i must say i love science fiction and fantasy but what i love even more is when they’re combined, specifically if people try and use magic in a scientific way or harness it through scientific means. i also love dystopian stories and rebellions so hear me out
in an alternate universe and/or sometime way in the future, there’s this thing called Operation Genesis where, in its current test stages, a small team of kids with kinetic abilities is slowly but surely being constructed, monitored, and put to use. they’ll be a special force, an army in their own right, once they’re older or when the procedure to introduce and foster these abilities has been perfected. within the operation is four subsets: Eden, Galilee, Horeb, and Empyrean. The operation aims to perfect the introduction of kinesis for as many facets of the elements as they can - plants, animals, water, fire, electricity, temperature, air, light and darkness - into the human body in the hopes of working toward a league of fighters with every kinesis in one.
But for now, the powers are distributed through a team of test subjects, kids who have been with the operation since birth. They have names, more for identification than identity - they had different names once, but sometimes the world is tougher than we can handle, and parents give away their children to those who promise a better future, even if their given names, their first identities, stay behind.
Subset Empyrean has three subjects: Venta and the twins Jupiter and Iovis; Subset Horeb has three: Aed, Lugus, and Grannus; Subset Galilee has only one, Ahurani; and Eden has two: Persephone and Actaeon. There were some before those, obviously (most notably the prototype for Persephone, a girl who joined a few years prior and was labeled Demeter before her untimely departure from the operation) - no experiment goes perfectly the first time around, let alone one with such high stakes and delicate medium.
The subjects rarely interact with those from the other subsets save for full-team simulations, and even then, conversation is hardly a priority. They’re being trained and tested for a greater purpose, to fight and protect; they don’t know who they’re fighting for or protecting, exactly, but they haven’t been trained to ask questions, so they just listen and follow.
On the flip side, there’s a team of civilians whose only goal is to end Operation Genesis once and for all. The project was started by a corporation in a partnership with a classified sector of the government, all kept under lock and key - they’d create a special defense force against the nation’s greatest adversaries, designed to be unstoppable. Then a scientist involved broke away and exposed the procedures used in the Operation; one week later, before he could be contacted for interviews or testimonials, he was gone. Details about the kinetic kids are still unknown to the general public, but the people that make up the counterforce are still sure something shady is going on.
The counterforce is made up of five civilians - Bea, the computer whiz; Cyrus, the medic; Valerie and Will, fighters whose job is mostly to infiltrate the Op. Genesis HQ whenever they can to gather evidence and info against the project; and the team director (a fancy title for “leader who tells them how to not die”), Alistair. Everyone but Alistair is fairly new to the job - the last crew went “missing” rather unceremoniously, so those working above decided to try a fresher, more spry team in their stead. Alistair isn’t happy about it, but he’s going to do his best to keep these kids alive.
When the subjects of Genesis go head to head with the counterforce - which they do, and often - it’s kind of like immovable object meeting unstoppable force, but things shift a little more in Alistair and his team’s favor when a subject under Subset Eden is fatally injured by the people who created him. His death isn’t their saving grace, of course, but when his partner in Eden, the younger sister figure now missing her other half, is faced with just how many lies she’s been told, how many times she’s been used, what exactly has been taken from her by the people who claimed to help her- simply put, the counterforce gets a valuable new member.
