The alley by the docks breathed salt and smoke. Lanterns hung on iron hooks, swaying with the sea-breeze, dragging long gold blades across wet stone. Tar and rope and old fish Lavandia's midnight perfume curled up from the piers. Somewhere, a buoy tolled a sleepy note; somewhere else, a gull argued with the moon.
Boots scraped. Chains rattled.
Two dozen men fanned out like a net drawing tight, closing the mouth of the alley that opened toward the marina. Black ink crept over their forearms in waves and hooks the Black Tides' marks, some crude, some elegant, all earned with knife and bottle. Teeth flashed, knives flashed, eyes flashed. They laughed because laughing was what you did before you scared someone.
At their center stood a tall man with scar-bitten arms and a smile that cut. Faint arcs crawled over his forearms, electric spiders testing their web, blue-white and impatient.
Leader (Black Tides): Welcome to the night tide, boy. We're the Black Tides. And you… you're the catch.
Sight rolled his shoulders once. Lily's scarf breathed against his throat as if reminding him what "home" smelled like. He set his feet nothing fancy, just there as if the ground liked him and would not let him go.
Sight: I'm not looking for trouble.
Leader: Trouble found you. Boys.
They surged.
The first chain snapped out like a viper, slick with salt. Sight slid inside its arc and tapped the wielder's wrist with two fingers. Something clicked. The chain fell to stone. The man looked at his own hand like it had betrayed him then Sight's boot kissed his knee and the knee folded with a crack that swallowed his shout.
Three more closed from the left, blades low, mean. Sight half-turned, coat tails of shadow following. A short backfist donked one jaw; the man collapsed as if a rope had been cut. The second thrust high; Sight lifted an elbow, rolled the blade along his forearm like sliding a plate down a bar, twisted it out, and sent the owner over his shoulder into a stack of fish crates.
CR-ASHHH! Sardines exploded like silver confetti, a fountain of tiny moons bouncing across cobbles. A gull real or drunk laughed.
Gang Grunt: He's playing with us!
Steel sang. Sight ducked under it and put his palm to the cobbles thump as if greeting an old friend. The alley floor shivered outward, a low ripple like something huge turning beneath a shallow sea. The shockline lifted four sets of feet just enough; in that heartbeat, Sight slid between them and tapped: throat, temple, elbow, shoulder. Four men dropped like notes in a bar line.
A spear stabbed his spine. Sight didn't look. He set his foot on the spearhead and stepped, pinning it to the world, pivoted on it, and spun. His heel found a mask thwack and the mask introduced its wearer to a wall.
A net dropped from above, weights whistling. Sight flicked two fingers; puddle-water jumped like startled fish, coiling into a ribbon that batted the net aside. He caught the ribbon's tail, cracked it once snap! and three more clutched faces, blind and wet.
Leader (low whistle): Huh.
Sight breathed easy. He moved like a boy who didn't know he was terrifying.
Two came together good, practiced, the kind of pair that had shared bottles and beatings. One fainted high; the other swept low for his ankles. Sight hopped the sweep, let the high blade pass, and tapped the faint with two knuckles under the ribs. Wind fled the man's body like a spooked cat. Sight landed on the sweeping leg and pressed just enough. The leg decided to rest. The pair are stone.
Gang Grunt (gawking): He's He's smiling—
He wasn't. But the ease of him felt like an insult.
A bottle arced from a doorway. Sight palmed it out of the air and set it back on the window ledge mid-step without looking, then used the brief pause to jab a man in the sternum with the heel of his hand. Thunk. The man sat down to think about life.
A harpoon clattered. Someone yelled, nerves breaking. Sight turned the yell into a grab, turned the grab into a throw, turned the throw into a sigh from a pile of coils and tarpaulins.
Another chain lashed. Sight caught it with his forearm, wrapped it once, and tugged the wielder forward into his own friend. Clonk. The two went down in a lovers' knot.
No anger. No noise. Sight fought like water: occupying space, denying edges, finding weak places and pressing not to break, not yet only to end.
"Twenty," the gull might have counted. "Nineteen. Eighteen."
In breaths, the math became small. Groans, curses, and the slap-slap of fish tails fading in a crate that smelled like low tide. Only the tall man with the lightning-smile remained untouched, arcs now walking lazy circles around his knuckles as if warming up.
A shadow on a rooftop slouched and watched, coat pooled like a brown cloud. Bracelets chimed once as their owner lifted a flask. Leona's yellow eyes followed the fight with an expression she kept lazy on purpose.
Leona (thinking):He makes it look easy. Damn kid.
The leader stepped forward, electricity knitting brighter over his arms until the air smelled like hot pennies and rain. Drops trembled in the alley's shallow puddles; their skins remembered storms and flinched.
Leader: All right, 'boy.' I got the bounty now.
Sight (eyes narrowing): …Bounty?
Leader: You didn't hear? The King of Steel put a price on Sight Albar. Alive… or broken.
He grinned, and the grin had too many teeth.
Leader: After that little show, I understand why.
Sight's jaw set. Somewhere under the scarf, his mouth became a hard line.
Sight: Try.
Leader: Gladly. Taser Hand.
He clapped his hands. Zzzkkt. Lightning crawled from wrists to fingers, pooled in both palms like two tame storms and then leapt. Filaments chased each other across slick stones, blue veins lighting the alley map. The charge wanted the water. Found it. Rode it.
Sight sprang aside and drove a fist down.
BOOOM.
Cobblestones bulged under his knuckles and a geyser punched up, a white column cannoning toward the leader. Mist haloed it; droplets glittered like glass. The leader slid by inches, laughter in his eyes, and let his palm kiss the geyser's skin.
Leader: Bad match-up, water-boy.
ZAAAAAAP.
The column lit like a struck nerve. The charge raced its veins, dove into the puddles, then lunged up Sight's legs like a nest of wasps. His muscles seized, released, seized again, pain in barbed waves.
Sight (through teeth): —kh—
He planted anyway, shoulders locking into a frame the world could lean on. Breath hissed and came back under control by inches.
Leader (circling): Strong body. Let's see how long it lasts.
He darted in fast, not blinding, but precise palms pecking like birds: rib, hip, shoulder, thigh. Each touch delivered a little storm. Tch. Tase. Tch. Cloth smoked where fingertips wrote their names. Sight answered with a hammering straight that would have put a boar-tiger to bed; the leader swayed and laughed liquidly, hair standing with his own crackle.
Leader: You hit like a cannon. You just can't hit me.
Sight's eyes cooled. The alley's damp gathered on his skin by habit. Water beaded along his forearms, spiraled his wrists, coiling for another surge.
Sight (flat): One good hit is enough.
Leader: For who?
He snapped his hands down Taser Hand palms slapping the cobbles. Current sprinted through every rivulet; the alley blossomed into a maze of blue arteries, and the tide betrayed its master, biting him from all sides.
Sight hunched, jaw locked, riding the bite. He could take it; his body was stubborn as bedrock. But speed bled out of his limbs, the fine edge dulled by the constant humming pain. The leader's grin sharpened; he raised both hands for the finishing rake—
Leona: That's enough.
Her voice slid down from the rooftop like silk over steel. Bracelets chimed, a coat flared, and a pair of black boots kissed the alley with a cat's confidence.
She landed in a single light step. The oversized fur-trimmed coat slipped from her shoulders and dropped over a groaning thug like a fallen banner. The alley lantern poured gold over black: bikini top, capri pants, golden belt; wrists ringed in glinting bands. For a breath, as she turned, the simplistic black tiger on her back lifted and stretched in shadow.
Her yellow eyes found the leader. No alcohol in them now. Just clean, sharpened intent.
Leader (barking a laugh, then swallowing it): …Wait.
His gaze slid to the stance—the way her feet set like stakes, the quiet hands, the center that settled the world around it. Recognition crawled up his spine like cold rain.
Leader (voice cracking): You— You're… Lightning Tiger.
Even the drunks sobered. A ripple went through the last of the Black Tides; noses lifted, stories remembered, bets reconsidered.
Leona (grimace): Don't use that name so loud. And don't—
He blurted it anyway, bravado grasping at a bigger legend to hide in.
Leader: The Crazy Tigress of Lavandia!
Her eye twitched.
Leona: …I hate that nickname.
Leader (trying to recover): What are you doing here? This was our net—
Leona: Cleaning up my mess.
She slid her feet—a whisper on wet stone—hips squaring, shoulders sinking as lightning crawled from bracelets to skin, mapping her forearms in delicate circuits. Hair lifted in the static. The air bent closer to listen.
Leona (exhale, measured):Lightning Tiger — Number One.
She raised one fist to her cheek, the other low, spine coiling. The alley's sound leaned away. All the lantern-flame's trembling gathered into the black bead of her pupil.
Leona (clear):Lightning Cannon.
She vanished.
To the eye, a single white stroke tore the alley. To the ear, thunder arrived too soon. To the leader, the world ended in a fist.
Her knuckles are buried in his gut. Space buckled. The air collapsed. For a heartbeat he folded around her arm and then the cannon fired.
BOOOOOOOOOOM.
He shot backward, a human bolt hurled down the dock. He crossed the gap to the water in a blink, tore a wake through the surface, and vanished into a roaring pillar of sea and spray. Planks jumped. Ropes sang. The harbor answered with echoing applause against the hull and stone.
Silence picked up its coat and sat back down in the alley.
A knife rang once on the cobble. A chain slithered free of numb fingers.
Gang Grunt: …Nope.
Gang Grunt: Nope nope nope—RUN!
They scattered over fish, over each other, over Leona's abandoned coat boots hammering wood, voices dissolving into Lavandia's night like roaches from a lantern.
Leona straightened, shoulders rising and falling once. The last hairs of lightning feathered off her wrists with gentle sighs. She shook her hand, winced fists had feelings too then flicked water from her knuckles.
Sight stood where he had weathered the current, steam lifting from his clothes. Droplets rolled off his forearms in neat little beads, obedient again; the alley's veins were dark. He looked… fine. Singed. Tired. But fine. His eyes, though cold as deep harbor water.
Leona (attempting a grin): So. The tour includes free rescue. Lucky you.
Sight (quiet): Why did you sell me out?
The grin faltered like a candle in the wind. The alley seemed to shrink until it contained just two breaths and a lantern.
Leona (looking away): …Bad habit. Worse debts.
Sight: And I looked like an easy coin.
Leona (low): You looked like someone who'd walk away from it.
He didn't answer. The waves did, slapping pilings with patient hands. Out on the dark water, bubbles climbed where a lightning fool had flown, then the sea laid its face back down, unbothered.
Leona bent, gathered her coat, and swung it over her shoulders. The tiger vanished beneath the fur and the night let out the breath it had held.
Leona (softer): I'll buy you dinner. No tricks. Then… I'll tell you not to step in this city. Properly, this time.
Sight studied her, lanternlight writing small gold notes along his jaw. The flame guttered, steadied. He glanced at the marina lights, at the shape of Lavandia beyond streets and roofs and rumors and back.
Sight (flat): One dinner. Then we talk.
Leona (relief hiding under swagger): Deal.
They walked out of the alley together, past crackle-burnt stones and sleeping fish, into Lavandia's glow. Above them, gulls wheeled and argued with the tide. Far off, a ship's bell tolled once, like a promise or a warning.
Behind, the sea rolled the night back over its wounded pride and kept its secrets.