To Soar | Marvel

Prologue

         – Fall 2001

They gathered: the independent, the curious, the unconventional, the rejected.

Their leader, Joseph Slater, before them, about to commence his speech to them. This group had just left Hydra; they were all previous employees of its secondary science division who no longer agreed with the weak methods of the organization. They planned to form their own from the ground up. Around a hundred of them looked up to Slater as the person who would lead them.

"Hydra has failed us. Now we will outshine them with our success in the coming years. We will produce more assets than they could ever have imagined and soon our goal of discovering the limits of the human body through strenuous experimentation will be achieved. We will not be prohibited by that of alien technology." He spat out the word as if it were poison on his tongue. "We will forge our way ourselves, building our empire of stronger, more advanced humans from scratch. We are now Cerberus, the rejected of Hydra made new."

Staring at the faces of each eager scientist and doctor and soldier that stood before him, a smile barely ghosted Slater's lips. "So, let's get to work."

***

Content Warning:
This book will contain content that is likely to make some readers uncomfortable. Including, but not limited to:

-descriptions of the human body, gore, surgical procedures, experimentation, torture
-references and flashbacks physical and emotional abuse
-obsessive behavior (to the point of stalking) from a father figure
-post-traumatic responses, panic attacks, and depression
-canon-typical violence, language, and suggestive content (though no explicit sexual content)

I will attempt to include content warnings at the beginning of chapters that had specific issues that may be triggering for certain readers, but this is an overarching message saying, hey, watch out! There could be stuff that will make you uncomfortable in this story, so be careful please.