Volume 1 – Chapter 0: "The World Bled, and Then Got Worse"
Hey, you.
Yeah, you — reader person. Digital eyeballs. Probably a snack in human form.
Let me ask you a question real quick:
You ever watch the world end?
No, not in that artsy indie-film way where a sad piano plays while two ex-lovers cry on a beach.
I mean like — nukes dropping, skies turning into microwave lasagna, people melting faster than ice cream in hell.
Yeah. That kind of ending.
Romantic, right?
So here's what happened.
Earth coughed. Literally. Big nasty global-hack phlegm noise.
Then came the blackout. Then the screaming.
Then—boom boom, population control, brought to you by your friendly neighborhood apocalypse.
The nukes were just the warm-up band. The headliner?
Trauma. Genetic rape. And scientists with god complexes.
The world cracked open, and surprise — instead of fixing it, humanity decided to shove needles into everything and see what twitched.
And what came out?
Apexes.
Humans rebranded as bio-nightmares with bonus powers and unresolved childhood issues.
Not heroes. Not mutants. Just people who got broken so badly the universe gave them a prize for it.
"Congratulations! Your parents are dead and you lived through a firebombing — here's laser eyes and crippling guilt!"
Now, let me pause the trauma-porn for a second and introduce your narrator.
Name's Hawk.
No wings. Just a whole lotta stab.
I'm the kind of gal who walks into a burning building not to save anyone, but because I heard someone inside owed me money.
Traits?
Yeah, I got some.
Six of 'em.
Which is, medically speaking, "way too f***ing many."
Most people get one before their brain does a backflip into a blender. But me? I collected 'em like Pokémon made of rage and genetic violations.
Let me run down the list, and try not to drool:
Overdrive – I get faster and meaner the more I bleed. So basically, I'm invincible if you suck at aiming.
Gravemaul – You punch me? I bounce it back like an angry god with daddy issues.
Razor Pulse – My nerves grow knives. That's right. Nerves. Your biology textbook just screamed.
Feral Lock – If I bleed on you, I can find you anywhere. Hide in a bunker? I'll knock.
Hellskin – Pain doesn't slow me. Actually... I kinda like it. Don't judge.
Oracle-Eye – My right eye is a battle-predicting AI. It shows me how you die before you finish your warm-up swing. Unless you're... well, someone special. (We'll get there.)
Anyway, welcome to Scarpoint.
My lovely home.
Think Mad Max meets Fight Club with a side of tetanus.
You wanna buy breakfast here? You better have a weapon and backup teeth.
Government? Dead.
Rules? Optional.
Morality? Sold to the black market for beer coupons.
Out here, you don't survive unless you've got balls made of barbed wire and trauma sharp enough to cut through concrete.
Me?
I thrive here.
I don't do law. I do killmarks — bounties on Apexes who've gone completely off the leash.
Y'know, the kind of people who make warlords piss themselves and scream "Mommy!" while holding rocket launchers?
Yeah. Them.
I hunt them.
And I win.
You still with me? You drinking water? Breathing deeply?
Good.
Because now comes the fun part.
Fifteen years ago, Earth stopped being divided by continents and started being chopped up like bad pizza slices.
Each zone's ruled by a Kingpin — a total maniac with too much power and not enough chill.
There's Ashdown where the air is fog and every third person is radioactive.
Nullzone is full of Apex kids that eat people and draw with your intestines.
And then there's The Maw — no laws, no maps, just the sound of screaming and freelance death.
Scarpoint? That's mine.
And no, I don't rule it.
I just make sure no one else survives long enough to try.
You get it now, right?
This world?
It's a steaming crockpot of pain, power, and poorly made decisions. And I'm the bitch with the ladle, serving vengeance by the spoonful.
I'm not a rebel.
Not a savior.
Definitely not the love interest — unless your type is "emotional napalm in leather."
What I am… is what's left when the world runs out of ideas and just wants someone to shut everything up.
People say I'm a monster.
They're wrong.
I hunt monsters.
I just happen to smile while doing it — and maybe hum a little tune made of their screams.
So when I walked into that back-alley black market bar and threw a severed Apex head on the counter like a bar tab, I wasn't looking for work.
I was looking for something fun.
And what I found?
Was a whisper.
A new killmark.
No name. No face. Just four stacked Apex traits and a trail of corpses.
Fourteen blocks dead. Zero survivors. Unclaimed bounty.
I smiled.
"Sounds like someone's trying to play in my sandbox."
Spoiler alert:
There's only room for one lunatic in this playground.
scene changes to Kaiser's POV
I woke up buried in women and blood.
Two of them were alive. One of them was still purring in her sleep, drooling on my chest like I was the last warm thing on Earth. The third? Well… I think she was alive. Once. Hard to say now. Her head was somewhere under the minibar.
The rest of the room?
Let's just say there were more corpses than furniture.
Ceiling riddled with bullet holes.
Walls painted in arterial graffiti.
Floor covered in limbs and regrets.
Oh — and someone wrote "COME BACK SOON <3" on my bathroom mirror in what was either lipstick or very enthusiastic brain matter.
"Rise and murder, sweetheart," I mumbled, dragging a hand through my hair. Still perfect, by the way. It's honestly unfair to the human race.
The girl on my left — cybernetic jaw, tattooed eyes, smelled like vodka and vengeance — nuzzled against me like I didn't kill her boyfriend five hours ago.
The girl on my right had bite marks across her ribs and a look on her face that said "you made me feel things I'll need therapy for."
Cute.
The air reeked of sex, plasma, and ozone.
There were three hacked drones sparking in the corner, a severed Apex arm still twitching in my sink, and my datapad was beeping somewhere under a pile of human ribs and empty liquor bottles.
You know. Monday.
I sat up, cracked my neck, and yawned like a god that just pressed "skip intro" on someone's life.
"Okay," I said to the room full of corpses. "Who wants to tell me what the hell happened after shot number thirteen?"
Nobody answered.
Because they were dead.
And because I don't listen to people who scream when they explode.
Anyway. Hi.
Name's Kaiser.
I'm what happens when intelligence forgets morality, gets blackout drunk, and wakes up with the ability to steal your goddamn superpowers.
Apex trait: Hijack Protocol.
If I understand you better than your therapist, I can rip your trait straight out of your nervous system like pulling spaghetti from a blender.
And no, you don't survive.
Most Apexes are walking trauma bombs.
One power. One purpose.
Punch, burn, melt, cry — whatever.
Me?
I study you.
I break you.
Then I become you.
Your trauma becomes my blueprint.
Your powers become mine.
And your body?
Well… it usually explodes. But hey, that's your problem.
Anyway, back to the carnage.
After crawling out of the bed-orgy-meat-grinder situation, I grabbed my jacket — long, black, sleeveless, bulletproof, and lined with knives I stole from people who thought they were smart.
Spoiler: they weren't.
I kicked aside a scorched torso, found my datapad, and tapped into the global black market feed.
Killmarks. Bounties. Live contracts.
And then — bingo.
Codename: Deadzone Phantom.
Unclaimed Apex. Four to five stacked traits. 14-block confirmed kill radius. No survivors.
Red-tier payout. Sovereign class.
I smiled.
"Someone's trying to be me. That's adorable."
You ever get that feeling like someone just pissed in your sandbox?
Yeah.
That's how I felt.
"Ladies," I said, turning to the two girls still alive. "If I die, avenge me. If I live, clean this place up. If I don't come back… sell my knives, but keep the jacket. It's vintage."
One of them winked. The other passed out.
God, I love being me.
And with that, I stepped over a smoldering spine, zipped up, and vanished into the city.
There's a new Apex freak out there trying to make headlines.
But they don't know the rules.
And rule number one?
I kill the competition.