Richen

Chapter nine: Good and evil

 A week after the incident with the meteorite, the girl turned on the TV to relax after her latest experiments. She had been flying all morning and also testing her latest discovery; strange smoke from her hands that would damage when thrown at something. After crashing into the ground, she had also found out that her wound healed in front of her eyes.

 When the TV started she switched channel and stopped on a news channel, a robbery and hostage situation was occurring at the moment in New York at a big bank. The police had problems with the criminal because even if it was just one man, identified as Frank Lane, a notorious felon, he appeared to have withstood two attempts from the S.W.A.T shooting been-bags at him, and also with real bullets. Not only that, Frank appeared to have some sort of strange weapon on him also, because he was shooting black smoke balls on the S.W.A.T when trying to enter the bank, causing them severe damage.

 After moment’s hesitation and reconsidering, the girl tied her shoes and then left the house flying in the direction of the great city of New York.

 So there are more people than myself? The young man thought when watching the news on a TV in a bar in London. He had two days ago returned from France with better control of his new powers. But as he believed in good, and hated when crimes were committed, he decided right there in front of the TV that he would aid the police as much as he could, he didn’t care if the world found out about his secret. So he left the bar in a hurry. With a bang and at high speed he flew towards America.

 Frank Lane had a wonderful time, he did what he liked the most but now he could not be stopped or betrayed. Since entering the bank his joy had reached a level never experienced before. His “power” to shoot smoke filled with damaging energy was his most precious of them all, because with it he could create such wonderful chaos, destruction and even death.

 After several hours Frank thought that this would be enough for one day, after all it was mostly just something to test his powers for real. But when he was about to leave he felt something strange, he couldn’t really tell what it was, but it felt as though something was closing in. He waited for something to happen, and then he first heard the shouts, then the girl come down from the air, like she was flying.

 The girl landed among the terrified police and she walked up to what she thought looked like the officer in charge. She was right, but the officer did not know what to say, so the girl started to speak first, she told him that she was there to help and that they could take any questions after this was taken care of, right now innocent people were in danger in that bank. She took a deep breath thinking that this was clearly a mistake, she was no hero and she would probably be killed in a moment, but she could not walk away, not when she had come this far. So the young bar-working girl from a small town in Texas walked into the bank with a notorious criminal inside.

 When Frank saw this girl entering the bank he was at first a bit stunned, but then felt threatened and so he threw some energy at her, she tried to dodge but his shot was too fast and hit her in the shoulder throwing her backwards into the wall with a loud crash. For a short second he thought that she had died but she stood up and did the same to him although he could stand against it, he only was pushed back a little, but he remained standing. Seeing the shock in the girl’s eyes, he started to talk. With confident Frank mocked the girl for her lack of power but also asking if she too had fell on a meteorite. When she didn’t answer him he shot again at her, but something happened that confused them both, another energy ball crashed into Franks with a loud bang and a powerful airwave pushing both of them flying in opposite direction.

 When the young man landed outside the bank he could feel some sort of power inside it and he rushed towards the door. When closing in he could see two persons inside, the robber and a girl. He prepared himself by creating the smoke and at that time he saw that the robber threw a smoke ball towards the girl, he hastily threw a smoke ball himself aiming at the robbers’. The result was more powerful than he anticipated and he hastily entered the room. He helped the girl to get up, because somehow he could feel that she was good and their eyes met for a few seconds and through that, they could understand each other and they faced the robber together.

 Frank was becoming really angry now and through this anger he could feel that he gained power. At high speed he flew up to the roof, stopped and then started to create a large smoke ball, there was no way they would survive this, he thought. He flew up through the roof and through the opening the young man and girl could see Frank shooting down at the roof above them. The entire roof came crashing down along with the smoke, they covered themselves with their arms and then it went dark.

 But something was wrong, nothing happened, no powerful force hit them and no roof parts fell down upon them. The two humans with these strange new powers looked up and saw a single man in a black cloak with spiky silvery black hair, floating in mid air with a silvery aura flowing around him. He was holding up the entire broken roof and neutralizing Frank’s dark smoke with some strange barrier created from his left hand and under his right hand an unconscious Frank hang. Elite general Ferenghir looked down upon the two terrified humans that he had located and would soon bring back to Shadowria. 

Chapter eight: Unexpected changes

 

 He had been a thief his entire life and he was very good at it to. He had his own gang and the evening before he had succeeded to rob a bank and escaped with two million dollars in cash. The man had to kill some people at the bank but he didn’t care, they were stupid for trying to stop him and his crew.

 The man was in the mid forties and looked like a fully fledged gangster boss; he was not that long and had a round stomach and a sleazy back slick. Years and years on the street had made him cold as steel and he had no sympathy for weaklings that couldn’t kill. But as the streets hardly is a place to stay strong and in power, the change would come even for this man: The Boss of crimes in New York.

 The man was now at the gang’s base and counting money. What he had not counted on was to be betrayed by his own crew. With mere luck he managed to escape the house shooting some of his crew along the way. When he exited the house and ran into an alleyway he stopped dead in his track because in front of him was a big hole with something smoking in the middle, at this moment he heard a loud bang and extreme pain in his back, he turned around and was shot several times in his chest, when falling backwards into the hole he managed to shoot his killers.

 The man woke up, strangely, as he should be dead he started to suspect something; how could he possibly survive that many shots at close range straight into his chest? He slowly crawled up out of the hole stepping on a big rock in the ground; it was very warm so he moved away quickly. Could it have something to do with this strange rock, which appeared to be a meteorite, that he was still alive and feeling so great? No matter what, he thought, he needed to get to a safe place, some of his gang could still be looking for him, so he continued to run along the alleyway, exceptionally fast, feeling very light and strong.

 Returning from the hospital, the girl sat in her father’s car thinking about what happened earlier. At the hospital the doctors could not see anything wrong with her, on the contrary she was in perfect shape, her iron-levels were a bit high, but nothing that would cause any harm. She and her father did not dare to say what happened, because no one would have believed them, so they only said that she had come in contact with some strange rock in the mines.

 At home, she went to her room after dinner to think. How could she feel so great after being attacked by some silvery liquid from outer space? No matter how much she thought about it, she could not come up with anything and fell asleep on the bed.

 When waking up the next day, the girl felt well rested but it was one thing that she could not feel that she should, the bed. Opening her eyes she could see that she was floating a few inches above the bed. Not knowing what was going on, she suddenly dropped down into her bed again. Somehow the girl was not terrified of this, because she had a feeling that it was not something bad, it felt natural in some way. So she closed her eyes again and concentrated really hard for some moments. Nothing happened. Feeling really stupid, she became angry that she actually tried to levitate, surely it must have been a trick on her mind waking up. But when she was thinking about how she felt about the event, it happened; she slowly started to feel lighter and eventually she left the bed. She fell down a few seconds later. Now it was clearly not a trick on her mind and she thought really hard about how she could control this new “gift”, which surely had something to do with the liquid.

 Walking downstairs to eat breakfast she felt really good inside, smiling to her own reflection in a mirror as she entered the kitchen where her father sat reading the news paper. She almost told her father about what happened when she woke up, but then she thought that it maybe would be better to wait a little, just in case something else happened to. This day she was free from work because of yesterday and her father left for the bar moments later kissing her good day. Fifteen minutes later the girl went out to the backyard and continued to experiment with her new gift.

 The police officer was a little suspicious about this Englishman, how could he have no injuries after being hit by a meteorite, when the girl had been shredded? But he could not detain him for any crime so he had to let him go. So the young man left the police station heading back to the hotel, still shaken from the day’s events. Finally at his hotel room, closing the door behind him, he sat down on the floor crying, he really liked this girl, and even if he didn’t knew her, it was still terrible to die like that.

 While crying he saw a sudden light coming from somewhere, he looked up and he saw that his right hand was covered in some strange flame, it looked like fire but it was dark like smoke, he shook his hand rapidly to get it off and strangely it disappeared. Under all of his young life he had not seen anything like it, but he was not scared because it hadn’t caused him any pain.

 While wondering what this strange smoke had been, it appeared again, now instead of hesitating and shaking it off, he examined the dark smoke closely and tried to touch it with his left hand, and while doing so it spread to that hand to. Standing up he supported himself on a chair, but the chair started to smoke where he put his hand, so he immediately let go. Apparently the smoke on his hand caused some sort of damage to other objects than himself. He tried again and grabbed the chair, the same thing happened and he let go. The spot was black like burned from a fire or something. He shook his hands and the smoke was gone.

 That day the young man tried again and again creating this strange smoke from his hands, when he finally got the hang of it, he realized that it had to have something to do with the meteorite; why else would he be able to do this? What if, no it would be ridiculous he thought, but it was worth a shot, maybe he could throw this smoke away from his hands, like in the movies? He took a stance, feeling really dumb while creating the smoke and focusing on what the target should be, might as well be the chair, it was already black and broken anyway.

 He focused and then threw his arm like throwing a baseball, and something happened that he didn’t expect; the smoke gathered in his palm in the swing like a ball and flew towards the chair with overwhelming power and shattering the chair with a loud bang and a wave of air blowing away things in the vicinity. Afraid of both the force of the smoke ball he had thrown and what would happen when the hotel staff would enter the room, surely in a few moments, he took his belongings and left the room in a hurry.

Chapter seven: A male and a female

 In a small town out on the countryside in Texas, a nineteen year old girl was about to help her father close the bar. The girl was usually always wearing stylish clothes, but right now she just had some regular bar working clothes on. The girl would always be the first among her friends to follow the fashion as it changed. Although she appeared not to, she was in fact very bright and smarter than many thought, and she could always find the good in people, when others could not.

 Suddenly she heard a sound, like something big hit the ground, from outside the house. The girl told her father that she just wanted to check what the ruckus was all about and went outside. Some short distance away she saw a tree burning and some smoke in the ground near it. She went closer carefully, yet eager to see what it was, almost nothing ever happened in this sleepy town, except for that horrible event fifteen years ago. Just a few meters away she could clearly see that it was a big hole in the ground and in the middle was a large rock. She had seen similar things on TV and knew that it had to be a meteorite that had crashed down from space.

 While staring at this strange rock the girl suddenly thought for herself that it maybe could be radioactive and was just about to back away when something happened. The rock suddenly cracked and some silver-grey liquid ran out from it. Intrigued by this her alertness was like gone with the wind and her reaction, when the liquid suddenly and hastily moved towards her, was slow.

 She tried in panic to shake the liquid of but it was sticky and each time she managed to remove some, it covered her again more rapidly and soon her entire body except her head was covered in it. Her father, hearing her screams came running towards her, and was just about to reach her when the liquid covered her head and she fell to the ground.

 All liquid went inside her through her mouth, nose and ears, and her father could do nothing but helplessly look at his daughter crawling and twisting on the ground. But suddenly she stopped twisting and her father could finally hold her still. The girl was partly in shock but she could feel inside that something happened to her, but somehow it felt good, it felt as like all her soreness and tiredness went away and she had never in her life felt so healthy. She told her father that she was okay somehow, but her father had already picked her up in his arms carrying her to the car to drive her to the hospital.

 He had the time of his life; he was on vacation from rainy London on his twenty-first birthday and sat on a bike with a girl that he had been with for only a week, in this lovely land of France. The young man was working as a reporter for a big newspaper in London and was always in the loop of what was happening and why. He was always working hard and usually had not much of spare time, but now he had decided to take a long vacation to live life.

 The young man and the girl had just been to the cinema and seen a movie that had premiered this day, and now they were on the way to the beach to take a swim and have a great time in the sunny weather. They were talking about the movie when the young man suddenly thought he heard a strange whistling sound behind them. As he turned his head to look back, the sound escalated very fast and he managed to glimpse a big dark object rushing towards them, then he felt a hard push and was knocked out and everything went black.

 
 He woke up with a searing pain in his right shoulder, but it faded away as he gained consciousness. A bit disoriented he looked around and discovered that he sat in the ditch by the road that he and the girl were traveling on. But he could not see the girl from the ditch, and why was he in the ditch? Slowly his memory returned and he remembered the whistling sound and the dark object. Assuming they had been hit by something he stood up and started to look for the girl, and there she was. A few meters away laying on the road the girl was apparently dead, because there was a large pool of blood under her and her entire torso was shredded.

 Nauseous from the sight he turned around and threw up. While doing this he finally noticed the big hole in the ground and the smoking rock laying in it. He looked at it and it appeared to have cracked open, like something had leaked out of it.

 While calling for an ambulance, the person on the phone asked how many injured persons there were, and just as the young man was going to say two, he felt that he was not injured at all, he felt very vivid on the contrary, so he answered that there was only one girl that was hurt and that it looked like she was dead. Ten minutes later the ambulance and some policemen came and he was asked to follow them to the station.

Chapter six: The strange meteorite

 The worker rushed to his boss’s office with the urgent message of a situation that just moments ago appeared. The chief was a little surprised by the sudden and loud knock on his door. He told the person to enter and became a bit alarmed by the look on the workers face. The message was delivered and the chief was at first paralyzed but then picked up the phone and dialed the number to the White House.

 The president was just having a meal with his family when one of his security staff entered the room and informed him to immediately go to the command room. When being briefed, his military commanders told him that NASA had detected a huge meteorite in a collision course with Earth just hours away from the planet. The meteorite had enough size to cause serious damage on impact.

 Different solutions were laid down when another update from NASA arrived: The meteorite had, for no logical reason, suddenly divided into several smaller pieces and NASA told them that this was extremely weird but now the damage would be minimal because of the spread of the rocks. The president became a bit calmer, but gave the order to send teams to the crash sites, as soon as they were determined, and examine the strange rock.

 The rocks scattered all over the planet and crashed down on different locations, some landed out on the countryside, some landed in cities and a few actually hit humans directly on their bodies. The Shadowrium, as programmed, leaked out from the rock and started to move towards nearest human life force. The humans that were hit by the rocks directly was of course lethally hurt and died, but some did actually survive the hit, and while bleeding and dying the Shadowrium entered their system and healed them and changed their DNA.

 On other places similar things happened, people where “attacked” by the Shadowrium and started to change. The president’s teams, and teams from other countries managed to apprehend only a handful of rocks and people infected before the evolving reached too far and the persons avoided detection.   

Chapter five: Bargons plan

 Feeling the pain from the dagger, Bargon had to use all of his strength to make sure that he and everything he brought with him could make it to a safe place in this new dimension. He could feel a planet nearby with some life forms on and he teleported there to come up with his next strategy. The planet had little life only simple organism and with acceptable atmosphere, so it was perfect as first base.

 Bargon knew that he had little time before the council would send someone after him. So he decided that he needed a diversion so he could make preparations for his larger plans. He focused on the galaxy but could not sense anything interesting, so he increased his power to search longer. After a while when he was almost ready to give up, he could sense a planet far away in another galaxy which seemed to have lots of life forms including one that resembled the regular humans on Shadowria.

 Bargon teleported himself there to investigate more and when seeing the humans on this planet he was at first a little disappointed, his lieutenants and even a regular soldier could easily destroy and kill so much before meeting any resistance from the humans. But then he got an idea, what if he could inject Shadowrium into some humans to create chaos and also making it harder to locate him amongst the larger amount of Shadowrium in this dimension.  

 After some thinking, his plan was to inject a meteorite with some Shadowrium and manipulate it to move by itself to a human and connect with its bodily system. Without some stolen items this would not been possible because Bargon himself had almost no material manipulation abilities at all, which haunted him, and therefore he could not change another beings system. But as he was very clever he could redesign some of the stolen items.

 He teleported with his soldiers and items to a planet closer to earth and then he injected some Shadowrium into a meteorite and steered it on a collision course with planet Earth. Near Earth the meteorite cracked as Bargon designed it to and divided into several small pieces. The pieces scattered all over the surface of the planet, and Bargon smiled to himself thinking about the coming chaos and battles.

Chapter four: The next step

 When the battles had seized and all of the rogue hunters had been apprehended, the remaining council-members had an emergency meeting trying to decide what to do next. General Sylea informed them that Bargon and the rest had teleported to another dimension. The assassination-general told them that her dagger would give any other general a long-lasting and hard to heal wound, but considering that Bargon was an elite general and had a very strong body he would probably heal after just some days.

 The loss of the deceased members caused a very difficult situation; four squads were missing either council-member’s or a general. Eventually a decision was made, and that was to give other council-members control of these squads.

 The next step would now be, after debating, to track down Bargon and bring him back. Sylea the scouting general would be sent after Bargon, escorted by Ferenghir, to track him down and to monitor the situation. After two days the two generals returned, only with the message that they could not find Bargon, only that they could tell in what galaxy he was, which was a galaxy similar to their own, in the vicinity of the planet Earth. Sylea was to be sent back to scout further but at a safe distance.

 Sometime later when the agency had rebuilt and order was once again, Sylea returned with strange news. Apparently the planet earth in the other dimension had humans with limited powers and they had not yet developed to the stage of the regular Shawdorians. This was not strange at all, but the strange thing was that Sylea could sense a few power signatures similar to her own for some weeks now; with other words she could feel Shadowrium.

 This was of course a catastrophe, because that planet earth should not have Shadowrium and those humans would not be ready yet for that kind of power! The council knew that Bargon had to be the cause of this, but they could not find the reason behind these events. Just only to travel to the other planet earth and extract the anomalies would not do any good, not as long as Bargon was still out there.

 They could not place a lot of shadow hunters there either, because it seemed only generals could stay there for a longer time. Any lower ranked could only stay there for a shorter time or with the presence of a general, without starting to lose their powers, and the council had to have the generals at their base for defense.

 So the council made a decision, that they really didn’t have any authority to make, and that was to interfere with another dimension. They would send general Ferenghir to the planet Earth and locate one male and one female with new powers to act as protectors of the planet against the anomalies. These two would be brought back to Shadowria and their Shadowrium would be stabilized to increase their power and also would they be given training to be able to protect their planet. With equipment able to detect these humans created by Gerina the research general, Ferenghir was sent to planet Earth.

Chapter three: A rising threat

 The council did not dare to use the elite-generals too much on the field and only sent them out on the most important missions. Therefore the three spent a lot of time at the base, which was named Shadow-Base, giving them a lot of “free-time”.

 During this time Bargon started to think dark thoughts and soon he started to plan. Because of his powers and cleverness from the two generals, which was in charge of strategic and destruction-tactics before fused into Bargon, he could create extremely complex and genius plans and have the power to execute them, this made him the most used general on the field of the three.

 Bargon thought that as long as he could not have Morgana, he had no purpose of being where he was, being controlled by weak people, but the general-codes still restrained him, but, after some time he even managed to evolve an ability to disobey even the strongest general codes.

 During this time Morgana and Ferenghir started to advance them to with their powers and abilities. Morgana could heal even the most critical wounds and even re-grow lost limbs of injured people. But her most impressive and most advanced ability would prove to be something else.

 Ferenghir had also strong energy manipulation, but not as strong as Morgana when it came to healing. But when it came to fighting he could hardly be matched.

 Without the knowledge, or the control of the two council-members, one day Bargon executed his plan. He ordered his two squads to attack the base, creating a diversion and killing anyone resisting. The actual target was some equipment from the research lab. Among these things was a item which could teleport material and people to other places, and the day before, the research-general had succeeded in giving the item the ability to teleport not only to other places but other dimensions as well.

 Amongst the chaos and battles, the other council-members ordered their generals to capture Bargon but at that moment the captains and some lower ranking hunters under Bargon stormed the council-room and managed to kill four members including Bargons council members, and destroying their souls with a weapon recently created.

 All this before the defense-general, entered the room and put a barrier around the remaining members, protecting them from any attack. Short moments after, the room was secured by joining captains from defense-squad and the two rogue captains and the lower ranks were captured by Ferenghir and one of his captains from the protection-squad.

 Now the generals and captains were sent to the research lab were Bargon was at the moment stealing items. The research-general, first to enter the room was caught by surprise and Bargon knocked her out cold and also disabling the defense-general with a paralysis-weapon.

 When the others entered the room Bargon was almost done teleporting himself, a few lieutenants and lower ranks and some items with him. The assassination-general, managed to throw a poisonous dagger in his chest and Sylea, the scouting-general, placed a tracking energy force on Bargon. At this moment Morgana and Ferenghir entered the room and their and Bargons eyes met and they could see dark hatred and evil in Bargons eyes, and then he was gone in a flash of light.

Chapter two: The Elite Three

 When all shadow hunters were created and ready, the Council began testing their new super soldiers on simple missions, but later the missions became more and more important, the country’s military operations were now affected and the whole planet would soon be affected by this new weapon. Enemy leaders were tracked down and either brought in as prisoners or assassinated. When some time had gone and not many things left in the world could threaten the agencies country, one councilmember decided to ensure once and for all that their program would be the strongest military force in the world, challenged by nothing.

 The council member wanted to combine two generals’ powers to one unit, one general. The other council members were unsure of this, they thought that it would be risky to combine two generals, but one other wanted to try this also. After a lot of discussion the proposal was however granted, and the experiment started. Two generals, both males, were put to sleep and their Shadowrium, bodily energy and their soul power were injected into a new embryo.

 Whilst the embryo grew the other council members talked among themselves and decided that it would be a security risk if these two council members would be in possession of a general with unimaginable powers, the two council members were also very greedy and power-seeking, and so the rest of the council expected a mutiny.

 The Council then decided when the new general had processed to a three year old, that two more generals would be created, the other two council members did not like this and their hearts grew dark, but they could not object against the rest so they were quiet and did not say anything. They used two males and the two females.

 The creation of the two new generals, a male and a female, were now hastily started so that the imminent threat would not last for too long. The first new general, the male was given the name “Bargon” and he quickly developed enormous power and brilliance. The second was the female and she was named “Morgana” she had the power to manipulate energy almost unlimited making her an extremely effective healer. The third and youngest new general was the male that was given the name “Ferenghir” and he was the one most quick and agile amongst the three. These three were soon called “The Elite-Generals”.

 The Elite-generals had so much power that their human emotions could not be blocked as much as the rest, and they could act on their own, but they could still be controlled by their codes. Because of this they had all the emotions with full extent like any human; anger, happiness, sadness and more, but the most important; love. Both Bargon and Ferenghir started to love Morgana and she loved them to, but soon her love was directed more towards Ferenghir. Of course, Bargon disliked this because he desired Morgana much, and soon his desire became jealousy and then eventually hatred of the other two.

 

Part one

Chapter one: The beginning

 In a parallel universe on a planet similar to Earth, two scientists shouted out in success, they had finally created what they had spent so many years of research and experiments on; a substance which had the attributes of almost indestructibility yet formable and something that would change the world as they knew it: the attribute to store and enhance large amount of energy and unlocking dormant powers of the material that it was imbedded in.

 In this parallel universe the planet earth was a thousand years ahead of most of the other universes, and therefore the humans on this planet were more evolved and had unlocked more of their dormant powers. Humans could now control more of the powers originated from the soul, the ability to sense other people and their moods and auras, sensing when something is wrong or imminent danger, sending and receiving energy and signals to and from other humans and a lot more.

 The planet was called “Shadowria”, because of the dark sky and the many shadows casted from the clouds. The scientist decided to name their new substance after the planet, so “Shadowrium” became the name that would be remembered as the start of something powerful and good, but also something that went very wrong and turned dark, and eventually evil.

 Some months went and the scientist continued their experiments with the Shadowrium and they thought that it was time to show the rest of the world their discovery, but unfortunately their success was discovered before that, by an agent from a security agency, with the mission of tracking and collecting new weapons and explosives within the country.

 The night after, the agent along with his team, stormed the lab and captured the scientists and their research. Unable to resist, the scientists were brought to the headquarters of the agency along with the Shadowrium. The scientists were given an ultimatum; work with the agency and the Shadowrium on their terms, or be thrown in prison. They accepted with remorse in their hearts, because they knew that the agency would use it with the thoughts of power behind.

 The agency recreated an old program called “Super soldier-program” with the intent of creating better soldiers, rather than creating better weapons. The old program had failed because the result was unstable and lacking significant power upgrade, but now the program could be reinstated because of the new substance. The name “Super soldier-program” was replaced with the name; “The Shadow Hunter-program”.

 Research began, and after one year, the creation of their first soldiers began. There were ten people in charge of the program, five men and five women, they were known as the “Council”.  The ten councilmember’s where given one general each of the same sex as themselves and each general would have two captains under them, one male and one female and there were lots of Shadow hunters created with lower rank than the captains.

 Shadowrium was not easy to create; it required a lot of rare and expensive materials, so the Council understood that giving the Shadow hunters different amount of Shadowrium would be a necessity. The higher the rank, the more Shadowrium the Shadow hunter would be created with. 

 The hunters were given swords and knives as weapons, and the reason for having such medieval weapons was that it would make tracking the hunters back to the agency harder; bullets and explosives leave far more traces than a stab wound or a sword cut would, and you don’t need ammunition.

 To create all these soldiers, they needed human embryos, and through some highly classified and unethical operations they acquired what they needed for the experiments. While the embryos grew, they were injected with Shadowrium straight into their system. Many hundreds of embryos died before they succeeded of breeding a human embryo to self-supporting life. The Council wanted healthy and able soldiers as soon as possible, and by using highly advanced bioengineering and manipulating the Shadowrium, the embryos evolved into eighteen year olds within weeks. After that age they were manipulated to age normally again.

 The generals were created first, and with enormous amount of Shadowrium in them, they had unbelievable powers and large amounts of their dormant human powers were released. Because the soldiers had no normal human background their minds were easy to form after the will of the Council, and for security reasons the generals were programmed with codes, like a computer, with which they could be totally controlled. Each general’s codes were kept in their councilmember’s possession and only the councilmember could give orders to their own general.

 The Shadowrium had the color of silvery-grey and the hunter’s eye color was therefore the same. The hunters had, after the injections of Shadowrium, silvery-grey lines covering their bodies.

 At each fingertip there were short needle-like connection points that could be extended from beneath the skin to transfer energy and aiding in the use of other abilities. Their feet were covered in similar lines but the toes had no connection points like the hands.


 The hair on the head was more dark-grey almost black and with some red shades, but became more bright and silvery the stronger the hunter was. The females had more red in their hair than the males, which in turn had more black instead. The length of the hair differed depending on the rank of the hunter. The lowest rank, the soldiers, had very short hair and then the length grew the higher up in the ranks you came.