Sirens howled through the neon-bathed streets of Unity City, the capital jewel of Heiland. The city of Tomorrow....so they called it. A place where glass towers kissed the polluted skies, and humans and Humarites walked side by side pretending the world wasn't still broken.
Tonight, Unity wasn't sleeping. Tonight, Hawk , the Special Protection Force was out hunting.
"Target spotted! Sector Twelve, rooftop movement!" A soldier's voice cracked through comms, urgency and fear dripping with every word.
Floodlights tore open the night sky. Drones buzzed overhead like angry hornets. Ground units locked down the avenues while bounty hunters smug, greedy-eyed , trailed close, each imagining what they'd do with one billion Andross.
And in the middle of it all?
A shadow laughed.
He darted through the chaos like a ghost wrapped in steel, a figure draped in a black tech-suit, veins of crimson light pulsing across the plates. A mask covered his face, smooth and expressionless save for the jagged grin etched across it. The people called him Shadow Dawn, though Hawk used another name: Public Enemy Zero.
They opened fire. Rail shots split the air. Blades of photon light carved into the rooftop he'd just vacated.
But the man didn't stop running. He moved like water and madness, one moment sliding across the glass surface of a billboard, the next vaulting into the crowd below where neon and shadow tangled.
Bullets swallowed by the dark.
Explosions muted by silence.
Every law of combat, bent and mocked.
And then he spoke.
"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, bounty hunters and badge-polishers…"
His voice slipped into their ears not from a comm, not from a speaker just everywhere. "Welcome to another exciting episode of 'Why The Hell Can't You Catch Me?' starring yours truly."
"Contain him!" a Hawk captain barked, his visor crackling with static.
"Contain me? Ha, I'm barely contained by reality. I mean, look at me? leaping rooftops, dancing with death, laughing at physics. If I didn't know better, I'd say I was… special."
He twirled mid-air, cloak of shadow blooming outwards, swallowing a drone whole before it shattered.
"But special comes with a price tag, doesn't it? A billion Andross. That's what I'm worth now. More than some countries' GDP. More than your little life savings tucked under the mattress. And you know what? You'll never see a coin of it."
---
The chase grew violent. He blurred, shadows spilling like liquid across walls, blanketing entire blocks in a curtain of darkness. Screams rose as soldiers fired blind into the void.
And then.....silence.
When the veil peeled back, he was gone.
On the rooftop of a half-ruined tower, Shadow Dawn stood with the city's neon glow reflected across his mask. He laughed, chest heaving.
"Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful."
He froze. Then, slowly, the mask tilted toward us.
"Oh, right. You're watching, aren't you?"
The scene itself seemed to pause, the skyline freezing mid-breath. Dawn stepped out of the moment, casual, playful, but the grin beneath the mask carried something dangerous.
"Let me guess you're confused. Who am I? What am I? Hero, villain, vigilante, terrorist? Hawk says one thing, the people say another. Me? I think titles are just masks. And masks…" he tapped his own faceplate, "…lie."
He spread his arms, the ruined rooftop his stage.
"Truth is, I wasn't always this charming disaster. Once upon a time, I was just… a kid. A nobody. A boy with big eyes and even bigger dreams. Want to know how that went? Then sit tight, because we're going backwards."
The neon night dissolved into warm sunlight.
A little house on the outskirts of Unity. The sound of cooking, laughter. A boy with bright eyes and untamed hair, too curious for his own good, too earnest for the world that was coming.
His mother's voice: "Starling! Breakfast!"
Yes, that was his nickname,Starling. His father always said he had the same reckless energy as the tiny birds that flung themselves into the sky without fear.
The boy Starling ran inside, grinning wide, his hands sticky from climbing trees he wasn't supposed to. His parents shook their heads but smiled anyway.
For now, life was simple.
For now, he was just a boy.
But tomorrow… tomorrow the world would change..