny. Scars of horror that were the reason he was even there. A mark of the reality in which mankind lived, ruled by the terror of enemies they’d no capacity to defend against.

         Until Adam’s mentor had appeared.

         Adam spread his arms and smoothly transitioned into an imitation swan dive as he fell, summoning his flight control as easily as one might twitch a finger, and piling on the acceleration. Golden flames scorched the air around him as he pushed himself far past what gravity could enforce, scything through the air resistance to accelerate with blinding speed and a powerful sonic boom towards the rapidly approaching earth. A laugh escaped his lips unbidden at the pleasure of it all, and he spotted his target as the details of the planet grew into clearer focus.

         A group of nine stood waiting on a large outcropping overlooking Manhattan Island, and it was towards this collective that he accelerated. Descending like a golden bolt thrown from the fist of a god, Adam came to a sudden and physics-defying halt a dozen feet from the ground. The subsequent eruption of air and discharge of latent force ruffled the capes and outfits of the eclectic group, while blowing dirt and loose grass everywhere.

         “Really, Adam?” The same voice as before asked with mild irritation, belonging to a beautiful, pale-skinned and black-haired woman his own age. “You couldn’t just come down normally, like the rest of us?”

         “It’s not my fault you have no sense of style, Alannah.” Adam said with the same mischievous grin. “What’s the point in having powers if you can’t have some fun with them?”

         “We aren’t here to have fun.” Cut in a dark skinned man, slightly older than Adam with a military style buzz cut. He wore a navy blue bodysuit with an American Eagle on his chest, and a white-starred red cape behind him. “We’re here to save lives.”

         “Yeah, yeah, calm down G.I Joe.” Interjected a young African American man with an envious 80’s style afro and a golden tooth that gleamed as he gave the other man a mocking smile. His own attire consisted of a large purple coat over a black shirt and pants, with a crown-bearing Raven imprinted on his chest.

         “It’s Patriot, damn it!” The buzzcut replied angrily, jabbing his forefinger at the jacket-wearing tween. “And I don’t need to take orders from an overhyped ornithologist!”

         “Relax. Save the hostility for the enemy.” An easy-going baritone injected, belonging to a man Adam’s age standing near to Alannah. His outfit, in fact, was the inverse of Adam’s own; black bodysuit instead of white, silver armour and cape instead of gold. Even his codename had been picked to create a natural partnership.

         “Well said, Atlas.” A melodious female voice agreed, belonging to a willowy Asian woman dressed in a silver bodysuit with a vanta black cape, and a pair of void-black eyes that seemed to drink in the light around her.

         “Where is he, anyway?” Asked a massive, herculean Samoan man with a shaved head and tribal tattoos visible across his bare arms. He wore a blue vest and muscle-hugging pants, with a simple white cape.

         “He’s coming, Anaru. Be patient.” Said a short Indian woman, her clothing of choice a traditional sari, with pieces of it drifting idly around her in mesmerising patterns, that inevitably drew the eye each time they shifted and twirled. Adam wasn’t the only one who caught himself staring and jerked his head away, blinking off a sudden feeling of almost intoxicating relaxation.

         A sudden sonic boom caught the ears of the assembled, and everyone went quiet, the silence broken only by Adam. “He’s here.” He said simply, as they lifted their eyes to the heavens.

         A man that appeared to be in his late thirties arced down slowly towards them, his body wrapped in a white bodysuit not dissimilar to Adam’s. He bore no symbol on his chest, attired in a set of red gloves and boots that complimented the scarlet cape fluttering from his back. Armour plates covered his torso, and legs in a shade of gold that matched Adam’s own, and a sheathed sword sat upon his right hip. His eyes were intense; golden pupils ringed by red irises that seemed to shine with inner power. His body was powerful muscle on a frame that easily topped six feet and seven inches — with skin that appeared permanently sun-kissed, as if he spent a large amount of time on a Californian beach.

At least, when California had still existed.

         “Hyperion.” The new arrival greeted Adam with a smile. “Is your team ready?”

         Adam dutifully looked back at the others, taking stock of his companions. Expressions of excitement and focus warred with nervousness and trepidation, each person affected by the sheer power bleeding from the new addition like an invisible current. His mere presence seemed to fill them with resolve, and Adam watched with pride as his fellow students straightened their spines and hardened their wills. In the presence of the being before them, they could not afford to show any sign of doubt or weakness.

         Such was the power of a living God.

He turned back when he was certain of his team’s preparedness, once more drinking in the manifestation of primal might before him. The floating figure’s white hair seemed to shine from within, its luminosity distracting Adam for a moment before he remembered himself and answered. “They are, sir.”

         “I’m glad to hear it.” The new arrival said as he looked the other over, all of whom straightened under his scrutiny.

“Champions.” The deity-made-flesh greeted them formally.

         “Olympus.” They replied with reverence.

* * * * *

         Adam floated above a wounded New York City, breathing heavily as he took stock of the situation. The iconic skyline of the once-envious metropolis lay in ruins, an ever-expanding graveyard of formerly proud steel giants impaled on their neighbours from the violence of the combat raging throughout. The civilian death toll, from what he could tell, was already in the hundreds of thousands — with people running for their lives as metahumans went to war on their streets and in their skies.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

         He was not without scars himself. His suit was torn and he was bleeding from a cut on his cheek and innumerable lacerations across his legs and arms. It was a common occurrence for his resistance to fail against the enemies they did battle with, though he was often one of the most powerful of those that took to the proverbial field. A sign of the times, perhaps, that superhumans bled as readily as run-of-the-mill humanity.

         A flash of motion in his peripheral vision alerted him just before a man in what looked like a priest outfit slammed into him with a cross-body swing of two black-bladed swords, hitting Adam’s raised golden spear and smashing him into the ruins of the Chrysler building. Twisted metal and shattered glass supported and buffeted him as he found himself tangled in the skeleton of the construct, and he grimaced in silent apology to the city itself as he tore his arm free of its mutilated insides. He could see his assailant hovering in the air, and Adam wasn’t intending to disappoint the preacher's desire for battle.

         His flight control activated and he burst out of the building in a trail of golden fire, meeting the demented priest with a powerful thrust of his spear, Apollonius. The other man grunted and spiralled away as the impact jarred his black blades, and Adam gave chase with a surge of speed. He met him again half a mile away in the air, and threw a quick combination of precise jabs against the flying priest’s dual-bladed guard. A cry of pain and subtle crack told him he’d broken at least one of the Priest’s arms as Apollonius connected with a forearm vambrace, and Adam released a victorious smile. He ducked around a wild counter-attacking kick and follow-up cross-slash, before trading rapid blows with his enemy to the echoing sound of enchanted steel against enchanted steel.

The priest finally made a mistake and attempted a slightly off-tempo kick at Adam’s head, an opportunity he took advantage of and ducked low. A second later he slammed his fist up between the priest’s legs in close quarters, causing the preacher to vomit in mid-air from pain. Not wasting his opponent’s disorientation, Adam flew up and grabbed him by the head, before twisting in the air and dragging the yelling priest by his skull to hurl him bodily at the ground.

         He didn’t wait for the impact, descending rapidly to follow-up with his spear and impaling the robed man’s abdomen a second after the echoing boom of the priest hitting the ruined asphalt filled the area. A second concussive detonation followed Apollonius’ impact, and Hyperion lifted the horrified face of the impaled priest to growl at him scornfully. “I hope you rot in hell, ‘Father’.” He said with unrestrained disgust, before summoning the solar energy in his body and unleashing twin beams of golden fire from his own eyes directly into his panicked enemy’s own gaze.

         Blood-curdling screams erupted from the priest and he flailed and writhed in Adam’s grip for a moment, spasming and kicking as he desperately tried to avoid his imminent death. Seconds passed as the man resisted, until he abruptly gave a final full-body shudder and fell still. Apollonius was torn from the metahuman’s corpse, smoke and flickers of fire twisting out of the blackened holes that had been the priest’s eyes as Adam took to the skies once more.

His eyes swept the skyline again as he noted several independent engagements happening on land and in the air. A moment of indecision gripped him as he attempted to decide between which seemed the most pressing, before his thoughts were thrown to the wind by a sudden shockwave of power near central park. His decision abruptly made for him, Adam piled on the speed and rocketed for the iconic Manhattan location, taking note that he wasn’t the only one.

         “Dreadnought!” Adam called, drawing the attention of the massive Samoan man as the pair came to a halt near to each other. As always, the self-styled ‘Iron Islander’ had very few visible wounds. Though his powerset was more limited than Adam’s and his maximum flight speed was far lower, the bigger man’s superstrength was almost unrivalled.

         “Hyperion.” The other man greeted him, raising his silver warhammer in salute. “The cultists are bad enough by themselves, but between the Sun Guard and Serpent Warriors…”

         “Amun-Ra and Quetzalcoatl’s forces both mostly fled when Olympus ended them.” Adam said, resting Apollonius over his shoulders as he let the sunlight wash over him from above. “The brotherhood will do much the same in turn.”

         Another titanic detonation of force caused both men to throw their arms up instinctively, fighting the shockwave that raged against their superpowered bodies. “That has to be Olympus.” Anaru said as he squinted at the massive cloud of debris making vision almost impossible.

         “And Messiah.” Adam agreed, itching to fly into the cloud. “Waiting like this is frustrating.”

         “It’s what Olympus commanded.” Anaru said placatingly. “We aren’t to engage the Trumpets. We’re not strong enough, not even on our best day.”

         “It’s still frustrating.” Adam said, though he didn’t disagree. To have the powers he did, and still face such an insurmountable gap… It was both terrifying and infuriating.

         Another discharge of force blasted apart the cloud of debris obscuring their vision, and Adam finally saw the result of the encounter.

         Olympus stood panting in a crater at the centre of the ruined Central Park, his suit torn and savaged by his battles with Amun-Ra, Quetzalcoatl, and now Messiah. His left arm hung limp at his side, while his right hand gripped the throat of a pale blond man with a neat beard, and once-pristine white robes. Those robes were dirtied and torn now, destroyed by the violence of his conflict with Olympus. Adam’s mentor lifted into the air with Messiah’s limp body in his hand, addressing the growing assembly of metahumans. The Brotherhood, Messiah’s followers, were already beginning to flee as they saw what had become of their false saviour: Superspeeding or flying away as fast as they could.

         No one gave chase.

         “Messiah is dead!” Olympus thundered, his voice carrying across the immediate area and the majority of the city beyond. “His hold on the East Coast is ended! His false Kingdom in Europe is no more! I offer you this one chance: Surrender, or flee. If ever you rally again as you did under Messiah, there will be no mercy for you from me or from my Guardians!”

         Adam and Anaru lifted their weapons in victory, roaring their approval alongside their compatriots. Despite the level of destruction, less than thirty metahumans had been involved in the combat raging throughout New York City; only the strongest having been chosen to accompany Messiah to the supposed ambush Olympus’ own agents had manipulated into being.

         “It’s over!” Alannah said, soaring over to wrap her arms around Adam’s neck. “It’s finally over. America’s free! All we have to do now is hunt down Calamity, and—!”

         A sudden explosion of granite and earth shocked her into silence, and a detonation of energy silenced the cheering heroes, throwing them back in the air or knocking them onto their spines on the ground as the shockwave rolled over them. When the dust cleared, Adam’s eyes widened in horror.

         Olympus had dropped Messiah’s corpse, and was spasming in the air, impaled by a massive lance of obsidian metal.

         A battered, ravaged looking native american man dressed in green and brown had his arm extended — and the lance growing around his right fist. The spear abruptly shattered and Olympus was thrown free, slamming into the earth with a dull thud as Adam’s blood roared in his ears.

         His companions were shocked and enraged, pandemonium had erupted as other metahumans burst from the earth and threw themselves both into the air and at the Guardians on the ground. Adam was numb to it, his eyes locked solely on the unmoving figure of his mentor, the man who’d raised him after his parents had been killed. He was flying before he could fully process the decision, hurtling towards the advancing green-and-brown killer with tears stinging his eyes — the moisture blown away by the speed of his flight.

         He impacted the murderer, Calamity, with the force of a railgun shell, smashing him into the ground with Apollonius leading in an eruption of dust and debris that obscured everything. The older man grunted in pain, and reached out to grab at Adam from where the spear pinned him in place. Adam simply swatted away his hand in rage, some small part of him registering how greatly weakened Calamity must have been to be able to be tossed aside by a non-Trumpet metahuman.

         “Fuck you!” Adam yelled, golden fire erupting around his fist as he slammed it into Calamity’s dazed face, snapping the other man’s head back against the ground. “You murdering son of a BITCH!” Another hit and the living god took on a dazed expression, his once-austere features slackening from the abuse. Adam raged and swore, unleashing his grief and hatred on Calamity with punches, knees, elbows, and kicks that did nothing to stop the agony gripping his heart.

         “HOW DARE YOU!” He spat, straddling Calamity and taking a fistful of his black hair into his hands, body warming with a surge of solar energy. “HE WAS EVERYTHING TO ME!”

         The solarfire beams from his eyes smashed into Calamity’s face, burning against impossibly powerful flesh as they haphazardly trailed up towards his eyes, impacting the bewilderingly strong blue gaze that stared at Adam uncomprehendingly. “FIRST CALIFORNIA AND MY PARENTS, NOW YOU TAKE OLYMPUS?! FUCK YOU!”

         The beams melted Calamity’s eyelids as the fallen God twitched, fingers spasming as Adam’s attack boiled his eyeballs in their sockets. “I HATE YOU!”

         He was vaguely aware of his companions shielding him from desperate attacks by Calamity’s followers, with Dreadnought, Atlas, King Raven, and Patriot intercepting anyone that tried to get too close to him as he unleashed his fury on Calamity. A wordless scream of rage tore from Adam’s throat, and he felt the corners of his eyes beginning to burn. Had he looked in a mirror, he knew he’d have seen the golden-white veins of power spreading from the sides of his gaze as he overcharged his solarfire beams — as if his body couldn’t contain the stellar radiation he was pouring out.

         Calamity’s burning, bubbling flesh started to smoke and his last twitches died away. Only a rictus of triumph remained on the dead man’s features, a demented look of glee at having ended his enemy before he himself was ended in turn. Adam’s body shook, the veins of his neck standing on end as he screamed wordlessly into Calamity’s dead face and then abruptly cut off his attack.

         He staggered to his feet, panting and drained, his power reserves washed out. Tempest and Atlas were there to meet him, steadying him. Apollonius stood rigid, reflecting sunlight from where it kept Calamity’s ruined body pinned to the earth. Adam’s eyes trailed to his best friend and his girlfriend, and in their gaze he saw the same agony mirrored in his own. Tears were fresh on Alannah’s features, and Damian — Atlas — was shedding his own. They’d all lost much more than a mentor; they’d lost a friend. A guide. A father.

         Adam stepped away from his friends and stumbled to Olympus’ side, heedless of the dismayed cries from Calamity’s followers as they were refused the same luxury, fleeing before the wrath of the assembled Guardians whose master theirs had killed. His knees gave way and he fell to the ground at Olympus’ side, staring at the gaping hole in his mentor’s chest where Calamity’s lance had left a mortal blow.

         There were very few things that could kill one of the Seven Trumpets.

         The others of their kind numbered among them.

         “Olympus.” Adam said, his voice raw from grief. “I killed him.”

         “Well done… Hyperion…” Olympus responded haltingly, his lustrous eyes dim and his once-luminous hair lifeless and splayed on the ground around him. “He escaped… Earlier. Didn’t know… he was here… until he helped… Quetza…” Olympus devolved into coughing, blood staining his white teeth and olive skin as Adam reached out to place a hand reverently on his chest, watching his mentor through tear-glazed eyes.

         “It falls… to you and… the Guardians now…”

         “We won’t fail you, Olympus.” Adam said, voice choked to his own ears. He could sense his companions surrounding them, feel their grief, hear the sobs and cries of grief. Patriot supported a wounded King Raven, who in turn held a weeping Indira in his arms. Dreadnought leaned on Tempest, while Lady Midnight consoled a trembling Atlas. Two of their number were gone; slain in the fight against the Trumpets. The grief for them only added to their loss.

         “Protect... my legacy…” Olympus said, his eyes losing focus. “Protect… the future…”

         Adam’s resolve hardened at the words. “I promise.” He said through tears. “Forever.”

         Olympus’ lips lifted into a bloody smile. “… my son…”

         Then he died; the Primus, the Seventh Trumpet, the God among Gods.

         He died, and the Trumpet War died with him.