Before the bombs fell, Manchester was a city of shadows. The gangs ruled the streets, their power carved into the crumbling bricks of its abandoned factories and graffiti-streaked walls. Fear seeped into every corner, a silent predator that claimed the weak and the unlucky.
Anthony Drake—known simply as Ant to the few who cared—wasn't born to fight the gangs. He was born into their grip, raised in a neighbourhood where the only choices were submission or survival. By fifteen, he'd seen more than his share of both.
That was the year the gangs came for his family.
It started with a demand. The gang wanted protection money, an unpayable sum for a widow raising two kids in a tenement block where even the rats fought for scraps. When his mother refused, the retribution was swift.
Ant still remembered the screams. The roar of the flames as they poured petrol through the letterbox and lit the match. He'd tried to pull her from the inferno, his hands blistering as he clawed at the burning wood, but the heat drove him back.
His mother's voice haunted him long after it fell silent.
His older sister, Lana, hadn't been there. She'd been grabbed off the street a week earlier, sold to a trafficking ring that used people like currency. Ant had promised to find her, to bring her home, but the fire shattered that promise.
She was gone. His mother was gone. And he was alone.
By the time Ant turned eighteen, he had transformed. His rage burned hotter than the fire that had taken his family, and he channelled it into a singular purpose: breaking the gangs that ruled his city.
He started small—ambushing low-level thugs, taking their weapons, leaving them broken and bloodied in alleys. Word spread quickly about the shadow that stalked Manchester's underworld. The gangs called him the Dark Ant, a mocking title that he embraced as a badge of honour.
Ant didn't have powers. He didn't have the resources. But he had brutality, and he had resolve. He built his arsenal from scraps—electrified batons fashioned from stolen wiring, crude armour made from reinforced leather, gadgets cobbled together in a borrowed workshop.
The police ignored him at first, too overwhelmed to care about another vigilante. But the gangs couldn't afford to. Ant was relentless, a force of nature that tore through their operations with a ruthlessness that bordered on sadistic.
One night, as he stood over the bruised and battered body of a gang lieutenant, Ant lit a cigar with a match struck against the man's face. The thug groaned, his swollen eyes fluttering open as the acrid smoke filled the air.
"Wake up," Ant growled, his voice low and gravelly. He leaned in, the cigar's embers close enough to sear flesh. "I want you to feel this."
The man coughed, blood dribbling from his split lip. "You're insane," he rasped.
Ant grinned, though there was no humour in it. "Nah. I'm just the guy who makes you pay."
He pressed the cigar's glowing tip into the thug's cheek, holding it there as the man screamed. The sound echoed through the alley, a symphony of pain and fury that fuelled Ant's crusade.
It was another nameless morning, the sky over Manchester grey and heavy with smog. Ant stood in an alley behind a warehouse, taking a piss on the unconscious body of a thug he'd beaten into submission the night before.
The man stirred, groaning as the acrid warmth hit his face. Ant laughed darkly, shaking the last drops free before turning to light another cigar.
That was when the sirens began.
Ant froze, the match hovering over the cigar's tip. The sound wasn't unfamiliar—air raid drills were common during the escalating tension of the Cold War—but this was different. Louder. More urgent.
He stepped out of the alley, squinting up at the sky. The first flash came moments later, a blinding light on the horizon that seared his vision and sent a shockwave rumbling through the city.
Ant staggered, dropping the cigar as the ground beneath him trembled. He looked toward the source of the light, his breath catching as he saw the mushroom cloud rising.
Another flash followed, and another, each one closer than the last. The screams began, a chorus of panic and despair as the world around him collapsed.
Ant stumbled through the chaos, his mind racing. Fires erupted across the skyline, consuming what little was left of the city's soul. People ran in every direction, their faces twisted in terror.
He passed an old woman clutching a child, their cries drowned out by the wail of the sirens. He saw men and women clawing at each other for a place in a crumbling shelter, their desperation turning them into animals.
For the first time in years, Ant felt powerless.
When the dust settled, Manchester was unrecognisable. The gangs were gone, but so was everything else. Ant wandered the ruins for weeks, surviving on scraps and stealing from the few who had anything left to steal.
But something inside him refused to die. The fire that had driven him to break the gangs still burned, now fuelled by the loss of an entire world.
He rebuilt himself piece by piece, scavenging what he could from the wreckage. His gadgets became more refined, his methods more brutal. He wasn't just a vigilante anymore. He was a survivor, a warrior forged in the ashes of a dying world.
When the Vanguard found him, he didn't hesitate to join. He didn't care about their ideals or their plans for global unity. For Ant, the mission was simple: protect what was left, and make sure no one ever suffered the way he had.
In the dim light of the safe house, Ant stared at the map on the table, his expression hard. The others argued around him, their voices a cacophony of conflicting ideals.
But Ant didn't care about speeches or debates. To him, the world was still a battlefield, and he was still the last man standing.
"Let them argue," he muttered under his breath, his hand brushing the scarred edge of his baton. "I'll be the one cleaning up the mess."