Let's reach 250 Power Stones for an extra chapter
***
Fluorescent lights hum overhead, casting harsh shadows on evidence boards plastered with warehouse wreckage photos, crude Apemon sketches, and blurry outlines of a hooded figure. Detectives cluster around a scarred table littered with reports, open laptops, and half-empty coffee mugs. Steam curls from fresh brews. Captain George Stacy stands at the head, arms folded tight across his chest, jaw locked, eyes drilling into each face.
"Talk to me, people. What do we have on this warehouse hit?"
Detective Ramirez shifts in his seat, flips a report.
"Boss, blast took out half the east wall. No fatalities, thanks to quick evac. Witnesses babble about a 'monkey demon'—your Apemon call fits. Red eyes, bone club. Smashed pillars like matchsticks."
Stacy nods sharp, leans forward.
"And the controller? Hooded guy with the smoke bombs?"
Murphy rubs his neck, glances at Davies.
"Nothing solid. Grainy CCTV shows him directing the beast. Military build, tactical gear. Vanished in the smoke. Forensics pulled residue—some kinda exotic chem, not ours."
Stacy slams a palm on the table. Mugs rattle.
"Civilians are sitting ducks if this pair's loose. Apemon's no random zoo escape—it's targeted. That soldier type? He's got agenda. Corruption talk? Sounds like eco-terrorist crap, or worse."
Ramirez taps his laptop.
"Cross-checked manifests. No matches on the figure. But chatter from Feds—SHIELD's sniffing around similar 'anomalies.' Want in?"
Stacy straightens, voice steel.
"Tell 'em we're lead here. NYPD doesn't hand off city threats. Double patrols near warehouses. Canvas witnesses again—someone saw that face."
Detectives murmur assent, scribble notes. Tension coils thicker. Stacy eyes the Apemon sketch, mind flashing to Gwen's late nights, her evasive texts.
"Move. We ID this controller, or next blast's on us."
Chairs scrape. Team disperses. Stacy lingers, staring at the board, protective instinct gnawing deeper.
Hours drag on. Coffee grows cold. Detectives slump over files until Ramirez straightens, nods sharp.
"Got him, Captain."
He taps keys. The large screen flickers alive. Marcus "Raze" Thorne fills it—scarred cheek bisecting a hard jaw, cold blue eyes piercing from tactical hood, broad shoulders straining black gear. Overlaid text scrolls: ex-U.S. Army Special Forces, Project Chimera black-ops. Cybernetic enhancements for classified wetwork. Unit betrayed mid-mission—command hung them out to dry against hostiles. Thorne sole survivor, scarred inside out. Now rogue vigilante, torching "corrupt systems." Commands beasts like that monkey demon. Independent operator—no SHIELD ties.
Detectives lean forward. Postures snap rigid. Vindication ripples through murmurs.
"Son of a bitch," Murphy mutters. "Explains the precision hits."
George Stacy leans in sharp, eyes narrowing on Thorne's glare.
"Current location. Now."
Room hushes. Davies cues feeds. Grainy CCTV blooms: Thorne lurks at the edge of a power grid substation, chain-link shadows swallowing his form. He crouches predatory, scanning conduits under sodium glow.
Stacy straightens, fist clenches subtle on scarred oak. Resolve steels his voice.
"Teams to the substation—intercept, contain. No hot pursuit if he's wired that beast. Raid his last known: derelict bunker in Red Hook. Full sweep for intel, weapons, that monkey."
Officers snap to. Radios crackle.
[Dispatch: Units 7 and 12, converge on grid site. Code black.]
Boots thud purposeful. Gear clatters—vests zip, holsters click. Ramirez grabs keys.
"On it, Cap."
Davies slaps Stacy's shoulder.
"We'll bag him."
Stacy nods once, jaw tight.
"Alive. He talks, we unravel this."
Precinct pulses alive. Doors bang. Engines rumble outside. Stacy eyes the screen, Thorne's shadow lingering. Gwen's face flashes unbidden—her stories of artifacts, dark bonds. He shoves it down. Duty first.
Teams roll out. Night claims the hunt.
Door clicks shut. George sinks into his leather chair, rubs his temples. Fluorescent hum fades as he grabs his phone, thumb punches Gwen's number.
"Gwen? Listen—NYPD ID'd your warehouse monkey's handler. Marcus Thorne, ex-Special Forces rogue. Scarred face, tactical gear. Calls himself Raze. He's bonded to that Apemon somehow. Stay sharp, call if you spot him."
Gwen's voice crackles firm. "Got it, Dad. We'll handle it."
Click. George stares at Thorne's mugshot, jaw tight.
* * *
High-voltage lines hum ceaselessly overhead, their drone weaving through razor-wire fences that slice the late afternoon light into jagged patterns across humming transformers. NYPD cruisers skid to abrupt halts along the perimeter, tires biting gravel, sirens whooping sharp before silence claims the air. SWAT officers spill out in practiced waves, black gear gleaming under the dying sun, rifles leveled steady, boots crunching chain-link shadows as they fan into tactical formation. Tension coils like the wires above, palpable in the subtle shifts of gloved hands on stocks.
Marcus Thorne steps from the gloom near a control panel, his silhouette uncoiling deliberate from the substation's skeletal embrace. The scarred line bisecting his left cheek catches a stray beam, pulling taut as he adjusts his tactical mask. Posture remains loose yet primed, shoulders squared against the encroaching circle. The Shadowstone pulses faint at his chest, a dull obsidian gleam half-veiled by reinforced fabric.
"Hands where we can see 'em! On your knees!"
The lead officer's bark echoes off metal housings. Thorne's lips curl in a measured smirk, arms lifting slow in feigned compliance, palms open to the arrayed muzzles. His cold blue eyes sweep the ring—counting stances, noting the tremor in a rookie's grip, the veteran's forward lean.
"No warrant. No charges read. You fishing, or just itching for overtime?"
Voices overlap in barked overrides, batons twitching upward, rifles inching tighter to shoulders. The circle contracts, boots scraping forward in unison, procedural edge fraying into something rawer. Thorne holds, unmoving save for the faint tilt of his head, assessing each face as memory flickers unbidden: the wet crunch of his squad's betrayal, screams swallowed by foreign fire, the scar's hot bloom across bone. Yielding tastes like surrender then. Now, it lingers bitter on his tongue.
* * *
Miles away, in the precinct's dimming bullpen, George's desk phone shrills insistent, cutting through the hush of cooling fluorescents. He snatches it mid-ring, receiver cold against his palm.
"Stacy."
Ramirez's voice crackles tight from the raid line. "Captain—bunker hit paydirt. Blueprints everywhere: grid sabotage, water mains, transit hubs. Notes on that stone artifact, control diagrams for beast ops. Terrorist goldmine. Warrants hotter than hell now."
George's free hand drums once on scarred oak, knuckles whitening brief as the pieces slot home—Gwen's fragmented reports, the warehouse smoke, a father's gnawing doubt easing into resolve. Face hardens to grim lines, years of cases etching deeper the furrows at his eyes.
"Copy all. Dispatch—full authorization. Take him breathing if you can. He's got answers we need."
He hangs up deliberate, exhales measured, the weight of command settling familiar across shoulders bowed by time's quiet toll. Outside, engines rev distant. The hunt tightens.
Lead officer thumbs his radio. "Dispatch, confirming visual on Thorne. Advancing for arrest—warrant secured."
He steps forward, cuffs glinting, three feet from Marcus. "Thorne, you're under arrest for terrorism. Hands behind your back. Now."
Marcus's eyes narrow. Fingers flex toward the Shadowstone, its obsidian core throbbing faint purple under his vest. Blue gaze locks cold on the officer's face—one twitchy rookie sweats, another grips too tight.
"You boys picked the wrong fence to rattle."
Marcus takes out his shadowstone. He presses the stone deliberately. Dark veins crackle across its surface, air thickens with ozone snap.
CRACKLE-BOOM
Data erupts in a swirling vortex—golden fur coalesces mid-roar, massive ape form solidifies, bone club gripped two-fisted. Apemon towers twelve feet, yellow pelt rippling, red eyes blazing feral. Club whistles overhead.
Apemon charges. Bone slams first cruiser hood—metal crumples inward. Officers scatter ragdoll, boots airborne, rifles clatter pavement. Second swing crumples a grille, fuel ignites in orange whoosh.
KA-RUNCH
Sirens wail frantic restarts. Thorne ducks low, rolls into transformer shadow as cruisers spin wild, headlights strobe chaos. Apemon bellows, shoulders through the line—cuffs fly, radios shatter.
"Open fire!"
Bullets crack the air, stitching sparks across Apemon's fur. The beast roars, club shattering a cruiser's windshield in glass rain.
Marcus dives into transformer shadows, Shadowstone clutched tight. CRASH—metal twists, officers dive behind wrecks.
Sirens wail shrill, piercing the smoke haze. "Flank him! Call backup!"
Apemon rears back. Club arcs high. WHOOSH
Officers fire. Bullets ping off fur—sparks fly harmless. The beast's metallic pelt absorbs impacts, turning lead to fireworks that expose no weak spots.
Apemon leaps. Crushes hood. CRUNCH
First cop dives—club whistles past, shatters transformer in blue arc. Thorne slips fence gap, smirking as chaos shields retreat.
"Regroup! He's too—"
Apemon grabs Ramirez mid-yell. Hoists him skyward. Sirens scream louder.
***
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