Capes

• Royal Road

  4.5/5

  367 ratings

About

All Griffin ever wanted was to be a part of the superhero world. As a teen, he chased capes all across Silver City, filming their fiercest fights and biggest saves from closer to the action than anyone else would dare, but he only ever posted their wins to social media, the ones he knew would give people hope. In Silver City, however, even the cameraman’s luck eventually runs out. Chasing the lead of his lifetime, he got too close, and the fight got too big. The world's strongest super falls, four city blocks vaporize, and Griffin spends weeks in a constant state of pain and suffering, surrounded by doctors who have no idea what is happening to him. When he defies all odds and wakes up, he discovers that his body is ruined, his lifeline is fading, but he also has something unlike any power on the planet growing inside him. Other aspiring superheroes have an entire lifetime head start on him because they were gifted their powers by genetic birthright and luck. But he has something none of them will ever be capable of understanding: he still remembers what it was like to be powerless. This story began with a burning desire to answer 2 questions.  1: What if you took a typical shonen protagonist with a heart full of unbreakable determination and plopped him into a more realistic superhero world full of flawed individuals and gray morality? 2: What if, in this relatively typical superhero setting, you gave the protagonist a powerset designed similarly to cultivation? (He’s not exactly a cultivator, but I wanted to capture that feeling.) The answer to those questions is: Capes. Inspired by MHA, The Boys, Super Powereds, Invincible, Super Supportive, OPM, and cultivation, this story is a labor of love for the superhero and progression fantasy genres, combined with my own frustrations with where I think superhero stories typically go wrong, and topics they don’t explore enough.

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