Mutations are things that are constantly contested. The main question is how it occurs and why.

The other biggest question is ‘why do animals easily ‘mutation’ or ‘adapt’ to their surroundings on a biological level but humans have pretty much stagnated genetically.’

This was a question left unanswered but not because it had no answer but because there was no need for it.

In the year 2020, almost as if something happened to humanity, children all over the world began to awaken powers. Generating fire, transforming, super strength and all such mutations all appeared. As time passed, even adults awakened them.

The event was called ‘The Awakening’. Countless varied abilities appeared in many people all of which are from comic books and cartoons.

In a short time genetic tests were done on thousands of people and they were found to have had a very similar bundle of DNA that was unlocked.

The genetic strand has areas that are easy to open and copy and others that are too tightly bound so it is regularly randomly built up.

Something in the body caused dozens of these sections to unwind and because they were random, the mutations were all different.

Another side effect that came with it is that the previous human strength limit changed greatly. Even someone without super strength powers could train their bodies to superhuman levels.

The first few years were in a state of tension because it was all so unknown but during that time, the powers grew more and the people adapted.

The straw that broke the camel's back came when the first ‘super villain’ appeared.

Common criminals had already begun appearing but it was relatively easy for the police to suppress them with the simple powers they had but a super villain was different.

Although their powers weren’t special, they were highly creative and intelligent. Not only that but it was the first case of organized crime to appear with super powers.

At the same time vigilantes calling themselves heroes appeared. This was the start of what people called the start of the age of chaos.

There was no clear distinction between hero and villain.

For nearly 80 years it became like this. Countless organized crime syndicates formed plunging the world into one of the darkest eras. Many weak governments were even taken over by them forming villain ruled nations.

The change came when the USA, Russia, China, Japan and the european nations banded together in what was then called the Resistance movement.

For most of the 80 years that the world was ruled by villains, many top countries developed training methods to develop all the powers and to learn about them.

From categorizing to researching weaknesses, they investigated all the enemies and trained power to combat each and every villain.

The first to fall were the syndicates in each of their nations, removing the biggest dangers off their streets.

Then, the Resistance war began. It was also called World War 3, this was because it engulfed the entire world but it didn’t have missiles or bombs and instead had heroes and villains, a war of superpowers.

After 30 years, most major syndicates were beaten because the public aided the resistance by giving information and movements.

Eventually the remaining ‘villains’ banded together and escaped from major continents like Asia, Europe and Africa and completely captured Oceania.

Sadly they could not stop them after that. The villains rapidly developed defensive systems against the heroes.

Still, even with their constant presence the rest of the world was mostly free from them. This was when the age of peace finally set in and the third world war ended.

Only after this happened the world began to calm down and what was now called the world hero union began to set down regulations.

Even with the major villains captured, killed or pushed away, the minor ones were still very plentiful.

They eventually created the laws of heroism. This amendment was world wide and permitted authorized people to do heroism. That said, the title ‘hero’ was not given easily. Heroes were the men and women who had the power to truly promote safety, the pillar of a region, nation or more.

For weaker people they have lower ranks. New ones are ‘Trainee’ followed by ‘Vigilante’. These two ranks can be called the neighborhood heroes. They are equal to local militia to fight off local criminals alongside police.

Above them is Strongman. These are really powerful people and this official rank actually comes with benefits. The Strongman rank gives the person the ability to call and command local military and police in case of bringing down large groups.

Above them and below hero are called Brave Men. They are, in all respects, the symbol of a state, they are the highest ranking among those of a countries state.

Finally is the Hero. They are the symbol of an entire nation. Most nations don’t have more than 10 and they are the pillars of peace in any nation. They are regarded as the current nuclear deterrent in the current world. Why is it regarded as such, because each hero has to have their maximum power equal to at least half of the power of a nuclear weapon in one way or another.

With the coming of peace, new discoveries in the field of mutation genetics were discovered. A very unique fact was found that showed that the powers people possessed weren’t as simple as giving strength and such.

First off there is a further chance of mutation in which someone gets an ability different from others, this is a rare chance even amongst powered people. Secondly, the genes that pass on the abilities are extremely malleable to the point that abilities can merge into a more complex power.

The reason it took 80 years before resistance forces could push back the supervillains is because of the fact that of the original powers that appeared amongst the population of earth, about 95% was what is regarded today as useless powers. Useless powers are abilities with little to no combat potential and do very mundane things such as secrete oil from the skin or control the color of the body.

That said, genetic malleability was found very early on but not released to the public to not allow the villains to know about this fact while the world hero union created heroes by using unexpected combinations of powers to produce unexpectedly powerful powers.

One such person is called the Bone King, a strong man from Russia, his grandfather had the ability to harden his bones while his grandmother could transform her bones into an exoskeleton. Upon merging it gave his father the power to create bone armor. To further expand this, he was made to cross with Bone King’s mother who could generate bone blades from her body giving Bone king the power to make armor and weapons from his own bones.

That said, powers still need a certain synergy or they will produce negative abilities that could damage the body of the person who possesses it. A perfect example is the mother of the bone king. Producing bone claws from any part of her body is incredibly painful and she doesn’t have any major healing factor to remove the pain so the very early on she picked several bone spurs that she would always leave the tip from her skin so that she can expand them without breaking her skin constantly and injuring herself.

When this news was actually released to the public, most surviving nations had already developed hero and brave men level super heroes.

The news was pretty shocking to those who hadn’t noticed but it had a very specific chain reaction.

People with some ambition wanted to have a strong ability as well as a strong organization. In a short time, certain men and women with strong abilities actually located people with similar abilities and produced what is today called clans.

Clans are a legal super powered organization similar to a large family with hundreds of branches with a central hierarchy.

One of the most famous clans is the Esper clan. This is a clan of people who all possess intelligence boost and psychic abilities. Neither power requires the other but once the ability of intelligence boost and psychic power are merged, it opened up a whole new door to super powers.

Of course, it isn’t like ‘purity’ breed type clans is the only kind of clan existent. The so-called mixed breed powers also exist. These are many times more crazy as the mixing of the abilities is far more unpredictable. An example is the previously mentioned oil secretion power. It is a very unassuming power but if this kind of power were to be mixed with a person who can do something like sweat acid. Depending on the acid, it could have totally different effects from making a person who can shoot acid mucus from their bodies to someone who can release explosive acids from an area of the body.

Of course, a clan like this is harder to maintain ‘in power’ because the number of families and powers is very varied and there is a chance that someone from the lowest level with the most uncommon and useless powers could mix and merge into something with immense strength and potential.

Nowadays, the so-called ‘Hero clans’ were in huge numbers. The aspiration of many of these clans is to breed a superpower that can aid one of their own to reach hero rank. At the same time, there are even more people who don’t care about super powers and just go about their lives.

As for what ‘nowadays’ refers to, it is 100 years since the end of WW3 and so that means 215 years after the appearance of super powers, in other words the year is currently 2235.

Since the end of WW3, the 100 years that have passed and probably because peace came about in most places around the world, even with so many clans formed to produce powerful powers, the complexity of the powers of the world have grown immensely.

Clans, in fact, account for not even 1% of the total population of humanity. Obviously humans have spread to places like the moon and mars as well as venus, which is at the extreme edge of the habitable zone in the solar system.

Still, this story isn’t about space travel of super heroes or human kind.

It starts in a hospital of what was the USA on the east coast, about 6 hours from New york city to the south.

A pregnant woman with twins was in the middle of her labor. That said, the danger was nonexistent because of her powers. She had one of the more famous 21st century powers, it is called Rubber body and it makes her entire body completely rubber, gives her all the resistances of rubber and elasticity.

For the labor, because she was in great pain from labor pains she couldn’t control her body to stretch open but others could still stretch her body for her.

She had just entered the surgery room and the doctors quickly began the extraction process. The twins were sharing the same placenta so everyone was already expecting two girls because during the ultrasound, one of them was unidentified but the other was a girl so the obvious thought was like any other.

The first one came out quickly followed by the other but that is when they were surprised. The second baby began crying and spread out revealing he was a boy.

“What!?” The doctors were all surprised but after a shout from the head doctor they proceeded to do all the needed work while the others removed all the ‘remains’ while those with the babies quickly cleaned them after cutting and closing the umbilical cord.

The two babies were brought to their mother, “Here are your twins ma’am.” the nurse said with a smile behind her mask.

The mother was sweating from the pains but still smiled and was happy to see both. “What happened earlier?” She asked worried.

“Well… one of the babies is a boy.” the nurse said.

“Boy?! Aren’t they identical twins?” the mother asked.

“We will find out after an exam, don’t worry, miss.” she said and took the babies to the incubator while the mother was patched up.

Soon enough they transported her to a room and her husband came in. He had several strange anomalies with his body such as a few areas on his arm and body that seemed very stiff. When he flexed his muscles it all seemed to harden. That was because his powers were hardening. He could harden his entire body but it is just a little harder than it normally is. This is regarded as a useless power because it doesn’t even boost strength or anything and training it would simply make the skin harder.

“How are you?” he asked.

“I’m fine.” She replied.

“Good, how are the babies?” he asked.

She smiled and said everything was fine and they were going through the normal exam process. At this moment she frowned, “They said it was a boy and a girl.” she said.

“Huh? Wasn’t it two girls?” he asked surprised.

“Well facts outdo theories. We didn’t get the entire fact early on so we were surprised now.” she said.

“You’re right.” he nodded but was grinning because he got a boy and like all fathers, they always dream of having a boy.

“I guess we have to use one of the boy names we thought of before the ultrasound.” he said with a laugh.

His wife smiled and the two happily chatted until the babies were brought, filling the two with the joy of being new parents.