The hall of the Superio League was a cathedral of glass and metal—a space built for spectacle, not prayer. Sunlight pierced through the diamond-shaped skylight, fracturing into beams that painted the floor in gold and pale blue. The air smelled of ozone, old machinery, and politics.
Around the long oval table sat the mightiest figures of their age—gods in all but name, soldiers of legend, men and women whose powers had shaped nations. But today, the light in their eyes wasn't triumph. It was concern.
On the central screen, the footage played again.
The fight.
It was raw, uncut, shaky—pulled from multiple drone feeds stitched together by the League's analysts. They watched Moonveil tear through Juarez like judgment itself. The sound of each blow cracked through the hall; each impact left buildings buckling, streets cratered, and airwaves trembling.
They saw him catch Juarez by the throat and fling him through walls like they were paper. They saw the mask change, the crescent turn to a skull. They saw the blood, the hands that ripped through flesh.
No one spoke for nearly two minutes.
Then Director Shiloh Kane of the Superio League slammed her palm on the table. "Enough," she snapped. "Cut the playback."
The screen went black.
Around her, heroes from five continents shifted uncomfortably. The silence that followed wasn't respect—it was unease.
"This man," Kane said, "this… Moonveil, is a problem. We have a vigilante operating outside any jurisdiction, killing enhanced individuals with no oversight or moral restraint. That footage came from London, but it's being broadcast in every major city. Half the world is calling him the 'God of Dawn.' The other half calls him a demon."
Someone at the far end of the table—a man made of iron and firelight, the legendary hero Palisade—spoke first. "If the footage is accurate, he's not human. No mortal could do that. And if he's divine…" His voice lowered. "…then we have another demigod playing judge and executioner. We've seen what that leads to."
Across the room, a few heads nodded. The last time a demigod had taken "justice" into his own hands, three countries lost their capitals.
Kane gestured to the file hovering midair, pages flipping automatically. "London authorities say he's been active for months. Before now, he was considered a low-level vigilante—cleaning up drug rings, gang violence, small-scale supernatural crimes. But after this… incident… it's clear he's operating on a much higher level. We're here to decide: is Moonveil a threat to global security or a necessary evil?"
The words echoed. Necessary evil.
That's when a flame flickered near the corner of the hall. It wasn't fire from a lamp—it was a man. Blaze Striker. His armor shimmered orange and gold, molten lines glowing beneath its surface. His face was calm but sharp, his eyes reflecting a kind of practiced patience the League rarely saw.
"Maybe," he said slowly, "we should wait before deciding what he is."
Heads turned. Blaze Striker's voice carried, smooth as smoke but edged with conviction. "You've all seen the footage, but none of you were there. You don't know what this Juarez was. What he did. What he'd become. For all we know, Moonveil ended something none of us could have controlled."
Kane folded her arms. "Are you defending him?"
"I'm suggesting restraint," Blaze said. "For once."
The table buzzed. A demigoddess from the African Coalition—the Lion of Kilimanjaro—snorted. "Restraint? You saw him pull the entrails out of a man and crush his heart barehanded. That's not restraint. That's ritual."
"Or necessity," Blaze countered. "Sometimes the line between them is thinner than smoke."
A few scoffed. One hero, a cybernetic titan from Tokyo, muttered, "Easy for him to say. He's never had to clean up after gods."
Blaze didn't reply. He'd been in enough rooms like this to know most of them listened only to fear.
From the opposite corner, a voice rumbled quietly. "He's right."
The room shifted. The sound was low, deep, and commanding. Gaidan—the alien champion, the exile of Aetheria—stood in the shadow of a pillar. His armor gleamed faintly, gold traced with the blue of his world's twin suns. When he moved, it was with the gravity of myth.
"I have fought creatures older than humanity," Gaidan said. "I have seen justice twisted into empire and mercy into weakness. This Moonveil—he is dangerous, yes. But not reckless. I watched the fight three times. Each strike was measured, deliberate. Not madness. Judgment."
A few murmured, uneasy.
Kane frowned. "Judgment that left a man torn in half."
"He didn't tear him in half," Gaidan said. "He unmade what was already a monster."
The silence that followed felt heavier than argument.
The two heroes—Blaze Striker and Gaidan—stood slightly apart, their voices calm against the growing storm of debate. Around them, the League erupted into fractured discussions—some calling for intervention, others for diplomacy.
"Do we even know where he came from?" someone demanded. "Is he one of ours? A godspawn? A failed experiment?"
"Nothing," Kane said grimly. "No records. No alias. No country. Not even a face. Every piece of surveillance tech fails when he's near—static, distortion, pure interference. For all intents and purposes, he doesn't exist."
Another hero muttered, "Then maybe he's exactly what this world needs."
The room snapped into noise again.
Across the chaos, Blaze Striker leaned closer to Gaidan. "They won't listen," he murmured.
"They never do," Gaidan said, arms folded. "They fear what they cannot name. And he—this Moonveil—is something the earth has not named for centuries."
Blaze glanced at him. "You think he's divine?"
"I think he's both man and punishment," Gaidan said. "The kind of justice that comes after too much mercy."
Blaze exhaled, running a hand through his dark hair. "That kind doesn't last long. Either the people will worship him, or they'll burn him."
"Or both," Gaidan said softly. "The line is thinner than you think."
Their eyes met—fire and starlight, two men from opposite worlds who had seen what happens when justice loses its chain.
Behind them, the debate grew louder. Votes were being cast on whether to summon Moonveil, to question him, to contain him if necessary.
None of them noticed that the world beyond the League's walls was already making its decision.
On screens across the globe, footage of Moonveil's battle replayed endlessly. To some, he was a monster in a mask. To others, an avenger the gods themselves feared. Children wore crescent pins on their backpacks. Protesters painted his symbol on government walls. Soldiers whispered his name like a prayer.
The League argued, but the people had already chosen their side.
By the time the meeting ended, the world had a new myth—one that no council, no government, no League could control.
Gaidan turned toward the skylight, his gaze fixed on the rising moon.
"He's not just another vigilante anymore," he said quietly. "He's the shadow the world casts when it forgets its heroes."
Blaze nodded, a faint spark flickering behind his eyes. "Then may God help us when that shadow decides to judge the rest of us."
And far below, in a quiet house outside London, the man they spoke of washed the blood from his hands and dreamed of fire.