Gregor was a sick man. Not physically ill, but mentally. Which is why it was completely unfortunate that Gregor found the ring.
And even when he discovered what it could do.
It happened completely by accident. Gregor had been wearing the ring without incident for over a week when he accidentally tripped over a man in the coffee shop. Furious in the rage of his undiagnosed mental illness, Gregor shouted “you fool! I wish you had never been born!”
And that’s exactly what happened.
Before Gregor’s eyes, the man became younger and younger until he regressed completely out of existence in a haze of purple energy.
Gregor stared at the pile of clothes where the man had been standing. He realized what had just happened. He had power!
And the power made him hungry for more.
Of course, in the crowded coffee shop, the man’s death – or rather, unbirth – did not go unnoticed. The other patrons screamed in terror.
But Gregor understood the power now at his disposal. And with a thought, he aged the entire populous of the coffee shop into senility before anyone could make a move. The youngest person in the shop, a 15-year-old blonde cheerleader named Ekaterina, was suddenly 130 years old, nearly a decade older than the oldest recorded person on the planet. And the rest of the shop was even older than that, as they all aged in proportion to each other. Miraculously, only two of them died, crumbling into purple ash as their bodies passed the point in which their life forces ceased.
Gregor laughed at the chaos at his control. He saw the 22-year-old barista who had served him each day, now a shriveled, 142-year-old drooling husk of a human being. He knew he had the power to control the world.
And that’s exactly what happened.
Gregor first decided to cause panic and chaos, aging all of the country’s children into withered elderly people. The youngest newborn in the country was soon 80 years old and weak as can be, having never exercised once in his rushed 80 years. Gregor then used his power to eliminate the adults, regressing all the adults in the country, excluding those in the coffee shop, into helpless children no older than 5.
Gregor had power. And now, in his madness, he could hold the rest of the world hostage.
Which brings us to our hero, whose name is …