Tuesday night.
11:55 PM.
Broad Street station was locked down for maintenance.
No trains.
Just ozone, wet concrete, and old metal everywhere.
The place smelled tired.
The only light came from a few battered emergency bulbs, flickering and twitchy, like the ceiling couldn’t decide if it wanted to stay awake.
I waited up in the dark, thirty feet above it all, pressed flat against the arching roof.
Nobody saw me.
I barely had to breathe.
I just listened.
Three heartbeats.
That’s all I needed.
Billy Butcher hunkered down by a rusted utility box up the north tunnel, both hands white-knuckled on his revolver.
On the other side, maybe fifty feet off, Frenchie was crouched low on a catwalk, watching through his scope, finger itching for trouble.
Hughie Campbell hid behind a pillar, jacket already sticking to his skin, heart pounding so loud I wondered if he’d just fall over.
They came exactly where Frenchie’s GPS led them.
Just like I’d planned.
Thought they were shutting down a big Vought smuggling op.
Thought they might finally catch a break.
All they’d really done was march straight into my collection night.
At 11:59, everything changed.
The tunnel air snapped—sucked in, then banged out—and a blue-white blur ripped down the tracks.
Paper cups and old gum wrappers snapped past as A-Train blurred through, never quite stopping.
He dropped a titanium container under a maintenance grate—you had to know what to look for—and then he was gone before the air remembered how to sound again.
Silence again.
Just the pulsing lights, nothing else.
Butcher waved Frenchie over.
They moved quick, sticking low, aiming for the grate.
“Check for traps,” Butcher growled.
Frenchie nodded, dropped to one knee, and popped open the metal.
He fished out the cylinder, a tight little smile on his face.
“We have it, Monsieur Butcher.” Out of breath, but proud.
“It is heavy.” Butcher grinned like a wolf, all teeth.
“Open it.
Let’s see what the fastest man alive tries to hide.” Hughie held his breath, staring.
Frenchie twisted the latch— I let go of the ceiling and dropped, didn’t even bother with the gravity drive.
Thirty feet, straight down.
When I landed, the whole platform cracked out, a thunder clap that kicked all three off their feet.
Concrete sprayed everywhere.
Hughie crashed into a trash can, howling.
Frenchie’s hands flew open, the cylinder spinning out of reach.
Butcher rolled, up on one knee in a heartbeat, gun aimed straight at my chest.
“Don’t bloody move!” he roared.
I stood there, brushing the roof, suit burning white in the strange, broken light.
“You’re in my city My voice bounced off every concrete curve.
Heavy enough to feel.
“And you’re touching my property.” Frenchie scrambled, hands shaking, rifle half up.
I saw his eyes.
He’d seen the suit on billboards, Times Square.
He knew who I was.
Hughie rasped it out anyway.
“Invincible…” He could barely lift his head.
I stepped right past their guns—why care?—and scooped up the titanium tube.
Butcher fired twice, no hesitation.
Both hit dead center.
Felt like drops of rain.
The rounds flattened and slipped off me with a sad clink.
Didn’t slow down.
I opened the latch and peered inside.
One vial, glowing blue.
Pure Compound V.
“That’s evidence,” Butcher snapped, throwing everything he had into it—hope, anger.
“You destroy that, you’re just another corporate lapdog.” I turned the vial over in my palm, the blue light sharp on my skin.
“I don’t need evidence,” I told him.
“And I don’t work for Vought.” Squeezed.
The glass broke, but the liquid vanished before it hit the floor.
I reached out, pulled it right into me.
System, convert.
The blue burned bright—then was gone.
My skin tingled, then nothing.
Never left a trace.
[Passive Point Generation: Compound V Absorbed.] [Reward: +5,000 System Points.] [Current Points: 77,500.] I tossed the empty cylinder aside.
Butcher stared, jaw tight, gun still up but shaking now.
He’d shot a dozen Supes in his time.
Most jumped or flinched, even the tough ones.
I didn’t even blink.
He whispered, almost too quiet, “What the hell are you?” I looked at them—shaken, scared, completely outmatched.
Exactly how I wanted them.
I needed them angry.
Raw.
Not beaten.
If they left empty-handed, they’d never dig deeper.
That wouldn’t do.
“You’re thinking too small, Billy.” It echoed.
“You’re stuck in the subway, chasing crumbs.” I turned, gravity drive humming—lifted me two inches over busted concrete.
“If you really want to hurt Vought,” I said, glancing back, “forget the subway.
Hit the Port of Newark.
Triad containers.
That’s where the real monsters are.” Frenchie’s eyes went wide.
“The Triads?
Shining Light?” Didn’t answer.
“Stay out of my way.
Next time you shoot, I won’t let the bullets bounce.” I shot off down the tunnel, tearing through sound.
The boom snapped every bulb, threw the whole place into black.
Up through the grates, into cool city night, the System pinged in my mind.
[Major Canon Manipulation Successful.] [The Boys’ Investigation Redirected.] [Future Plot Fracture Event Seeded: The Female (Kimiko).] [Calculating Rewards…] [Reward: 15,000 System Points.] [Current Points: 92,500.] I watched the city and the blue numbers float in my vision.
Couldn’t help grinning.
The long game was taking shape.
I didn’t have to buddy up to Butcher.
Didn’t need to play nice.
Vought was already moving Kimiko over.
Their perfect setup—deadly, dosed with V, the spark for a new breed of Supe soldiers.
And Butcher?
Frenchie?
They’d beeline straight for her.
When they opened that cage, everything would go to hell.
And I’d be there—ready to pick up the pieces, and the points, when it all finally came down.