He didn't live far from the docks. Maybe a fifteen-minute walk, twenty if he stopped to grab something from the corner store. The streets on this side of Brockton Bay weren't the worst in the city, but they carried the same tired look everything around here did: cracked pavement, crooked streetlights, peeling paint on row houses that had seen better decades. The smell of salt and metal drifted in from the bay, mixing with the faint tang of exhaust from the few cars still out this late.
He tugged his jacket tighter against the cold as he walked, his backpack slung over one shoulder, a half-empty bottle of soda in his hand. His phone was already in his other hand, screen lighting his face as he scrolled through the day's news. Another cape fight in New York. Some PRT crackdown in Boston. New speculation threads popping up everywhere about who could beat whom.
Same arguments, different day.
He'd spent most of the afternoon at his friend's place, gaming and scrolling through Parahumans Online while they yelled over each other about rankings. His friend had insisted that All Might was overrated. "He hasn't done anything major in years," his friend had said, eyes glued to the screen. "All For One was forever ago. Eidolon's done more in half the time."
He'd argued back, of course. All Might was All Might. You didn't just talk about him like that. The man was the symbol of peace, still number one, still the face of heroism itself. It didn't matter how many new S-Class heroes the PRT rolled out or how many names climbed the rankings. All Might stood above them all. He'd said as much, but his friend had laughed, throwing some thread stats at him about rankings, win percentages, rescue ratios.
He'd left thinking his friend was an idiot. Heroes weren't numbers. They were what people looked up to.
The memory made him grin faintly now as he walked, pocketing his phone. His breath came out in white clouds, vanishing into the chill air.
Then the ground shook.
It was small at first, a low tremor that ran through the soles of his shoes, followed a second later by a dull boom that seemed to come from somewhere far off toward the water. He stopped and looked around. Nothing seemed wrong. Maybe construction? There was always something going on near the docks.
Then came the second one. Louder. Sharper. The shockwave rolled through the street like a sudden gust, strong enough to make the loose sign of the laundromat rattle and the bottles stacked outside a nearby corner store clink together. Dust rose faintly from a rooftop a block over.
He turned, eyes squinting toward the direction of the bay. A column of grey dust was climbing into the air, spreading and curling over the skyline like smoke from an explosion. He felt his heart thump faster, the aftershocks humming faintly through the pavement beneath his feet.
Another boom. This one was closer, so close it made the air itself seem to vibrate.
He barely had time to register the sound before something shot through the air above the buildings to his left. It wasn't a shape at first, just a blur moving too fast to process, spinning wildly before crashing down onto the street ahead. The impact hit like thunder. The ground buckled. Concrete split. A car parked at the curb folded inward as the thing slammed into it, the metal shrieking as it warped.
He threw an arm up to shield his face as a wave of dust and broken glass rolled past him.
When he lowered it again, he saw movement through the haze. The shape pulled itself upright, tearing free of the crushed metal with a sharp, wrenching sound. For a moment, the boy just stared, heart hammering in his chest. It was a person, had to be, but he couldn't have been much older than him, maybe a year or two, with short black hair, blue eyes and a white suit streaked with dirt and ash. A red emblem shaped like an S marked his chest, standing out even through the grime.
He didn't look hurt.
He looked… furious?
Another explosion rang out.
He turned toward the sound instinctively, and his eyes went wide. Through the drifting dust, a massive figure was charging through the air, leaping, not flying, but covering distance fast enough to make it look impossible. The thing's body was enormous, muscle-bound, almost deformed, its outline growing larger by the second as it came down the street.
The boy's breath caught.
The one in white moved. No hesitation, no sign of fear. He crouched once, and the ground beneath his feet cracked open. Then he was gone, the street erupting where he'd been standing. In a single leap, he met the oncoming monster midair, colliding with it in a burst of sound and motion that sent both crashing back toward the docks.
For a long moment, the boy just stood there, staring at the trail of dust hanging in the air. His heart was pounding so fast it hurt, but he didn't feel scared. Not even a little.
That was the coolest thing he'd ever seen.
His friends were never going to believe him.
Victoria Dallon cut through the evening sky with the kind of speed that turned the cold air into a sharp sting across her cheeks. The city looked smaller from up here. It always did. Rows of cracked rooftops, rusting cranes, traffic crawling in sluggish lines through narrow streets, from above, Brockton Bay seemed almost peaceful. The kind of place that didn't need saving, at least not until you got closer.
She drifted lower, letting her momentum carry her in lazy arcs between buildings. Her blonde hair caught the light from a few flickering streetlamps as she passed, the white and gold of her costume gleaming even through the city's haze. People noticed her sometimes; a few pointed up, one guy waved from a balcony, and she waved back with a grin.
She liked being seen.
That was the point, wasn't it?
To remind people that there were still heroes out here.
Real ones.
Brockton Bay could be ugly, sure, but it wasn't hopeless.
Not with her around.
She banked left, gliding over an intersection where a few cars honked impatiently. From up here, the city's noise was just background hum, a distant buzz of life. It made her feel detached, untouchable.
She thought about her aunt's last lecture, the one about restraint, teamwork, staying in range of New Wave patrol routes. All the usual stuff. Her mother was worse about it, always worrying about optics and training protocols, always reminding her that she was "still learning." Learning what, exactly? How to hold back?
Victoria frowned at the thought, shaking her head. They never gave her enough credit. She'd trained for years, had more flight hours than most PRT rookies, and could go toe-to-toe with almost anyone short of an S-Class threat. Not that she'd ever get the chance to prove it. Not with Carol and Sarah breathing down her neck.
She'd overheard her mom once talking about Lung, about how dangerous he was, how the PRT had to practically flood an entire district to keep him down. Everyone treated him like some unbeatable monster. Victoria didn't buy it. Sure, he was strong. Big deal. So was she. You didn't need to outmuscle someone like that; you just needed to hit them fast, hard, and not stop until they stayed down.
Simple.
She'd never said that part out loud. Amy would have rolled her eyes, and her mom would've started another speech about caution and judgment. Whatever. It wasn't like she was going to go looking for Lung. She just didn't see why everyone was so scared of him. Heroes were supposed to be fearless.
She rose higher, the wind tugging at her cape as the city stretched out beneath her like a grid of rust and shadow. A few miles out, the docks glimmered faintly under the dull orange glow of the streetlights, the water black and still beyond them. She'd always thought that part of the city felt different, heavier somehow. Quiet in the wrong way.
Then the first explosion hit.
The sound rolled through the air like thunder, deep and resonant enough to vibrate through her chest. A second followed right after, louder, sharper. She stopped mid-flight, hovering instinctively as her eyes swept the horizon. Dust was rising from the docks, a thick, dark plume twisting upward, spreading wide across the waterfront.
Victoria blinked once, then smiled.
Finally, something worth her time.
Whatever it was, it was big. The kind of thing the PRT would trip over itself to handle, the kind of thing her mother would tell her to stay away from. Which meant it was exactly the kind of thing Glory Girl should be dealing with.
"Guess that's my cue," she muttered under her breath.
The grin on her face widened as she angled her body forward, the air tightening around her as she accelerated. The city blurred beneath her, rooftops whipping past in streaks of light and shadow as she arrowed toward the rising dust.
For the first time all week, she felt alive.
The doors to the PRT control room swung open with a metallic thud as Director Emily Piggot stepped inside, the sound cutting through the low hum of overlapping voices and machinery. The room was alive with motion, aides leaning over consoles, radios hissing faintly, monitors flickering with multiple camera feeds. The stale air carried the smell of coffee, ozone, and tension. Piggot didn't stop moving as she entered.
"Report," she said, voice steady but sharp enough to make the nearest aide flinch.
A man hurried over, tablet in hand, sweat visible at his temple. "At nineteen forty-three hours, two unidentified parahumans appeared in the Docks area. Initial seismic readings suggest impact velocities consistent with high-altitude descent."
Piggot's jaw flexed slightly. "Meaning they fell out of the damn sky?"
"Yes, ma'am." He tapped his tablet, and two grainy images appeared on the wall screen. One showed a lean figure in a white bodysuit marked with a red symbol on the chest; the other, a hulking, grotesque shape of muscle and bulk, half-obscured by dust. "We've designated them D-1 and D-2 pending further identification."
Piggot studied the images in silence.
"D-1," the aide continued, "is suspected to be a new trigger event. No matching visuals in the database. Power classification is incomplete, but based on initial footage, superhuman strength, durability and enhanced mobility, probable Brute classification, provisional Brute 8, Mover 3."
Piggot's gaze shifted to the second image, where the larger figure loomed amid smoke and broken metal.
"D-2 is confirmed nonhuman. No facial or structural consistency with known parahuman physiology. Case 53 classification is likely. Current estimates mark D-2 as Brute 9, Mover 2. Designation under threat review, possibly Wolf-level, potentially Demon-Class Disaster pending full evaluation."
Piggot exhaled slowly through her nose. The words Demon-Class always sounded absurd to her, an attempt to impose order on chaos by the Global Hero Association, to quantify what couldn't be contained. She stepped closer to the main monitor as one of the live feeds came into view.
The footage was silent. No sound, just a grainy drone perspective catching fragments of the battle below. The two figures, D-1 and D-2, were tearing the docks apart. Every collision sent dust plumes spiralling into the air. Warehouses crumbled as they slammed through them, their shockwaves distorting the video feed. The pavement fractured in spiderwebs beneath their feet. They moved with no technique, no precision, just raw, unfiltered strength. Each strike landed like a bomb, each counter blow shoving the other through steel and concrete.
One moment, they were in frame; the next, the drone's camera shook violently as debris hit the lens. Another feed flickered to life, showing D-1 grabbing D-2 by the torso and hurling him through a shipping yard. The container stacks folded like paper. A second later, D-2 was on his feet again, swinging with a fist that sent D-1 crashing through another building.
Piggot watched the destruction unfold, her expression unreadable.
She'd seen this kind of thing before, not these two, not this level of force, maybe, but the pattern was always the same. Two parahumans were tearing chunks out of her city while she and her people tried to keep civilians from dying in the margins. For all their talk of saving the world, it was always the same story: power unchecked, consequences ignored, and humans cleaning up after monsters pretending to be men.
"Enough," she said finally. "Get me Armsmaster and Miss Militia on immediate deployment. They'll coordinate at the edge of the dock perimeter. I want Velocity and the Wards focused on evacuation; any civilians in the blast zone are to be moved now. Coordinate with emergency services and first responders."
"Yes, Director."
Piggot turned away from the main display, her shoulders tight beneath the weight of the situation. She didn't believe in luck. She believed in procedure. But even the procedure felt thin when facing things that shrugged off bullets and walls.
Before she could leave, another aide rushed up, headset pressed to one ear. "Director, new update. Another cape en route to the docks."
Piggot's head turned slowly. "Who?"
"Glory Girl, ma'am."
For a moment, the room went quiet around her. Piggot's jaw locked, a faint grinding sound as she exhaled through her nose.
Of course, it was her.
The golden girl of New Wave. The reckless princess of rooftop interviews and collateral damage.
Piggot didn't say anything. She didn't have to. The muscle in her temple twitched once before she turned back toward the monitors.
"Keep me updated," she said, her tone flat and cold.
She didn't look away from the silent footage as Glory Girl streaked into the frame, a small, bright blur cutting across a city being torn apart.
The cameras shook again as the fight raged on, dust swallowing the screen.