Many years ago, Joshua and his roommate Harry decided to start their own business. It was a simple little endeavour that designed algorithms that tracked delivery routes and optimised schedules. Joshua himself knew nothing about the coding involved, but his friend was confident in their abilities and Joshua himself had done a stint in marketing before. They both gave it a shot, and they succeeded fairly well. Stepped forward, introduced their idea, made some money. They had a small office where Harry worked on the code, and Joshua spent his time advertising and researching potential clients. Things were going all right, they even managed to get some employees. Monitored and tweaked the code, began developing alternative programs and systems. Broadened their horizons.

In retrospect, Joshua wouldn't be able to tell you where it went south. Rival companies, better algorithms, and a number of high-profile clients lost to ridiculous blunders. An employee publically exposed and summarily jailed, casting the company in an unfortunate light right when they needed positive press. Money started running short, but Joshua would have nothing of it. This was working before, and he wasn't willing to accept that it couldn't keep working. That this wasn't just a bad spot, a bit of turbulence on their road to success. And the worse things got the further he sank away into the depths of denial.

They accrued debts. Harry got into trouble with his family. They started eating bargain bin ramen, working out of a shared apartment because they couldn't afford an office space. It was Joshua's confidence that dragged Harry along, his salesman's smile and carefully worded pitch. But eventually even Harry was forced to stop, when his failure started preventing him from taking proper care of his kids. Joshua was left alone, in debt, with no idea what to do next.

Joshua couldn't accept the fact that things had gotten so bad because of him. He couldn't accept the situation, and he couldn't accept the blame. So instead of working with his friend to work off the debt, he ran. He moved to a different city, and lived off the streets. He begged for scraps, and lived off whatever he could scrounge up. It's a decision he regretted for all of his life, and yet not once could Joshua muster the courage to go back. To ask for forgiveness, to apologise, to ask for help. He couldn't accept it, in the state he was in. Knowing full well what a bad idea it was he continued on his own. Sinking ever deeper into despair.

Perhaps that would have been the end of a rather depressing tale, had it not been for a fateful incident not two years ago. Joshua can't remember the night of the incident, it comes back to him in flashes. Glimpses, ideas. He's not sure how much of it is real. Masked men, and moving shadows, and screams in the dark. What he knows is that it wasn't supposed to happen. He wasn't supposed to get these powers, they weren't intended for him. Whatever grand purpose they had been intended for, good or ill, they had somehow been granted to him instead. A depressed homeless man, with nothing left. The power, perhaps, to change the world.

Several nights after receiving his powers, Joshua witnessed a beating. A group of thugs had turned on one of their own for some kind of betrayal, and the unfortunate turncoat was being 'punished'. It was the kind of situation that before, Joshua would have just ignored. Not a damn thing he could do about it. But now, with this power, there was something he could do. He grabbed a paper bag and propped it over his head, before stepping in. Knowing that this power wasn't his, and that he was risking his life with a power he didn't know how to use, he fought to save the life of a stranger. Perhaps it was because after all this time being weak he needed something to feel powerful. Maybe it was because he required a violent outlet for his frustration and pain. Or maybe, just maybe, it was because he finally had the ability to do some real good in the world. And that same stubborn nature wouldn't let him stop.

It's nearly two years later now. The paper bag has been traded for spray-painted yellow and red hockey mask which sits stylistically somewhere between superhero and flamboyant serial killer. Joshua is now Protector, the raggedy superhero of the slums. But as he spends his days saving lives, he spends his nights looking over his shoulder. After all this power was supposed to go to someone else. And whoever they are....

they might come looking for it.

A mysterious man travels the land, trying to retrieve his lost power. They power that was supposed to make him a God. He possesses a shard, but it is only one shard. He needs to possess the whole. Soon, he will.