Read the note at the bottom! Very much a WIP.

Vanguard City, to the outside eye, a perfect city. Crime levels are low, impossible heroes watch over the city and keep everyone safe.

But look deeper, you'll spot that the city is not what it seems. Slums border the city, places nobody dares walk without some sort of weapon in their hand...but villains call the slums their home. Spreading hatred around the masses.

Dominating the skyline of the city, is the Spire. A magnificent looking building that almost sparkles in the sun. The building, home to a group of heroes called The Sentinels. Their job, to protect the city from any and all threats...how they do that, is sometimes up for debate and often...causes problems of their own.

Deep below the Spire, in the Undercroft of the slums, The Architects. A group of villains who don't want to conquer the city, or the world. They want to fix it, shape it in their own broken image.

So who are these two groups?

The Sentinels

Apex (Kael-Ar)

Apex crashed into this world, centuries ago. His origin a secret, lost to the ages. But since his arrival he has watched over the world, shaping it and protecting it as he decides.

Quickly becoming idolised, and sometimes worshipped by some people. He is the leader of The Sentinels, their golden boy. Able to fly at impossible speeds, possessing nigh invulnerability and so many different powers. He seems unstoppable, the perfect protector. But the time in the limelight, the crticism...and his powers of super senses, makes his life impossibly loud...

Apex is exactly what you'd expect a hero to look like, tall, chiseled features, muscular, you name it - he has it. Personality wise however, he is arrogant, thinking he is above the "lesser" people of the world, but all of that is to hide his true fear of judgement from the world he protects, and the crippling anxiety that affects him.

Wraith (Elena Mercer)

Wraith looks like a standard woman on the face of it. Albeit one who never left her emo lifestyle behind. Often alone, glaring at anyone who dares look at her. But this is all down to her past.

She was a villain in her teenage years, her powers giving her great utility for the various gangs of Vanguard City.

She can turn invisible at will, become completely inperceptible to anyone. She also possesses powers that heighten her athleticism and in turn her combat ability. Able to bound across rooftops without any effort.

Wraith acts like she's still in her mid 20s, despite being in her early 30s, still living in her emo lifestyle, dark hair and even darker clothes. Reluctant to interact in social interactions, much preferring to literally vanish.

Elena's powers manifested at a young age, when she was barely a teenager she vanished after an argument with her mother. She didn't reappear until around 3 hours later. She spent the next few years learning how to control this, then finding out about her inhuman like athleticism.

Her powers made her feel that she was "made" to be a villain. Being able to turn invisible at will lead to robbing convenience stores...then that escalated after being recruited by a local gang to...robbing a bank.

Apex caught her at this point, and instead of turning her in, offered her a chance, to do good and prove she isn't just a villain. Despite this chance, Elena has spent her life thinking she is a villain, a habit she struggles to break.

Scorch (Tyler West)

The speedster of The Sentinels, and the social media influencer too.

He's young and brash and the ladies love him. He does things because he feels like it, often acting before actually thinking about the consequences, because he believes he can fix it with a few tweets.

He possess kinetic manipulation, he can move at the speed of sound and hit like a train as a result.

Scorch is your typical pretty boy, styled hair and chiselled looks, all to keep up the influence look.

Before he became Scorch, Tyler was a nobody. A college dropout and worked as bicycle courier in the city. He was invisible. People looked right through him as he rode around the city delivering their lunch. He tried to be an influence on the side, video games, prank videos, you name it - he tried it. But at most he had 14 followers. He wanted to be someone.

Then, the incident happened, delivering a package to a new localtion he'd never been to, the package he was couriering started to vibrate violently as he went down an alley way, then a massive flash of light and the next thing Tyler remembers is waking up in a dumpster. But he felt different...the blast came from the experimental tech he was transporting, but instead of killing him - it fused his cells with the experimental energy. He tried to get out of the dumpster, but in a flash he was 5 miles away having simply ran, not knowing his new powers yet. He managed to get back to the city, slowly. And then in a flash his life changed, a car speeding out of control with a child in its path, and Tyler moved, before the car could hit the child he was safe on the sidewalk with a crack of lightning following Tylers new super speed path. People filmed, CCTV caught the act and he became viral overnight. Now, he's an influencer, the pretty boy. The public love him. But that's all fake and all he wants is someone genuine to love him.

The Architects

Sovereign (Julian Vain)

To the outside, Julian; AKA Sovereign - is a typical City councilor, he signs pointless rules, has pointless meetings. But things always go his way, and he has a way of talking that almost seems...hypnotising.

He is a telepath, he can read thoughts, but has the power of persuasion, able to direct the weaker minds to do his bidding. He is massively intelligent but he usually hides this fact from the public. The machines, inventions and weapons The Architects use, were all invented by him with the help of Sonic.

He believes The Sentinels have acted unchecked for too long, using his power in the political landscape to try and sway the media against them, often Apex's biggest rival.

Fifteen years ago, Julian Vain was not a villain. He ran the boring life of urban planning in Vanguard's City council. He was brilliant, intelligent, idealistic...and obsessive. He believed that if the city was designed perfectly, then crime wouldn't exist. Then the incident happened. Julian and his wife were driving home from an opera, everything was...good.

But then, a massive crack in the distance and a golden glow...Apex...having another fight with some would be villain who was trying his luck. Then...the golden light came closer...and closer...until a massive crash as Apex and the villain hurtle through the supports on the bridge causing it to collapse, Julian and his wife along with it.

Months pass...Julian wakes up in a hospital. His wife perishing in the accident. Julian's brain snaps, a deep hatred set in for any would be hero, with Apex at the top of that list. To add salt to the fresh wounds, the bridge was rebuilt...in memory of Apex for "saving the city". Julian realised then, that humanity was...insane. They worshipped things...that was killing them. Then when he was drinking himself into oblivion, thinking everything was lost.

He dreamt, or at least he believed it to be a dream. That dream he has never spoken about, but he woke feeling...different. Going down the elevator, he could hear the thoughts of the person next to him. Then in his office, he was arguing with several people who all of a sudden..changed their minds to match his.

Over the next 10 years, he built these powers, rising through the ranks of the city. Making a name for himself as the "fixer", he built wealth and blackmail material - and political favours. But he still has the hatred for heroes. Building The Architects group, recruiting the other villains, he vowed to destroy that which destroyed his world. He wants the heroes gone. But this deep seated hatred also causes him to feel a hypocrit and is terrified that he himself, is exactly like Apex. Apex imposes his will on the city physically, Julian does this mentally.

Sonic (Maya Kovich)

A reclusive audio genius and musical prodigy from a young age. A freak accident caused her to develop hypersensitivity to all sounds meaning she has to wear specially crafted equipment. This freak accident however, gave her the ability to manipulate sound, causing any manner of ailments to her enemies.

Due to her accident she has an inherent hatred towards the world and feels everyone should live in silence like she does.

Ten years ago, Maya was the industry's best-kept secret. She was a ghost writer, ghost producer. She wrote, mixed and mastered the biggest hits on the radio. She played the music and crafted the sounds like no one else could. But the credit always went to the person who "sang" the track.

Maya didn't care about fame and fortune, she cares about her sounds, her music. She worked tirelessly to find the perfect sound. Then disaster hits, the biggest concert in the history of the city, Maya working the sound booth in the background like she always did, mixing and enjoying what she did.

Then, Scorch, early in his career as a hero, desperate for the attention, crashed the concert. He wanted to make an entrance...and he did, at Mach 3 straight into the stadium. The resulting sonic boom blew out the windows of the stadium, and more importantly the resulting boom echo'd into the sound booth and into Sonic's headphones, the feedback loop fed straight into her brain. Maya didn't go deaf, she was the opposite. Her brain heard every single sound, and they all sounded deafening.

She can hear the electric buzzing in the walls. But normal conversations now sound like a jet engine. She retreated from the world. She built herself a soundproof bunker in the subway tunnels of the slums...and that's where Sovereign found her. Promising her a way to get back at the so called hero that caused this torture.

Decay (Roger Pimm)

Roger has lived his entire life in shadows, a downtrodden member of society, spending his life cleaning up after other people. While working in a reclusive lab in the centre of the city, he walks into a secret experiment, coming out changed. His touch now causes entropy on any physical matter, leading to accelarated aging, rusting or decay.

The tragedy causing him to gain the power of entropy.

Not able to physically touch anything through fear of ruining it, he now has to wear specially crafted equipment to even go about his life. This lead to tragedy as his childhood sweetheart dies in his arms.

15 years ago, Roger wasn't what he is now. He wasn't insignificant or unassuming. He was a conservator at the city museum. Instead of destroying things, he restored them. Brought them back to life, paintings, statues. Anything, he fixed them. He wanted beautiful things to last forever. He was gentle and loved his childhood sweetheart.

One day however, that all changed. An unassuming item was delivered to the museum, a strange looking rock, or so Roger thought. He stored it in the basement and left it there for the day. Weeks past and Roger noticed the strange object again, this time...it was vibrating softly and emitting a blue light. In a moment a villain appears in the door way, blasting Roger to the side of the room and hovering over the artifact as it starts to float, muttering something about temporal power. Apex appears in a flash and massive battle engulfs the area, with Apex finally beating the villain but not before causing the artifact to become damaged. Apex retreats, rescuing the people upstairs but ignoring Roger in the corner. Roger attempts to run but is caught in the blast. An intense radiation wave of unknown properties hit him.

Roger was found in the rubble, but unscathed, no damage whatsoever, he was left to go home. He returned to his childhood sweetheart...and tragedy. In a moment, a simple hug of love and longing. She ages, years, in the 5 seconds of contact, before Roger even knows what happens...she drops dead to the floor. Roger holds her body, it decays instantly, her clothes vanishing into rags and dust. It dawned on what has happened. He spends the next years of his life, hiding, blending in to every environment...stealing to sustain his life but never aging. The curse meaning he never ages, or ages slowly.

Sovereign finds him one evening, robbing a store, watching what his touch does. Recruits him, promises him revenge against Apex.

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Out of context bit now.

This is a world I've been cooking up for a little while, actually ever since Dispatch hit our lives.

I'm hoping it works how I expect it to work, and I'll likely expand on it with different characters if it does. To this point, I've put a lot of work into the main characters that are there.

I've left the scenario's fairly open ended, use your personas as much as possible, if you want to be an average joe that finds his way into the lives of one of the heroes, try it. Or maybe be a hero yourself? Or a villain?

I've tried to keep the characters fairly open ended but they each have their own personalities etc.

Who knows where this will go...