CHAPTER 0

Battery Park, New York, The Past

New York is a city of contradiction. Uptown, the city thrives with activity, as tourists mix with residents under a Technicolor neon sky. They fill the streets in their mad rush to go nowhere fast. Uptown, the city is alive with energy. Downtown, however, is a very different place. At day’s end, the nine-to-five workers at the World Financial Center and neighboring Wall Street, rush home and the area becomes a veritable ghost town. This is especially true in Battery Park City. Half-completed construction and gothic architecture combine to create an atmosphere of evil, where misshapen dragons and gargoyles look down upon the skeletal frames of future high-rise apartments and office buildings.

However, on this clear, New York night, these gothic creatures had something else to observe as a quartet of garishly costumed villains called the Retallion Battalion gathered around the base of a large, blood-red colored radio antenna. The word “Zeeliminator” was etched in bold neon letters at the base of the antenna. The Zeeliminator stood fifteen stories high. Large red, purple, and green colored lights outlined the machine and lit up the night sky, making the device appear more grotesque. As the name implied, the Zeeliminator was the creation of the villainous Professor Z, the leader of the Retallion Battalion.

Professor Z tried not to get too excited as he made his final adjustments to the Zeeliminator. He had been working for nearly an hour and was almost finished. The Professor wore his trademark bright yellow jumpsuit, which was adorned with a light blue exoskeleton. His sandy, blonde hair was buzz cut. His brown eyes were covered by blue goggles, which were the same shade as his exoskeleton. The twenty-five year old prodigy had the body of a young athlete. However, the flecks of gray in his goatee showed the man had aged beyond his years. Professor Z was a genius, and believed that the true purpose for his genius was to rid the world of the pretender. He had made it his life’s goal to destroy the insolent child who had taken the adulation of the masses from him, the rightful recipient. Professor Z, with the assistance of his partner, Evil Brain, had attempted several times to prove his superiority to a misguided world. As a result, the villain had served several years in jail. In fact, his partner, the Evil Brain, still languished in a cell at the maximum security facility known as Alabaster Prison. Tonight, though, he would finally have his revenge against SkyBoy.

A short distance away, a trio of villains watched as Professor Z worked at the base of the macabre-looking device.

The first was the demonic creature known simply as Shadow. Shadow’s long, black cloak blended into the darkness around him and concealed the creature’s frail body. The cloak was more than a simple black fabric; it was a life support system, which allowed the demon to exist in this reality – a world of light. By design, the cloak drew all the shadows towards the villain and absorbed all nearby light to ensure that the creature was constantly surrounded by darkness. Despite the blackness, the creature’s pale face still glowed in the moonlight. Shadow’s pallid skin, red eyes, and sharp fangs hinted at the creature’s otherworldly origins. Shadow had been brought to our dimension by a misguided mystic, and bound himself to this mage, which allowed Shadow to permanently remain in this plane of existence. Shadow thought it would have been child’s play for the demon to take over the planet. At least, it should have been – if not for the impetuous hero known as SkyBoy.