Strider

Riley Cruz was just an ordinary Biochemical Engineer attending his second year at Ganymede Alpha University (GAU). He had a part time job at Nexgen Labs, where he would routinely clean out the room containing the HexGate, a top secret project using light magic and scientific understanding to create hard light constructs. One night while dusting off the intricate machinery of the HexGate, He noticed an insect crawl into a ventilation blade, Riley reached in without much thought to get the insect out and it bit him, causing him to jolt with his hand in the ventilator, moving it just deep enough to get caught in a gate particle entrance. Riley sat there calling for help for hours, with no response.

The room was deep underground and has extremely limited communication availability in order to maintain secrecy over the project, Nexgen had no interest in losing such a groundbreaking patent. After what felt like days, Riley waited for something to happen, thinking the machine could turn on and vaporize him, a pack of rats could come up and maul him, one of the coolant tanks could burst, drowning him. No chance his family would know where to find him, even less of a chance Nexgen would help with any missing persons case involving their top secret lab. Waking him from the last nap he'd ever have he heard, the loudspeaker screeched: " EXITING SLEEP MODE...ENGAGING STARTUP PROCEDURES...PURGING VENTILA-" Riley began squirming pulling at his wrist harder than he ever had, ripping at the flesh that had been resting within the fan blades for nights.

As he freed himself, light particles began drifting into his wounds restitching the flesh into pure light. As the amazement was setting everything went dark. He woke up 3 weeks later under the wreckage of the lab. Barely climbing out of the wreckage he was surprised with how minimal damage he took. Making his way to the service elevator he noticed the shaft was blasted shut, halting his only exit. After panicking for a solid 4 hours he took a seat and began imagining being free.

He opened his eyes, saw a flash of light, and awoke on the street almost getting hit by a car. Wandering through the streets back home, he saw the belongings from his apartment on the side of the road, and upon walking up to his room, a new family had already moved in. Assumed to be dead, no home , and no job, Cruz started fresh as Strider, learning howto manage his new found abilities and taking his fight to the streets, as someone that can save people from fates similar to that of what befell him.