The world didn't adapt. It collapsed.
One by one, the structures that held modern civilization together fell apart. The United Nations vanished, reduced to an irrelevant echo. International alliances mutated into desperate survival pacts. Cities stopped being centers of trade or culture—some turned into militarized fortresses, others into battlegrounds or mass graves.
What remained of governments tried to maintain the illusion of order through bunker-recorded announcements. But no one was listening anymore. People followed those who had power. And power now came through fire, earth, air… or water.
Klaus had spent weeks on the move. After his awakening, he understood that staying in his neighborhood meant slavery or death. Rumors spread of hunters—armed squads backed by states or corporations, capturing elementals to sell, enslave, or experiment on. Colombia had become a patchwork of factions. No law. No borders. Only chaos.
He hid in the northern mountains, then the humid jungles of Chocó, and later among the ruins of cities taken over by militias. It was in isolation that Klaus began to truly understand water—not just how to move it, but how to extract it from the air, from plants… from flesh.
One night, ambushed by looters, he desiccated a man for the first time. The man didn't die, but collapsed unconscious, lips cracked, his face shriveled like a dried fruit. Klaus didn't sleep that night. But he didn't cry either.
That technique was dangerous. And it was his.
Still, no matter how much he trained, Klaus realized something: power alone wasn't enough. True strength came from structure. Organized groups—the new armies, mafias, and warlords—they had weapons, networks, influence. He needed to infiltrate that world.
That's how he came across the Renacer Division—a paramilitary cell born from chaos. They were recruiting young elementals, offering protection, training, and power. Klaus' first contact with them was violent. He took down two recruiters who tried to capture him. But instead of killing them, he listened.
They spoke of a man named Soren.
Soren wasn't a typical leader. He was a war veteran, an earth elemental, with a military mind and piercing eyes that saw through lies. When he met Klaus, he didn't try to dominate him. He offered him a deal.
"Learn. Survive. Then choose your path."
Against his instincts, Klaus accepted.
Over the next few months, he lived in a camp of weapons, discipline, and survival. He learned ambush tactics, terrain control, hand-to-hand combat. He refined his elemental skills: using humidity to shape blades, pulling mist from the air to blind enemies, redirecting water through cracks in the earth.
More importantly, he learned from Soren—strategy, patience, psychological warfare. Soren wasn't kind, but he was just. Klaus respected him. Maybe even admired him.
He also met others—elementals like him, young and broken, shaped by the same chaos. Among them were a fire user with a scarred face and a quiet, calculating demeanor; a girl who bent wind to carry whispers like weapons; and a blunt earth user who carried guilt like a second skin. They didn't know it yet, but their paths would cross again.
Then came the incident.
An entire village disappeared. The official report blamed enemy raids. But something didn't fit. Klaus had been there days earlier—he'd seen military containers with strange symbols, soldiers moving people at gunpoint. And then… silence. The village was gone.
Soren looked disturbed when Klaus asked. He gave no answers.
That night, Soren died.
Some said it was an ambush. Others whispered betrayal. But Klaus found something in Soren's tent—a hidden journal, encrypted reports, and a list of "non-viable" test subjects. Civilians. Children. Elementals.
They weren't protecting people. They were experimenting on them.
Klaus stayed calm. He acted normal. But inside, something snapped.
He began digging. Listening. Watching. It all led to one man: Commander Varela, the true head of Renacer. He had no loyalty to anyone—just a vision of elemental purification through violence and science.
Klaus planned his exit carefully. But things never go as planned.
He was sent on a mission—capture a rogue water elemental. The target resisted. Klaus had no choice. The fight was brutal. His blade of water severed an artery. The man bled out in his arms.
It was his first kill.
After the mission, Klaus sat in silence. Blood stained his hands, and not just physically. He stared at them for hours, feeling the weight of something irreversible. Not guilt exactly—but a shift. He had crossed a line, and he knew it.
That same night, he set Renacer on fire.
Using the jungle's moisture and the camp's infrastructure, he triggered a flood and sabotage. The confrontation with Varela was inevitable. The man was powerful—an earth elemental who could crush bones with thought. The fight was savage. Klaus was injured. His ribs cracked. Blood filled his mouth.
But he had learned.
He used Varela's arrogance against him, his tunnel vision, his pride. And when the man fell—impaled by a spike of pressurized water through the throat—Klaus didn't feel triumph.
He felt purpose.
Word spread. A water elemental had destroyed a division from the inside. The few survivors whispered his name with fear and respect. He didn't stay to hear it.
He walked into the wild again, wounded but alive.
It was time to build something new. A brotherhood. A code. A force not bound by nations, but by survival and honor.
He would call it: Hydra.