April 16th
As I walked through the empty, sterile hallway of the Protectorate headquarters alongside Armsmaster, the sound of our footsteps echoed in the silence. The building was pristine— polished floors that caught the overhead light, walls lined with framed photographs of smiling heroes, and the faint, sterile tang of industrial cleaning products lingering in the air. It should have been impressive, but the quiet between us made the whole scene feel… awkward. Uncomfortably so.
Plenty of thoughts were running through my mind, but chief among them was the sheer weight of the awkwardness. Armsmaster hadn't spoken a word beyond the occasional basic direction, left here, right there, straight ahead, and I could understand why.
Armsmaster was a man defined by pride and, more accurately, by an obsession with legacy. Most of his actions— at least, in my knowledge of Worm's canon— were rarely without layered motives ,driven by a mix of selflessness and ego. He was often driven by the greater good, yes, but also by his own ego. This was the same man who would go onto cut deals with people like Teacher , who would sacrifice fellow capes during the Leviathan fight for the sake of tactical advantage, he was the sort who wanted recognition, who wanted to be remembered — at least until the day he would shed the name Armsmaster and become Defiant.
But right now, he was still very much Armsmaster: prickly, proud, and a little too fixated on how he stacked up to his peers, who envied Dauntless for his growth potential.
And here I was: someone who, by all appearances, was essentially a better version of Dauntless, who had just insulted him in front of his boss— about his manhood, no less- and who he'd now been ordered to guide to my new quarters.
Yeah. Awkward didn't even begin to cover it.
Still, I knew I probably should do something about it. Armsmaster could be uptight, yes, standoffish and occasionally socially clumsy, but at the end of the day, he was still a good man. A man who had and would risk his life for the greater good. He didn't deserve to be mocked or diminished, least of all by someone like me.
I took a slow breath, going over what I wanted to say. First, an apology for my earlier comments about his supposed lack of a love life. Then, as a peace offering, I'd probably give him an [Aerolite Bar], not just as a token of good will, but also as a way to get into his good graces. Armsmaster was one of the greatest tinkers alive. His technology could predict Endbringer attacks. His nanothorn technology was one of the most terrifying offensive weapons in the setting. Not to mention his close working relationship with Dragon, and his network of contacts among high-tier heroes. That kind of soft power wasn't something I could afford to throw away.
And, truthfully, I'd been needlessly hostile to him earlier. He'd just been doing his job,one that, I had no doubt, was stressful and taxing on both his body and mind. Being one of THE public faces of the Protectorate couldn't be easy, especially not for a tinker. They were already bound by the limitations of their own bodies and forced to spend endless hours maintaining their gear. Add to that all the traumatic events he must have endured and witnessed… yeah, best to make things right now before resentment had the chance to fester.
Clearing my throat, I spoke up. "Ehem… Armsmaster, sir?"
He slowed to a stop and turned toward me. "Yes?" His tone was even but cold, like tempered steel.
Now that I had his attention, I began. "I wanted to apologize for my earlier comments, and my behavior in general. It was just… all the stress of the last few days, plus the concussion, that made me lash out at you, sir. I'm genuinely sorry for that. Not only am I sure your relationship with Dragon is going quite well, but someone like you, someone who's given so much of his life to saving others, doesn't deserve to be disrespected by anyone."
I couldn't read his expression behind the visor, but the fact that he didn't immediately frown or turn away felt like a good sign. I pressed on.
"And I also wanted to talk to you about something my power gave me. It's a type of metal called Aerolite, infused with something referred to as 'sky energy.' Allegedly, it can produce wind and weather effects. I acquired it before… well, before the Wards and I decided to climb the elevator shaft. My first thought was to give it to you, since I can't think of anyone who'd put it to better use." I hesitated for only a fraction of a second before adding, "Do you want the [Aerolite Bar]s now, or should I drop them off somewhere for you? Oh and is there any paperwork I'd need to fill out? I don't want to cause you unnecessary trouble, sir."
I bit the inside of my cheek, waiting for his reaction.
"The apology is appreciated, but not necessary, Kane," Armsmaster replied in that steady, commanding voice of his. "I'm well aware of how a concussion can affect someone. As for the Aerolite, I would appreciate it if you brought it to my workshop." He paused for a heartbeat, then added, somewhat awkwardly, "…And my relationship with Dragon is purely professional."
"Thank you for your understanding, sir. I'll drop off the bars once I get a proper shower ."
For half a second, I considered nudging him toward a romantic relationship with Dragon using my knowledge of canon. It would've been funny, and maybe even beneficial, after all, him joining the Guild could be the push he needed to really live up to his potential. But the risks of revealing even more meta-knowledge wasn't worth it. Still… Armsmaster in the Guild would be a good thing. Maybe it was a topic for a later conversation, depending on how our relationship developed and how the PRT treated me from here on.
The rest of the walk to my new quarters was quiet, but at least it wasn't awkward anymore.
[Feat Achieved! – Get on Armsmasters good side after offending Him!]
[Reward: +1 Advantage Silver Random Gacha Ticket!]
The warm water that slid down my skin was almost painfully soothing, like each droplet carried a tiny whisper telling me to just breathe, to let go, to exist in the moment. It was calming, yes therapeutic even and God knew just how badly I needed that right now.
My hands wouldn't stop trembling. They hadn't for a while now, not since I'd been given the chance to slow down and actually think. It was as if the second my body wasn't running on pure adrenaline, everything I'd been holding back came crashing forward, clawing up through my ribs to choke me. My life, my whole existence,had just shifted into something I couldn't have imagined a week ago, and now that I had a moment to myself, I was being forced to face what it had become.
I had just outed myself, willingly or not, as one of the most valuable Parahumans on the planet. I didn't need a briefing or a whispered warning to know what that meant. Word of it would shoot straight to the top, right into the hands of the Chief Director herself. The Chief Director… who wasn't just some faceless bureaucrat, but Alexandria. Alexandria, who wore a Hero's public image like armor while hiding her true allegiance to Cauldron.
And Cauldron, well, I'd already suspected that some of the Shards out there, especially the precognitive ones, could not only detect me but predict . Path to Victory, Contessa… they'd have felt me coming the moment I hit their web. But now? Now they had my name. They could plot my movements. Predict my reactions. Target me directly.
My stomach twisted into a hard, cold knot. I slid down until I was sitting against the slick wall of the shower, hot water streaming over my hunched shoulders. My mind wouldn't stop painting possibilities, each one worse than the last. Contessa pulling my strings without me ever realizing. My life being reduced to a series of manufactured crises, each designed to wring more and more power out of me like a sponge. Every victory another step down a path I didn't choose.
And that was only one layer of the mess I was in.
Almost without thinking, my hand rose to my right eye. Even though Panacea had regrown it pain still lingered there, it was a phantom reminder of how close I'd already come to dying. Lung had almost killed me. If I hadn't stumbled on that van with the containment foam… if I'd been a little slower, a little less lucky… I'd either be a corpse roasted beyond recognition, or I'd have fled, left the others to face him alone, to burn for my survival.
Even with that stroke of luck, he had fucked me up. Taken my eye. Shredded my arms. Shaken my brain so badly I still wasn't sure how much was from the concussion and how much was permanent. If not for [Protean] granting me some regeneration and Panacea's intervention, I would have probably bled out or ended up with most of my brain having the same consistency of Gulasch, damaging my mind to a point where no amount of therapy could have helped .
The thought made my skin crawl. Nearly dying in my first real fight. Being alive and well now only because of a biokinetic who was a disaster waiting to happen.
Or maybe I should say dying again.
That thought hit harder than I wanted it to. My breath caught, shallow and uneven. I'd shoved that memory, if you could even call it a memory, into the furthest, dustiest corner of my mind. The dream, the strange old man, the quiet, matter-of-fact statement that I'd died in my sleep. That hadn't been a dream. I knew it.
I wasn't supposed to be here at all. I'd left my first life behind, left my family behind, without warning, without goodbye, and woken up in the skin of Solomon Kane. In his life. His memories, his bonds, his obligations were mine now. I hadn't been asked. I hadn't been prepared. I'd been dropped into a story already half-written, and the ending was set in blood and misery .
Why me?
Why the fuck did it have to be me?
Why couldn't some other unlucky bastard take the hit? Why couldn't it be someone else waking up in a doomed world, forced to play along to the tune of Cauldron or Coil, to dance around Endbringers and a golden god?
Why the hell did I have to carry that weight?
My pulse roared in my ears, loud enough to drown out the hiss of the water. My breathing quickened, too fast and too shallow, like my own body was trying to suffocate me. The walls of the shower felt too close, the steam too thick, pressing in from every side. My vision swam, not that there was much to see in the hot, damp blur. My mind kept looping the same jagged thoughts until they frayed into something close to panic.
I shut my eyes tight, trying to block it all out. Darkness wrapped around me. The water's heat pressed against my skin. My heart hammered against my ribs. My lungs strained to pull in air that suddenly felt heavy.
One deep breath. That was the first thing I could control. Not the Shards. Not Cauldron. Not Zion. Not even my own mortality. But my breath, that was mine.
Another breath.
And another.
Slowly, methodically, I counted them. Three. Four. Five. The pounding in my chest started to fall into rhythm with the cadence of my inhale and exhale. Six. Seven. Eight. My shoulders loosened, the tight knot between them beginning to ease. Nine. Ten.
When I opened my eyes again, my pulse had steadied. The panic hadn't vanished, it was still coiled in my gut, but I'd shoved it into a corner where it couldn't steer me. My situation was still dire. My fears were justified. But they wouldn't rule me.
Because not everything was heading towards hell in a hand basket . I still had cards to play.
The Chaos Gacha had no ceiling. No cap on potential. At any time, it could hand me a silver bullet that would shatter every obstacle in my path, or something even better, something that could pull me entirely out of this doomed sandbox. A Mother Box. A portal. A power so absurd it made Zion irrelevant. I could escape this world. I could take the people I cared about with me. Or I could go the other way, find something bigger, meaner, more destructive than the Endbringers and point it at my enemies. Hell, maybe I'd pull a Constantine and have the Entities be the ones in need of saving from something else. Maybe the one above all, perhaps Kirby would develop a taste for silica or a cultivator would turn them into pills.
The point was, there were possibilities. There was hope.
The canon timeline had already shifted just by my presence. Humanity's odds were better now than they'd been before. We weren't locked into the script. We weren't doomed unless I decided to be.
Humanity was not doomed.
Humanity would survive.
Humanity would thrive.
And so would I.
I still had autonomy. I still had options. I still had a future worth fighting for.
And I would fight for it. Tooth and nail. Until my lungs gave out and my body failed.
That truth burned in me hotter than the shower's spray as I pushed myself upright. Water streamed off my face, carrying away the last of the panic with it. My mind was clear. Focused.
I stepped out of the shower. There were still things to be done, and I wasn't about to let fear,no matter how loud, get in the way.
[Feat Achieved! – Build up the resolve necessary to face overwhelming Odds!]
[Reward: +1 Silver Skill Gacha Ticket!]
This chapter is a bit on the shorter side of things, but that is for a reason.
The last roll from the Gacha gave Kane The Crimson Beherit from berserk and it alongside [Sacrificial Doll] could be the end of this story.
So I had to make a decision on how I want the story to go on. But I am split between two opinions.
1 Kane knows of berserk and is to afraid to use the red egg, but would have to use it during golden morning if no other option is available. This way there is still a way for the story to continue for some time but it would seem a little contrived.
2 Kane has no knowledge about berserk and with some help he ends up using it. This way they save humanity from Zion and the shards but also create a connection between the worm verse and berserk ( the astral realm in particular). This way I would still have a way to write a sequel if I wanted but also have an end.
And instead of deciding it myself it would be more appropriate to let you vote on which of the two is going to happen.
April 16th
Sitting down on the plain new bed, freshly dressed, I decided to start the day with something simple, make a short list of the things I wanted to accomplish. Nothing too ambitious. Just enough structure so I didn't drift.
First, I needed to give Armsmaster the [Aerolite Bars]. I'd promised him I'd hand them over as soon as possible, and he struck me as the sort of man who took promises literally. The kind who would note the exact hour you'd said "soon" and measure you against it.
Second, I wanted to check in on everyone else. I hadn't been told of any casualties, but "no news" wasn't the same as "everyone's fine."
Third, I wanted to know if I was allowed to leave the Rig. If so, I'd head to the diner I worked at, or used to work at. Either way, I still owed them two weeks' notice, and even more than that, I wanted to see how they were holding up. If they weren't doing well, I'd repay the kindness they'd shown me by pitching in however I could.
Fourth, I needed clothes. And other things. The essentials that make life livable. A library visit, too, if there was time, something to read, to keep my brain from chewing itself to pieces in the downtime.
That was as far as I could go without running into the limits of what I didn't know. How badly had Bakuda's bombings damaged the city? What were the PRT's long-term plans for me, now that they had a clearer picture of my potential? Hard to set big goals when the floor could vanish under your feet. For now, I'd have to settle for small steps, one at a time, and hope the next briefing filled in the rest. Surely they'd tell me. Who in their right mind would try to keep important information from a teenage hero they supposedly needed on their side? Especially when it came to harmless, everyday details like where I could go or what I could do at work.
I let out a slow sigh and stood. No point in staring at four blank walls all morning. Within moments I was out of my spartan room and into the white corridors of Protectorate Headquarters.
I had a general idea where Armsmaster's workshop was. He'd told me I could knock on the door of Room 263T-"T" meaning it was a restricted area, "263" placing it on the second floor. My own room was 321C, so I'd need to head down one level and poke around until I found it.
Today's outfit was as unremarkable as it got: plain white shirt, worn jeans. Over my face, the black half-mask they'd given me, covering my eyes and the upper bridge of my nose. With the constant stream of Protectorate members, visiting heroes from other departments, and even a few unaffiliated capes moving through the Rig, the mask wasn't optional. I didn't mind. If anything, it was convenient, one more layer between me and the curious. The sudden influx of heroes in the city was probably thanks to me outing Coil and his plans, which made the mask even more sensible.
The inside of the Rig hardly looked like a repurposed oil platform. Here in the main corridors, it resembled a sterile, government office building, white walls, humming fluorescent lights, the faint smell of recycled air. But I knew the industrial bones were still there. The hangar and the stairwells, for instance, didn't bother to hide their metal skeleton.
The stairwell I entered rang with the sharp, hollow echo of my footsteps on steel. I kept one hand on the railing, partly for balance, my concussion wasn't something I wanted to test, and partly because the steps were steeper than usual, forcing me to move deliberately.
The echo wasn't mine alone. Another voice carried up the shaft, clipped and staccato, the sound of a conversation chopped into bursts by pauses. Probably a phone call. The speaker's tone was hard to pin down, either a deep-voiced woman or a high-pitched man. I couldn't make out words, and I didn't try. Private conversations weren't my business. I cleared my throat softly to announce myself anyway. The voice stopped mid-sentence, and when I rounded the turn, I saw her: plain clothes, pants and a simple shirt, but with an ornate green mask covering her face. She glanced my way; I gave her a polite nod and kept moving until I stepped out onto the second level.
No clue who she was. None of the Worm capes I remembered wore anything like that. Then again, I'd never finished the whole story, skipped most of it past the Leviathan arc and just skimmed the wiki. She was probably one of the out-of-towners drawn here by recent events.
The thought slid away quickly. My focus was on finding Armsmaster's lab.
It took me longer than I'd have liked to find Room 263T. The Rig wasn't a labyrinth in the way of twisting halls and secret doors—it was worse. Every corridor was a perfect copy of the last: gunmetal walls, bulkhead doors that all looked like they could seal in a pressure breach, and the same cold strip-lighting that washed all color into the same sterile gray. The air carried that faint tang of the sea overlaid with a chemical-clean scent, the kind you didn't notice right away until you realized it was everywhere.
By the time I found the stenciled numbers on the steel wall, I'd passed more security cameras than people. The whole place had the quiet of somewhere that was meant to be occupied, but only under supervision.
Inside, the atmosphere shifted immediately. The room was a tinker's sanctum, pristine but humming with restrained power. I could feel the low electric thrum in my chest more than I could hear it. The walls were lined with meticulously organized stations: racks of tools that could be medical instruments in one light, industrial equipment in another. Everything smelled faintly of heated metal and ozone, the air just a shade warmer than the hall outside.
Armsmaster was there, of course, posture locked in that statue-straight stance, the glow of his HUD faintly reflected in his visor. Beside him, or rather with him, was Dragon. She didn't appear in any visual form, just a blank monitor displaying real-time captions as her voice filled the space.
"Hello! You must be Falkor. Armsmaster has told me quite a lot about you."
Her voice was warm, friendly, pleasant in a way that was carefully designed to be. It was so naturally modulated that, had I not known, I would not have guessed it was synthetic. At the name Falkor, I glanced toward Armsmaster. His nod was as much confirmation as I was going to get that this was my official cape name.
"Only good things, I hope," I said, throwing out the standard line.
"Oh yes. It's rare for him to talk positively about someone at length." There was the faintest thread of amusement under her words, less praise for me than a jab at him. "Though he also mentioned something about an interesting metal you've got access to…"
Polite phrasing, but I heard the pivot. Business now. Armsmaster didn't react, but the subtle turn of his helmet toward me was enough to underline it.
"Oh, right. I wanted to drop them off." I half-turned toward him, asking without asking where they should go.
"If you could, place them on the table to your left, under the light," he said. His voice had the kind of precision that made even simple instructions sound like field orders.
The table was as solid as the rest of the Rig,steel legs bolted to the floor, surface scuffed but spotless. The light above it was bright enough to cast everything else into shadow. Lying along one side were delicate instruments, unfamiliar shapes in brushed metal, all laid out in neat rows like surgical tools awaiting their turn.
One by one, I pulled the Aerolite Bars from storage. The light bent oddly along their surface, making them seem heavier, denser, than their size should allow. Each dull thud against the table was magnified by the silence, until the three-by-three stack sat there like a puzzle waiting to be solved.
That was when I heard the boots,slow, deliberate, the weight in each step unmistakable. Armsmaster approached, gauntleted hand holding something that caught the light in a sharp flash.
A ring. My ring. The [Ring of the Bull]. The gold was plain, unadorned except for the ruby set into it, a drop of crimson in all this metal .
"This was recovered by a PRT agent after you were brought in for medical care," he said, voice unreadable. "I assume it's yours."
"Yes," I answered, a little too quickly. Relief was hard to hide. "I'd been wondering where it ended up." I took it from him, the metal cold against my skin, and slipped it into my pocket. "Thanks. Oh Armsmaster, would it be alright if I left Headquarters today? I've got personal matters to attend to, and I'd rather clear it before doing anything."
His visor tilted just slightly, scanning me. "As long as you have a phone on you at all times and avoid trouble, it shouldn't be a problem."
"Understood."
I gave a small nod to both of them, then stepped back toward the door. Behind me, the Aerolite Bars still sat under their cone of light. Armsmaster stood over them like a sentry. Dragon's voice followed me into the hall, still warm, still measured, but with just enough curiosity in it to make me feel like the moment I'd left, the two of them would lean over that table and start dissecting what I'd brought.
The door shut behind me with a pneumatic hiss, and the Rig's empty corridors swallowed me again.
April 16th
The PRT Headquarters and, by extension, the Wards' headquarters housed in the same building were no longer in use. Bakuda's bombs had seen to that. The structural integrity was compromised so badly that simply being near the place was a gamble, let alone stepping inside. You could almost feel the tension in the air when you passed by, like the whole skeleton of the building was one bad breath away from giving out and collapsing in on itself.
Yesterday, they'd finally put it out of its misery. Controlled explosives, neat little plumes of dust rising in the skyline, and then it was gone. Nothing left but rubble and memories. In its absence, the PRT had scrambled to keep things running. Most of their logistical operations were now scattered across temporary offices, rented spaces that smelled of carpet cleaner and still had the ghosts of old tenant logos on the walls.
The Wards, meanwhile, had been given access to the Rig, at least according to Aegis, when I'd asked if everyone had made it out okay and where I could find them. He didn't make me twist his arm for details, which I appreciated.
As far as casualties went, I'd apparently been the unlucky outlier. No one else had sustained brain-related injuries, and Panacea had handled the rest of the cuts, bruises, and burns like they were inconveniences rather than traumas. Still, not everyone had come away unscathed. Like me, some had lost their homes entirely. Aegis didn't know all the names, he admitted as much, but he mentioned one: Browbeat, a Ward whose family home had been destroyed. They'd chosen to move in with extended relatives up in Boston.
I felt bad for him. Being ripped out of the place you'd known all your life, with no time to adjust or say goodbye, it hit different. I knew exactly how it felt, and the memory wasn't one I liked revisiting.
[Feat Achieved! – Find out who the mystery Ward was!]
[Reward: +1 Silver Random Gacha Ticket!]
So, Browbeat. The name rang a faint bell, like something half-forgotten from the original story. I thought I remembered him… maybe. Could've been a background character. Maybe he'd had Stranger powers, which would explain why my memory kept slipping over him. Didn't matter now, he was Boston's problem, not mine.
Anyway, I was drifting off-topic. At that moment, I was riding in one of the PRT's unmarked vehicles, being ferried off the Rig. My original plan had been a bit more… direct. Something along the lines of jumping off the former oil platform, transforming into my drake form midair, and flying off until I found a quiet place to change back. But apparently, that would have been a front-page headline waiting to happen. The paparazzi were already circling, hungry for shots of the "New dragon Ward: Falkor " after my very public, very messy fight with Lung.
In hindsight, maybe being chauffeured wasn't so bad. There were things I hadn't even considered,basic things, like the fact that my phone and wallet had been in my now-demolished apartment, along with my credit card. My concussion had dulled my awareness of just how much I'd lost in one go. The PRT, for all their flaws, had handled most of it before I'd even thought to ask, replacement phone, emergency funds, even a surprisingly generous stipend to use at my discretion. It was almost unsettling how fast they could make problems disappear when they wanted to.
More importantly, I had my [Ring of the Bull] back. With its synergy alongside the regenerative adaptations from [Protean], it would help accelerate my recovery. Between the two, my brain fog was already thinning.
I was clear-headed enough, at least, to make one decision: I was heading to Emily's. The diner had been my night-shift job before all this, thanks entirely to Henry. The man had taken pity on me when I'd needed it most, given me work when I had no leverage, and ultimately made my emancipation possible. Without him, I'd still be stuck living with that bastard.
I needed to thank him in person. And I needed to tell him I'd found a new job. I was pretty sure he wouldn't mind, truth be told, I'd been on his payroll more out of his charity than any real need for my labor. But even if he didn't care, I did. One day, I'd pay him back for that mercy.
Brockton Bay had once been a city with salt in its veins.
It smelled of brine and diesel, of wet wood and steel, of rope that had been handled by calloused palms a thousand times over. It was a working city, loud, unpolished, and proud of it. The Bay and its docks were its beating heart, a harbor where the cranes never stopped moving and the container yards stretched out like orderly fields of painted steel.
Back then, there was a rhythm to life here. You could stand on the pier at sunrise and hear the gulls crying over the water, the slap of waves against the hulls, the deep bellow of a freighter's horn as it nosed into its berth. Men in heavy coats and women in sturdy boots would shuffle off toward another shift, the air sharp with cold and thick with the smell of coffee from corner diners that stayed open all night. Kids grew up knowing they'd either work the docks or know someone who did. It was as much a part of the city's DNA as the streets themselves.
It wasn't glamorous, not really. The paychecks were steady, though, and steady meant you could buy a house, put food on the table, maybe even save enough to send your kid to college if you were careful. The city's infrastructure, schools, roads, even the little public library on Pewter Street, owed their existence to dock money. Blue collar roots, sure, but they were roots that held.
That was before the sea gave us something we couldn't handle.
Leviathan. The second Endbringer.
He didn't just kill thousands if not hundreds of thousands , he crippled systems. And not in the obvious way some folks liked to imagine in online forums and half-baked fanfics. He didn't go around methodically sinking ships for dramatic effect. There was no slow bleed in the shipping industry from targeted harassment. He didn't need such precision. His way was simpler: he went for the throats of entire coastal cities.
The effect was horrifying in its efficiency.
Shipping was the quiet giant of the modern world,the invisible thing that made life as we knew it possible. Container ships carried the world's goods at a scale no other method could match. They kept prices low, kept stores stocked, kept economies breathing. And shipping, like any giant, had an Achilles' heel: infrastructure.
Without ports, the whole thing collapsed. Ships needed to refuel. Crews needed to rest and resupply. Cargo needed somewhere to be unloaded and processed before it could go anywhere. You couldn't just improvise a deep-water dock out of nothing. Every functioning port was a vital link in a global chain.
Leviathan didn't just break a link here or there, he tore out entire sections, again and again, until the chain was nothing but rusted ends dangling over deep water. Cities that had taken generations to build were reduced to drowned skeletons in hours.
If it had happened once, maybe the world could have recovered. But Leviathan kept coming back.
The adaptation was brutal but inevitable: countries turned inward. Imports became luxuries. Nations leaned hard into self-sufficiency, trading mostly with immediate neighbors. The blue collar markets in some places saw a brief boom as local manufacturing picked up, but long-haul shipping was effectively dead.
And in Brockton Bay, the docks withered.
It was like watching an old friend waste away. The cranes froze in place, their skeletal frames dark against the sky. The great container yards went silent, the only movement the slow creep of weeds through cracked asphalt.
The anger didn't come right away. For a while, people told themselves it would turn around that the contracts would come back, that the ships would return. But months became years, and the work never returned in force. The bitterness started to build, slow and steady, until it boiled over.
The Brockton Bay riots weren't some sudden eruption. They were the final breaking point of people who'd been cornered too long. And the moment that symbolized it, the moment everyone remembered, was when one man, a dockworker with nothing left to lose, sank a massive freighter in the harbor. Not a bombastic act of terror. Just deliberate, calculated ruin. The wreck still sits there, the so-called Boots Graveyard, a rusting blockade and a permanent reminder of what was lost.
Most people assumed that was the end of the Dockworkers Association. And in a way, it was the end of the version that mattered. The name stayed, but the purpose shifted. The massive storage units that had once been filled with imported goods were repurposed to hold raw materials for the city's growing industrial district. Jobs came back, but they were fewer, worse-paying, and more demanding. Enough to keep a roof over your head barely but only if you were willing to work yourself to the bone.
That new reality gave rise to a certain kind of man: overworked, underpaid, bone-tired, and quietly angry at a world that no longer had use for him.
And those men and the women who worked alongside them needed somewhere to go at the end of their shifts.
They went to Emily's.
Emily's wasn't a place you "discovered." You didn't find it in a guidebook or see it mentioned in glowing online reviews. It was the kind of joint you ended up at because it was close, because it was open, and because the coffee never ran out.
It was small and unpretentious, a stubborn holdout from the '80s with red vinyl booths patched in duct tape, Formica tables stained from a thousand cups of black coffee, and a counter lined with stools that squeaked in protest under your weight. A faded jukebox squatted in the corner, its chrome dulled with age, long since disconnected from anything resembling music.
Emily's smelled like grease, strong coffee, and the faint chemical tang of industrial cleaner that never quite scrubbed away the scent of fried food from the walls. The grill hissed and popped behind the counter, the sound underscoring every conversation. Plates hit the pass-through window with a muted clink. The regulars dockhands, machinists, truck drivers nursed mugs between their big, work-worn hands and spoke in the slow, measured tones of people too tired to waste words.
It wasn't pretty. It wasn't meant to be. It existed to feed the tired, to caffeinate the overworked, and to give people a place where the lights were warm and the world outside could be ignored for half an hour.
I'd been coming here since that man dragged me from Barrow to this city , when his nightly drinking habits had made it too hard to sleep. Emily's was where I learned how to drink coffee black because that was how the regulars took it. Where I sat in the corner booth with a plate of fries and listened to dockworkers swap stories that made the whole city seem bigger than it really was.
It had outlived the collapse of the docks, the riots, and the long, slow drain of Brockton Bay's industry. Emily's was one of those places you thought would just keep going, no matter what.
Which is why, when I turned the corner and saw it, my stomach dropped.
The front windows were smashed, jagged teeth of glass still clinging to the frames. Spray paint scrawled the triple-E of the Empire across the front wall, the red still fresh enough to glisten in the afternoon light. The place looked violated. Not closed. Not shut down. Attacked.
Emily's had survived everything the city had thrown at it poverty, neglect, even the occasional bar fight that spilled over from the street. But it hadn't survived this.
And standing there on the sidewalk, staring at the wreckage, I realized that something in me felt the same way.
This chapter is more about making the bay feel more lived in.
I also wanted to make it feel like a real place where people lived and died and not just a place where things went boom!
Anyway the next chapters are going to have more substance in them, more about how the bombings affected the bay, how the people reacted when the dragon and its Oni fell and how the Protectorate big wigs are doing after Kanes revelations.
Before I knew it, I was running into Emily's. The cheap, half-broken door didn't even slow me down; it banged against the wall as I shoved through, and for the first time in my life, the sound didn't feel like home.
The diner had been wrecked. Emily's had never been a five-star establishment, it was a greasy spoon, a hole-in-the-wall that thrived on its regulars and its heart rather than its looks. But now, it looked like an abandoned ruin, as though a pack of hobos had lived here for years and then left in a hurry. Shards of the front window were scattered across the floor, glittering like broken ice. The booths were smashed, the counter knocked sideways, and the cooler that had once been stocked with sodas had been rammed so hard it was embedded in the drywall.
And everywhere, graffiti. The Empire had claimed the walls in thick, ugly strokes, triple E's scrawled on the counter, a large stylized 88 curling across the door, even swastikas sprayed over the ruined furniture.
My gut twisted.
I ran straight past it all, vaulting behind the counter. The cash register was gone, ripped right out, but there was no blood. No stains, no iron tang in the air. Henry wouldn't have let himself be robbed if he was still standing, but at least nothing suggested a fight to the death had taken place.
This wasn't the first time Empire wannabes had harassed the place. They'd always hated the idea of a black man owning and running a successful diner. But they had never been this bold before. Emily's wasn't technically in their territory; it was too close to Protectorate patrols for them to risk a large-scale attack. So how the hell had this happened?
The kitchen told the same story, only worse. The grill was dented and warped as if someone had stomped on it for fun. Pots and pans lay scattered like discarded toys, bent out of shape. The faint black stains on the walls made it obvious that someone had tried to set a fire here before giving up.
Silence pressed down on me, heavier than the sight of the destruction. Emily's had always been alive in its own modest way. Not crowded, but never empty. There had always been three or four people sitting at the counter, Henry shouting orders, the sound of the fryer hissing. Even at its quietest, the place had breathed. Now it felt like a grave.
I shoved a hand into my pocket and pulled out my phone. My hands were shaking so badly that I almost dropped it. Fear? Anger? Both? I couldn't tell. All I knew was the knot in my chest screaming at me to make sure Henry and his girls were safe. I couldn't lose them. Not them. Not another family.
I dialed his number with unsteady fingers. The ringing on the other end sounded hollow, stretched thin in my ears.
then
"Kane? Kane, that you?"
Henry's voice. Low, heavy, the familiar Breton drawl.
Relief punched me in the gut so hard I nearly doubled over.
"Yes! Henry, Jesus Christ, are you alright? What the hell happened? I'm at Emily's right now, the place is trashed. Are you okay? Are the girls okay? What abou-"
"Slow down, boy. Slow down," Henry cut me off, his voice steady but tired. "We're fine. Nobody's hurt, thank the Lord. What about you? We thought you were dead. We saw your apartment get leveled on the news. Bomb right through it. Couldn't reach you, hospital had no records of you. We thought we lost you, Kane. And now you better tell me what the hell you've been doing, scaring me half to death like this."
"God, I'm so sorry." The words spilled out before I could stop them. "I really am. I wasn't in the apartment when it got hit, but I still got caught up in Bakuda's shit. I'm fine, I promise. I ended up in a private hospital, that's why the public records didn't show me. I should've… I should've called. I'm sorry."
"Private hospital?" Henry grunted. "What kind of stunt were you pulling, boy? That doesn't explain why you didn't answer a single goddamn call." There was an edge of humor in his voice now, the kind of ribbing only Henry could lace through worry.
"It's… complicated." I rubbed at my eyes, leaning against the ruined counter. "I got offered a job. A real one. Government-linked. Pays better than anything I'd ever get otherwise. Benefits too. A friend pulled strings for me, vouched for me. That's how I ended up in the private hospital. It's all part of the package."
I hesitated, throat tightening, before forcing the words out. "That's actually why I called. I need to give my two weeks' notice. Henry, I, look, I can't thank you enough for what you've done for me. You took me in when no one else would. You gave me work when I had nothing. Without you, I wouldn't even be standing here. And I hate that I'm doing this now, but I can't pass this up. It's a once-in-a-lifetime shot, and my friend's putting himself on the line for me. I'll never forget what you did for me, sir. I hope you can forgive me."
My eyes squeezed shut. I braced for disappointment, for the heavy silence that would tell me I'd let down the only father figure I had left.
Instead, Henry's booming laughter filled my ear. Rich. Warm. Alive.
"Oh, boy. Oh, boy," he chuckled between belly laughs. "You've got nothing to apologize for, Kane. Not a damn thing. You think I didn't know this day was coming? You think I wanted you stuck here forever, slinging coffee for old drunks till you keeled over like me? I'm proud of you, son. Damn proud. You're spreading your wings, and that's how it should be."
The relief was so sharp it nearly hurt.
"But," Henry added, voice dropping, "truth is, it's for the best. Emily's is done. Closed for good."
"What?!" My voice came out too loud, too sharp. "You can't be serious. Yeah, it's wrecked, but it can be fixed. Hell, I'll pay for it myself if I have to. You can't just close Emily's, Henry! This place has been here forever."
"I can," Henry said, calm but firm. "And I have to. Money ain't the problem. It's this city. I can't keep a business running here anymore. Not with the Empire expanding like they are. Not with the ABB gutted. The PRT's tied up with that crazed bomber , and the Empire's running wild. I've got two daughters, Kane. I can't leave them without a father just so I can stand my ground in a city that doesn't want me anymore. We're already out. We're in Jersey with my sister. Safe. And that's how it's gonna stay."
I bit the inside of my cheek. I should have seen this coming. Without Lung or Oni Lee, the Empire would have no rival gang to keep them in check. Bakuda was technically still keeping the ABB going, but she wouldn't be a free woman for long, not with the shit-ton of attention she's drawing on a national stage. The PRT would squash her like a bug soon, probably right after they got Coil. So during the bombing spree the Empire could run free, ruining the lives of so many people. They would probably go cold for a while lay low once the PRT brought out the big guns and wait until everything returned to the status quo, their capes outnumbering ours.
Fuck that. No seriously, I wouldn't let that happen. I know who Keiser is in his civilian identity. I would make sure the Empire crumbled before I had to leave. At least I was assuming the PRT would make me leave, stationing me directly under one of the Triumvirate now that they knew what my actual power was. It would not make sense otherwise. Why waste me on this city? And if I was honest with our Henry and his family here, I didn't have much tying me to the Bay. Sure, the other Wards seemed nice and so did most of the Protectorate members, but I had only lived in Brockton Bay for a tiny fraction of my life. Before I left, though, I would make sure Henry got his city back.
Stay safe, Kane. Call me when you can. And don't scare me like that again."
"I will," I said, my voice tight with a promise I didn't know how to explain. "You stay safe too, Henry."
When the call ended, I stood in the wreckage of the diner, my phone heavy in my hand. The graffiti on the walls sneered down at me, daring me to walk away.