But Love Is Overrated Anyways

Chapter 3: But The Cold Was Nothing To Be Reckoned With

Dan could have been a lot of things. When he was younger, he'd taken an interest in theater, and he'd always been good in school. Who knew? Possibilities were practically endless.

And then the War On Mutants happened. A secret government operation, P.E.S.T., started a rampant social attack on mutants. Ads everywhere started popping up, news stories about Mutants killing their families, false studies showing how they lacked the ability to love. They were all fake, but people believed them. Society as a whole turned against mutants, and they were forced to hide their powers.

Then, all of a sudden, a new disease was discovered, with reports claiming that it had wiped out thousands already. The only cure? A vaccine, available for dirt cheap at your nearest pharmacy. It was required to have the vaccine to get a job, to go to school, and everyone was claiming that it was the safest bet. They lied. Inside the syringes was a simple chemical with basic nutrients in it, that had practically no effect on the disease, which in fact, was made up. But it did have an effect on the individuals, and if it found the extra chromosome that signified you were a mutant, it would kill you.

Soon people realized what it was, but by then, it was too late. Some mutants survived, like Dan, who had been procrastinating on getting the vaccine, until he realized exactly what it was. He did everything he could to spread the information, from posting videos online, to shouting to the mobs. But it was too little, too late. He was accused of being a mutant, which of course, he was, and hunted down. Humans wanted to kill him, though he'd done nothing wrong. And they called him the monster.

Their world became divided. Walls were built. Cities isolated themselves. A revolution took place, people wanting smaller, less powerful governments. And it happened.

Dan had been in the United States at that time, and was trapped there, all the airplanes grounded, all the airports shut down, potentially permanently. It was there that he met other mutants, other ones that had been outcasted and had they're lives threatened by the humans. He was angry. And they were angry.

But they didn't do anything, not for a while. They decided on a sole mission to find other mutants to save, to grow in numbers, and to go from there. But as they searched, they found that most of the mutant population had been completely eradicated. Sometimes, they would find younger ones, who's powers hadn't been developed enough to be detected by the vaccine. Unfortunately, they often didn't live very long. The vaccines would kick in unexpectedly, and end them.

That's what happened the Nathan, and countless others, even back before he'd met Phil. He was angry, so angry at the humans for the pain they'd caused.

Phil had been too busy with university to get the vaccine before he was tipped off by a government friend about the truth behind it. When Dan met him, and saw his powers- incredible fire abilities, truly amazing- he told Phil to burn a city. The humans deserved it. Everything they had done, all of the mutants, their people, that they had killed- the humans deserved to die.

But Phil refused. And that's how Dan ended up taking matters into his own hands. And as it turned out, the cold was nothing to be reckoned with.