This novel is the work of Rhys Thomas. If you are reading this and it has not been published by Rhys Thomas, then this work has been stolen. Please report this to Amazon and me at email: [email protected]

Iraelia. April. Southern Plateau Idrasa City. Prelude.

Life was terribly normal for me. In all my twenty-three years of living, and recently working to help pay for rent and board at my mom place. I never once considered the possibility that I would become a super-powered fugitive.

It’s odd how life can be terribly normal one minute and the next your metaphorically hit by a truck packing a ton of shit behind it.

Which is not how I started my fateful day. No, I started my day by hauling out the trash in the perpetual summer heat outside the back of the restaurant/bar establishment where I worked. The tight hobble collar always around my neck and the neck of many others proved extremely uncomfortable in the summer sun.

I was working as a kitchen porter for Byson’s, a restaurant named after the owner William Byson Junior. My boss was, frankly put, an asshole. He was enfranchising in hi eager employment of underpaid hobbled citizen’s like I. William Byson Junior aggrandised himself with the lack of hobble employment by hiring hobbled citizen’s and treating them no better than slaves.

I threw the trash bags in the bins outside the back and swiped at my forehead, feeling the slight numbing sensation pulse around my neck from the collar. Every instance a hand hovered near a collar; the potentially paralyzing pulse warned in alarm by numbing my neck.

I looked down at my grease stained apron and wiped my sticky hands—I wasn’t sure what they were sticky with—on a rather clean looking stain. Down the alley-way and out onto the street I could see several people walking by, enjoying the sun in their lighter clothing. Women wore skirts and bikinis; the men wore open shirts and shorts.

Cars drove by, their driver blasting their obscene tastes in music.

One thing to note among many on Iraelia, is that it’s almost always the summer season. And the beach is almost always available for use. Byson’s was right on the beach frontier. So I always got a perfect view of the gorgeous bodies on display as well as some of the not-so-good-looking ones. I was also occasionally taunted at by the mundane citizenry. Which really meant that some people were assholes and treated me like shit because I was collared.

I went back inside, passing the cooling vent recycling air out from the kitchen’s. The breeze was cool, but felt and tasted oily like someone had thrown a cup of grease in my mouth.

Two other collared worked in the back with me, and the four other chefs. Why a place like this needed four cooks and three kitchen porters was beyond me. Byson’s was more consider a fast-food establishment than an actual eatery.

The majority of its customers were either in need of some greasy-fat-food or a cool(ish) beverage. As collared citizens we were paid only the minimum of salary and disallowed any discount, or provided a meal through our fifteen-minute lunch breaks.

Now I know I’m whining. But bear with me for now. This is the fatal day after all, and if I can bore you with the minutia of my slavery- sorry- workplace environment then that is well within my rights.

Of which they’re very few.

All thanks to our Arium laced hobble collar’s. To explain Arium, would mean explaining why it was used in hobbling super powers. Yes, those exist, at least the new channel’s and our history archives suggest they do.

As well as the sunken city of Preyta being physical evidence of super individual’s fighting each other. The Plateau city of Preyta was literally cracked in twain when vigilantes started a monopoly on fighting crime or some such nonsense. In which the criminals—so it is suspected—managed to uncollar several highly powered people and fight back against the vigilante’s. The resulting fight cracked and toppled the megastructure supporting Preyta above the Keldasen ocean.

Now the city is deep beneath the sea. Its survivors of which there were plenty either made to the Southern Plateau city of Idrasa. Or to the northern Plateau of Adaset. Few were rumoured to somehow make it to the eastern continent five kilometres from the sunken Preyta.

The original continent of which has lost its name Winderall and was now known as the Wildland after humanity was chased off its land and onto the sea’s some two hundred fifty years ago. What chased them, were, and are still rumoured to be great beasts of old power.

Preyta sank about twenty-four years ago and took my father with it. My mother just manging to escape to Idrasa pregnant with me at the time.

I’ll get to the collar’s debacle later and the supposed origins of super power’s. For now, I was back inside the despoiled kitchen of Bysons. The greedy chefs were eating the ingredients as much as they were cooking it. I noticed Harry, one of the two other collared employees I’d met standing nearby.

The establishment was quiet so far for which I was thankful and judging from the early hours of the day and the spill over into the afternoon. We were likely to be busy in an hour or two as everyone began to shuffle onto the beaches to enjoy the stupidly hot sun.

“Alright?” I asked the man. Harry was a few years older than I, and those years and recent times hadn’t been kind to him. You could see that from the few scars around his face, and the swollen lip he was currently sporting.

“Yeah,” he sighed, “just had a run in with some my ex-wife last night. She busted my lip and threaten to call the SPBI if I didn’t leave her and the kids alone.”

Harry had a lot of problems involving his ‘supposed’ ex-wife.

The SPBI, or the Super-powered Bureau of Investigation, was the private Super’s policing sector of the government. Funded privately, the SPBI manufactured the Arium collars and laced their weaponry with the intent of using them on any collared who broke the law.

They monitor and trace each activated collar and can tell exactly who and where a collared individual is. Or so the internet forums suggest. They’re rumoured to actually use Super’s in their tracking teams when going after the uncollared.

Thanks to them every single person from birth is tested for the Super genome and if proven positive they’re then collared from birth. Just. Like. Me.

I didn’t even know what my power(s) were let alone how I would even use them. Yet they slap a collar on you regardless.

“Is the boss in?” I asked Harry quietly. The man nodded his head with a grimace.

“Yeah. He’s in an uncharacteristically good mood. Why?” he said sarcastically.

“I need Thursday off. Mom’s birthday and the like,” I informed him and grimaced as well. The boss being in a good-mood was disgustingly unnerving. I needed the day off not just for my mom’s birthday, but to also register for the final exams of the Iraelia academy. Bringing up the academy to William Byson Junior was always a touchy subject though. Like the man thought I was bragging every time I brought it up.

“Then I guess I’m going into the lion’s den then,” I said and sighed heavily.

“I wouldn’t worry about him too much, Elias,” Harry called after me quietly as I started to walked towards the management office’s.

There was something in Harry’s voice that sent a shiver down my spine and I looked back at the man as I turned the corner. His short muddy brown hair was shiny from grease, his slim face made his suddenly socket eyes all the more pronounced. Then I was gently knocking on the bosses door.

“Come in,” answered a gruff voice and I entered after taking a moment to breathe in the slightly bitter tang William’s cigarette’ coming through the door.

“Hi, sir. Is this a good time?” I asked almost meekly as I entered the dim office.

The office was large and until recently had enough space for two people to comfortably work together. His last assistant who had managed Byson’s finances was recently let go. After William Byson Junior wife caught the assistant beneath her husband’s desk, managing a little more than just their finance.

Now that free space was occupied by cheap whiskey, empty beer cans, and bottles, and a couch stuffed with a blanket and pillow’s.

The short rotund balding man behind the desk opposite where I entered glanced up to see me stand partially inside the room.

“What do you want?” he almost growled at me. He didn’t like collared people any more than the common citizen did. But the boss took extra joy in almost always reminding us how much under his thumb our lives were. I couldn’t find work anywhere else in the city and if a little loss of pride and dignity working for this man meant helping mom pay the rent. Well…I had taken the job after all.

“I- uh, just wanted to inquire about possibly… taking this Thursday off?” I asked and cringed as his face soured.

“Why do you want the day off?”

“It’s my mom’s birthday,” I explained lamely.

“Then, no. I’ve not enough staff already, what with this being that Harry-cunts last day.”

“W-what? Harry leaving?” I asked him and shook my head. “I’d just talked to him and he never mentioned it.”

“Yeah, well. My plans are fucked because of it and so are yours now it seems.”

I nodded and left the office, taking his words as a dismissal.

As I when back outside into the main quarter of the building I saw that a few beach goers where starting to trickle in.

I shivered as a cool breeze swept through me and from behind I heard the bosses door open abruptly. I quickly dashed around the corner before he could catch me standing there and made my way into towards the kitchen. I noted that Harry was nowhere in sight the moment before I heard someone start to scream shrilly. Like a stuck-pig.

Then the front portion of the establishment exploded into mayhem, as a man crashed through the window and slammed into the counter.

“Oh shit!” I yelped and ducked down as the man stood up. His face half-covered by a bandana. His black leather biker clothing looked damaged and in disrepair. His hands rose up like he was a conductor coordinating a symphony. Then I saw a grey aura surround his hands and he thrusted them forwards in an explosive concussive wave of force.

All those who had entered the restaurant screamed as they were blown against walls or out through the windows.

I raised my head and watched as the biker swivelled about and started building power again around his hands. “Who here has a collar?” the man barked out loudly and waited. One of the bikini clad women who’d entered before raised her hand timidly. Then I heard that pig-like squealing coming from the direction of the office. I looked that way, just in time to see the boss struggling and clawing his hands at his neck as a black misty figure carried him out of the corridor.

William Byson’s face was a bulging red and blue, and he looked to be suffocating as the black shadowy limb tightened its hold around his neck. The bosses efforts becoming more strained by the second.

I stood up hesitantly.

“I’m collared… b-but please. Let’s just calm down,” I said and gestured partially to the corporeal shadow choking my boss.

“You’ve got some spine on you, unlike the rest,” the biker snorted and gestured at the two other people who had their hands raised. The Bikini glad girl and her unconscious friend. The girl holding his hand up for him as she watched us in fear.

The font of the store was entirely in disarray, tabled thrown about and smashed to pieces. The windows all completely shattered.

“I know this one, Neal. He may join us,” said the shadow and I recognised the voice immediately.

“Harry?” I gaped in surprise. My mind racing through every encounter I’d ever had with the man. The bosses fitful struggle ceased, and his arms fell limp at his sides, his eyes rolling in their sockets.

“We’re freeing our people Elias. Our leader has seen that a monstrous force will descent on Iraelia—”

“Enough, Harry,” growled the biker, Neal. Interrupting the black shadow recruitment speech.

“Look, gentlemen,” I started and gulped as both turned their attention towards me. I looked passed both and towards the entrance where a long black-haired woman in sneakers, a small mustard yellow skirt, and white halter top entered Bysons. She stepped languidly through the shattered door and surveyed us all.

Neither uncollared had heard her entered so I continued. The women wore a pair of sunglasses and her bright pink lips twisted in disgust.

“I don’t want any trouble. Why not just take what you want and leave. You want money,” I said and gestured at the fading William Byson. “He has money. You want revolution, well… I’m sorry. But I have rent and academy bills to pay. Is freeing “our” people going to pay either of those?” I asked them plainly. I watched the woman, stretch her shoulders, and then start to twist something on her bracelets after she tapped the side of her sunglasses.

Her lips twisted in disgust split into a wide feral grin as she looked on at us.

“Harry Nalsteader and Neal Kline’s,” she stated, and her voice boomed authoritatively throughout the restaurant, filling every corner of the fast-food store.

Both men whipped about, and I looked on as the bracelets on the woman’s wrist began to extend and crawl up and down her arms, covering her hands as she took a fighting stance and readied herself. Her sunglasses sunk into her head and began to spread out forming a thin layer of armour over her head.

“You are both to cease all action and comply with the SPBI mandate and willingly submit,” the woman said confidently. Harry in his black shadowy form loosened his grip on the unconscious William Byson. Neal the biker raised both of his hands and I saw that same grey aura surround his fists.

“Look out!” I shouted to the woman and tried to dodge as Neal swivelled his hands and blasted the concussive wave directly at me. All hell went and broke out in the front of the shop. I flew backwards and slammed into the cabinet beside the oven.

“What’re you doing? we need him,” Harry shouted at the man.

“Fuck the leader’s vision. This bitch is SPBI, and I ain’t going back to the sunken city again,” Neal spat and rounded on the woman. His hands already building with power.

The woman hadn’t been idle as they’d argued. Instead her strange tech had spread a thin layer of armour the colour of red black and orange across her body.

I groaned as what felt like a massive bruise scored my back entirely. My neck ached fiercely as pulsing pins and needles of agony stuttered through my collar and jolted into my neck.

My collar sent lances of electrical spasms through me as I watched the woman begin her battle with the two uncollared.

Just as Neal the biker raised his fists to shoot a concussive wave of force at her. The women sprang to her left in a cartwheel boosted by small miniature jets on the heels of her sneakers. As soon as she landed she shot her own hand out and a bolt of plasma blasted from the centre of her palm to clip the biker’s shoulder.

He cried out in pain as the blast whipped him around. A wave of force erupted from his fists and hit the floor beneath his feet, sending him flying upwards to tumbled through the air and land on the counter on his back.

Then Harry’s black shadowy figure spread out, thin smoky tendrils flailing and striking at the woman. The armoured women danced nimbly through the mass of striking tendrils. Blasts of plasma snapping out from her hands as she combatted the swarm trying to hit her.

Then I saw Neal grunt as he regained awareness and climbed off the counter only to stumbled onto his hands and knees. I was still sat there beneath the spot I’d impacted. My body racking through shock after shock sent by the collar. I hadn’t even touched it so why had it started reacting. Then it hit me. Maybe this was a side effect of the bikers concussive wave blasts. Some sort of Arium nulling effect. No wonder the SPBI wanted him shut down.

The woman weaved through the striking limbs snapping out shots of plasma every chance she got. But the blasts seemed to evaporate on impact with Harry’s shadowy body. Then a tendril snaked its way along the ground and caught the woman’s ankle just as she jumped and tried to boost herself away.

Her hand snapped down her body fire at the offending limb just Neal stood up from behind the counter and hit her with a blast of his own powers. Instantly her suit of armour started to fall brittlely off her body as Harry’s tendril yanked her upside down.

“Now you get what you deserve you cunt,” Neal growled, and supporting himself he walked over to stand beside Harry. The woman’s expression was dazed as her helmet began to fall off her pale skin like flakes of snow. “You SPBI fuckers sent me to the Sunken Ring once but I escaped,” Neal spouted proudly and venomously at the stunned and dazed woman.

“We should leave Neal they’ll be more on the--” Harry tried to calm his friend.

“Shut up! You don’t know what it’s like down there. I want some fucking payback, and this bitch is going to give me—” He stop as the women’s pale red eyes slammed into focus and she snapped her wrist out.

A small three-inch diameter disc sprang from her grip and shot straight at the black shadowy figure of Harry. I half expected the device to go right through but instead it stuck to him.

“What the--?” Harry tried to get the disc off his chest and in the suing confusion he dropped the woman who landed nimbly on her feet.

Arcs of electricity erupting from the device and arched throughout Harry’s body.

“GAAAAHHH,” the black figure screamed and suddenly Neal’s head snapped backwards, and he stumbled as the woman pounced at him with a palm strike to his chin.

He hit the counter, lashed out with a punch, and slugged her the stomach. She took the blow and trapped his wrist with her hands, I heard a distinct snap followed by the biker roaring in pain. My eyes started to grow heavy as the pulsing bolts striking through me seemed to pick up in tempo.

The women grabbed the back of Neal’s head and yank it down onto her knee as she brought it up. Blood sprayed in a gout down the bikers face and his bandana fell away.

The lower half of his jaw was terribly disfigured with scarred tissue, that looked to have either been burned or clawed apart. The woman gasped and took a step back at the sight of the man’s face.

“Get a good look, bitch. This is what your people did to me. I’ve seen the bottomless pit of hell because of your people. All mundane’s should die in fucking agony and experience what I had to go through.”

“T-that may be so,” the woman said hesitantly. “But you’ve got me confused.”

“Confused, little bitch—” he snapped and spat some blood onto the tattered floor.

“I’m not with the SPBI,” she interrupted him and held out her hand. The small brittle flakes of her armour flew off the ground and streamed around her hand to form a gauntlet.

“You’re one of us.” The man seemed stunned for some reason I couldn’t explain. Like the idea that someone free with their powers was still roaming about. Still abiding by the law.

“You’re a fucking traitor—” he spat, and his fist snapped forward the same instants a bolt of amber plasma blasted from the woman’s gauntlet. It hit the centre of the mans’ palm and a shockwave of force streamed across everything. Like ripples on a pond. The concussive wave of force streamed over everything and eventually hit me.

I felt my face and cheeks rippled; my body shook with a numbing ache. My work clothing compress against me. My Arium collar clicked loudly in my ears and for a moment, starry-purple hued light surrounded my vision.

I passed out.

This novel is the work of Rhys Thomas. If you are reading this and it has not been published by Rhys Thomas, then this work has been stolen. Please report this to Amazon and me at email: [email protected]