Welcome, to the Ultimate Path to Power

The laughter of the Mad Genius sent shivers down everyone's spines. They still couldn't make a dent in the Crystalline Fortress, and whatever plan the villain had, it sounded like he was close to finishing it.

Inside the Fortress Gene was rushing around connecting wires, soldering electronic pieces, and typing madly into a computer.

"I've done it, I've downloaded the knowledge of the twenty-four num galaxies! Now I can finally complete my ultimate path to power," he roared as he continued to run about his lab.

Everything in the lab seemed to be connected to a large chair in the center of the room. Several display screens that were viewable from the chair were on.

Countless images flashed across the screens faster than the human eye could settle on them. These were scenes from across the twenty-four num galaxies.

There was one screen flashing images of different types of intelligent life. On another screen, there was a still image of what looked like a hero of some sort swinging his fist.

A title on the screen said "The Ultimate Path to Power." Every now and then, Gene would check the screens and continued making adjustments to his chair or programming something into the computer.

"Finished! Let's see if it works," Gene said to himself. Reaching a button on a panel he pushed it. The lights in the lab flickered and all of the screens went blank.

The only image on the screens now was a circle timer spinning around indicating the computer was processing something. Gene waited with bated breath. "Will it work? It must!"

Finally, the screens all shared the same image, it was the picture of the man swinging his fists with a huge game title "The Ultimate Path to Power." Excitement could be seen in Gene's eyes.

The screen changed and a beautiful woman appeared on the screen. The woman blinked and looked around taking in everything in the lab.

If one looked closely they could see there were very strong resemblances between this woman and the Miracle Woman of Mars.

"System is online," the woman finally said. After a pause, a screen appeared with a generic looking male. "Please initiate scanning," the woman said.

Gene rejoiced and ran around the room happily. He ran to the chair in the center of the room and pulled up the foldaway keyboard attached to the chair. He typed in a few commands and hit the enter button; the fortress began to hum.

Outside of the fortress, everyone heard the change in the sounds coming from the fortress. Strange objects of different shapes and sizes appeared.

Some of the objects seemed to disappear as soon as they came out of the fortress while others moved out in different directions. Some of these objects hovered near the fortress while others moved out across the world.

As the heroes tried to make out what these objects were and what they could do; beams of light shot out and swept across everyone. The scans seemed harmless at first, but eventually, people began to feel they were losing something.

The longer the scanning went on, the more intense the loss became. They felt like they were getting weaker and weaker. Finally, one hero fell out of the sky and crashed into the earth below. He died as soon as he hit the ground.

The scene of the hero falling out of the sky and his subsequent death shocked everyone. Panic filled their eyes. Less than a minute before they felt supremely powerful and held little fear towards the battle.

Everyone knew the Mad Genius never killed people so they just felt like this battle was little more than a chance to show off. Now they were scared and even started flying away in panic but as fast as they ran the draining kept getting stronger.

The only person not looking panicked was Virtuous Crusader. An insane gleam could be seen in his eye. He was the only one present who knew the energy drain wasn't coming from the devices Gene just released.

Those were merely some kind of scanning device. The draining was coming from him. He decided since no one knew what the strange devices did; he could take the opportunity to absorb a massive amount of power and blame it on the villainous actions of the Mad Genius.

The Miracle Woman of Mars looked shocked at the scene. She couldn't understand what was going on. She felt she understood Gene and he wasn't the person to start killing people for no reason.

Her eyes told her a different story. It was strange to her that she didn't feel the effects of the draining she heard everyone else complain about.

"Do you feel the draining people are screaming about," Miracle Woman asked.

"No," Virtuous Crusader admitted. "It's strange neither of us feels the effects," she commented.

"It could be the result of our abnormal physiques," he said. Hearing this, Miracle Woman nodded her head as if considering something.

"I have an idea," Virtuous Crusader said. Flying up higher into the air, he yelled for everyone to stop.

People were still falling from the sky, but they knew if anyone had the ability to save their lives it was Virtuous Crusader. He was the long time nemesis of the Mad Genius.

"Fellow heroes, let's destroy these strange objects, and then I'm sure the draining will stop," he said. After speaking he blasted some of the objects. The people being scanned by it felt the draining sensation immediately stop.

"It worked, it worked, I'm saved! Everyone, do as Virtuous Crusader says and destroy the objects. It's our only chance!"

The hero Virtuous Crusader saved cried out to everyone. He was happy to be alive and hated the Mad Genius for making him feel so weak.

After he spoke, everyone began destroying the objects sent out by the Mad Genius. Immediately, the draining sensations subsided. This emboldened everyone to become more ferocious in their attacks of the mysterious objects.

Meanwhile, Gene was making his last few adjustments before finally walking to the chair and strapping himself in. Typing a few things in, he heard the system speak. "Initializing, welcome, to the Ultimate Path to Power."