Chapter 71 Monster of Markend

March 21, 2025. Wednesday. 10:18 a.m.

The air in the bar reeked of smoke, spilled beer, and desperation. A flickering light buzzed overhead, pulsing in time with the broken speakers that repeated the same grating stretch of synthetic notes. I stood over the wreckage of the night, chest heaving, fingers twitching against the grip of my weapon. My body wanted rest, demanded it, but my Enhancer ratings refused to let me collapse. They flooded me with chemical strength, adrenaline threading through my veins, keeping me upright when exhaustion should have leveled me.

Rave lay sprawled on the sticky floorboards, the spikes of his mohawk glinting under the failing light. The tattoos winding across his wiry frame looked almost alive, distorted by the ragged rise and fall of his chest. His welding mask, with its vomit of chaotic colors, tilted crookedly, showing only the outline of his jaw beneath. I leveled my gun at him, my voice sharper than I intended. “Crow’s dead. Give it up. Where is she?”

He chuckled, a hollow, grating sound muffled by his mask. “I refuse to believe that… the Crow lives within us…” The way he said it, with that blind conviction, sent a ripple of unease through me. He pressed his palms together, and sparks of electricity jittered across his hands. Then came the hum, low at first, then splitting into a shriek as he slammed his palms apart.

An arc of jagged light tore across the bar, jagged with sound and force. It screeched like a feedback loop while radiating violent heat. The arc cut toward me, an unholy blend of his Electrokinetic and Acoustokinetic tricks, and my body betrayed me. I couldn’t phase cleanly, not through both, not through something that warped the air and space around me at once. My muscles locked, nerves trapped between two storms of power, and for a breath I was frozen.

Rave staggered to his feet, emboldened. His footsteps shook the bottles littered across the counter as he closed the distance, electricity snarling around his fist. He lunged, the punch screaming with energy.

Then my Enhancer ratings roared through me like wildfire, wrenching control back. My spine bent in reflex, leaning away from the strike. I moved before thought caught up with gun drawn, muzzle pressed inches from the painted mask. The shot cracked like thunder.

Rave’s body lurched as the impact drove him forward, collapsing onto me with dead weight. Sparks fizzled out across his tattoos, and the bar went silent save for the broken loop of music still stammering through the speakers. His breath rasped hot against my neck, uneven, shallow, and fading.

“Long live the… Crow…” he managed before I shoved him aside and pulled my bonnet up enough to show my face. The light glanced off the bruise darkening my cheek, and I let the recognition sit there like a verdict.

I hauled him to the rubble and propped his head against a broken crate, then leaned close enough that he could hear me if he could still hear anything at all.

“I’m a victim just like you,” I said, voice low and even. “Crow only used you for his gain. You meant nothing to him beyond utility.” My hand slid into his shadow reflexively, and when I pinched, a tiny crow black as oil and still warm with whatever sick life it carried sprang free into my palm. I held it up like evidence and let the thing flinch and squeal, the bird’s eyes like coals in the dark. “This is the Crow you were worshipping.”

Rave coughed blood into his mouth and whispered the phrase one last time, the devotion stubborn even in death. “Long live the Crow.”

The brainwashing made my teeth ache; I’d been tearing through his followers for a week now and their silence was maddening… no confessions, no secrets, only empty shrine-song and obedience. I was starting to feel it then: fatigue gathering at the edges like a tide. Even with my Enhancer ratings, I wasn’t immune to being worn down.

I walked off the bar.

Rain started while I stood just outside; the city’s gutters spat and the streetlights smeared halos into the downpour. Civilians scattered at the sight of me, someone in a bonnet and Kevlar moving through the storm tends to send them running, and I moved with them, slipping into alleyways I knew, shoulders hunched against the rain.

The Vanguard would be looking; their roster had been thinned but they still had reach and procedural patience. I needed to move before they cordoned this whole block. Danger niggled at the base of my skull, a memory-born instinct that demanded attention.

I turned down a narrow lane and the world narrowed to a single movement: a blur, a flash of light, and a dagger cutting air where my throat had been a half-beat earlier. I grabbed at my neck and felt warm bloom along my skin despite my intangibility’s hum. The line of blood was thin and quick.

“Show yourself, you coward!”

Windbreaker stood there like a statue in green spandex trimmed in white, the hood shadowing his face and murder in his eyes. He held the dagger easy, brandishing them at me. It probably have power-nullifying traits. He took one steady step forward, and there was no humor in him.

“Of course,” I uttered with disdain. “It’s you.”

“I will kill you.”

Windbreaker’s hand blurred, his dagger slicing for me with the kind of speed that made the air hiss. I leaned back, more instinct than thought, and yanked a grenade from my vest. The pin flicked free, the clink lost beneath the rain and the hum of his motion. I dropped through the ground, phasing, and reappeared several meters away.

The blast rattled the broken windows behind me, the shockwave carrying dust and shrapnel. Windbreaker wasn’t where I left him as he reappeared beside me, wind trailing off his shoulders like a cloak.

My second grenade was already in motion, the pin tossed aside, and I phased just long enough to let the explosion tear the world apart around me. He flickered back, winds twisting the trajectory of steel shards, his movements sharp and surgical as he cut left, then right. The glowing dagger that had tasted my blood cracked in his grip, the edge breaking off and scattering.

My body stuttered, intangibility faltering as the strain of the past week surged over me.

BANG!

A bullet grazed my thigh, hot pain cutting clean through the flesh. I staggered, hissing, and forced myself intangible again, except it didn’t work. My power refused me. I turned, tracing the echo of the shot, and saw her: blonde hair, purple spandex, and levitating in the wet night like it was nothing.

It was… Leverage.

A sniper rifle slung in her arms, too big to be real, and yet she handled it like it weighed nothing. Of course she was here. Of course they all were.Watch.

“I see you got the whole gang with you…”

Windbreaker lunged, wind snapping around him, but I read the arc of his motion and moved inside it. My fist slammed into his throat, cutting off his momentum. He gagged, faltering, and I swept his foot, sending him to the ground. My gun was already out, the barrel lined with his chest, but the shot never found him. Rubby barreled between us, every bullet ricocheting harmlessly off her rebound flesh. The shots flew wild, sparking against the brick.

She snarled, looping her arms around me, pressing my ribs in a grip that could snap steel. “Windbreaker, you dolt! I told you to wait for us, and now you costed us our only killing weapon! How are we supposed to kill the fucking Eclipse!” Her voice was shrill and furious, but it didn’t matter.

My body slipped, intangible again, phasing through her limbs like smoke. The handgun slipped from my fingers, clattering against the pavement. It was getting annoying for me, the power fatigue hindering me just about darn every time.

That was when another weight hit me from behind, solid and heavy as stone. His arms wrapped me in a bear-trap hold, and the pressure didn’t budge. My power failed instantly, short-circuited by the proximity. His skin was black, not in color but texture, like obsidian hammered into a body. Squire. Another Watch cape. “Give it up, Eclipse. I got nullifier ratings…”

I struggled against the grip, but my power was gone and smothered. My chest burned with fury, my leg throbbed with every pulse of blood, and the rain didn’t wash any of it away.

Windbreaker shoved Rubby aside, coughing, and walked forward with deliberate steps. His hand reached down, picking up the handgun I’d dropped, the black metal catching the glow of the neon signs above. “I am going to kill you for ruining my life, you fucking prick.” His hand shook only slightly as he aimed my own gun at me, finger tightening against the trigger.

Rubby stepped between us, pressing her palms against his chest. “We don’t have to kill him now, he’s restrained!” she snapped, her tone sharp but edged with pleading.

A feline silhouette landed above us, the signage groaning under her weight. Tigress crouched low, claws extended, eyes narrow. “But he’s still dangerous!” she barked. “We can’t be too sure, shoot him, Windbreaker.”

Windbreaker shoved Rubby aside, the rage in his face blistering. He stepped forward, the barrel of the gun pressing against my forehead with a cold finality. “This is for my dad, Nick.” His hand reached for his mask, tearing it free in one quick motion. Blonde hair spilled out, revealing a face I knew all too well staring down at me with hatred sharp enough to cut steel. “Look in my eyes.”

I couldn’t help it. A laugh bubbled up from my gut. “Pffft…”

His nostrils flared. “Do you think this is funny? Your life is in my hands!”

I smirked, the taste of blood still in my mouth. “So, Sunstrider… Windbreaker… yeah, it matches…”

The hammer clicked back, tension filling the air as he pulled it with his thumb. His voice dropped dangerously. “What do you have to say for your crimes?”

I tilted my head, grin widening. “That karma is a bitch.”

For a heartbeat, his shoulders sagged, as though the weight of it all finally crushed him. Then his fury reignited, eyes burning hotter. “I know I’m a jerk, a bully, but does it really have to end like this? My dad did nothing to you!”

“Don’t think too highly of yourself, blondie,” I sneered. “A bully? You? High school is so yesterday… Do you know what I think of you? Nothing. That’s who you are to me. Oh man, I used to think a lot of the beating I took from you and your lot, but it is just so… lame…”

I leaned forward, thumping my forehead against the barrel of the gun, and smiled. “If you are a man, then just end this… Shoot!”

The gun barked, the bullet snapping free. The instant it touched my skin, I phased, forcing the metal intangible. It tore through me harmlessly and sank deep into Squire’s shoulder, bypassing his durability like paper.

“Ah, my shoulder!” Squire screamed, his grip faltering as he let me go.

I twisted, ramming an elbow into his ribs and wrenching free.

Funny enough, I think I might’ve suffered a bruising from elbowing him. Still, my hand shot out, gripping Windbreaker by the throat, lifting him off his balance. With my other hand, I flicked a spread of cards, each one igniting mid-air into shards of intangibility that forced Tigress and Rubby to leap aside.

Sniper-fire erupted, bullets screaming through the haze, passing through me harmlessly as I shifted in and out of intangibility.

Time slowed in the rush with adrenaline flooding my veins. I made Windbreaker intangible for a breath, feeling the small, sick thrill of control as his feet phased into the ground. “I am going to teach you a lesson about life. It’s not about getting used or using people…”

His eyes widened in confusion as he felt the pull, his balance slipping away. I pushed, making him tangible again. The floor refused to let him go. Flesh, bone, and nerves tore apart as atom by atom his body separated from his own feet. His scream split the night as the wet crunch of bone and the tearing of muscle filled the air. His legs severed clean at the ankles, leaving stumps gushing blood.

I finished, my voice raw and venomous, “In life, there’s only death! And I’m fucking death!”

Power fatigue hit me in full.

A wet, stinging pressure exploded through my side before the sentence had even finished echoing. Pain folded me inward and I hit the deck, rolling onto my back as the asphalt swam in ragged edges. For a second my mind refused to make sense of the world; I assumed this was the end, that I had pushed too hard, that fatigue and anger had finally found a seam in me to split.

I phased onto the ground, letting my body become a shadow against the concrete as consciousness thinned like breath. The world felt remote, muffled, as if I were watching everything through thick glass. I knew, with a terrible, clinical clarity, that if I kept going like this I’d die. The thought was not dramatic so much as mundane, another fact to file away as the edges of my vision fluttered. I blinked through black and light in a slow, sick rhythm and the city noise became a distant tide.

When I opened my eyes again, I was somewhere soft and unrehearsed: a living room that smelled like detergent and boiled carrots, the kind of space made for small talk and family arguments rather than ruin. A woman sat frozen on a sofa, a boy clutched at her shirt, and a man moved for the phone with hands that shook.

Their faces were horror and disbelief, catching me half-formed on their cushions like a ghost with an open wound. “Who is that?” the woman breathed, voice high and trembling.

“The Vanguard hotline!” the man called over his shoulder, fingers fumbling for a number. “Where’s my darn phone!? Quick!”

The boy stared at me with huge, wet eyes and made a small, frightened noise. “Dad, I’m scared.”

“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” the woman said, more to herself than anyone, the words a thin promise. “He’ll be gone away, soon.”

“Stay away from the scary stranger, will you?” scolded the man to the mother and son.

“T-that… L-Look…” The woman pointed at the television, where a loop of news footage I had hoped never to see again showed my face with a headline. “Dad, I think this guy was on the TV.”

The man’s hand hovered over the phone and then dropped as the full weight of it hit him. “Oh my God… it's Eclipse.”

I tried to sit up, tried to argue or explain or grab the moment and make it mine, but the world tilted and slipped. Darkness washed over my vision like a curtain being drawn. The last thing I felt before everything went hollow was the warm thud of someone falling back into a chair and a child’s whisper that sounded, impossibly, like an accusation.

“It’s him. The monster of Markend.”

Then I lost consciousness again and the living room folded away into nothing.