The Chosen

Playing God is always a dangerous game - but it's a risk one government was prepared to take in its quest for ultimate power. Secreted in the remotest of places, away from the rest of civilisation, they built the Holding Grounds. High security, impenetrable fortresses of ground breaking genetic experimentation, the grounds were top secret breeding colonies for elite soldiers unlike anything the world had ever seen - artificially enhanced clones with the ability to fight in the harshest of conditions without protective gear. Deliberately changing their subjects' DNA, the scientists 'gifted' their creations with a rate of genetic mutation so astonishingly fast that the mutants literally began to evolve, adapting to any conditions they were presented with and physically changing right before their eyes. At first, they were delighted by the results they achieved - but the mutants were unstable, prone to turning on their creators, and it wasn't long before the whole experiment backfired. At first, the strongest amongst them rebelled, overpowering and killing those who had given them life, then escaping into the outside world.

At last, the End came. As the flames rose and the weak were consumed, the Chosen laughed in the face of devastation. Adapting easily to the new and inhospitable surroundings that now faced them, the mutants quickly laid claim to the places the Reapers and Ancients dare not tread. Some grew gills, living their lives in the depths of the very few uncontaminated lakes and seas remaining in the world. Others have adapted to sub zero temperatures, growing fur or feathers, or sprouting heat dissipating organs that allow them to live where the sun scorches the earth black with its glare. Many Chosen have developed lizard-like skins, able to protect them against the harsh radiation and acid rain of the worst hit nuclear zones, whilst others are able to absorb metal ions from their surroundings, secreting them through pores in their skin to form a reflective, radiation-resistant coating like a shield. New mutations appear all the time, the ever changing makeup of the Chosen population ensuring that no two individuals ever look the same.