Literature / USURPER

U.S.U.R.P.E.R is the third story and first proper book in the War Against Usurpation series of books, published Online on Amazon using Kindle on November 21st, 2018. A Paperback copy was later released on January 23rd, 2019.

Eric Mason has settled comfortably into his life with his adopted family, the Masons, and despite a lapse in memory of everything that came before, feels both safe and happy. This doesn't last long, however, as a terrorist attack at his school soon throws him back into his previous life: a world of unbelievable genetic modifications, terrorist organisations and otherworldly abilities. Tasked with taking down the leader of terrorist organisation "The Usurpers," Eric teams up with the wisecracking, seemingly carefree Raphael di Angelo who acts like he's in a fictional fantasy story half of the time, and the two teenagers make a powerful, if unstable pair. But the leader of the Usurpers, Ronan Apollo, is willing to use his wits, his will and everything he's got against his enemies - and Raphael and Eric are only part of a larger game, one which Ronan keeps playing even when others believe he's stopped...

Followed by a collection of short stories that features the same collection of character, that is, funnily enough, called Three Short Stories.

Not related to the video game of the same name.

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Tropes featured in this book include:

• Abusive Parents: As we find out in Chapter 3, Ronan Apollo's father was one of these. He was driven insane by being a prisoner of war and having nobody rescue him, and he physically abused Ronan and his mother. When his mother couldn't take it anymore, she hung herself, and Ronan later escaped his life of torment by leaving, but not before killing his father.
• Added Alliterative Appeal: Chapter 2, titled "Remembrance Restoration".
• Aggressive Categorism: Raphael about Eric in regards to his status as somebody who hasn't spent his entire life suffering, and Raphael about the Usurpers.
• Amnesiac Hero: Eric, since he never remembered anything form his past. He gets better.
• Anticlimax Boss: The two protagonists meet Ronan Apollo at the end of the book, only for Ronan to put them against each other through a mixture of manipulation of emotions, evidence of facts, personality clashes and circumstances. As Richard realises, the only people that could beat Eric and Raphael ''were each other''.
• Anti-Villain: Ronan Apollo is revealed to be this, more or less: he's a Benevolent Boss who has great rapport with his second-in-command, only tries to do what's best for the world and prevent it from going through the same things he's had to, and is a generally affable person. All of this is slightly mitigated by the hard-to-ignore fact that he's a terrorist leader and the book's main antagonist.
• Anyone Can Die: So far, Eric's sister and best friend have bitten the dust.
• Ascended Extra: Given that the last two "entries" in the series were 2500-word short stories, it's impossible that some characters aren't going to get more focus and/or bigger roles in the plot.
  • Almost everybody not named Raphael, Richard or Ronan that originated in Threat of the Usurpers gets this to some degree.
  • Mia Mason only made brief appearances at the beginning and end of A.R.T.I.F.I.C.I.A.L, with the bulk of the story being Eric's forgotten past. Here, while she still only makes appearances at the beginning and end of the book, her role off-screen is one of the largest, being Eric's main inspiration to fight Raphael at the climax, and his driving motivation to fight the Usurpers period.
• Best Served Cold: In the first short story of the series, Raphael ends up helping to expose Owain Donohan as a member of the Usurpers. Here, the ex-officer gets his own back, kicking Raphael in the head and kidnapping Richard, the person he loves the most, right in front of him while Raphael is helpless to interfere.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Eric can be terrifying when he wants to be, as various Usurpers, robots built by Ronan Apollo and Raphael di Angelo himself find out.
• Beware the Silly Ones: And so can Raphael, to the same extent as Eric, likewise including Eric himself.
• Bittersweet Ending: The Life Serum has been recovered, allowing millions of lives around the world to be saved; Eric and Raphael rescued Richard; and the Usurpers are seemingly scattered. But, Eric's sister and best friend still died, and Ronan Apollo actually survived the events of the book, unbeknownst to everyone else, and it turns out this failure was all part of a bigger plan.
• Cassandra Truth: Right before the boys leave for Nepal, Judge Walton warns the pair that manipulating people's emotions and beliefs to his own advantage is one of his strongest plays, and tells them to be careful. Judge Walton may as well have not told them that warning, judging by the ensuing fight between the pair.
• Chekhov's Gun: When Eric is looking around the AUO, one of the things he sees is something that can make inactive clones of organic matter. This turns out to be crucial to Ronan Apollo's survival.
• Continuity Lockout: Averted. The short stories that set up this book (see Origin Story for more details) are there to stop anyone from being Locked Out of the Loop in regards to story and content. After all, in the book itself, Eric and Raphael's past adventures are referenced frequently.
• Deadpan Snarker: Judge Walton, the book's resident science hero, particularly excels in this department:
  Judge Walton (in a note): Dear Raphael, seeing you so happy using those Glaze Gears makes me terrified...
  Judge Walton: Test it out on someone. I'd go for Di Angelo, he's being especially annoying today.
• Death by Origin Story: Depends on whether you consider this or A.R.T.I.F.I.C.I.A.L Eric's origin story. If it's the former, then Norman and Greenleigh suffer from this. If it's the latter, then Mia and Rhys suffer from this.
• Demoted to Extra: In contrast to Mia Mason, who got more appearances and a greatly expanded role in the plot, Professor Greenleigh, Eric's creator only gets a couple of mentions and lines during Eric's memory resurgence. Eric himself even lampshades shortly after remembering his past how he's ashamed about having forgotten Greenleigh so soon. Justified since Greenleigh himself died in A.R.T.I.F.I.C.I.A.L.
• Deuteragonist: While it looks like it's going to be Eric's book, Raphael takes as much of the spotlight as he does, given similar amounts of backstory, character insight and development. And it looks like it's going to be this way throughout the series as a whole, although this might change with the introduction of Iris.
• Dysfunction Junction: The family of Ronan Apollo, alongside himself, fit this quite nicely:
  • Ronan Apollo's dad abused him and his mum.
  • Ronan Apollo's mum hung herself when she couldn't take the aforementioned abuse.
  • And Ronan himself killed his father and grew up to become one of the most feared terrorists in history.
• Epic Fail: Eric's first attempt at using his new ability goes awry when Judge Walton doesn't explain the limitations before telling him to give it a shot.
• "Eureka!" Moment: Raphael and Eric once they remember they have Eric's ability to change what people can see, right as the Usurpers invade their base.
• Evil Plan: Ronan has one and he doesn't seem to be done with it by the end of the book.
• Extremely Short Timespan: The whole book only takes place from Monday until Wednesday morning of that same week.
• Foreshadowing: Raphael is established very early on as having an unrelenting hatred of Ronan Apollo, and Eric is likewise established very early on as possessing an unrelenting desire to save Rhys and Mia. So, when the two of them speculate hypothetically about whether they would choose to have a weapon that could kill anyone they wanted, or a medicine that could save anyone they wanted, the question itself and their answers to it seem like an insightful but ultimately useless bit of information. Not so useless when they have to make the same choice three chapters later and end up disagreeing, leading to their final battle.
• Failure Is the Only Option: It's doubtful whether anything Raphael and Eric could have done would have saved Mia and Rhys, since she's dead before they arrive in Nepal.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Raphael and Eric. In this case, it takes a lot of fire for them to become friends.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: Judge Walton tells Richard that it seems Owain has escaped right before he kicks Raphael in the side of the head and what he came for.
• Genre Savvy: Raphael fits the description quite nicely. He notices when certain things are going on where normal people don't or wouldn't. Having living on the streets, grown up reading fiction books and playing video games without ever going to school or spending significant amounts of time alongside normal people unsurprisingly makes him act like this, as well as a bit odd or cringeworthy when the situation calls for it.
• Heroic Sacrifice: When it looks like Eric, alongside his best friend Rhys, are going to die by being crushed to death by rubble, Rhys spots it, and pushes Eric out of the way at the last second.
• History Repeats: Once again, Eric ends his journey with losing a loved one to a heroic sacrifice on their part, and losing another loved one due to collateral damage. And, once again, Raphael ends his journey with striking a significant blow against the Usurpers.
• I Have Your Wife: Or, rather, I have your sister and best friend in a coma, and the only way you can save them is to give up the chance to kill me.
• I Will Find You: Eric says this pretty much verbatim during his threatening of Ronan Apollo over the phone.
• If You Won't, I Will: Eric and Raphael have these attitudes towards each other during the final battle.
• Info Dump: Eric gets one of these about Ronan Apollo.
• Large Ham: Raphael, one hundred per cent.
  Raphael, while holding a large gun: PREPARE TO DIE, SUCKERS!
  • Although see Genre Savvy for the reason why.
• Let's You and Him Fight: Ronan's master plan is not to kill Eric and Raphael himself using a powerful weapon or high-tech suit: it's to manipulate Eric and Raphael into fighting each other by using their contrasting beliefs, experiences and ideals against them. If all went to plan, one of them would have killed the other.
• Locked Out of the Fight: During the flight to Nepal, when the twenty-first robot arrives on the flight, Raphael punches it out of anger and his hand hurts so much he has to go to the bathroom. When he tries to return after the robot turns hostile, it locks Eric in the room with itself, and Raphael has to find another way in.
• Mask of Sanity: As it turns out, the deaths of his parents (one of whom he killed) and his subsequent rise to infamous terrorist leader really took a toll on Ronan Apollo's psyche. And while he keeps up the facade in front of his allies pretty well, the mask starts to crack in the final confrontation between him and the heroes.
• Mood Whiplash: Going from the conclusion to the fight between Eric and Raphael, complete with the news that Ronan Apollo is dead, to the news that both Mia Mason and Rhys Coombes, Eric's sister and best friend respectively, are also dead.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Eric has this realisation when he realises he would have had no problem killing Raphael during their fight, and Raphael managed to restrain himself throughout the whole fight.
• Non-Action Big Bad: Ronan Apollo zig-zags this trope: on the one hand, he prefers to create weapons and manipulate others from the sidelines, and doesn't even participate in the final battle. On the other hand, he has no problem leading the assault on the AUO base from the front and engaging in combat with Raphael himself. Although he ultimately would have lost if Owain Donohan hadn't joined the fight.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: Downplayed: Nobody ever really thought that Ronan Apollo didn't have the potential to be threatening, and whether or not he's a villain is debatable. However, him capturing Richard, locking Eric and Raphael into a no-win scenario where their ideals are played against each other and especially his description of the murder of Raphael's mother and father is chilling and surprisingly effective from the affable antagonist with a tragic backstory and sympathetic motivations.
• Origin Story: The "Quick Disclaimer" page at the front of the book includes links to two of these, one for Eric and one for Raphael, that the book recommends you read before reading the book itself.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: "I - AM - NOT - IN - THE - MOOD!"
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: There's the exciteable, eccentric, unusual badass normal Raphael; and there's the calm, non-quirky, easygoing mind manipulator Eric. See Sibling Yin-Yang for a similar dynamic between Raphael and Iris.
• Sadistic Choice: Deconstructed. At the end of the book, Eric and Raphael have to choose between producing the life potion (saving Eric's sister and best friend, as well as countless others around the world) and producing the death potion (killing Ronan Apollo and making sure no more lives are lost). Unsurprisingly, Raphael wants to take the latter option, since he knows what Apollo can and will do, but Eric, with loved ones recently put into comas, wants to take the former option. The two of them can't agree, and end up resorting to reluctantly beating the other unconscious.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: There's the excitable, transparent, outgoing Raphael who acts like he's in a comic book; and there's the calm, mysterious, reserved Iris who is perfectly normal on the surface.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Several examples:
  • Most notably, there's Eric and Raphael, who end up butting heads several times over the course of the story, until their differing perspectives and what matters to them acts as the push needed to make them fight.
  • Judge Walton and Raphael also don't seem to get on that well, although, unlike Eric and Raphael, it's not their lack of knowledge of each others' pasts, but how their pasts have been so intertwined.
  • Ironically, it seems that Ronan Apollo and Owain Donohan are the only two that have the best and most healthy co-operative relationship in the book.
• The Reveal: Iris is Raphael's twin sister.
  • Also, the spy for the Usurpers is Jane Harper.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Eric whenever Raphael's around. They just rub each other off the wrong way.
• Villains Act, Heroes React: Most of the book is the heroes trying to clean up the situations Ronan Apollo puts them and innocents in.
• Wham Line: So, it's the end of the book. The Life Potion's been recovered, the Usurpers are scattered, and best of all, Ronan Apollo's been killed! Then the epilogue happens...
  It was the same house that Ronan Apollo had stood in not so long ago, with the big red button attached to the control panel in front of him that would be used to try and kill Eric Mason, but would eventually fail. Now, it had a different purpose, but Ronan Apollo still stood behind the controls, alive and well.
  • There are a couple of examples in Chapter 8 that could count:
  Ronan Apollo: But before we talk about that, there are quite a few things that I know about you that I'm sure you would like to discover, Raphael di Angelo.
  Raphael di Angelo: And what would that be to do with?
  Ronan Apollo: Why, your family, of course!
  Raphael di Angelo: My-my family?
  Ronan Apollo: That's correct! Your father, after all, worked as a Usurper.
• The Worf Effect: Eric could eliminate pretty much any obstacle in his path using his psychic abilities. This book goes through pains to show that he's not invincible, particularly with Ronan Apollo knocking him out in one shot.
• Worthy Opponent: Fully averted: from Ronan Apollo's point of view, Raphael isn't worthy enough of his concern. This even extends to programming his robots that "di Angelo is not important".
• Would You Like to Hear How They Died?: Raphael di Angelo probably wouldn't re: his parents, but Ronan Apollo tells him anyway, and achieves the intended effect.