Jupiter [Marvel Phase I]

one.

The experiment began with a single cell. By all means an ordinary human ovum, it would soon give rise to something unprecedented. Years of research were devoted to this cell, twisting and splicing its genetic material until it only nominally resembled what it once was.

Now swimming with more extraneous DNA than original material, the cell was placed in a growth medium and incubated. From there, single cells were isolated from the culture and edited further. Over a thousand variations were created, then weeded down to one hundred of the most promising. It was only then that they were fertilized.

Over the following months, those cells began to divide. They were given all the care and attention they needed to grow successfully, but only a few dozen made it through the primary stage.

Then, one day, thirty-eight parentless children inhabited the facility. By the end of the year the number had dwindled to seventeen.

But this generation was only the first; a test meant to identify and correct flaws within the system before the experiment truly began. The first generation's rapidly decreasing numbers only meant more data for the scientists.

The resulting children were not seen as children by the scientists involved with the experiment. They were hardly seen as human. After all, what kind of human could absorb and discharge enough electricity to plunge the whole country into a blackout?

Instead of care, they were subjected to constant tests and strict training from the time they could walk. Competition was another recurring theme in their lives, and by the look of things, the second generation was clearly triumphant. Their survival rate to infancy nearly tripled that of the first generation, a large majority of which made it to the age of ten.

By contrast, only a single member of the first generation survived. She was tall and lanky, with strikingly green eyes. While her power was quantifiably higher than any other test subject's due to her ability to generate her own electricity in conjunction with absorbing it, it was hard to contain.  Blackouts, the scientists would call them The tests that pushed the limits of her ability left her weak for extended periods. Sometimes she was unable to leave the infirmary for weeks.

Control wasn't the only category in which she suffered from poor results. In combat, she was constantly out-classed by the members of the second generation. She lacked the physical strength to keep up with them. Never was this more apparent than when she was paired against the girl who ranked the highest in that generation.

But that competition only existed within the walls of the training room. Outside, they were closer than anyone else in the entire facility. The star pupil would eat every meal with her, and protected her from bullies more than once - like a big sister would, though she was the younger one.

"Sisters," they would whisper, giggling at the secrecy of it. Ties between members were forbidden in order to better facilitate the constant losses their unit suffered.

Eventually, her number came up. XTS-141. She was the last of her generation, and a failure on all accounts. A soldier who couldn't fight with her hands. Couldn't fight with the powers they had given her. Couldn't interact with others in the program. What good would she be in the field?

But her relationship with another member wasn't the only familial tie she'd forged in her years at the facility. There existed one tie that even the higher ranks were ignorant of.

One of the doctors came to her after a particularly brutal blackout and whispered something in her ear. Something she couldn't hear, but sent her pulse racing. Lights flashed all around her as an alarm tone sounded from the PA system. With nothing else to do, she ran. Ran so hard and fast, she thought her heart would burst through her chest. Ran to parts of the facility she didn't know existed, something guiding her the whole way.