Supervillain Project

Luke failed the interview in the end.

For one thing, the interviewers saw no sign that he understood what it meant to be a superhero.

Because it seemed fun?

What a joke.

If interest alone were enough to make someone a good superhero, superheroes would be everywhere.

For another, Luke's appearance was a problem.

A goofy-looking young man with a bald head was hardly suited to appearing in public as a member of The Seven.

Third, although Luke had earned a perfect score on the physical test, he was not the only contestant to do so.

Starlight had, too.

When two contestants both had perfect scores, the answer became obvious once the interviewers compared their other qualifications.

In both appearance and conviction, Luke fell far short of Starlight.

Starlight was the one Vought International needed.

But the interviewers seemed to have overlooked one thing.

If two people scored a hundred on the same test, one of them might have reached their limit.

The other might have scored a hundred only because that was as high as the test went.

Not all perfect scores were equal.

But that was no longer the interviewers' problem. Even if they realized they had made the wrong choice, it was too late to change it.

The day after the selection event ended, Vought International announced the final result across major media outlets.

Starlight had stood out from more than sixteen thousand contestants and passed the interviewers' assessment with flying colors. Vought International would hold a major public event for her the following week, where she would become an official member of The Seven before tens of thousands of spectators.

The superhero selection event was over, but for Vought International and some of the contestants who had taken part, it was only the beginning.

On the surface, it had been an open, transparent selection process. In truth, Vought International had gone to such lengths to hold it for a purpose it could never reveal.

The afternoon after the selection event ended.

Vought International headquarters.

Ashley gently pushed open the door to the vice president's office.

Vought International's vice president, Madelyn, stood before the floor-to-ceiling window, holding a cup of steaming coffee as she looked outside.

At the faint sound from the doorway, Madelyn turned. A flicker of excitement entered her eyes when she saw Ashley.

Ashley was Madelyn's assistant, and she held an extremely important document.

That document held the real reason Vought International had gone to such lengths to hold a superhero selection event.

"Have you checked them all?" Madelyn asked, walking over to her desk and sitting down.

"I have. There are seventeen in total."

Ashley handed her the document.

"Seventeen..." Madelyn frowned slightly. The situation was worse than she had imagined.

Madelyn opened the file and leafed through it page by page.

Yorkel, Jisai, Zhebulizi, Luke, Mitarai Fubuki...

The highly classified document contained the files of seventeen contestants.

Every one of those seventeen contestants had been identified as having Psychic Powers.

And none of them were under Vought International's control.

Until then, every person with Psychic Powers in the world had been under Vought International's control.

Their extraordinary abilities were not innate. They were the product of genetic technology.

Vought International alone controlled that core technology. In other words, every superhero in the world had been created by Vought International.

Only Vought International's senior executives, the leaders of certain groups with financial ties to the company, and a handful of prominent politicians knew this astonishing secret.

The technology had brought Vought International enormous wealth. In just a few decades, it had grown from an insignificant small business into the largest corporate giant in the United States.

The parents of these people with Psychic Powers had signed mutually beneficial agreements with Vought International when their children were born. Even the circumstances of their births and the paths they took growing up had been carefully arranged by the company.

The people with Psychic Powers did not know any of this. Each believed they were fortunate, that heaven had blessed them with extraordinary strength.

The truth was the exact opposite.

Everything had been planned by Vought International. Every person with Psychic Powers was recorded in a vital file—the foundation of the company's power, its very lifeblood.

Besides raising superheroes for its own use, Vought International also supplied people with Psychic Powers to outside groups.

Yes, the supervillains under the control of criminal organizations had come from Vought International, too.

Vought International did this to maintain a balance between "good" and "Evil."

If everyone with Psychic Powers stood on the side of justice, the scales would naturally tip toward "good."

In time, "Evil" would be wiped out.

And if there were no "Evil" left in the world, superheroes whose mission was to "uphold justice" would no longer be needed.

Once the hunt was over, the hounds would be discarded.

Vought International could never allow that. Only while society continued to need superheroes could the company keep reaping the profits.

So Vought International devised a horrifying plan.

It was called the "Supervillain Project."

The project had reached its twelfth phase. Vought International had sold hundreds of people with superpowers to various criminal organizations for enormous sums, leaving those organizations to turn them into supervillains.

For decades, the clash between superheroes and supervillains had been a show staged by Vought International.

The company worked tirelessly to maintain the delicate balance between "good" and "Evil," ensuring that superheroes remained indispensable.

Everything seemed firmly under Vought International's control.

But over the past year or two, things had begun to change.

Vought International had found signs that another kind of person with Psychic Powers existed.

They were different because the top-secret files contained no record of them.

People with Psychic Powers whom Vought International had not created had appeared in the world.

The company suspected its core technology had been leaked. To confirm that, it needed enough subjects to bring back to its facilities for testing.

So, although Starlight had long since been chosen, the company made a last-minute decision to hold a superhero selection event open to all citizens.

The plan had proved effective. By rigorously screening the contestants' files, Vought International had finally obtained this invaluable information.

After studying it carefully, Madelyn closed the folder.

She let out a long breath and slowly leaned back in her chair.

Now it was time to send in the supervillains.