The hum of the engine was a low growl beneath them, steady and mechanical, its pitch rising and falling with each turn of the throttle. Armsmaster leaned forward over the handlebars of his cycle, the blue glow from the instrument panel reflected in the curve of his helmet. Miss Militia sat behind him, silent, one gloved hand braced against the seat frame, the other resting on the sling of her weapon. The city blurred by in streaks of orange and grey, streetlights, blown-out shopfronts, the occasional abandoned car half-turned into the curb.
They moved fast. The roads closer to the docks were cracked and buckled from the earlier shockwaves, but Armsmaster's balance never faltered. The cycle's tyres hissed through the dust, each bounce absorbed by precision-tuned suspension. He adjusted his course without hesitation, cutting through a side street to avoid a toppled lamp post. The HUD in his visor fed him distance markers and live telemetry: seismic readings, structural collapses, power grid fluctuations. The list scrolled longer by the second.
A voice came through the comms—Piggot's, flat and unyielding. "Armsmaster, Miss Militia. You're to coordinate with Glory Girl and the unidentified trigger in the area. Priority is containment and civilian extraction. D-2 has been upgraded to Demon-Class."
Armsmaster's eyes flicked to the data feed. "Confirmed," he replied, tone clipped. "We're two minutes out."
Piggot continued, the background static of the control room faint behind her words. "Velocity and the Wards are assisting emergency services. Maintain engagement perimeter until further orders."
"Understood," Miss Militia said, her voice calm through the link.
The transmission ended with a click. For a few seconds, only the sound of the cycle filled the space between them, the sharp whine of acceleration, the rhythmic thump of broken asphalt beneath the wheels.
A Demon-Class.
Armsmaster processed the term without visible reaction, but his grip on the handlebars tightened slightly. Up until now, Brockton Bay had one confirmed Demon-Class: Lung. Every other major incident, every high-Wolf or Tiger-level threat, had been something he could plan around. But this… a new unknown, a Case 53 built like a siege engine. The classification meant collateral. It meant risk.
It also meant opportunity.
He adjusted the speed again, pushing the cycle harder. The engine answered with a deeper snarl. Miss Militia shifted her balance behind him but said nothing; she'd ridden with him often enough to recognise the rhythm of his intent.
The faint shimmer of fire reflected against the clouds ahead. The docks were still burning.
He'd been A-Class for years. Reliable. Efficient. Contained. The word grated more than he admitted. Every time the rankings were updated, his name stayed in the same line while newer faces leapt past, heroes whose reputations rode on spectacle rather than precision. Even Child Emperor, barely out of adolescence, had breached the S-Class threshold. Armsmaster's jaw set inside his helmet. Age, record, innovation, it hadn't mattered. Someone younger had surpassed him.
This fight could change that.
He wasn't reckless enough to say it aloud. But if he coordinated the takedown of a Demon-Class threat inside city limits without casualties, the numbers would speak for themselves. This was a golden opportunity to become recognised and perhaps become S-Class.
The comms flickered again, Piggot's voice replaced by the clipped tones of the operations channel, feeding him sensor data from drones. Tremors registered across multiple blocks. Two signatures in constant motion: one heavy, one lighter but almost as fast. The feed tagged them automatically, D-2 and D-1.
"Targets confirmed," Armsmaster muttered.
Miss Militia inclined her head once, the gesture precise. "Acknowledged."
He guided the bike through a sharp curve, leaning low, sparks flashing where a piece of twisted railing scraped the armour on the cycle's side. The smell of burning oil reached them a heartbeat later, carried on the wind. Somewhere ahead, a gas line had ruptured.
"Visual contact in forty seconds," he said.
"Ready."
The word came steady and unflinching, perfectly in rhythm with the hum of the engine. Armsmaster's eyes flicked briefly to the distant skyline. Smoke coiled upward like veins in the night, the docks glowing faintly beneath it. Through his visor's zoom overlay, he could already see the silhouettes of collapsed cranes, the shattered outlines of warehouses, the far-off bursts of movement where two shapes collided again and again.
He shifted his weight forward, the engine climbing higher in pitch as he accelerated down the final stretch of road. The cycle's stabilisers engaged, balancing effortlessly even as chunks of debris and shards of glass skittered under the wheels. Miss Militia braced herself automatically, her hand tightening on the back grip as they cut between two abandoned trucks.
The street opened up ahead, revealing the coastline. The docks loomed across the water, black smoke curling over flame-lit wreckage. The ground trembled faintly, a low reverberation travelling through the chassis of the bike. Each distant impact sounded like a muted thunderclap.
Armsmaster's HUD displayed a faint red marker over the largest impact zone. D-2. The readings beside it pulsed erratically, spiking beyond predicted energy outputs.
He adjusted the throttle, bringing them to top speed. "We make contact, we contain," he said into the comms, voice steady. "Keep civilians out, stabilise the perimeter, and if possible, coordinate with the new arrivals. Glory Girl and the trigger will already be engaged."
"Understood," Miss Militia replied.
The road beneath them levelled out into open asphalt, the last stretch before the docks. Broken signs flickered in the periphery, old advertisements, safety warnings, emergency evacuation arrows lit in pale red. The smell of the bay hit them a second later, thick with smoke and brine.
Armsmaster leaned forward again, his eyes locked on the column of destruction in the distance. He didn't feel fear or hesitation, only the sharpened clarity of a man who'd spent years waiting for a moment like this.
He opened the throttle fully. The bike surged ahead, cutting through the night toward the docks, its roar swallowed by the distant thunder of a war already in progress.
-X-
Glory Girl hovered above the shattered docks, fists clenched, hair whipping against her face. The air around her felt heavy with grit and heat, the distant taste of metal thick on her tongue. Below, the fight raged on, a blur of motion between the monstrous figure of the Case 53 looking guy and the boy in white.
At first, she'd felt unstoppable. That opening hit, the one that sent the brute crashing through a warehouse, had filled her chest with the familiar rush of confidence, the surge of invincibility that came whenever she struck something that should've been unmovable. She'd thought it would be like all the others. One solid hit, a quick takedown, victory secured before anyone else could even react.
But the brute hadn't stayed down.
Now, each strike she threw seemed to make less of an impact. Her blows staggered him, but only for a heartbeat before he straightened again, snorting dust from his nostrils like a bull refusing to yield. Every time she thought she'd gained ground, he came back swinging harder, his fists tearing through the air with enough force to rattle her bones even through her forcefield.
She darted forward, driving a punch into his shoulder, felt the resistance of impact, then the jarring realisation that he hadn't moved. He simply turned, slow and deliberate, his thick arm sweeping out in a wide arc. She pulled back before the swing connected, feeling the air pressure shift as it passed inches from her shield.
The air crackled faintly where her field deflected debris. It wasn't visible, not really, just a distortion, a shimmer at the edge of perception, like heat rising off asphalt. Dust and grit skittered off it, unable to reach her skin. But the force still came through. She could feel every near-miss in her ribs, like faint echoes reverberating through her body.
Glory Girl grimaced and circled higher, trying to catch her breath. Sweat had gathered at her temples, stinging her eyes. She'd never fought this long before without gaining control. Her arms ached from the effort of hitting something that wouldn't break.
Below her, the boy, the new trigger or whoever he was, fought with a kind of raw precision that made her grind her teeth. His movements weren't graceful or trained, but they were powerful, efficient. Every hit he landed made the brute stumble. Every time he fell, he got up faster than before. He didn't look tired. He didn't look scared.
She hated the thought that he might be stronger than her.
She hated even more that it might be true.
Her jaw tightened. She dropped lower, closing the distance, her fists clenching again. She wasn't about to be outdone, not by some stranger who barely looked older than her.
The brute roared, slamming both fists into the pavement. The shockwave buckled the ground outward, sending cracks racing through the concrete. The boy in white braced against it and drove forward again. Glory Girl dove, and she hit the brute square in the chest, every ounce of her strength behind the blow. The impact threw up a wave of dust and concrete shards. The brute's feet slid backwards, carving twin trenches in the ground.
For a moment, she thought she'd done it.
Then he straightened.
She barely had time to see the movement before his arm came around in a wide, brutal sweep.
Her shield caught the blow with a soundless ripple, a flash of distorted air spreading outward from the point of contact. It didn't hit her, but the force was impossible to absorb. It slammed through her like a tidal wave, throwing her backwards before she could even think to steady herself.
The world blurred. She was weightless for an instant, then everything hit at once: the wall, the floor, the sound of concrete giving way around her. Her body tore through the facade of a half-collapsed warehouse, scattering steel and glass in her wake. She hit the ground hard, bounced once, then rolled until her back struck a support beam that stopped her cold.
The impact stole her breath. The field flickered faintly for a moment, a shimmer in the air, a crack of displaced dust, before stabilising again.
Silence followed, broken only by the groaning of the structure around her.
She lay there staring at the ceiling, her body buzzing with the aftershock of the hit. Her limbs felt heavy. There was no pain; her forcefield had seen to that, but her head rang from the inertia, her thoughts struggling to catch up. She blinked, dust settling over her, flakes of plaster drifting down through a narrow shaft of light above.
Her mind raced, grasping for something solid to hold onto, but all she could think was that he'd overpowered her.
No one had ever done that before.
Every fight she'd been in, she'd been the one in control. The one who ended it in a single blow. She'd believed that was how it always worked, that her strength, her invincibility, was absolute. The first real test of that belief now lay in ruins around her.
Somewhere outside, another impact shook the docks, dust falling from the ceiling in thin, pale streams. Glory Girl stayed where she was, staring blankly upward. The confidence that had carried her through every fight, every moment in the air, felt suddenly hollow.
Glory Girl forced herself upright, one hand braced against the cracked concrete, her breath shaky. The air inside the ruined warehouse felt thick and gritty, every inhale scraping her throat. Outside, the sound of battle rolled through the streets in heavy, rhythmic bursts, metal twisting, concrete breaking, something massive striking the earth again and again.
Her arms trembled as she pushed to her knees. Dust clung to her hair, turning the pale gold to grey. She could feel the hum of her forcefield still around her, faint but constant, like a second heartbeat she couldn't silence. It had protected her from the hit, just as it always did. But for the first time, she couldn't convince herself that it made her safe.
Another impact shook the ground. The wall in front of her split apart, a rain of plaster and brick falling in thick sheets. Through the opening, she saw him, the boy in white, crashing through the side of a building across the street. He hit hard, tumbling across the cracked pavement, tearing a line through a parked truck before finally skidding to a stop in a pile of shattered stone.
He wasn't moving at first. Then, slowly, he pushed himself up. Dust and smoke rolled off him as he rose, shoulders tense, jaw set. He didn't look hurt, not exactly, just driven, unshaken in a way that made something twist in her stomach as, without hesitation, he leapt forward back into the fight.
Glory Girl swallowed, the bitter taste of humiliation still lingering. She could hear the brute's roar echoing through the streets. The monster was still out there, still moving, still winning. For a moment, she thought about staying down, about letting someone else handle it.
But the thought burned.
She wasn't someone who stayed down.
She was Glory Girl.
Hovering up, she drifted through the gaping hole in the wall and into the open air. The city around her was a wasteland of smoke and bent metal, the docks reduced to wreckage. She spotted him below, having just been flung back, already walking toward the sound of the fight, his back to her.
"Hey," she called out, her voice echoing faintly. He didn't respond.
She frowned and flew lower, cutting ahead of him until she was hovering a few feet off the ground in his path. "We should work together," she said, louder now. "Neither of us can take that thing alone."
He didn't stop.
His boots crushed broken glass underfoot as he moved past her. His eyes were fixed on something ahead, unreadable and cold. It was like she wasn't even there.
Annoyance flared in her chest. She floated backwards, staying in front of him. "Did you hear me? We need to coordinate!"
That made him look up.
His gaze met hers, steady and sharp. For a heartbeat, she felt her aura respond instinctively, that soft push of confidence and admiration she'd always been able to project without thinking. The same pull that could calm crowds, make enemies hesitate, and make people want to believe in her. She let it roll off her, confident it would make him listen.
It didn't.
His expression didn't change. If anything, his eyes hardened, a flash of irritation breaking through the composure.
"I heard you," he said, voice low, gravel-thick.
Then he stepped forward.
Glory Girl hovered back a few inches, heat rising to her face. "Then stop ignoring me! You saw what that thing did, neither of us can—"
"Move," he said flatly.
The word cut through the air like a blade. There was no anger in his tone, just finality, a simple refusal to entertain anything else. He walked straight toward her, the muscles in his arms flexing as he brushed past, his shoulder clipping the edge of her forcefield with a dull ripple of displaced air.
Glory Girl froze, her pride burning hot in her chest. No one talked to her like that. No one dismissed her like that.
She turned in the air, floating alongside him, voice rising. "You can't just—"
He didn't even look at her.
Something inside her snapped.
She dropped in front of him again, landing lightly, blocking his path. "Listen to me!" She shouted, hands clenched at her sides. "You can't just run in there alone like you're—"
He sidestepped.
She moved with him.
"Hey!"
He brushed past again, and this time she reached out, her hand grabbing his shoulder. "I said listen to—"
The movement was so fast she didn't see it happen.
His arm came up, a sharp, reflexive swing meant to knock her hand away. But where a normal person would've brushed her aside, his strength turned the gesture into something else entirely. His forearm connected with the side of her head, her forcefield catching the blow with a faint, concussive thump, the air shimmering around the point of impact. It didn't hurt, but it moved her.
The world spun.
She shot backwards, her body slamming into a parked car twenty feet away. The hood crumpled under her like foil, the windshield exploding outward in a shower of glass. The force carried her over the top, sending her skidding across the asphalt until she rolled to a stop halfway down the block.
The sound echoed, long and hollow, bouncing between the gutted buildings.
She lay there for a moment, dazed, staring up at the grey sky. Her ears rang. The air felt heavy, pressing down on her. The faint hum of her forcefield vibrated through her bones, her breath catching in her throat.
She sat up slowly, her hair sticking to her face, streaked with dust and grit. The car she'd hit was a mangled heap of twisted metal. Shards of glass glittered across the street like scattered ice.
He was still walking.
He hadn't looked back.
Her lips parted slightly, but no words came. There was no anger, no shouted insult, just a quiet, hollow disbelief. The hit hadn't hurt, but the realisation did.
First, the brute.
Now him.
For the second time that night, she was on the ground, and someone else was still standing.