Once Nyx had been a criminal to survive.

  Then she’d been a hero and had hoped to atone, but the heroes she met weren’t very heroic.

  Now if you asked people in the know, they would probably call her a villain - though she didn’t think that was quite fair, even if she was headed into a meeting for a secret society of elite mob bosses and super-powered warlords.

  The Justice Syndicate she'd once looked up to were just kids that played dress up and kept to the safe little bubble a dozen blocks around Starlight College while the Eclipse Society expanded across the whole of the outer zone where life was brutal and often brief.

  They had been one of the last groups clinging to order after the first waves of aether ravaged the world. Their scientists uncovered the lay-line convergences and they rebuilt cities atop them, forging bastions of civilization against the chaos.

  Or so their internal propaganda said. According to the Spires it had been their scientists, the government said it was theirs and there was no less than a dozen other groups that claimed the same.

  Over time whatever their original goals may have been it was unquestioned now - they desired to hold onto their fading but still considerable power so every few months, they convened and re-carved up the outer zones between themselves, over and over again. Brokering uneasy truces to keep their empires from colliding - pretending they were still the masters of the world.

  Nyx had no taste for their politics though she did find it was sometimes useful to get advance notice of their ridiculous jockeying.

  The meetings currently took place within a concrete fortress that squatted against the bruised, violet-streaked evening skyline of E-zone. Once an inescapable prison, it had been bought out and rebranded when the new Super-Max for Supers was opened up. Now it was draped in the title of a nonprofit for “Environmental Preservation”—a paper-thin fa?ade the PRU didn’t bother mustering the resources to shatter, as their token forces were dwarfed by those fielded by the villains within.

  Nyx stalked to the cavernous meeting hall her dark eyes swept over the gathered members a flicker of disdain warring with a grudging, wary respect - for their powers - not their persons.

  She wore a long, flowing robe crafted from deep, midnight-black velvet, threaded with crimson. Its surface absorbed the light like a void. She suspected many of the members knew who she was but that didn’t mean she was going to advertise it, even if she could change faces on a whim.

  She kept the hood up against a chill that wasn’t just physical and strode with a predator’s grace, every step a silent challenge to the room. She welcomed any one of them to try her tonight, she was in a pretty good mood, but if they did, there would be blood.

  The meeting table dominated the space—a hulking slab of hammered steel ringed by a ragtag circle of chairs. Some were plush velvet relics, their faded crimson stained with time; others were skeletal metal contraptions, welded together from scavenged parts, creaking under their occupants’ weight. Name tags marked some of the empty seats—while tinny audio feeds crackled from rusted speakers bolted to the table. The voices of absent power players rasped through the static - distorted by the aetheric haze. Nyx’s lips twisted into a grimace, a faint curl of disgust, as she dropped into her seat. The worn leather creaked beneath her and she didn’t bother lowering her hood, its shadow cloaking the sharp planes of her face. I’d rather be anywhere else, she thought, her fingers drumming an erratic beat on the table’s frigid edge, nails biting into the steel. Lady Obsidian should have never dragged me into this bullshit. She glanced over annoyed.

  Lady Obsidian presided at the table’s head, a quiet tempest in the room’s center. Her force field shimmered like a mirage, a translucent veil that swallowed the dim light, casting her in a pool of muted shadow making it impossible to fully make out her features. Her tailored suit shimmered faintly, a deep charcoal weave that drank in the gloom, and a vibro-blade lay across her lap, its slender edge pulsing with a low, menacing hum. She tapped it once, a sharp ting slicing through the air, her gaze raking the room with cold authority. The chatter died instantly, snuffed out like a candle in a storm. “Let’s keep this brief,” she said, her voice smooth as honed stone, laced with a steel that brooked no dissent. “Our presence in Zone C’s slipping—the PRU’s pushing harder than they should. We need a unified front, or we’ll lose ground.”

  The Automaton responded with a mechanical whir, a faint grind of gears underscoring his words. His body gleamed—a mosaic of chrome and plating. His face was a blank mask, save for two blue optics that flared and dimmed with cold calculation, no hint of the human he’d once been. Every limb, every organ, had been replaced piece by meticulous piece. “Efficiency demands we cripple their logistics,” he intoned, his voice a flat, emotionless drone, each syllable precise as a machine’s tick. “I’ve sourced numerous untraceable EMPs. Deploy them at their D-zone outposts. Minimal collateral, maximum disruption.” His head tilted—a crisp 15-degree shift, mechanical and uncanny—as he awaited feedback, his metallic fingers steepled in a stillness that felt more dead than alive.

  What would that even accomplish? The PRU's defended against EMPs. It would just make life harder in the D section than it already is, to what - dip the percentages of an inner corp by a few percent? Nyx’s eyes narrowed to slits, her jaw tightening until a faint ache bloomed beneath her teeth. He’d probably raze the city to ash for a tiny ledger adjustment. No real soul left. She shifted, her posture loose but coiled, a spring wound tight, ready to snap if this dragged into another hour of posturing.

  Across the table, Magma let out a rumbling laugh, a sound like boulders crashing down a ravine. His hulking frame radiated heat, waves of it rippling the air, his red skin glistening like molten rock under the dim lights. Veins pulsed beneath its surface, glowing faintly with an inner fire, and his massive fists thudded onto the table, leaving scorch marks that hissed and cracked as they cooled. “Minimal collateral?” he growled, his voice a deep, deliberate rasp, each word weighted with a playacted fury that didn’t reach his calculating eyes. “We should go for maximum collateral! Smash the PRU outposts to rubble. Let ‘em know we’re not soft.” Beside him, Lady Frost arched a pale brow, her ice-blue eyes glinting like shards of winter sky. Her silver hair spilled over a sleek white coat, pristine and sharp-edged, and a faint chill misted from her fingertips as she traced idle spirals on the steel, leaving a fragile lattice of frost. “Brute force is loud, darling,” she said, her tone clipped and icy, each syllable a shard of disdain, “it lacks finesse.”

  Nyx caught the flicker between them—Magma’s jaw clenching, a vein throbbing at his temple, Lady Frost’s lips twitching with a ghost of amusement—and suppressed an eye-roll, her hood shadowing a faint smirk. Branding and a love of headlines is what keeps them together, not love. They’d probably slit each other’s throats for a solo headline. She slouched deeper into her chair.

  Null’s blurred outline shimmered beside them, a void where a man should stand—cameras sparked and died in his presence, their lenses useless. His voice rolled out, rich and lilting, a bored aristocrat playing at danger. “Oh, Lady Frost, your elegance is wasted on these brutes,” he purred, his unseen hand likely sweeping toward her in a grand, invisible gesture. “A dance, perhaps, when this is over?” Frost’s face remained a frozen mask, her eyes unblinking, but Magma’s fists tightened, heat flaring in a brief pulse before he forced a grin, his molten gaze smoldering. Nyx snorted under her breath, the sound sharp and private. He’s baiting the beast for kicks. She’s lapping it up, even if she won’t show it.

  The Weaver clicked her mandibles, perched on a reinforced stool that groaned under her weight. Her six-foot spider form loomed—a nightmare of gleaming black chitin, eight limbs splayed like a cage of talons, each dripping with venom that glistened in the half-light. Her voice, though, was soft, almost maternal, a jarring contrast to her monstrous frame. “The PRU’s been roughing up mutants in D-zone, trying to push them all out to the Wall,” she said, her compound eyes catching the light in a thousand tiny reflections. “I’ll tangentially back any play that keeps them distracted—just don’t drag my people directly into your wars.” Her talons tapped the table, a staccato beat of barely restrained threat, venom pooling in tiny beads beneath them.

  Fracture sprawled nearby, their lanky frame draped over a chair, one leg kicked up onto the table, the heel of their boot grinding into the steel. Their gray eyes danced with a manic glint, and their fingers snapped absently, “Drop a warehouse on their heads,” they drawled, smirking as they teleported two feet left, then back between two chairs, the air humming with each flicker. Nyx’s brow creased, her fingers pausing mid-drum. He has one gimmick - bringing the house down and running away. Annoying as hell, that it’s so effective..

  Apex loomed at the table’s far end, eight feet of gene-spliced arrogance, his chiseled jaw locked in a sneer that seemed carved into his face. His tailored suit—purposely too tight—strained against his muscled bulk, seams threatening to split, and his dark eyes blazed with a manic need to dominate. “The PRU’s weak,” he barked, his voice a thunderclap of unearned bravado, fists slamming the table hard enough to dent it. “I could crush their command solo—prove who’s superior. You’re all wasting time.” Nyx’s lip curled, her gaze flicking to his knuckles, white and trembling with tension. Fucking Basement rat turned wannabe god from too many gene-mods. Moved on to the third girl this year, always says he sets them up for life in the inner zone... I have my doubts.

  Grimoire’s chuckle rasped like dry leaves, his gaunt frame hunched in a tattered robe that reeked of dust and rot, a leather-bound tome clutched under one arm, its edges frayed and stained. His sunken eyes gleamed with outer-zone lunacy, and he leaned toward Nyx, his breath sour. “Such ferocity I sense from you, Nyx,” he crooned, his flirtation a clumsy, leering mess. “You’d make a splendid familiar—imagine the chaos we’d weave.”

  Nyx’s eyes flattened to slits, her voice dropping to a hiss. “Last person who tried controlling me was the Siren. I painted this very table with their brains before I quartered them." She pointed at it. "I recall that you run from the room... crying.” Grimoire flinched, his bravado crumbling as he shrank back and a flicker of grim satisfaction warmed her chest.

  The Alchemist adjusted their goggles with a twitchy precision, their wiry frame swathed in a stained lab coat, sharp features glowing with a calculating grin. They swirled a vial of glowing liquid—green and viscous—between their fingers, its light casting eerie shadows. “My enforcers are all loyal to the bone,” they said, tapping the vial against their belt, the clink sharp and deliberate. “Say the word, and I’ll flood D-zone with muscle. PRU won’t know what hit ‘em.” Nyx’s nose wrinkled, a faint snarl tugging at her lips. Mind drugged slaves. Vile… but they all signed up for it. Supposedly the hench benefits are great. The fools.

  The Serpent slithered into the fray, her voice a silken hiss that coiled around the room. Her reptilian scales shimmered green-black, refracting the dim light in a hypnotic dance, and her amber eyes locked on Nyx with a playful, predatory glint. She moved like liquid, her clawed hand—nails long and curved—brushing the table inches from Nyx’s fingers. “Darling, we could carve up C-zone like a cake,” she purred, leaning closer, her scent a mix of musk and something floral, intoxicatingly dangerous. “You and I—such a team.”

  Nyx met her stare, unflinching, her tone dry as ash. “You’re pretty, Serpent, and I like you, maybe one day we could be what passes for friends… but I - don’t - date - villains. I've told you that.”

  The Serpent laughed, a low, throaty ripple that sent a shiver through the air, and pulled back with a graceful tilt of her head, unruffled.

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  Mr. Clockwork, a middle age gentleman with a pair of brass framed spectacles ever present, used his gloved hands to adjust a pocket watch with surgical precision. “A synchronized strike—EMPs at 0300, Fracture drops their HQ five minutes later. Magma and the Alchemists minions mop up the survivors.

  The Broker, sleek in a pinstripe suit that seemed woven from shadows, smirked from his corner, “Not the worst plan.”

  Mr. Clockwork looks angry and stuttered for a moment, “My p-p-plans are always p-p-perfect!”

  Obsidian tapped her blade again, the hum spiking briefly, silencing the room like a guillotine’s drop. “Enough. We aren’t going to go to war with the PRU head on. Winning against one of their D zone fortresses isn’t the problem. It’s what happens afterwards.”

  “You’d all be dead in a week.” Nyx barked out with laughter, then her mood changed. “I could kill anyone in this room.”

  The chorus of replies came as one - "No fucking chance." "Doubtful." "You wish!"

  Her eyes locked onto everyone in turn shaking her head dismissively. “I could and - I don’t think I can even think of a single class B hero I could defeat. You start taking down PRU bases and the inner zones get involved and then it's all over. There’s no heavy hitters here - no Lord Terror or Commander Chaos to clean your asses when the Inner Spire starts to send out their rookies to use on all of us as training opportunities. I was one of those rookies once, and you know what's behind the untrained green wannabes? Heavy hitters.” She exhaled sharply, a hiss of frustration cutting the air as she shoved her chair back, its legs screeching against the concrete. She rose, radiating a coiled menace, and her voice sliced through the dissatisfied murmurs. “I suppose I'm one of the only ones that might survive, since I can just start over as someone else and I don't exactly care about losing my holdings... but the rest of you?"

  Several of the Society members looked distinctly uncomfortable.

  "This is my notice. I’m pulling back my operations. Personal matters. Serpent’s taking my holdings for now. Congratulations you’ve got twice the territory and you didn’t even have to kill anyone for it.” She pinned the reptilian woman with a stare, hard and unyielding, a silent vow in its depths. “Keep the girls safe.”

  Grimoire leaned forward, his sly grin baring yellowed teeth. “Personal matters? I've heard some rumors Nyx. That you got yourself a little normie pet. Scared he might break if you’re not watching over him?”

  Her gaze snapped to him, cold and lethal, her fingers curling into talons that she tapped on the steel table, then she pulled a single outstretched finger down, her talon curling up the steel into strips, the horrifying sound echoing through the room.

  The Broker chuckled, his voice a smooth lilt of amusement. “She defenestrated two people just this week—messy business. Glass and blood everywhere. Probably not a good idea to threaten her.”

  “Was that a threat?” Nyx’s lips curled into a faint, feral grin, her eyes glinting with dark mirth, a predator. She took a breath drinking in the smells on the air, remembering the scents. “Anyone stupid enough to steal from me is just too stupid to live. Anyone who touches someone I care about will beg for death before their end.” She turned and strode toward the exit, boots pounding a relentless rhythm. I’m done with this cesspool. Her chest tightened with a mix of fury and longing. Foster’s waiting—I can have something real, not this power-drunk farce. The concrete walls swallowed her steps, the Eclipse Society’s schemes buzzing behind her like a swarm of flies.

  ***

  Foster trudged up the crumbling stairwell of his apartment complex, the weight of the battered aether-shield cylinder dragging at his arms. His shoulders ached and his breath rasped in the stale air. The van had barely made it back, coughing smoke the last part of way- meaning he’d need to be dropping more money into it soon. Now all he wanted was to collapse onto his mattress and sleep so he could figure out this junker’s secrets tomorrow when his powers refreshed. The keys were in his hand as he made his way to his door.

  “Danger!” Hedy’s voice cut through his thoughts, sharp and urgent, a velvet blade in his mind. “Three people at the end of the hall - I saw them at the mall. You’ve been followed.”

  Shit! His stomach dropped, a cold jolt spiking through his fatigue. He froze mid-step, eyes darting to the shadowed corridor. Three figures emerged from the gloom, silhouettes jagged with crude cybernetics, their movements twitchy and erratic. They looked like members of the Rustfang Crew—tech scrappers and cybers, a gang of bottom-feeders who clawed a living from the P-District’s refuse. They must have clocked him at Gizmo’s, seen him lugging the shield out, and now they’d tailed him home. His grip tightened on the cylinder, knuckles whitening. Shit. Shit. Shit! He dropped the heavy tech to the ground and raised his fists, but he was already tired.

  The leader stepped forward, a wiry man with a shaved head and a cybernetic eye that glowed a sickly green, its lens cracked and flickering. Rust streaked his jaw where a cheap metal plate had been bolted on, the skin around it inflamed and weeping. His grin was all teeth, stained yellow from chems, and his right arm whirred—a jerry-rigged claw, its servos grinding as he flexed it. “That shield’s ours nullrat,” he rasped, voice rough with stim-jitter. “Hand it over, or we take it off your corpse.”

  Flanking him was a woman, her lank hair matted with grease, her left leg replaced by a skeletal prosthetic that clacked with every step, the pistons wheezing from overuse. Her eyes were bloodshot, pupils blown wide from whatever she’d shot up, and a rusty blade jutted from a socket in her forearm, twitching as she giggled. The third was a hulking brute, his skin mottled with mutant scars, one arm sleeved in a patchwork of scavenged steel plates bolted straight into flesh. His breath rattled, wet and ragged, as he cracked his knuckles, a faint whiff of chem laced-sweat rolling off him.

  “They’re high—drugged out of their minds,” Hedy warned, her tone tight. “Cyber-mods are probably low-grade, but functional and that means stronger than human norm. You can’t outrun them, and you don’t have any strength or speed boosts.”

  Foster’s jaw clenched, his heart hammering as he dropped the cylinder with a heavy thunk, squaring his stance. “Fine take it!” he growled. He wanted to fight - but it wasn’t worth the risk.

  “You know… on second thought… I think we’re gonna take you too.”

  Three-to-one, no overclock available — he was screwed. But he wasn’t going down easy. “Hedy, dial down my pain perception.”

  “Done” she replied, and a numbing sensation spread through him, dulling the edges of his fear. His high constitution was all he had—grit and stubborn meat to outlast them. He balled his fists, eyes narrowing as the leader lunged.

  The claw swiped first, a screeching arc aimed at his throat. Foster ducked, the air whistling past his ear, and drove his fist into the man’s gut. The impact jarred his knuckles, but the leader just laughed, stims numbing him as he slammed an elbow into Foster’s jaw. Pain flared, muted by Hedy’s tweak, and Foster staggered, tasting blood. The woman came next, her blade slashing wildly—he twisted, catching it on his forearm, the rusty edge biting shallow before he kicked her prosthetic leg. It buckled with a clank, sending her sprawling, but the brute roared in, steel-plated fist crashing into Foster’s ribs.

  He wheezed, the air blasting out of him, but he stayed up, swinging back with a haymaker that cracked against the brute’s jaw. Bone met metal, and his hand throbbed, but the guy barely flinched, pupils pinpricks of rage. They were relentless—drugged, modded, feral. The leader grabbed his collar, claw whirring as it clamped his shoulder, servos grinding into muscle. Foster snarled, headbutting him, forehead smashing nose with a wet crunch. Blood sprayed, but the woman was back, blade slashing his thigh, and the brute’s fist found his temple.

  The world tilted, a dull roar filling his skull as he hit the floor, concrete cold against his cheek. He’d fought as hard and as long as he ould —clawing, punching, kicking—but three-to-one was math he couldn’t beat. Boots slammed into his ribs, his back, his head, a rhythm of muffled thuds as Hedy’s dampening held. His vision blurred, darkening at the edges, and the last thing he saw was the leader’s cracked grin before a final blow knocked him cold.

  ***

  He came to with a groan, his body a map of bruises, the taste of copper thick on his tongue. The air stank of oil and rust, the rumble of machinery vibrating through him. He was sprawled in a car trunk, its rusted lid half-open, the dim glow of a scrap-yard stretching beyond. The Rustfang Crew loomed nearby, arguing in jagged, chem-slurred voices as they rigged the aether-shield to a jury-rigged power cell. The cylinder hummed, its dents glinting under flickering floodlights.

  “So…” The woman grinned, “You broke my new knee, so first you go in the car, then you go in the crusher, then we melt you both down and make you into steel, drizzle you on our mods.” She laughed, “You’ll be part of the new me. That’s how Rustfang rolls!” She was laughing, but then she paused eyes glinting, “Unless you can give us a reason not to… what have you got? Creds, stims? Think it over in the dark!” She cackled and slammed the trunk shut.

  Foster, you’ve got three cracked ribs, a concussion, a dislocated shoulder, and multiple lacerations—nothing fatal, but you’re a mess.

  ‘Yeah, this situations … not good.’

  Foster could still hear them. “Plug it in, see if it’s worth shit,” the leader barked, wiping blood from his busted nose. The woman giggled, and he could here her slamming a power line into the shield’s port. It whirred, a low buzz building to a shriek—too fast, too loud. Foster’s foggy brain mused, ‘That’s doesn’t sound right.’

  Hedy’s voice pierced the haze, frantic. “Foster!”

  He tried to move, limbs sluggish, pain seeping past Hedy’s block as he clawed at the trunk’s edge. Too late. The shield’s hum spiked, and there was an explosion - a deafening boom.

  Shrapnel tore through the air, a fireball swallowing the gang. The leader’s scream cut off as his claw-arm shredded mid-swing; the woman’s giggle died in a gurgle, her prosthetic sparking as she crumpled; the brute roared once, then dropped. The shockwave slammed through the car a pulse of heat he could feel and the trunk crumpled, metal groaning.

  Darkness almost swallowed him again, but a chime rang in his skull—

  “Level up! —Level 1 to Level 2. You’ve gained Three stat points. You killed a mutant and a minor super with an improvised ordinance device -. Congratulations.” His chest heaved, ribs screaming despite the numbing, blood trickling from his ears. Damn it, I’m dying. No time to think deep.

  ‘Constitution - all of it!’

  A faint warmth bloomed in his core. Then nothing—blackness claimed him.

  ***

  Sofia had gone to surprise Foster with an unannounced visit, her key gripped excitedly in hand when she saw the blood by Foster's door.

  She knelt, fingers brushing the crimson... still tacky, fresh. That meant there was a chance... His scent lingered, faint but unmistakable, mixed with the sour reek of chem-sweat and oil. Her dark eyes narrowed, pupils dilating as her powers flared instinctively, heightening her hearing, her smell. Voices echoed from the street below—drunks, hawkers, a muttering junkie who’d seen something. She sprinted outside and grabbed the junkie by his frayed collar. His eyes widened, pupils blown, but her voice cut through his haze like a blade. “Where!"

  He stammered, pointing a trembling finger. Nyx dropped him, already moving, her robe billowing as she broke into a run. The city blurred past—cracked streets, flickering signs, mutants scattering from her path. She interrogated anyone who crossed her, a whirlwind of threats and steel-edged questions, piecing together Foster’s trail. A vendor here, a chrome-head there. Each answer fueled her, rage simmering into a molten focus. There were always eyes in the city, and while people might not want to talk they definitely didn’t want to die.

  Sofia found him… but by the time she'd made it there her rage was on the cusp of pushing her straight into her darkest manifestations of death given form.

  Her boots crunching through the smoldering wreckage of the scrap-yard. The Rustfang Crew’s remnants lay strewn—tell-tale signs of an aether wave that hadn’t killed them all - but it had made charred husks and twisted metal of their cyber-implants and they were far too much machine and not enough flesh to weather that well.

  The survivors were barely able to crawl now and the air was thick with ash and ozone. Her dark eyes blazed with fury. They twitched among the debris, half-dead from the blast. She helped them fully embrace the consequences of their choices, and they were no longer merely half dead. It was no longer a hide-out for the Rustfangs, it was a graveyard. Her blood drenched talons glistened in the moonlight, crimson dripping from her hands as she cleared the path to him.

  She spotted the car, its trunk crumpled, and her breath caught. With her inhuman hearing she could hear breathing - but it was shallow - she could smell the scent of him. She curled the metal up like she was peeling open a can of luncheon meat and saw Foster inside, battered and still, his face a mess of bruises and cuts, blood matting his hair.

  She saw his eyes crack open, his voice barely whispering, “You found me…”

  “Foster!” Her voice cracked, raw with panic, as she ripped the lid the rest of the way open, metal screeching. She knelt, her hands trembling as she checked his pulse—faint, but there. Relief crashed through her, sharp and fleeting.

  Her mind burned through options, possibilities... the last time he'd brushed so near death's embrace it had been Ascension... for which she'd needed the closest thing she had to an Ascension specialist... but this was another matter entirely... Foster needed a Doctor and there were precious few of those by the wall. She grabbed her phone and typed a hurried message and sent a quiet prayer up that she would be available, awkward as it might be.

  Sliding her arms beneath him, she lifted him in a princess carry, his weight heavy against her chest. His head lolled against her shoulder, breath shallow, and she tightened her grip, her jaw set with grim determination. “You’re going to be o.k.,” she muttered, “I won’t let them hurt you.”

  She turned, striding out of the scrap-yard and then ran - holding him with super-human grace - the city slowly slipped past—cracked streets, flickering lights—her boots pounding a relentless rhythm all the way to her place.