"Hello, guys, Dr H here. Yes, I am 4th wall breaking as Khan did in the earlier chapters. No, I will not be doing this often. Yes, it has something to do with my ability. No, I will not freeze time so you can have some fun with my assistant. Wait, you don't want to have fun with her? Well shit. I thought J was a cute one, a little crazy, but still cute, you know, and who doesn't want a little crazy in their life here and there? Anyways now that Khan is probably asleep and dreaming up the most terrifying things he can ever imagine. I want to tell you the story of how this facility, Project Tartarus, came into being. How the strain and pain method became the only lowkey government approved method of pushing those without abilities to gain abilities. And it starts with this guy named Helmont…"
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"HELLO Author Flashback PLEASE!!!"
15 YEARS AGO
Helmont was a high-ranking official in the newly established Elite Force. Rising swiftly through the ranks. He was a red tier, strong enough to hold his ground against the majority of the population, but not strong enough to overpower the forces that be. His ability was Nociceptive Echo, meaning he could control pain. The issue with his ability was to be able to manipulate said pain; he would need to have experienced it and understood it. This ability was tied directly to his family, leading to his family having the name Dolmar, a derivative of dolor which means pain. Some people liked to call his family Nagato(The Pain Invasion Arc Naruto Shippuden) which they believed was a derogatory term. Which is neither here nor there. I wonder how anime managed to stay throughout everything and countries were the ones that changed. Anyways, Helmont Dolmar's family had close ties with the military, with most of his relatives taking jobs in the Military Hospitals as well as on-field medics. Oh, did I fail to mention that our country (Ossyra) is currently at war with our southern neighbours in Thyress? The war is about a vast patch of land between us called The Grey State. The Grey State has a lot of resources underneath the land, which can be mined which is why both countries want it so much, so they can increase their… Shit, I'm getting sidetracked again. Anyways the Grey State has now become a warzone of a cold war. Small skirmishes here and there but I think it will boil over soon. Back to my point, the Cold War has been going on for 50 years now, with each fight bigger than the last hence the need for a strong army. Now the Dolmar family is essential to Ossyra's fight because of their ability, some of the strong ones can cast pain over a large number of enemies, allowing for the other Ossyran soldiers to win with minimal casualties. The Dolmar family easily know how to increase their ability compared to other people. They must experience large and varying amounts of pain. The issue, however, is that most of them go crazy after trying too much and end up going grey (meaning they drop to the lowest power tier and are unable to control their powers).
Now, Helmont was a bit of a black sheep, if you will. He did not want to join the Ossyran Army. In layman's terms, he was a coward. Rather than stay in the army, he joined the Ossyran Police Force, which changed its name to the Elite Force for branding, I guess. Now, to his family, Helmont Dolmar was a disappointment. Immense potential, but cowardice in his own way. In addition, he stepped away from the Dolmar Family training, which consisted of training in 2 martial arts, mainly Krav Maga and Jeet Kune Do. The 2 martial arts focused solely on inflicting as much damage on your opponent as possible, as well as something they called the Kodoku Gauntlet. The Dolmar children are given a specific pain to learn, maybe a burn, a stab, a bite, etc. Now they all come together in one sweaty and smelly basement. The first child to walkout with all the pains of the other children will then be taken through different traumatising experiences after which they would become the head of their class. (To the Dolmar, the class is the children you went to the Kodoku Gauntlet with. Also, in case you haven't figured it out, the Dolmar give birth like rabbits because they are able to take the pain of childbearing away. The women are also usually seen as breeders. Very backwards and fucked up family.) The head of the class will then choose a woman from either his class or the breeders that exist already to sire his kids. The Head of a class's words are absolute except when the class head before him says otherwise.
Helmont was a class leader, the fastest to ever do it. He walked into the Gauntlet as a 4th tier and walked out a 2nd tier. The Dolmar family was excited thinking there was a chance they could finally get a 1st tier in the family which is what Alpha Dolmar (The first Dolmar) wanted when he created all the rules they follow today (He was only able to reach 3rd tier and he has the audacity to cause suffering for his bloodline. That dude an asshole not gonna lie.) Now, back to Helmont's story, Helmont had a few issues…Well, more than a few, I guess. He took in a lot of pain from the moment he walked into that Gauntlet. Since then, he trained nonstop and pushed himself. He joined the Ossyran army, but what he saw in The Grey State scarred him. What he saw, I don't know; he just never wanted to speak on it. According to his psychiatrist's notes, Helmont was diagnosed with PTSD and became hooked on drugs(LSD, Ketamine, Salvia, Ecstasy, Fentanyl, Caffeine, Nicotine, Alcohol, Cannabis, Cocaine, MDMA, Opioids, Methamphetamines, Psilocybin and benzodiazepines, just to name a few) Helmont was spending the class funds on all types of drugs (Which is crazy this m*********er was either opening a pharmacy or he singlehandedly spent the GDP of Colombia on drugs about +400 billion dollars which is about 40 billion tees. Damn, I'm in the wrong business, maybe I should go uproot some Peter Parker ex wink-wink.) Helmont fell into a world of debauchery. He managed to get into the Ossyra Police Force even though his piss was a cocktail that could get you high just by seeing it. Now to the outside world, Helmont was an upstanding man who left the army to take care of civilians. To the Dolmar family, he was a waste of space, a head of class, a financial blackhole and a drug addict. Now, the information I am about to divulge is highly confidential. These files were redacted like a certain set of documents that were claimed to not exist and later on we got 3 million files and are waiting on 3 million more. Helmont was in charge of the Ability Control Task Force (a sub-branch of the Elite Force whose job is to locate and arrest all unpowered citizens). The file states that Helmont was taking some of these children who were powerless and taking them to his home and torturing them. He would use his power to torture little children in the same basement where he first walked out with red eyes. He would pump these children full of psychedelics and watch them scream in pain, sometimes forcing them to fight each other for his amusement. One day, while going through his usual Saturday shenanigans, a child that was 15 years old had fought off 35 children with the hope that his win would set him free from the hell he was trapped in. This boy was a 3rd tier with yellow eyes. This discovery by Helmont was groundbreaking, but he needed to understand what was different. He took the boy aside and asked him what had happened, how it felt when his ability manifested. The boy answered that he felt a severe pain in his eye when his ability was activated, as if something tore open. It was then that Helmont went deep into experimentation; he kept torturing children, but this time Helmont had a purpose for it. In order to do this, Helmont took 100 children from the culling roster, sent them to his basement and experimented. He looked at their eyes and saw a gland that wasn't named. Helmont studied it and perfected his findings for 7 more years in those 7 years, he had created a curriculum to help children without abilities get a chance at getting an ability. He presented his findings to the Ossyra Ministry of Security and Health. The gland found was later named after him, the Helmont gland. What Helmont had discovered was that physical pain and mental strain, put together in the perfect balance, will draw out any innate power. Helmont then went on to further polish his work and presented it again as a way to gain soldiers to fight the war. Helmont was lauded a hero for his advancement in science (Yeah, weird, they are always discovering something by accident, like Alexander Fleming.)
Anyways, Helmont died of alcohol poisoning or something, I don't know, but this is how the Tartarus Project was created. A place for the damned to have a second chance at being more damned.
"Anyways, thank y'all for listening to the ramblings of a young, sexy and virile Doctor"
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