Eminent Domain

It was the only thing running through Cedrick Jonkheer’s mind when the alien pylons made landfall. The Intergalactic Imperium used their right of Eminent Domain to appropriate the planet to build a goddamned highway… and all Jonx got was a sarcastic AI and some superpowers. The end of times came, and mankind was not prepared. He watched his world burn, then hid himself away at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. "Etherforging," his AI called it. Take the power that destroyed the world and make it his own. Advance. Grow stronger. Forge himself into someone who could survive a mad, mad universe.