Chapter Text
Remember when you were young, and would look up into the sky and get lost in a world of “what if?” Imagining what it would be like if you too could live like the fantastical characters found within the pages of books and the limelight of the silver screen. Everyone has thought about what life could be, at one point or another, if they could be elevated to something greater than some mere mortal, mere human, scrambling in the dirt with all the others. For most, it would stay as nothing more than a dream, a fleeting flight of fancy. Then, for some, that dream came true.
On November 2, 1972, a false god, great and golden, descended from the heavens and changed the world evermore. In a mockery of the creator, this golden being, this Scion, began to heal the broken and the wretched. They were bestowed fantastical, extraordinary power that raised them above the plebian rabble. Thus, it came to be as it had been written in the scriptures: ‘those that were last, were now first,’ and the age of capes had begun. But not all capes were created equal, and the powers themselves worked on strange, and alien logic. The mind-boggling, eldritch nature behind triggers and powers led to most all people adopting an attitude of reluctant acceptance of this 'new normal', no matter how nonsensical it may be, with a simple shrug of the shoulders and a muttered “powers are fucking bullshit.”
One man tried to find a method to the madness, and he must have succeeded, as Dr. William Manton was little remembered for his findings and greatly remembered for apparently going mad and killing himself along with seven other people, or so it was reported. Few bothered to look into the mechanics of powers afterword, for the knowledge of madmen is a frightening thing indeed.
And so you find yourself, on a broken earth, in a broken city, surrounded by broken people all awaiting some miraculous savior. But some may be confused as to how a good ol’ boy such a Robert Jackson managed to find themselves so far from the warm embrace of Dixie, but the circumstances of such an event were not so easily surmised.
Your great, great, great grandfather had immigrated to the United States in the early 19th century, and joined one of the many caravans of settlers headed to the cheap land in Texas promised by the Mexican Government. The Mexicans, of course, decided that there were simply too many white people in the sparse province, and since they would not simply assimilate into being short, catholic, and smelling of cumin, something had to be done. As such, the people of Texas were put off by the ever increasing refried tyranny, and did as their fathers had done a generation ago. Declare independence and start a war. Luckily, Mexicans are naturally bad at war, and Texas was an empty, poor place full of bloodthirsty Indians. The Mexicans, therefore decided to let the whites have it. So it was that open season was declared, and a great many American Southerners moved in to establish new plantations.
So your ancestor, having finished fighting a short war, did as all good, honest, god-fearing men ought to do and began to farm. Now great, great, great granddaddy was a hardworking, if poor man, and thus the family was looked down upon by the wealthy and influential, quickly being classified as “white trash” and only a single step socially above the planters beloved farming equipment. There was little place for social advancement, especially as the man refused to save up to buy a slave, nor rent one in order to better work his fields. This was not out of a sense of justice and abolitionism as some in your family have tried to claim, but instead of the simple fact that great, great, great granddaddy didn’t like negroes and there were plenty of Irish wastrels lying around to hire for pennies on the dollar and were slightly more tolerable to his bigoted sensibilities.
When tyranny once more reared its ugly head in the War of Northern Aggression, your ancestors were some of the first to join the fight in the spirit of ‘76, '36, and the ideal of self-governance. After all, for the Jackson's fighting wars of revolution was a generational duty. However, it was not to be, and your kin were beaten if not broken in a long, bloody war in which evil had finally triumphed over good men. While your direct forbearer returned to a ruined land, forced into servitude to the bankers in funny hats in New York that had bought your families hard earned inheritance for pennies on the dollar at government auction in the name of reconstruction of the wayward south. Your much more interesting great, great uncle decided that serfdom was bullshit, and that the war wasn't over until he was put into the cold, hard ground. As such he rode with the outlaw Jesse James, becoming a hero of a failed cause and legend of the romantic frontier. Ignoring the fact that he died not at the hands of Yankee soldiers, but the hands of a pox ridden prostitute that didn't accept I.O.U's.
Your great grandfather seemed to find his uncle's example a worthy one, and decided to tell the federal government where they could shove their latest in moral grandstanding, prohibition. Moonshine would be the opportune boon that would allow your family to crawl their way into respectability. After all, enough money can drown out even the most obnoxious blue bloods. The man ran 'shine from Beaumont to Nashville, dodging pigs at every turn. Even made a bit of a name for himself in those first NASCAR races in his tuned up Ford. The good times, as always, were not to last as Great Granddaddy Jackson died late one night in '27 in a fiery crash racing through the woods drunk off his ass.
The depression came, and nothing changed. Not in the former confederacy at least. The family scrapped by, dirt farmers as they had been for generations at this point. Some nights the kids got fed, sometimes the whole family went to sleep hungry. But God was good, and they endured. Then a man with a funny little mustache, got some funny little ideas, and your Granddaddy got to excitedly go kill Krauts and even get a free tour of Europe to go with it. Life was good, and only got better after the war.
Your Daddy was a late life surprise for an aging, womanizing, rambling man, and his life stories would've made best selling movies. He was the first man in the family to go to college, on the Armies dime no less, and finally managed to drag the family into a higher class of living by becoming an officer rather than a grunt. After a few postings in Korea in-between Gulf Wars, he was able to retire to a middle-class, white collar life and living proof of the American Dream.
You were visiting your grandparents in Galveston in July of 2009 to celebrate the nation's independence when Leviathan decided to ruin everyone's day. Needless to say there wasn't a Galveston left after that. Oh, and you had powers now. But powers weren't what saved your families situation. Your dad called an old army friend and got a job at a little pharmaceutical company up North, some place called Medhall. And now you lived in America's shithole, Brockton Bay.
This was how you found yourself in a DIY costume staring down a mob of ethnic gangers marching into your neighborhood, looking to cause trouble.
"I don't think y'all belong round here, boys."