It's Incredible How Weak Magic Makes You, Isn't it?

Prologue

The world loves the concept of superpowers. Almost every little kid, at some point in their lives, has dreamt of what their lives would be like should they one day develop super powers. Many of those little kids often tried their hardest to manifest those powers by yelling at the sky like their cartoon characters often did. Even many adults, though most would deny it tooth and nail, dreamt of superpowers becoming reality. But most people did not think about the other side of things. Sure, the little kids often had pure intentions for their powers. But the adults often were self-centered with their ideals. They thought only about what they could do for themselves with their power, not what their powers could do for the world. Why is that, one might ask. Simply put: Human nature. So you can only imagine what happened when, inexplicably, super powers became a reality.

It wasn't at all like some fairy tale. Not even a little bit. At first the reports were dismissed as utterly delirious ramblings of people who mistook someone doing a fantastic feat as something else entirely. But that quickly ended when even news reporters began to frantically dole out information on the abrupt rise of those with powers. For one glorious afternoon the world eagerly awaited for these heroes to address them, certain that they were now revealing themselves because they wanted to help steer humanity in the right direction.

Unfortunately, that hopeful idealism died out soon after and what started was the bloodiest time in human history. World War 1 or 2? Forget them. The death toll wasn't even comparable. It quickly became apparent that those with the extraordinary powers weren't all of pure heart. It started in Hawaii, and even now the reports of what happened are garbled at best. Even those with powers now remain unclear as to what exactly transpired. But one moment Hawaii was there and the next a massive fiery explosion wiped out all of the islands in the chain and sent a tsunami racing towards California. Almost instantly satellite imagery was sent en masse by every government on the planet with one in the sky to the wreckage of Hawaii. Somehow one media outlet managed to get their hands on that footage as soon as it was recorded and that was when the world took a single unified and horrified breath. Standing in the smoldering ashes of the largest chunk of the islands that was left, and that was only about as big as a semi-truck was a man looking up at the sky with a flaming sword in hand. The imagery wasn't the clearest, not at first. But the more that the images were rendered it became clear that the man was laughing. Standing over the wreckage of Hawaii and laughing.

This sparked the Greatest War, the War of the Monarchs, and so many other names for the same thing. Countries immediately tried to sort out those with powers and bring them to heel. That was a huge mistake. Seeing what one lone Monarch, as the humans had taken to calling those with powers, could do many others with ill intent sought to pursue their own interests. With governments attempting to take them in, whether to stop them or use them for their own gain, many monarchs defied them. Defying them... well, it doesn't quite do what happened justice. One monarch in particular had been found by a covert military task force sent by one government or the other and had been ordered to surrender. The Monarch in question had been lounging on a beach, harming no one. It became well-known later that she had escaped from prison. The task force that had been sent after her had been obliterated, not even a shred of them was ever found. Granted, at that time no one was able to look and when the time came that looking was feasible, it simply wouldn't have turned anything up. Well, being hunted down by the government had evidently left a bad taste in her mouth. Thus she took over a major news relay station and had ordered a live emergency broadcast. When she had the attention of millions upon millions of viewers she informed them all that she was now in charge, and that no mere human would ever be able to stop her. To accentuate her point she demolished the tower she had been speaking to the world from and the city it stood in as well. Philadelphia was nothing more than a barren wasteland by the time she had finished. It had only taken her a few minutes. But in that time millions and millions of lives were extinguished.