The Dawn Knight, a silhouette against the garish Manhattan neon, descended with the silent, controlled grace of a falling blade, landing squarely in the middle of Ninth Avenue. His goal was not to engage in combat, but to gather raw data—and the easiest way to assess the city's immediate threat level was often through its mundane, desperate crimes.
Speeding toward him was a heavy armored transport truck, its engine roaring—the classic symbol of a late-night bank robbery getaway. The driver, a bald man whose face was a mask of sweat and adrenaline, saw the imposing figure ahead but made no move to brake.
Instead, he stubbornly pressed the accelerator, determined to communicate one simple message: "I am not stopping for a costume." Behind the truck, two patrol cars wailed in futile pursuit, their sirens swallowed by the deeper, more urgent rumble of the truck's diesel engine.
The Dawn Knight offered no warning. Just as the truck, hurtling at nearly eighty miles per hour, reached the point of impact, Zhou Yi simply raised his right hand.
The instant his palm connected with the steel grille, the armored vehicle violently arrested its forward motion. It was not a collision, but a cessation. The kinetic energy that should have crumpled the suit—and the man inside it—was instantly redirected and nullified by a telekinetic field extending from his gauntlet, which acted as a dynamic, invisible crumple zone.
The truck's massive tires spun wildly against the asphalt, shrieking in protest as they shed vast clouds of thick, acrid smoke, burning rubber into the night. It looked as if time itself had frozen the vehicle in mid-triumph.
The bald driver, jolted against his restraints, leaned out his right window, a standard issue heavy-caliber handgun shaking in his grip. His eyes, wide with the terror of a cornered animal, fixed on the man who had stopped a multi-ton vehicle with one hand. His confusion was palpable; he was ready to kill a cop, but hesitated to fire on a being that defied physics.
Zhou Yi, his helmeted gaze steady, allowed a flicker of amusement to cross his face inside the mask. He needed compliance, not a mess. He brought his free left hand up, curling his fingers into the shape of a gun, and pointed it at the truck's passenger-side rearview mirror.
In a contained, precise display of power, an invisible psionic shockwave struck the mirror. The glass, the plastic casing, and the underlying metal bracket didn't merely break; they atomized.
The resulting debris, compressed by the force field, formed a tight, baseball-sized chunk of pulverized matter that spun harmlessly into the street. It was a surgical, non-lethal declaration of absolute force: I can disintegrate the mirror without touching the door. Do you think I can't do the same to your head?
The driver swallowed hard, his bravado evaporating like morning dew. He watched in dread as the Dawn Knight raised that same left hand, pointed one finger directly at the gun he held, and performed a quick, decisive flick. The driver understood the command instantly. With a whimper, he tossed the weapon onto the street.
Moments later, the pursuing police cars skidded to a stop, the uniformed officers practically vibrating with the relief of a chase ended. They barely glanced at the superhero, now accustomed to his outlandish methods, as they excitedly swarmed the driver's door.
Handcuffed and subdued, the bald driver seemed almost relieved to be dealing with the conventional, ticket-and-jail-time reality of the NYPD, rather than the terrifying, unpredictable justice of the vigilante who could weaponize air pressure.
As the chaotic arrest unfolded, a large, kindly-faced officer named Andrew detached himself from the scene and walked up to Zhou Yi. He offered a warm smile, his hand already extended.
"Thank you, Dawn Knight. That chase felt like it was going to end in a pile of twisted metal. My son, Billy—he's nine—is your biggest fan. Any chance I could trouble you for an autograph? He'd be over the moon to know I met you."
Zhou Yi accepted the proffered hand and the small, worn notebook. This simple human interaction was a fascinating counterpoint to the cosmic terror he had faced moments ago. It was a reminder of the fragility he fought to protect.
"It would be my pleasure, Andrew," Zhou Yi replied, his voice a calm counterpoint to the flashing blue lights. "You have a loving family, it seems." He quickly penned a note and his stylized sun-burst emblem. "To Billy! Stay brave and always listen to your father. – The Dawn Knight."
"Oh, he'll love that," Andrew beamed, clutching the book like a lottery ticket. "He's always asking me to make him those posters of you, the one where you stopped that runaway school bus last year."
Zhou Yi seized the opening, transitioning seamlessly from fan service to vital intelligence gathering. "Andrew, since you patrol these parts, could you do me a favor? I'm investigating something peculiar—have you noticed any recent anomalies in the disappearance of the city's marginalized population? People whose absence wouldn't immediately raise an alarm?"
Andrew stroked his chin, his demeanor shifting into a professional but confused seriousness.
"Hmm. The disappearances... not officially, no. But now that you mention it, my beat partner, Sal, was grumbling the other day. He said the Red-Light District and the usual hangouts for the addicts have gone…quiet. Too quiet. He said the pimps and the lowest-tier dealers seem to be lying low or maybe just gone. We used to get weekly calls down there, but it's been eerily safe lately."
Andrew then leaned in, his eyes wide. "Sir, is this about something serious? Is it the Triads? Do you need backup?"
Zhou Yi nodded slowly. The "eerie safety" was confirmation—the R-variants had found their perfect, invisible feeding grounds among the city's forgotten, where the constant flow of transient life made every disappearance deniable.
"Andrew, this is significantly more dangerous than anything in your rotation. I need you to pass this warning to your colleagues: Beware the shadows. Avoid dark places tonight. What is operating in those low-tide zones is not human, and your sidearms will not stop it."
With that final, grave instruction, Zhou Yi gave a slight bow and engaged his anti-gravity lift. He rose vertically, silently, disappearing into the upper echelons of the night sky, leaving Andrew scratching his head in profound bewilderment before reluctantly relaying the impossible warning over his radio.
As Zhou Yi soared toward the chaotic, forgotten veins of the city, he engaged in a brief, necessary introspection.
The transition from the calculated, secretive manipulation of his earlier experiments to this full-fledged superhero mantle had been surprisingly seamless. He had initially viewed the Dawn Knight persona as a useful political tool—a weapon to neutralize threats to his sister, Sharice, and to protect his research.
But the reality was more intoxicating. He was not a mere philanthropist. The adoration, the breathless media coverage, the genuine, pure worship in the eyes of people like the officer and his son—this was the true fuel.
He possessed extraordinary power, and that power demanded an extraordinary platform. He was designed, psychically and intellectually, to stand above, to be venerated. The role of the savior, the unstoppable force of order, was not a burden; it was a psychological necessity.
Zhou Yi was born to be the Sun, and the adulation of the grateful populace was the nourishing energy he craved. To use his power for good was simply the most effective, most sustainable way to secure that constant source of admiration and self-affirmation.
I will protect this city, not just for Sharice, but because the world needs to see me do it, he concluded, the thought settling the complex equation of his existence.
Zhou Yi arrived high above the designated hot spots—the abandoned warehouses and derelict apartment blocks near the chaotic nexus of the Red-Light District. He engaged the full diagnostic suite of the Type II armor: Deep-Spectrum Thermal, Passive Infra-Red, and Advanced Bio-Signature Scanners.
The visual evidence was sparse—darkened buildings, littered alleyways, and the usual tell-tale signs of human vice. But the sensor data was chillingly conclusive.
His thermal sensors, tuned to detect the slightly elevated body heat of active vampires, found nothing. Instead, they revealed pockets of ambient, unnatural cold—locations where the temperature had suddenly plummeted during a struggle, consistent with the R-variant's feeding cycle and rapid metabolic shift.
His bio-scanners found minute quantities of blood spray, not of the traditional, slow-clotting vampiric strain, but a hyper-oxygenated, rapidly degrading human arterial spray. The attacks had been fast, violent, and messy.
Yet, despite the clear signs of brutality, there were no corpses.
Not a single body, not a half-eaten victim, and critically, no newly converted, aimlessly wandering R-variants. If this was a random, virus-driven outbreak, the alleyways should have been strewn with half-eaten victims, and the newly turned mutants should have been blindly pursuing the first source of blood they found.
They are not aimless, Zhou Yi realized, the dread a cold knot in his stomach. The R-variants are acting with planning.
This meant that Chadnoma—the original, terrifying R-variant—was not only a virulent carrier but was also exercising a form of control, forcing her grotesque offspring to retreat, or perhaps even using them as highly effective, disposable soldiers.
The captured victims—the converted hosts—were being systematically removed from the scene, denying the authorities any concrete evidence of the scale of the crisis. The silence Andrew had noticed was not because the predators had left, but because they had become too efficient.
The initial investigation was a failure in terms of location, but a terrifying success in terms of intelligence. The enemy was organized, disciplined, and operating in plain sight by removing all evidence.
As the pre-dawn glow began to touch the eastern horizon, Zhou Yi knew he could not risk remaining in the city. The full power of the Dawn Knight was limited by the solar clock. He needed to be fully recharged, both physically and technologically, before the nocturnal creatures rose again.
With a final, heavy sigh, Zhou Yi turned his trajectory east, flying high over the Atlantic toward his secluded, heavily shielded laboratory base near the Outer Sea of Long Island. The night's reconnaissance was over; the preparation for war was just beginning.
Time, indeed, accelerates on the eve of a momentous event. The sun, having barely touched the zenith, began its swift decline, casting long, menacing shadows across Brooklyn—a clear herald of the age of nocturnal terror.
The meeting point, an abandoned trolley terminal, was a stark contrast to Zhou Yi's subterranean, high-tech fortress.
Located deep within the forgotten industrial zones of Brooklyn, it was a cavernous, dilapidated structure—a monument to failed urban planning, covered in dust, rust, and generations of graffiti. It was an environment born of necessity and survival, not wealth or design.
This was Blade's outpost.
For Eric Brooks, the Daywalker, luxury was an irrelevant concept. His early life, marred by the vampiric attack on his mother, had been one of brutal survival on the streets.
Found by the old, weary vampire hunter John Whistler, Blade had been adopted into a life of nomadic, impoverished warfare. Whistler, an old-school hunter whose personal life was ruined by the creatures he hunted, had little money to offer.
Blade, perpetually divorced from human normalcy by his vampiric genetics and violent urges, couldn't hold down a regular job. They were an army of two, funded by desperation and whatever minimal, illicit means they could find.
This derelict terminal had been transformed, over the past decade, from a simple shelter into a rough-hewn war base. The exterior was a wreck, easily dismissed by police and gangs; the interior was a tightly secured labyrinth of rigged explosives and infrared motion detectors.
Yet, it was still a desperate, one-star base, defined by constant peril. It had been raided and nearly destroyed more than once—a grim reminder of the price of his commitment.
Inside the vast, echoing space, under the harsh glare of work lamps, Blade stood with his two trusted lieutenants: the older, tweed-clad Analyst and the thin, wiry Mechanic. They were focused on a large, scarred workbench covered in weaponry. The air smelled strongly of gun oil, burnt powder, and freshly melted silver.
Blade, clad in his signature black leather, was engaged in the meticulous, life-or-death ritual of equipment inspection. Unlike Zhou Yi, whose power stemmed from his own mind and the high-tech suit he wore, Blade's formidable skills were amplified and often defined by his specialized arsenal.
"The Silver Nitrate Explosives," Blade rasped, pointing a gloved hand at a rack of small, tightly packed canisters. "Pure area-denial, sufficient to cover the initial spread. The R-variants are fast; we need to flatten the curve on the street level."
The Mechanic carefully checked the fusing on each one, his eyes intense.
"The Silver Arrows and Stakes," Blade continued, moving to a long case lined with polished wood. These were his tools for the purebloods—the Vampire Guard they would soon be meeting.
Purebloods, with their vastly superior vitality, regeneration, and ancient resistance, could often shrug off mere silver nitrate. Only a full, penetrating stake or a concentrated dose of liquid silver to the vital organs would suffice.
Finally, he lifted his preferred weapon: the silver-plated katana. The sword, polished to a mirror sheen that reflected the grim lighting of the terminal, was not just a tool; it was an extension of his martial mastery. It was the weapon that earned him his moniker, the implement that had felled countless powerful, centuries-old vampires.
Every screw, every edge, every dose of fluid was checked, rechecked, and then checked again. A small mistake—a misfired explosive, a dull stake, a clogged mechanism on a UV flash bomb—would not merely mean failure; it would mean an instantaneous, violent death against creatures designed to hunt them.
Blade's eyes, hidden behind his sunglasses, narrowed as he finished his inspection. He was ready for the arrival of the enemy, and the even more treacherous arrival of the allies who intended to betray them. The night had only just begun.