Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It started the way it always did.

Wind screaming past, clouds slashing overhead, three streaks of color carving through the sky—red, blue, green. Townsville sprawled beneath them, all rooftops and flashing billboards and streets too narrow to matter. The city wasn't important. Winning was.

Brick surged ahead, jaw clenched, shoulders locked, every muscle pulling taut against the air. His brothers flanked him, close but not close enough, and behind them—too close, too fucking close—three more streaks. Pink, a softer blue, a lighter green.

The Girls.

His red eyes narrowed as he glanced over his shoulder, catching a glimpse of Blossom's determined face, her long copper hair snapping behind her like a battle flag. She'd tied it back with that stupid red bow, the one she'd been wearing since they were five. Brick had yanked it off once, held it over her head while she jumped for it. That was back when he could still get away with that kind of thing. Before she got faster. Before she got stronger.

The pressure in his chest had nothing to do with how fast they were flying and everything to do with the fact that they were losing. Again. Always losing lately.

Three years ago, the Rowdyruffs had been unstoppable. Three years ago, they'd had the Powerpuffs running scared. But things changed. Maybe it was training, or discipline, or focus, Brick Mojo didn't really know what the hell it was.

But somehow the Girls kept getting stronger.

And somewhere along the way, they'd pulled ahead.

The concrete towers of Townsville blurred underneath them, just smudges of gray against green. They'd already blasted through downtown, set off at least sixteen car alarms, cracked another two dozen windows, and made some old lady drop her groceries. Not that any of that had been the plan. That part was just for the fun of it, honestly.

It was supposed to be a simple bank job. Quick in, quick out, rubbing their victory in the Girls' faces while they counted their cash. But then the Girls had shown up, and everything had gone sideways.

Like it always did lately.

Buttercup was laughing now. She wasn't even trying to hide it. "Damn, is this seriously your top speed?" Her black hair was cropped short, practical, nothing to grab in a fight. Smart. Her green eyes glittered with the thrill of the chase, lips curled back to expose teeth in what might have been a smile but looked more like something a predator would do before it struck. "Maybe we should go chase some Go-Karts for a workout, girls."

Her voice hit Brick like a slap but he ignored it as best he could, even as he could hear Butch growling to his right, knuckles cracking as his fists clenched tighter.

"Buttercup," Blossom warned. Cool, calm, always trying to pretend she was the responsible one. "We're over the city—"

"So what? They started it!"" Buttercup shot back, accelerating with an effortless burst that made Brick's jaw clench. "Also, not like they care about collateral damage. We'd just be cleaning up their mess anyway."

Brick barely heard them. Didn't matter. Didn't fucking matter. What mattered was the last three years. Every fight. Every chase. Every time they got knocked down and didn't get back up fast enough.

They were made to be stronger. Mojo's perfect weapons.

Better than the Girls. And for a while, they had been.

Even after the girls beat them.

Killed them, he meant.

When their second dad brought them back, he made them perfectly imperfect like the Girls, refined the raw Chemical X in their systems with his power the way only someone like His Infernal Majesty could.

Made them real hellspawn to defeat Townsville's perfect little angels.

More than that, he made them stronger than the Girls.

They'd slammed them into the pavement, laughed in their faces, sent them crawling back to their dumb Professor in tears. But that was before.

Before the Girls started catching up. Before they started winning.

Three years.

Three whole years of infuriating, maddening, unrelenting beatdowns.

Each one easier than the last for the Girls, and every single one more humiliating for him and his Boys.

Now? Now Brick was sick and tired of being a loser.

They weren't Fuzzy Lumpkins. They weren't the Gangreen Gang. And they weren't some dumb run-of-the-mill kaiju either.

They were the Rowdyruff Boys.

His red cap nearly tore off his head from the speed. He reached up, jammed it down harder on his head, his super-long mullet trailing behind him and merging with his light trail. A crimson comet trailing red in the sky like raw fire. Power surged through his veins, hot and electric as his hands curled into tighter fists, knuckles straining white against skin as he flew with one arm in front of him . The red jacket and black t-shirt he wore flapped around his torso, the friction of his raw speed flapping it against his chest.

"Watch it!" Butch snarled from his right, green eyes wild as he narrowly avoided a collision with a passing flock of birds. The birds scattered, panicked squawks lost in the wake of their passage. He had that look in his eyes, Brick could tell. That twitchy, manic gleam that meant he was about to definitely do something catastrophically stupid. Especially with the way his hands kept clenching and unclenching, knuckles almost glowing with stored energy wanting to be unleashed. The collar of his green shirt was ripped, probably from one of Buttercup's wilder grabs earlier.

Butch's black hair stood on end, not from the wind but just naturally. Brick knew Butch would never ever try to tame it in the slightest, but he doubted even trying to work on Butch's spiky head would do a thing. If he had to make a guess, it probably stayed up like that from the constant current of energy that ran through him, never letting him stay still. "Stupid birds!"

"Aww, they're just trying to fly!" Boomer shot back from Brick's left, his voice carrying that earnest edge that made Brick want to smack him sometimes. His blond hair was as soft as usual, but still had the habit of sticking up at a few odd angles, sometimes different ones weirdly enough. Boomer's blue eyes darted everywhere, as if trying to take in the entire sky at once.

He was allways distracted, allways noticing the wrong things.

"I'm bored," Butch announced, voice thrumming with that barely contained energy that never seemed to let him rest. "Let's ditch these chumps and find something worth breaking."

They're still on our tail, dumbass," Brick snapped, eyes forward. Always forward. Never looking back because looking back meant admitting how close the Girls always were.

"Um, guys?" Boomer broke in, voice higher than usual. His blond hair whipped around his face, making him look younger than twelve. "I think that's Ms. Keane's car down there. You know, the nice teacher lady?"

"Who cares?" Butch snarled, even as his eyes darted down to check. "You gonna cry for some stupid civilian, Boom-Boom?"

"No! I just—"

"Race to the ocean," Brick interrupted, voice sharp over the wind. "And back."


"Race to Africa," Brick snapped at their feminine doppelgangers, voice sharp as it carried over the wind. "And back."

Boomer blinked, clearly confused. "But—"

"But what?" Brick's eyes flashed. "Scared?"

"No!" His head snapped over to Brick. "But we're supposed to be robbing the bank, remember? Mojo said—"

Brick didn't stop as he returned his attention to the girls. "You catch us, you can take us in, no fighting."

Butch angled in closer, iris twitching in that way that meant his blood was up. His smile stretched too wide across his face. "What, afraid you're gonna lose again, Butterbitch?"

Buttercup's laughter cut off as her eyes narrowed to tight green slits, body tensing visibly as she accelerated. "You're on."

"Buttercup, wait—" Bubbles started, pigtails whipping in the gale-force winds they were creating.

Blossom's eyebrows pinched together, pink eyes darting toward the ocean in the distance, then back to the Boys, as her hair whipped behind her in a copper stream. "This isn't necessary—"

"What's wrong?" Brick locked eyes with her, slowing just enough to make her think she was catching up. "Scared?"

The spark ignited in those pink eyes. Every time. So easy, so predictable. "Fine. To the coast of Africa and back. Then you surrender."

"Then we surrender," Brick agreed, voice cool.

I'd rather die again.

Bubbles hung back, biting on her her lower lip, those big blue eyes darting between her sisters and the boys like she was watching a baking soda volcano about to explode in the biggest way all over her and couldn't decide whether to watch or run. "Wait, guys, maybe we shouldn't-"

"THREE!" Buttercup roared at the top of her lung, shaking so hard like she couldn't wait to launch her green ass forward like someone had lit it on fire.


"TWO!" Butch countered, vibrating in place just like his green girl-version, that weird twitch in his eye speeding up until it looked like he might actually explode if they didn't start moving RIGHT FUCKING NOW.

"ONEGOOOOO!" Boomer shrieked, his voice shattering halfway through like glass hitting concrete, that stupid excitement that always screwed them over.

They tore into the sky, air shredding behind them.

Brick didn't waste breath on counting. He just flew, pulling ahead of his brothers, leaning into the air pressure like it was something solid he could push against. The sound barrier cracked around him, air compressing, then decompressing instantly as he punched through it. Butch and Boomer followed in tight formation with him, green and blue streaks visible only because his eyes were designed to track at these speeds.

The sky darkened as they climbed higher, blue giving way to a deeper indigo. Air thinned, his breath unbothered by the lack of it but something he noticed anyway. They hadn't gone this high in a while; space was boring, after all.

And aliens were too far away to have any fun with them, too.

The Girls matched them. Of course they did.

Buttercup shot past them in a green blur, fucking taunting them even as he tried to shut out her words. Brick's teeth ground together. "C'mon!" His brothers flanked him again, matching speed. Faster. Faster. Faster.

"They're passing us!" Boomer's voice pitched high with panic. "We gotta go faster! We can't lose again!" Boomer didn't even notice how hard they weren't trying. Sometimes Brick wished he could be as dense as either of them, but someone needed to be the brains of this outfit.

"Shut up and fly!" Butch snarled, his body vibrating with that barely-contained energy that always made it seem like he was about to explode. His eyes were bright, almost feverish. "I'm not getting beat by those sissies again!"

Brick couldn't see anything but pink. Fucking pink. The same pink that had been beating them for years now. The same pink that always seemed half a step ahead, no matter what he tried. Blossom glanced over her shoulder, red hair streaming behind her like some shampoo commercial. Her expression shifted - that brief flicker where confidence buckled under uncertainty.

There it is.

Her eyes widened just enough to know she'd finally caught on that something wasn't right. That this time would be different. That she should be scared.

The numbers ticked up in his head - Mach 250, 300, 350, force multiplying exponentially, air molecules incinerating on contact with their bodies.

Not enough. Not even close.

The wind bent around them, no longer resisting but being forced aside. The air became a solid thing, a wall they crashed through with each movement. Molecules split apart in their wake, unable to maintain cohesion at these speeds. The familiar tingle of Chemical X burned through Brick's system, pushing him beyond what should have been possible.

Brick pushed harder, feeling his brothers struggling to keep up. Something in his chest tightened, a pressure building there that he knew from experience meant they were approaching their limits. The Boys had never been able to reach this speed safely in atmosphere, not until recently. Not like the Girls who got this fast months ago. Another reminder of how things were slipping away.

"What's the matter, Boys? Can't keep up?" Blossom's voice carried over the rush of air, breaking physics in the way that came naturally to the instinctive aspects of Chemical X. Always in control. Always one step ahead.

Brick's jaw clenched so hard something in his temple throbbed painfully. The scenery blurred beneath them, mountains and valleys and forests all bleeding together into a smear of color.

That voice. That fucking know-it-all, I'm-so-perfect voice with the unspoken "I'm disappointed in you" lurking underneath everything she said. Like she was some teacher and he was some dumbass student who couldn't keep up. His cells burned from the inside out, Chemical X pushing his body past what Mojo had designed it for, past what HIM had enhanced it to withstand. Way the fuck beyond what they'd trained for.

He didn't give a shit. Winning would make it worth it.

The Atlantic vanished beneath them, replaced by the sudden sprawl of Africa, yellow-brown landmass stretching to the curve of the planet. The coastline jutted and twisted like some jagged wound where land met sea, details weirdly hyper-focused from the adrenaline and speed. Blossom reached the turning point first, banking hard over the water, arms flung wide like she was making sure everyone could see her perfect form. The ocean erupted behind her, surface tension obliterated by her wake, creating a wall of water that would probably show up on tsunami warnings.

"There they go! THERE THEY GO AGAIN!" Boomer's voice cracked and splintered, pitching up into ranges only dogs should have to suffer through. He always did that, his voice breaking down right along with his confidence. "They're getting ahead! Brick, do something!"

Butch didn't bother turning his head, just unleashed a sound somewhere between a growl and a burp, teeth grinding loud enough that Brick could hear it over the air-splitting roar of their passage. His right eye twitched double-time, the little tic that always meant the crazy bastard was about to do something catastrophically stupid if they didn't win soon. "Nnnggrffkk... NOT TODAY... NOT THESE GIRLS!"

Brick's molars ground together, familiar and aggravating patterns playing out.

Every. Single. Time.

The Girls weren't even trying, just instinctively moving together like some three-headed beast. Buttercup surged ahead, all compact aggression and forward momentum. Bubbles and Blossom slid into perfect flanking positions, effortlessly keeping pace.

No fighting over who got to lead. No random course deviations because someone thought they saw a cool bird. Just three parts of a precision instrument built specifically to make Brick feel like complete shit.

"Oopsie-daisy, you guys are getting soooo slowww!" Bubbles chirped as she blasted past them on the return trajectory, trailing a comet-tail of ocean spray that her blue energy faded into. She wasn't even trying to be a bitch about it - that sugary smile somehow cutting deeper than if she'd just laughed in their faces like Blossom or flipped them off like Buttercup. At least that would give him something clean to hate, not this mix of humiliation and grudging acknowledgment that she was just... better than them.

The world blurred. Cities and countries and oceans bleeding together as space itself got squashed under the force of their passage. Normal people would've died just being near them at this speed. Normal people would've died from a lot of things the Boys had survived.

"Guys? Hello?" Bubbles' voice swam through the wall of compressed air surrounding them. "The air's doing something super weird! It feels like static but... inside out?"

Mach 600 now. Edge of the safe zone. Beyond what Mojo had said was advisable in atmosphere. Way beyond what their second dad had warned them about before they'd jammed his head into a toilet and told him to fuck off back to hell.

Brick felt the warnings pulsing through his body. Chemical X pushing against the natural limits of physics. The air around them was more plasma than gas now, electrons stripped from atoms by the sheer friction of their passage.

He did not give a single solitary fuck.

"We're falling behind!" Boomer wailed, voice stretched wire-thin, barely audible over the roar of superheated air. "They're gonna win again!"

"Shut up and FLY!" Butch barked, spittle flying from his mouth only to evaporate instantly in the heat-cone surrounding him. His black hair stood straight up, either from the electricity arcing between them or from how badly he was losing his shit.

"BOTH OF YOU SHUT IT!" Brick snapped, the force of his voice actually creating a visible ripple in the plasma surrounding them. "Form up on me! NOW!"

He banked hard, shooting upward. His brothers followed, muscle memory from thousands of fights overriding their bickering. Years of training, fighting, bleeding together had hardwired their bodies to move as one even when their minds couldn't. The Girls scrambled after them, but there was that split-second where they weren't perfectly in sync. Blossom's eyes registered something was off. Confusion. Uncertainty.

Finally.

"Spiral!" Brick shouted, not bothering to explain. They'd drilled this for weeks, him dragging his brothers out to the middle of nowhere, forcing them through the same maneuver again and again while they bitched and moaned. Butch calling it pointless. Boomer whining that he was hungry. Brick making them do it again anyway, because he knew—he KNEW—it would work.

The Boys twisted into a corkscrew formation, their bodies generating a vortex that warped the air itself. The Girls got caught in the turbulence, pulled forward by the vacuum behind the Boys while simultaneously being pushed back by the wall of compressed air in front.

"HOLY FUCK!" Butch's voice cracked with genuine shocked glee, like he couldn't believe what was happening. "IT'S ACTUALLY WORKING!"

"Don't get cocky," Brick snapped, even as something hot and electric surged through his chest. Pride maybe, or the closest thing to it he'd ever felt. They were pulling ahead. Actually leaving the Girls behind for the first time in years.

Townsville reappeared, toy buildings and ant-sized cars. Everything too sharp, too focused, like reality itself was struggling to render properly at these speeds. Brick could feel the formation starting to break down, their bodies refusing to maintain the precise angles needed. But it didn't matter now. They had the lead. They were WINNING.

Something popped in the air around them.

Not a sound. More like reality hiccuping.

Tendrils of energy—red, blue, green—arced between them, connecting the Boys in a triangle of crackling power, three identical frequencies layering on top of each other, amplifying the way they did when they were working perfectly together.

"Something's happening!" Blossom's distant voice hit Brick's ears, her tone edging toward panic—and that was it. That's what made him know he had a chance.

Brick didn't slow down.

Didn't even consider it.

He pushed harder, crushing down that little voice screaming that they were reaching a point of no return. Past the fire in his muscles, past the pressure building in his skull, past anything resembling common sense or self-preservation.

"B-Brick!" Boomer's voice barely reached him, thin and scared. "I can't feel my hands! Something's wrong!"

"YOU STOP AND I'LL PUNCH YOU!" Brick roared, creeping into the edges of his vision like corrupted camera footage. He had to keep moving, even as the logical part of his brain, the part that had created and planned the spiral maneuver, was screaming warnings.

He stomped it down. Hard.

"WOOOOO!" Butch howled, completely off his nut now, eyes blown wide like he was having the time of his life. "THIS IS IT! WE'RE GONNA CRUSH 'EM!"

The Girls fell farther behind, pink-blue-green streaks fading in the distance. Almost gone now. Victory burned in Brick's throat like acid reflux, sharp and bitter and perfect. Three years of humiliation about to be wiped away in one glorious moment of triumph.

"BOYS! STOP!" Blossom's voice was thin, desperate, genuine fear coloring her words. "SOMETHING… SOMETHING IS WRONG!"

Yeah, nice try. Like he'd fall for that shit. Like he'd give up right when they were finally, FINALLY winning.

Mach 750.

900.

The sound was gone. They had long been moving faster than sound could travel but now their bodies couldn't keep up with the sound it normally kept around them. Hell, the air molecules in front of them couldn't move out of the way fast enough, creating a wall of compressed particles that they crashed through.

Energy crackled around them, red and blue and green lightning connecting them in a triangular grid as the air itself began to shudder apart and split, the horizon seeming to bend under the impossible stress of their passage in atmosphere.

"B-Brick!" Blossom's voice was distant, distorted. "SLOW DOWN!"

He wasn't.

He would never.

Not that he could if he wanted to. He was moving too fast.

Either way, it was too late.

The world tore open and the sky bled.

A blinding rip of light, sound shredding into silence.

For half a second, they were weightless.

And then—

Nothing.

Chapter Text

Impact.

Water.

Cold.

Brick hit the ocean first, hard enough to crater the surface, and for who knows how long, there was only black.

Then light.

Then air—a frantic gasp as his head broke the surface, lungs dragging in breath like he'd been drowning for hours. Salt burned his throat, his nose, the corners of his eyes. His bomber jacket felt like it weighed a million pounds all of a sudden, the embroidered bird patch on the left side sagging from the waterlogged fabric.

White noise pounded against his ears. The crash of waves. The sputtering and coughing of his brothers, surfacing just a few feet away. Boomer's blond hair plastered against his forehead, his blue striped shirt clinging to his skinny frame. Butch thrashing in the water like it had personally offended him, green shirt ripped even worse than before.

"What the—" Brick started before another wave slapped him in the face. He surged up and out of the water, his telescopic vision activating by instinct as he glanced around.

His vision blurred, then sharpened—skyline.

Not the pristine look of Townsville, South Carolina. Definitely not.

Not the polluted mess of Citiesville. Not the spiraling sprawling metropolis that was Megaville. Not anywhere he recognized from their raids across the eastern seaboard.

Somewhere else.

His brain struggled to process, sputtering like an engine that wouldn't quite catch. The edges of buildings looked wrong—too sharp, too clean. The arrangement all wrong. Colors different shades than they should be. Like someone had taken a city and twisted it just a few degrees off from reality.

"I can't swim good!" Boomer wailed, limbs flailing in panic despite the fact that they could all literally fly. His blue-and-black sneakers kicked frantically below the surface, splashing water into Butch's face. "Help! I'm drowning!"

Butch spat seawater directly into Boomer's open mouth. "Shut up, moron! Just float!"

"I don't know how!"

"You're DOING it right now!"

Brick wasn't answering. He was already moving, flipping up into the air, surging forward, covering hundreds of miles in a red flash and soon scanning the city from above. The wind whipped through his soaked clothes as his red and black high-tops left droplets falling to the water below. Tall buildings, glassy, sleek.

Highways twisting into a skyline that wasn't theirs.

Cars too weirdly shaped, advertisements for products he'd never heard of.

People staring up, pointing.

"Hey! Look at that kid!"

"Is he flying?"

"Is this some Guardians thing?"

Guardians? What the hell were Guardians? The word rattled around Brick's head, unable to find any context to latch onto. A superhero team? Had to be, right?

Only thing that made sense at all.

He shot back to the water, feet skimming just above the water's surface, hands clasped behind his back. "Stop playing around. We need to get to land."

"No shit," Butch growled, literally playing around as he started out toward the shore with powerful strokes, his fingerless gloves making wet slapping sounds against the water.

"I still think I'm drowning," Boomer whined, doggy-paddling despite literally flying a good foot and a half above the water's surface. The blue pouch attached to his belt had torn loose, now drifting away on the current.

"You're flying, dumbass!" Butch shouted back.

Brick's blue-eyed brother glanced down. "Oh yeah."

They landed on the shore in seconds once Brick had called them idiots a few times, wet clothes sticking to their skin, sand pressing cold against their boots. No one spoke. Beachgoers stared, some taking out phones, some backing away. A woman in sunglasses grabbed her children and pulled them behind her. A teenage boy with acne and a backwards cap mouthed "holy shit" to his friends.

Boomer's eyes darted back and forth, like if he squinted hard enough, the world would make sense again. His lips moved silently, forming words that never quite made it out. The black stripes on his blue shirt seemed to sag lower than they had before.

Butch was tense, hands curled into fists, energy thrumming beneath his skin. His green high-top boots sank slightly into the wet sand, water pooling around them. His black cargo shorts dripped steadily. The muscle in his jaw pulsed.

Brick? Brick was busy processing.

Processing literally everything because none of it made sense. This isn't right. None of this is right. The sun felt too bright, the world washed out somehow. The air smelled wrong—more pollution for one, different colors for another. Little details that only someone with enhanced senses would notice. Everything was just slightly off.

People were staring. A woman on her phone had stopped mid-call. A kid pointed, eyes wide.

"Mommy, are they heroes?"

"Shh, get back."

Boomer's gaze snapped to a store window—a TV behind the glass. The electronics shop had a row of televisions displayed in the window, all showing the same news channel. Some kind of disaster coverage. Smoke, flames, a collapsed building. A bearded guy in a white, blue and gold bodysuit tearing rubble off survivors, holding up a collapsing building like it was nothing.

The words "THE IMMORTAL SAVES DOZENS" ran across the screen.

"Who the hell is that?" Butch muttered, squinting at the screens. "Never seen that hero before. You think he's new?"

"He's not new," Brick said slowly, watching as the footage continued. The way the crowd reacted to the hero. The casual way emergency services coordinated with him. This wasn't someone's first rodeo.

"How do you know?" Boomer asked, still dripping.

Goddamnit, Boomer. Brick held back a sigh. "Just look at him. That's not a rookie."

Boomer squinted harder at the screen. "He looks kinda old."

"That's not—" Brick started, then stopped. Not their world. Not their rules. The realization sank into his gut like a stone.

"We should find the Girls," Boomer said suddenly. "They probably got sucked in too, right? They gotta be here somewhere."

"Screw the Girls," Butch snapped, shaking himself like a dog, water flying everywhere. A nearby woman squealed as she got splashed. "Let's just figure out where we are so we can get back and rob that bank like we were supposed to."

"I don't think that's gonna work," Brick said, his voice flat.

Boomer looked at him, blue eyes wide. "What do you mean?"

Brick exhaled, low and steady, jaw tight. "Not Townsville. Not Citiesville. Not anywhere we've been." His fingers flexed. The cold bite of reality. "We're in another dimension."

Boomer flinched. "So... how do we get back?"

Brick didn't answer.

Didn't want to.

"Ain't no other dimension," Butch spat, voice all gravel and broken glass. His hands kept balling into fists then stretching out, over and over, like he was getting ready to punch reality itself back into making sense. "That's stupid nerd shit from Boomer's comics. We just got blown somewhere weird. Tokyo or some crap."

What country has superheroes we've never seen before? Brick wanted to say, but he knew approaching Butch with an actual argument would get him nowhere. He let out a sigh as his teeth hurt from grinding them. His skin itched everywhere the saltwater touched, drying into a crust that pulled at his pores. Felt like being covered in glue that was halfway set. "Tokyo doesn't have white people, dumbass."

"Well then..." Butch's face twisted up, nose wrinkling, forehead creasing. He looked constipated when he tried thinking too hard. "What about Canada?"

"Canada doesn't have superheroes, ya big dum dum." Boomer wringhed out the edges of his blue shirt, a ton of water and a couple flapping fish splashing between his feet. His hair was alrady drying in these weird spikes that made him look like he'd been electrocuted. "Nobody lives up in Canada except polar bears and eskimos and those guys with the funny hats."

"Whaddya know about Canada?" Butch leaned in, getting too close like he always did when he was losing an argument. The green in his eyes looked brighter somehow, that dangerous glow that meant something was about to get broken. "You been?"

"No, but—"

"Then how do you know what they got there?" Spit flew from Butch's mouth, landing on Boomer's cheek. "You don't! So shut your stupid face!"

"You shut YOUR face!" Boomer wiped his cheek with his sleeve, leaving a smear of wet sand across his skin as he glared back at his green-eyed brother.

"Then shut up!"

"You shut up!"

"Then how do you know what they got there?" Spit flew from Butch's mouth, landing on Boomer's cheek. "You don't! So shut your stupid face!"

"You shut YOUR face!" Boomer wiped his cheek with his sleeve, leaving a smear of wet sand across his skin as he glared back at his green-eyed brother.


"BOTH OF YOU JUST SHUT IT!" Brick felt his eye twitch as he roared, voice coming out raw in a way he tried to avoid doing. He didn't like getting angry, or at least getting loud about it like his idiot brothers. He had to be the responsible one and that came with acting like he was in control.

Which he clearly wasn't right now.

Which he hated.

The people who'd been staring backed up fast, grabbing phones and kids and whatever else. Seagulls scattered. "LOOK AROUND YOU! The buildings are wrong! The cars are wrong! Even the PEOPLE look wrong!"

His brothers finally shut up long enough to actually look around. Boomer's face went slack, that same stupid expression he'd had when they found out Santa was real but Krampus also was too. That had been a weird fight.

Butch's right eye started twitching double-time, that weird spasm that always showed up right before he threw something through a wall. Brick watched it hit them both at once. That same cold flood that had washed through him the moment they broke the water's surface. This place wasn't just different. It was wrong.

Somewhere in a government facility, hundreds of miles away, at least a mile beneath the Pentagon and full of scientists with more tax dollars than common sense, alarms shrieked through fluorescent-lit hallways. People in suits tapped frantically at keyboards while others barked orders into headsets. The kind of chaos that always happens when something doesn't fit into the boxes they'd made for the universe.

Some analyst jabbed at a keyboard, and the footage rewound. Three streaks of light bursting through what looked like a tear in reality itself. The water cratering when they hit, waves big enough to swamp boats half a mile out. Then three soggy kids dragging themselves onto the beach, looking dazed but completely unharmed.

"Children?" Cecil's forehead creased. The lines there were deeper than they had been twenty years ago, when he'd started this job.The analyst zoomed in, enhancing the image to show their faces clearly.

"Children?" Cecil frowned. "That much raw power, and they're just children?"

The analyst pulled up more data, windows crowding the screen. "They hit the water near Mach 100, sir. The kinetic energy should have—"

"I know what happens at those speeds." Cecil's fingers drummed on the desk. One-two-three-four. One-two-three-four. "What does that tell you about our visitors?"

"They're not human." The analyst hesitated. "Or at least, not normal humans."

On the screen, the boys had started arguing. The one in red gesturing sharply, jabbing a finger at the air like he was trying to stab it. The green one looking ready to tear someone's arms off just for something to do. The blue one fidgeting, constantly glancing around, looking lost in a way that made him seem younger than the others.

Cecil made the call. "Find out what these kids can do. What they want. Where they came from. I want everything."

"Sir, should I alert the Guardians? They might—"

"Not yet." Cecil's eyes never left the screen. "Let's see what we're dealing with first."

Back on the beach, reality was still sinking in for the Boys.

"We gotta bail," Brick said, eyeing the growing crowd. People with phones out, filming. A kid pointing. A cop car pulling up at the edge of the parking lot. "Too many eyes on us."

"Where are we supposed to go?" Boomer's voice came out small, almost lost in the sound of waves behind them. His hands kept moving, touching his face, his hair, his clothes, like he was making sure he was still all there. "We don't have anywhere. No hideout. No Mojo's place. Nothing."

Brick realized he hadn't thought that far ahead. One problem at a time. "Just away from here first. Figure out the rest after."

"I say we take what we want." Butch cracked his knuckles one after another, little pops that sounded like firecrackers. Green energy sizzled between his fingers, burning the water away in little wisps of steam. "No one here knows what we can do. No one's ready for us."

Brick felt something cold settle in his stomach. "We don't know what these heroes can do either. That Immortal guy on TV looked like he could bench-press a building."

"So fucking what?" Butch scoffed, eyes too wide, too bright. "We can handle some lame-ass wannabe Superman."

"We don't know that."

"You turning chickenshit on us?" Butch leaned in close enough that Brick could smell the salt and seaweed on his breath. His pupils were too big, that weird manic gleam taking over as his grin stretched way past where it belonged. The same look he got right before he tried to set fire to that pet store last summer because they wouldn't let him get a pet snake without a parent being present.

"Chickenshit? I'm not chickenshit. You're smart enough to know that, make those braincells work, Butch." Brick shoved him back hard enough to make Butch stumble, almost fall on his ass in the wet sand. "I'm just not a fucking moron who runs headfirst into an Nth metal mace cus he wants to steal it."

"Guys, guys!" Boomer yanked on Brick's soggy jacket sleeve, voice cracking. "Black cars. Guys in suits. Look!"

Brick followed where Boomer pointed. A convoy of identical black SUVs skidded to a stop at the edge of the sand, tires churning up plumes of grit. Men with identical haircuts and dark sunglasses poured out like ants from a kicked hill. One of them pressed his finger to his ear, lips moving fast as he stared directly at them.

"We're out." Brick didn't ask for votes.

They hit the sky like tri-color bullets from the world's biggest railgun, leaving nothing but wet sand and confused yelps in their wake, authoritative shouts from the men in suits. Below them, phones tracked their ascent, cameras too slow and weak to capture them even before they got anywhere close to punchinjg through the cloud layer. Words floated up—"unauthorized," "detain," "cooperation"—bureaucrat garbage that meant the same thing in any universe: trouble.

"What if we're stuck here forever?" Boomer's voice had that wobble, like he was about to start crying but trying to swallow it back. His fingers kept plucking at his shirt, stretching the fabric out of shape. "What about all our stuff? What about Mojo? What about—"

"Can it," Brick said, but without the usual edge. His brain kept misfiring, too many thoughts colliding into each other. "We'll deal."

"Man, I bet this place has way better shit to wreck," Butch said, scanning the city sprawled below them like a buffet. He had that glint in his eye, the one that always came before something expensive got broken. "Fancy buildings. Bet they got cars worth more than that whole block we torched last month."

"We need to know what we're up against first," Brick insisted. "No blindsiding."

"Only pussies need intel," Butch muttered under his breath.

"Intel keeps us from getting our asses kicked, dumbfuck."

Butch wasn't listening anymore. His face had split into that manic grin, the one that made him look unhinged. Teeth showing too much, eyes fever-bright. "Fresh superheroes to fight. No one knows what we can do. No one ready for us." His voice came out hungry, like he was talking about food after starving for days. "I wanna see how hard these losers go down."

"They could be tough," Boomer said. "That Immortal guy looked strong."

"Only one way to find out." Butch was almost vibrating with excitement.

Brick's brain kept churning, running scenarios. They needed a place to crash. Food. Information. Maybe a way back.

But he also knew his brothers wouldn't last five minutes with a careful plan. Especially not Butch, who looked ready to murder the next person who told him to be patient.

"Fine," Brick said, taking point, angling toward the heart of the city. "Let's have some fun."

They cut through the sky like colored blades, leaving contrails that made people below stop and point. Brick saw a woman nearly crash her car staring up at them.

"Holy crap, look at that building!" Boomer pointed toward a glass skyscraper that corkscrewed up into the clouds like someone had grabbed it and twisted. "It's all twisty and weird and stuff. We don't have anything like that back home."

"Who fuckin' cares?" Butch snorted, but his eyes stayed locked on it way too long. Brick could practically see him calculating how many punches it would take to bring it down. "Bet it falls down just the same as regular buildings."

"No destroying anything," Brick ordered. "We need to stay under the radar until we know what's what."

"Under the radar? We're three kids with fucking superpowers flying over downtown whateverthefuck-ville," Butch shot back. "How exactly are we supposed to blend in? Should I put on a hat or something?"

Brick had nothing for that one.

They passed a wall covered all over with graffiti, most of it really well done to be honest. Some muscled guy with a mustache, white costume, red cape flying behind him covered up most of the wall. Clearly he was pretty famous, as the drawing was not only good, but clearly someone who people had seen all the time. Whoever he was, he was popular. People wore his face on shirts, carried mugs with his symbol.

"Another Superman ripoff," Brick muttered, barely giving it a second look. "Probably a pushover."

"I could take him easy," Butch flexed, energy crackling around his fists.

"Bet he'd stomp you flat," Boomer said.

"Say that again and I'll throw you through a billboard!"

"I said he'd stomp you fl—AHHHHH!" Boomer's words cut off as Butch grabbed his ankle mid-flight, spinning him like a rag doll. Boomer's arms pinwheeled wildly, face distorted from the G-force.

"KNOCK IT OFF!" Brick seized both of them, yanking them apart with enough force to make them all stop dead in the air. "This isn't the time for your bullshit!"

"He started it," Butch grumbled, letting go of Boomer's foot with obvious reluctance.

"Did not." Boomer tugged his shirt back down, trying to smooth out the wrinkles like that was the biggest problem right now.

Brick ignored them both. "Eyes open," he warned, not taking his gaze off the strange horizon of this odd version of the United States. "No telling what's out there."

The world stretched out ahead of them, vast, unchallenged.

And it had no idea the kind of trouble they could bring.

Chapter Text

Flying. Not just flying, but flying with nowhere to be, nowhere to fight, no one chasing them. Just speed, sky, and a whole goddamn country stretched out beneath them.

They didn't zoom, boom, or bring doom.

Yet.

Brick was out front, as always, but this time he wasn't pushing. He wasn't screaming at them to keep up, to go faster, to hit harder. They weren't losing. For the first time in forever, they weren't running toward or away from anything.

Boomer twisted mid-air, arms out, letting himself coast. The blue in his striped shirt caught the sunlight as he spun, his blond hair whipping around his face like he'd stuck his finger in an electrical socket. He grinned, teeth flashing white against the endless blue backdrop. "We should go to Disney World."

Butch snorted, the sound lost in the rush of wind. His black cargo shorts flapped against his legs, one of the pockets hanging by a single thread. "Why?"

Boomer blinked those big stupid blue eyes like Butch had just asked why water was wet. "Uh. Because it's Disney World?"

Brick adjusted his trajectory—slightly, subtly. The red bomber jacket fluttered around his torso, the patch on the side catching sunlight every time he banked. His face stayed set in that halfway-to-a-scowl expression he'd perfected since they were six. "Fine. We'll start with Disney."

Boomer fist-pumped, almost smacking himself in the face. Butch rolled his eyes but didn't argue.

"Then what?" Butch asked, stretching his arms like he was already bored. Stretching was the wrong word, being honest. If anything, he was just shadowboxing the air out in front of him, just slower. His fingerless gloves had mostly dried, but there were still patches of damp clinging to the knuckles after he had tried to punch a cloud that pissed him off.

How it pissed him off? Brick didn't bother questioning it.

Brick shrugged, thinking. His red eyes narrowed against the sun, scanning the landscape below like he was planning an invasion. "We'll hit all of them. Every single play park. Disney, Universal, Six Flags—hell, even that one in Ohio."

Butch squinted, forehead crinkling. "Ohio has amusement parks?"

Boomer gasped so hard he almost inhaled a bug. "Cedar Point."

"What the hell is a Cedar Point?"

Boomer looked personally offended, like Butch had just insulted his mom. If they'd had a mom. Which they didn't. But still.

Brick sighed, the sound almost lost in the wind rushing past. His red and black high-tops kicked a little harder against nothing, pushing him a few feet higher. "Point is, we do what we want. Go where we want. No rules, no Girls showing up to knock us into next week, no Mojo whining at us to take over the world, no HIM—"

Butch made a face, nose scrunching. "Yeah, our dads sucked."

Boomer tilted his head, brow furrowing like thinking physically hurt him. "Yeah, but, like... every time we did what we wanted, we always got bored after a while."

Silence.

Brick's eyes stayed on the horizon. His lips pressed together, then—a slow nod. "Yeah."

But then, with a shrug—"We'll burn that bridge when we come to it."

They kept flying.

The park sprawled out beneath them like a mess of bright colors and moving parts, loud and sugar-smelling and packed so tight with people it looked like someone had poured a bucket of tourists over the pavement. Rides twisted up into the sky, metal monsters spread out and sprawling with their loops and dips, roller coaster cars packed with kids screaming their heads off. Music piped through the speakers, all cheery and fake, clashing hard against the distant, real terror of people plummeting down coasters way faster than they probably should.

Butch grinned, sharp and twitchy. "New plan," he announced, green eyes practically glowing.

Practically was better than literally; literally was bad news. "We're skipping the lines."

Brick held back a sigh. New plan. Like that was ever not gonna be the plan, Butch. Brick barely glanced at him, arms folded over his chest, red gaze scanning the park like he was looking for the best angle of attack. "Obviously."

Boomer hesitated, sneakers scuffing midair as he hovered, eyes darting between the orderly lines snaking through the entrance and his brothers. His fingers twitched at his belt, reaching for his blue pouch—except it was gone, left drifting somewhere in another world. He clenched his hands instead. "I dunno, guys. Maybe we should—"

Butch was already dive-bombing toward the front gates, his green and black boots leaving a dust trail in his wake that was downright cartoonish. Boomer yelped and followed his brother as he zoomed forward. Said zoom almost had him crashing into a park maintenance guy on a cherry picker, said guy screaming as he clung to his safety harness.

Brick shut his eyes and sighed, opening them again as he pointed a red gaze in his dumb brothers' direction and floated on in.

They landed in front of the turnstiles, right in the middle of a family trying to get their tickets scanned. A second of stunned silence followed. Then—

A kid gasped, finger shooting up to point at them. "Mommy, they can fly!"

A security guard visibly aged five years on the spot, hand going to his radio before freezing halfway there.

Brick ignored all of it, eyes already scanning for the best rides. His pale face could have been carved from stone for all the emotion it showed. "C'mon."

They lifted off again—just enough to clear the gates entirely, leaving a confused mass of tourists pointing and shouting below.

Behind them, alarms started wailing, shrill enough to make Boomer wince.

Boomer groaned, running a hand through his blond hair. "We coulda just bought tickets—"

"Not our problem," Butch said, already making a beeline for the nearest coaster, a massive red monstrosity with two loops and a corkscrew.

They buzzed past security guards, over teacup rides, under monorails. People pointed. Some screamed. A few took pictures, phones aimed skyward while their kids tugged on their sleeves.

The first roller coaster lasted exactly five seconds before all three of them were collectively underwhelmed.

"This is slow as shit," Butch grumbled, slouching in the seat with his arms crossed. His knees were jammed up almost to his chest in the cramped car.

Boomer grinned, that little I-know-something-you-don't smile that usually meant someone was about to get punched. "We could fix that."

Brick gave him a warning look, red eyes flashing dangerously. The wind from their movement whipped his red cap against his head.

Boomer ignored it, lifting one hand as blue flickers of electricity charged up in it as he aimed at the track ahead. Blue lightning burst from his palm and struck the metal with pinpoint precision.

A section of the coaster rail shifted just slightly, just enough to make the next drop twice as steep. Metal groaned and twisted, people in line screaming in confusion.

The coaster rocketed down with its cargo of confused passengers, accelerating far beyond what the designers intended.

Screams filled the air, high and panicked enough that even Butch looked slightly worried.

Boomer looked proud of himself, puffing out his skinny chest like he'd just saved the day instead of potentially derailing a ride.

Brick pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaling slowly. "Let's try another one."

They were mid-churro when Boomer finally asked, "Uh. How are we paying for all this?" Crumbs stuck to his chin, sugar dusting the front of his blue-striped shirt.

They looked at the snack cart. At the confused vendor, still waiting for them to hand over cash, glancing nervously at where they hovered just off the ground.

They looked at each other.

"We could just take it." Butch's grin was all teeth and trouble, fingers already flexing.

"We could also not commit theft five minutes after getting here." Boomer's eyebrows rose toward his hairline, a glob of churro filling threatening to fall from the pastry in his hand.

Brick shrugged. "We're not in Townsville anymore." His words came slow, measured, red eyes calculating as they swept over the park layout spread beneath them.

Boomer hesitated, looking down at the half-eaten churro in his hand like it had personally betrayed him.

Butch grinned even wider, knuckles cracking as he balled his meaty hands into fists.

Boomer sighed, shoulders slumping in resigned acceptance.

They robbed a bank.

It wasn't a candy store, but it might as well have been.

The bank doors burst open and slammed into the aligning walls, glass shattering on the floor like teeth from an idiot who made the mistake of running into Butch's fist.

Brick floated in first, leading as usual, hands folded behind his back in his usual stance, head cocked just enough that the cap shadowed his eyes. Butch swaggered right behind, his boots tracking dirt all over the shiny tile, hands folded over his chest and that manic grin plastered on his face like always. Boomer brought up the rear, trailing after them like the world's worst caboose, blue eyes wide and wandering, his attention pinging from the vaulted ceilings down to the polished marble floors and then ricocheting around at every shiny, expensive-looking thing in between.

The security guard standing near the entrance opened his mouth, shut it, and then opened it again. His lips moved in this weird little circle, like he'd forgotten how words worked for a second.

"You l-lost, kids?" the guard managed, finally, after what had to be a good six-seven seconds.

Butch snorted, practically blowing snot all over his boots. Brick just stared right through the man, eyes half-lidded. Not even worth an answer. Boomer gave a half-hearted wave, which somehow felt worse than being ignored completely.

The guard stepped forward, hand drifting toward the radio clipped to his hip, but Butch caught his gaze, emerald eyes glowing like he was daring him to try it. He froze in place, mouth open, jaw twitching slightly as if he was caught between doing his job and his brain's survival instinct kicking in too late.

Brick moved past him, not fast, just steady. The guard's fingers brushed the grip of his gun, hesitated, and then fell away entirely.

"Smart choice," Brick muttered, more to himself than anyone else.

Butch gave the guard an exaggerated, mocking salute, straight up daring the guy to make the wrong move. He didn't, which was a shame, really, because Brick was already running out of ideas to keep Butch occupied.

Inside, the bank was way bigger in the way expensive banks always were.

Y'know, all echo-y and overblown, like whoever built this place had too much money and too little imagination. The employees behind the counters looked up from their desks with identical wide-eyed, confused expressions, like rabbits that had just noticed the neon-colored wolves strolling in.

Brick didn't say a word, just tilted his chin up and gestured once at the teller counters, a short, sharp motion with his head. Butch took the hint instantly, cracking his knuckles in a deliberate sequence, a twisted, eager little grin curling up his lips, eyes glinting like he'd been waiting his whole short life for a chance to mess with people just like this.

Boomer was already drifting around the place, distracted, poking at things like some kind of lost tourist. His fingers brushed against pamphlets about loans and credit scores, face scrunched up as he mouthed the words silently to himself.

"Hey," Butch barked, jolting him out of his little trance, "Quit daydreaming and get your ass over here."

Boomer startled, almost tripping over himself in mid-air as he zipped to Butch's side, expression guilty. "Sorry, sorry, just lookin' around—y'know, just in case we need… um, a loan?"

Butch's face twisted into the kind of disgusted disbelief that only his youngest brother could ever really provoke. "A loan? For what, stupid?"

"I dunno," Boomer said weakly, picking at his sleeve, the material pulling thin from where it had snagged on something earlier. "Like, you know, a house or—"

"Shut. Up," Brick said sharply, voice so controlled it made both his brothers instantly quiet. Butch rolled his eyes dramatically, but even he didn't push it further. Brick's attention had shifted already, eyeing the teller who was edging closer and closer to a silent alarm button under the counter.

He didn't even have to give a signal; Boomer was suddenly there, leaning against the desk casually, his hand just happening to cover the little red button. "Nice nails," he said cheerfully to the teller, who yelped and jumped back as if she'd seen a ghost instead of a friendly pre-teen.

Another guard rounded the corner, pistol already drawn. Brick sighed. It didn't even register as a threat, just another tiny, insignificant irritation. Boomer didn't even notice the bullets bouncing harmlessly off his chest, still chatting amiably with the teller as her eyes rolled back and she slumped sideways.

"Aw, I think I broke her," Boomer pouted, poking at her unconscious body, genuinely disappointed.

Butch laughed like he'd heard the funniest thing in the world, leaning on the counter as he wheezed, and Brick just rolled his eyes, turning toward the vault with a single-minded intent that cut through the chaos around him like a scalpel through skin.

Butch cracked his knuckles, more energy sparking between them than was probably safe. "Let's see how strong they built this baby."

Brick sighed, quietly exasperated. "Just open it, Butch. Don't get creative."

"You're no fun," Butch grumbled, but complied, ripping the metal door aside with a sound like peeling back an enormous tin lid.

As they walked out, they did so with duffels stuffed to bursting, not a single hair out of place, because, of course, Brick had made sure the sprinklers stayed silent. Wouldn't do to get his jacket wet again.

The police arrived, sirens wailing, cars screeching to a halt outside the bank's glass doors.

Boomer waved, friendly and cheery, oblivious to Brick rolling his eyes. Butch threw a soda can at a cop car, outright cackling with his head thrown back when it pinged off the hood and left a deep dent.

With a sound like cannon fire and a shockwave behind them, three streaks of color burst up and out through the Florida sky, leaving both confusion and at least half a dozen insurance claims in their wake.

All in all, a peaceful afternoon for the Rowdyruffs.

Universal Studios. Six Flags. Cedar Point. Disneyland in California.

They did all of them. Expensive hotels. Stupid amounts of food. More souvenirs than they could carry, most of which ended up abandoned in hotel rooms or dropped from high altitude when Butch got bored of carrying them.

Boomer tried every roller coaster, his face stuck in a permanent grin even when Butch tried to "improve" the rides by twisting tracks or adding loops. His blue eyes shined whenever he spotted a new attraction, running toward it like it might vanish if he didn't get there fast enough.

Butch got kicked out of three different arcades for breaking machines when he lost. His green eyes narrowed to slits when the manager at one tried to call security, the poor guy backing up until he hit a wall.

Brick barely spoke, just watched everything with that sharp, unreadable look. He stayed in the background, scanning crowds, studying security layouts, tracking everything like he was memorizing it for later. His red eyes missed nothing, especially not the phones constantly pointed their way.

Somewhere along the way, people started noticing.

Videos. TikToks. Headlines.

"FLYING CHILDREN SPOTTED AT SIX FLAGS"

"ORLANDO BANK ROBBERY CONNECTED TO SUPERPOWERED MINORS?"

"THREE KIDS STREAK ACROSS SKY, IGNORE PARKING FEES"

Boomer thought it was hilarious, posing for pictures when people asked, showing off by hovering upside down for selfies.

Brick thought it was a problem, glowering whenever a phone pointed their way, melting one particularly persistent YouTuber's camera with laser vision.

The pattern continued. Three days. Four. A week.

Amusement parks. Banks. Hotels. Restaurants.

Nobody could stop them. Nobody really tried, except for a few overzealous security guards who learned their lesson quickly. Boomer apologized for the broken bones, so it was all fair and good.

It was perfect.

Cecil Stedman was watching six different screens at once, the blue light washing over his face in the dimly lit room. His tie hung perfectly and neatly around his neck, as usual, coffee long gone cold beside his keyboard.

On one, a roller coaster cam showed a blurry blue streak speeding through a loop-the-loop, arms raised in victory while passengers around him screamed in terror.

On another, security footage of three kids cracking open a vault door like it was a soda can, not even straining as metal designed to withstand bombs peeled back like tinfoil.

On a third, smartphone video showed a green little spiky-haired hellion headbutting a cop car into the ground while laughing maniacally as a boy of similar height with long red hair down to his back floated above the ground behind him.

Donald cleared his throat. "Uh, sir?" His number two's posture was perfect, hands clasped behind his back, but sweat beaded on his forehead.

Cecil didn't look away from the screens, fingers steepled in front of his face. "Donald, remind me why I don't like children again."

Donald hesitated, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "Because they don't listen, sir."

Cecil blinked once and nodded, the movement so slight it almost didn't happen. "And remind me what I'm looking at."

The man in the mirrored sunglasses had very little to say, mouth moving silently for a moment, before simply saying, "Children, sir."

"Children who can fly," Cecil slapped a hand on the desk, "Children who can break through reinforced vault doors," his hand clenched into a fist, "Children who are treating America like it's their goddamn personal summer camp."

Donald nodded, adjusting his glasses nervously. "Accurate, sir."

Cecil sighed, the sound of a man who has seen too much and slept too little.

"Find out where the hell they're going. And prep me a teleport to wherever it is once they touch down. We need to put some kind of leash on them."

His scarred mouth shifted into flat line, "Before they get bored."

Chapter Text

Light crawled across the hotel suite floor like some lazy beast, dragging fingers of yellow through the curtains Brick hadn't fully closed last night. The room stank of sugar and grease and boy-sweat, the kind of smell that came from three kids with superpowers and zero supervision.

Wrappers everywhere. Candy bar foil twisted into little balls and flicked into corners. Half-eaten pizza crusts hardening on expensive mahogany end tables. Room service trays stacked four high by the door because Butch kept insisting they order more food just to see if the hotel would cut them off. They hadn't. The money was too good, and the Boys had plenty after their little bank adventure.

Boomer sprawled across the king-sized bed like a starfish, limbs hanging off all sides, face buried in a stuffed shark he'd won by breaking a carnival game at Universal. His blue shirt had ridden up his skinny torso, exposing a belly still covered in faded marker from where Butch had drawn on him while he slept yesterday. His blond hair stuck up in twenty different directions, half-dried gel turning it into a disaster zone.

Butch had claimed the couch, body twisted at an angle that would've broken a normal human spine. One leg hooked over the back cushions, the other dangling to the floor, toes brushing the carpet. His green shirt was missing entirely. Sometime during the night, he'd complained it was too hot and thrown it somewhere in the vicinity of the bathroom. His chest rose and fell with each breath, the occasional twitch jolting through his body even in sleep.

Brick had managed to fall asleep in a chair by the window, body upright like he was guarding something, head tilted against the wall. His red cap sat crooked, partially covering one closed eye. His jacket was folded neatly on the table beside him, the only item in the entire suite that had been treated with care. His legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles, red and black sneakers still tied tight.

A knock at the door.

Quiet at first, like whoever stood on the other side wasn't sure if they should be knocking at all.

None of the Boys moved.

The knock came again, harder this time, more confident.

Boomer grunted, shifting. The stuffed shark slid from his grasp and flopped to the floor with a soft thud. One blue eye cracked open, immediately shutting again when sunlight hit it.

"Unnnngh," he groaned, voice muffled by the pillow he'd crushed his face into. "What time is it?"

Brick didn't stir. His chest kept rising and falling in that slow rhythm of deep sleep.

Butch made a sound like an angry cat, curling further into the couch cushions.

The knocking didn't quit—it just kept going, louder and louder each time, drilling into Brick's skull like someone with a personal vendetta against sleep. The self-titled oldest Rowdyruff rolled over and over, squirming his head deeper into the pillow as his mullet splayed all around him.

Maybe he was hoping it'd magically block the noise even though his hearing was so sensitive for something this close that it wouldn't have done a damn thing no matter what he did. Butch was groaning somewhere to his left, voice muffled by the pile of couch cushions he'd buried himself in sometime around four AM. The whole room had the deeply familiar aroma of their benders, something like sugar, sweat and bad decisions, with a sour mix of flat soda and stale candy and something else the Powerpuffs would have gagged at, calling it "boystink".

"Someone better make that stop," Butch growled. His eyes were still closed as he squirmed deeper into the couch cushions, his ripped shirt off and tucked under his head like his own personal pillow. "Or I swear I'm gonna bring this whole place down."

Brick just ignored him, trying to focus on anything else. Not his problem. Not yet.

Boomer groaned dramatically but he was the only one to actually sit up, blue eyes squinting against sunlight that felt ten times brighter than it did even when they flew out to space. "Is it waffles?"

Brick grunted something incoherent, because he really didn't give a crap if it was waffles or not—sleep mattered more, and whatever idiot was pounding on the door at this ungodly hour wasn't going to make him move one inch. Boomer made some vague whining noise, probably trying to guilt Brick into handling it, but Brick held firm.

Boomer shuffled reluctantly across the plush carpet, feet dragging like every step weighed as much as one of those annoying deep sea kaiju that were more trouble to fight than they were worth The tiny blond barely managed to open his eyes fully, blinking slowly as if processing the world was just too much work this early in the day. The knocking grew louder—sharper.

Clearly someone who didn't know the meaning of the word patience.

"Ughhh, fiiiiiiiiine, okay, okay! I'm coming!" Boomer whined in a shrill voice that raised groans from both his brothers. His messy blond hair stuck up in odd angles, and his shirt was twisted around his body, halfway backwards like he'd tried and failed to change in his sleep.

The door swung open with a quiet click that didn't match the fuss the guy had been making. Boomer stood there, still blinking sleep from his eyes, brain too fuzzy to register what exactly he was staring at. His head tilted slightly, confusion lining his brow, eyes narrowing, clearly hoping if he stared long enough the intruder might transform into a hotel worker with a stack of pancakes.

But it stayed a guy in a suit. No waffles in sight.

But definitely something weird with his face.

"You're not room service," Boomer stated slowly, voice cracking slightly. All four feet, ten inches of the youngest Rowdyruff glanced at the man up and down as he rubbed his eyes, trying to figure out why someone who wasn't bringing waffles was bothering them this early. "So... uh, who're you, Mister Scary Mouth?"

Brick, fully awake now against his will, lifted his head from the pillow, squinting as he realized Boomer had been gone a bit too long and he didn't smell any bacon yet. As he floated around the corner, he came face to face with some weirdo in a suit that Boomer was talking to.

The suit didn't move or say anything as his eyes flicked over to Brick, just stood there looking somehow wrong for a guy who wore a tie for a living.

"Brick…?" Butch floated over blearily with all the grace of a fat bumblebee drunk on honey, still shirtless.

A half second later, his eyes instantly shifted into dangerous slits, the middle Rowdyruff still only half-awake but already smelling trouble. He looked at the guy, then at Boomer, then at Brick again, impatient and clearly ready to snap. "Who's the corpse?"

Brick didn't answe yet, fire-truck red eyes still locked on to the old man in their doorway like he was some half-formed puzzle Brick hadn't managed to solve.

The man in the black suit finally took his first few steps forward, entering the suite without waiting for permission, trained eyes flicking across the room. "Gentlemen," he greeted calmly, a voice smooth enough to grate against Brick's nerves just because of how unbothered it sounded. "Name's Cecil Stedman. We have some things to talk about."

"Talk about what?" Butch growled, a moment before mouthed "gentlemen" and gagged at the word.

Before the man could answer, the actual room service cart appeared behind him, pushed by a hotel employee whose eyes kept darting to Cecil like he wasn't sure if he was allowed to be there. The smell of bacon and syrup hit Boomer's nose, stomach responding with a growl that could've been mistaken for Butch on a bad day.

Priorities instantly reshuffled. Strange man in suit? Secondary concern. Waffles? Primary objective.

"Nevermind, we're good," Butch announced, already reaching for the nearest plate, fingers grabbing a strip of bacon before his brain had fully decided to take it. "You should've led with this, Mr. Suit Man."

Cecil ignored him, eyes sliding briefly toward Brick, obviously pegging him as the leader, which was the only accurate thing this guy had figured out so far. He used the momentary distraction to step smoothly past Boomer and into the suite, moving with the confidence of someone who expected doors to open for them and never doubted it for a moment.

The room service guy looked relieved as Boomer grabbed the entire cart and dragged it inside, kicking the door shut with his heel, already shoving half a waffle into his mouth.

The old man with the scarred-up mouth raised an eyebrow. "It's been quite a week for you three boys, hasn't it? Quite the vacation you've been on." His eyes trailed over to the duffel bags full of money in the corner of the suite. "Expensive, too."

"Yeah, we're awesome," Butch said, swinging upright, cracking his neck so loud it echoed through the suite. "Wanna fight about it?"

All Brick did was watch.

The Red Rowdyruff was doing what he did best right now; calculating, turning scenarios in his mind, sizing up the suit. He knew well enough he wouldn't even have to breathe hard to end this conversation in a microsecond, but that was exactly why it was probably a bad idea. Someone as old and as human as this guy didn't simply walk into a room full of three immature superhumans without major backup or a major plan. Damn it.

Cecil's eyes were sharp, steady, knowing. This was a man used to dealing with people like him and his boys. Case in point, the guy hadn't flinched once, even as Butch's knuckles cracked ominously again, the potential violence clear on his brother's face. Another sign.

He just wasn't scared enough.

Which meant there was reason for the Boys to be.

"Let's just say I'm interested," Stedman answered mildly, as if he wasn't practically standing in a room full of loaded weapons. "I'd prefer cooperation, obviously."

"Oh, 'obviously,'" Brick echoed, sarcasm curling on the edge of his voice as he bobbed carefully in the air, not missing how Cecil's eyes moved with him, but not his head. "And if we don't cooperate?"

He knew what Cecil was going to say, or close enough. He wasn't five years old anymore… or technically one, depending on how you count it…

He had learned real quick there were fights he and the Boys couldn't handle.

"Then things get complicated," Stedman replied, tone unchanged, irritatingly neutral. "For you, mostly."

"Complicated?" Boomer asked around a mouthful of waffles, syrup dripping down his chin. "Like algebra? Or like fighting cops complicated?"

"Complicated," Stedman repeated patiently, not explaining any further. His eyes stayed on Brick, gaze dissecting every movement, every twitch, like Brick was some puzzle he'd already solved but still found interesting anyway. Brick didn't like the way that felt.

Didn't like the guy, either.

Cecil glanced at the array of food on the cart. At the blond one inhaling carbs at a rate that would alarm most dietitians. At the black-haired one digging into the towering pile of bacon like a starving wolf. At the redhead, who hadn't moved toward the food at all, still watching, analyzing, waiting.

"Eat first," Cecil said, tone mild. "We'll talk after."

Butch didn't need to be told twice.

Really, Brick doubted he needed to be told once.

The green Rowdyruff descended on the food cart like a locust, grabbing handfuls of bacon and a stack of pancakes. Brick hesitated, eyes still fixed on Cecil, suspicious. But eventually, hunger won out over caution, and he joined his brothers, though he kept his body angled to watch the intruder while he ate.

They demolished the food in record time. Boomer licked his fingers clean, going so far as to run them across his empty plate to collect every last drop of syrup. Butch ate like someone might take the food away at any moment, teeth tearing into bacon strips, eyes occasionally darting up to make sure Cecil hadn't moved. Brick ate neatly, but with the same focus and intensity he brought to everything.

Cecil waited, the man entirely unruffled by the shark-like feeding frenzy happening in front of him. His eyes tracked their movements, noting how Brick kept himself between the stranger and his brothers, how Butch unconsciously mirrored Brick's body language, how Boomer seemed oblivious to the tension but still positioned himself within the protective triangle the three naturally formed.

Finally, Brick was done.

At least, for now.

Brick let the silence stretch, staring Cecil down but the old man didn't flinch, not against that exact same red-eyed stare that had made giant monsters wet themselves. Literally.

He wasn't surprised, though. Brick already figured this guy didn't scare easy. "Alright," Brick said finally. "Say your piece, old man."

Cecil didn't blink. "I work for an organization that specializes in managing individuals with… like you. The Global Defense Agency."

Boomer, who had been tilting his chair back on two legs, let it drop down with a loud thud. "That sounds like superhero police."

"More like resource management," Cecil corrected smoothly, hands still clasped in that calm, calculated way that made Brick itch to punch him just for looking so unbothered.

"Never heard of it," Brick said, voice flat, not giving the guy anything.

"That's by design."

Butch snorted, stretching his arms behind his head. "There ain't people like us." His grin turned sharp.

Cecil tilted his head slightly, like he was agreeing. "Not many of them, no. But enough that we like to keep track of them."

Brick didn't like that wording. Didn't like any of this. "So what now?" His voice edged toward bored, but it was a cover, a test. "You found us. What's next? You gonna try to lock us up?" He leaned forward slightly, eyes narrowing. "Good luck with that."

Cecil shook his head. "No. I'm here to offer you a job."

"You… you wanna give us a job? Like a real job?" Boomer chimed in, eyes wide. "With paychecks?" His face looked more confused than Brick had seen it in twenty-four hours, when he had turned on Animal Planet and was faced with the brainbending issue of how boy seahorses get pregnant.

Butch's smirk widened. "Depends. We get to break stuff? People?"

Cecil's face didn't change. "More than likely."

Brick exhaled slowly, waiting for the catch, because there was always a catch. "What kind of job?"

"The kind where you get to use your abilities," Cecil said simply, measured, like he wasn't talking to three half-feral kids who could turn a city block into rubble just for fun. "Ideally without causing upwards of billions in damages. The budget can handle anything under that."

Butch made a noise low in his throat, flopping back against the couch, shirt still discarded somewhere on the floor. "Sounds boring." He stretched his arms up with a yawn, sharp canines flashing in the dim hotel light. "Boring as hell."

"It's really not," Cecil countered smoothly. "It involves highly dangerous missions, containing threats that ordinary forces can't handle, and occasional acts of extreme violence."

Butch straightened up. "I'm listening."

Cecil continued, addressing all three but keeping his main focus on Brick, recognizing the real decision-maker. "You've got options. Either you keep doing what you're doing—joy-riding across the country, robbing banks, terrorizing amusement parks—and eventually, someone decides you're too dangerous to leave unchecked. And they'll send people after you. People who make it their business to eliminate threats."

Brick didn't flinch, but his jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "And the other option?"

"You work with us. Controlled environment. Proper targets. Compensation. Housing. Support staff."

"Like we need any of that," Butch scoffed, but you didn't need to have known him for the better part of a decade to know he was already into it now.

"Soooooo…" Boomer leaned forward, practically vibrating in the air as he floated up, gravity seeming to lose its hold on him the more excited he got. "D-do we get badges? Like, real ones? With our faces on them? And cool spy gear? Do we get grappling hooks? And, like, laser watches? Do we get our own secret base?"

Cecil barely reacted, just the tiniest quirk of his lips. "Yes to all of those things."

Boomer let out something that twinged between a gasp and a squeak, as he did what could only be described as a cartwheel in the air, before zooming over to Brick's side in a burst of blue light to whisper in his ear. "Dude. We made it."

"And we can still break stuff?" Butch added, looking more engaged by the second.

"Yes." Cecil nodded, all calm, all smooth. "But only approved targets."

Brick remained silent, eyes still fixed on Cecil, wheels turning behind that calculating gaze. "And if we decide we don't feel like it anymore?"

Cecil met his gaze evenly. "You're free to leave anytime. I'm not under the illusion we could stop you if you really wanted to go… go anywhere on the planet, really. But I think you'll find the work... satisfying. Challenging, even."

Brick considered it, expression unreadable. Then, surprising everyone: "We get code names?"

Cecil blinked, caught slightly off-guard by the request. "I... suppose that could be arranged."

The Boys looked at each other. A pause thick enough that even Boomer, who usually wasn't great at reading a room, picked up on it. Seven years of fighting side by side meant they didn't need to speak to understand each other.

They all knew what this was, what it could be.

Boomer nodded, sharp, eager. Butch grinned, slow and wild. Brick exhaled, resigned to this idea as much as anything else that could keep his dumb brothers occupied.

"Fine," Brick announced. "We're in."

Cecil gave the smallest nod of approval, standing as he slipped a sleek black phone from his jacket, already speaking into it. "Donald? They've agreed. Prepare transport to headquarters. And have the paperwork ready."

Butch immediately turned on Boomer, shoving his shoulder hard enough to nearly knock him out of his chair. "I get first pick on code names."

Boomer shoved back. "No, you don't!"

"Yes, I do!"

"You don't even know how to pick a good one!"

"I do too! I'm gonna be Destruction Master."

Boomer made a face. "That is the dumbest—"

Butch punched his arm, not hard enough to be real, but enough to make Boomer yelp. "What's yours then, genius?"

Boomer rubbed his arm, still scowling. "Blue Lightning."

"That's even stupider."

"Your face is stupider!"

Brick, still watching Cecil, ignored them completely. The man had finished his call, slipping the phone away as his expression remained as carefully composed as before. But something shifted, just slightly—something in the way he looked at them.

Like he understood them already.

Boomer bounced to his feet, energy fully restored. "Do we need to pack?"

Butch barked a laugh. "Pack what? We don't own anything."

Cecil's eyes glanced at the duffel bags full of money, Brick noticed, but said nothing as he gestured toward the door. "Transport will be here in ten minutes. We'll provide everything you need at headquarters."

Brick reached for his cap, adjusting it to sit properly on his head, as the Boys followed Cecil into the hallway, Boomer still chattering about code names, Butch shoving him every few steps, Brick bringing up the rear. As they reached the elevator, Brick cast one final glance back at the destroyed hotel suite. The mess of wrappers and pillows and shattered furniture from Butch's nightmares. The remnants of their first taste of true freedom.

For the first time since they'd arrived in this strange world, Brick felt something settle in his chest. A plan taking shape. A path forward.

He stepped into the elevator, the doors sliding shut behind him, cutting off the view of their temporary kingdom.

His lips curled into a slow, knowing smirk.

This was going to be interesting.

Chapter Text

Helicopters sucked.

Nobody told Brick that before they got in one, but after half an hour of being crammed between Butch's bony elbow and some sweaty government goon's leg after an already-too-long plane ride, he was ready to punch through the roof and just fly himself wherever the hell this Stedman guy was dragging them.

The noise was the worst part. A constant, teeth-rattling buzz drilling into his skull, reverberating through every bone in his body. His molars felt loose. His ribs felt like they were vibrating independently from his skin. The whole machine thrummed like it was seconds from falling apart midair, which, yeah, probably wouldn't kill them, but still—not ideal.

The seat sucked too. Some weird plastic material that stuck to his skin when he shifted, but somehow still managed to feel rock-hard under his tailbone.

Butch wasn't helping. He'd sprawled across the seat like he owned it, knees everywhere, arms draped like he was some kind of king lounging on a throne. His green shirt smelled like he hadn't changed it in a week (because he hadn't), the already-ripped sleeve even more torn from how he couldn't keep his hands still for five minutes without wrecking something. His leg kept bouncing, heel thudding rhythmically against the floor. Brick wanted to shove him just to make him stop, but he knew it wouldn't work. Butch never stopped. Not unless he was unconscious, and even then, it was a fifty-fifty chance.

Across from them, Boomer had his face pressed against the window, blue eyes darting everywhere as if he could see through the clouds if he squinted hard enough. His breath fogged up the glass.

"Are we there yet?" Butch groaned, dragging the words out, head flopping back against the seat with the kind of dramatic suffering only he could pull off.

"Not yet", Brick answered, more out of habit than knowledge.

Butch let out another groan, the sound somehow overpowering the chopper's blades for a good second or two. "I coulda flown us there faster blindfolded with both my legs cut off."

The government agent across from them — some forgettable guy with a standard-issue haircut Cecil had left with them for the trip when he went off to do whatever big boss spooks did — sat in a suit, with a badge clipped to his jacket pocket as he forced a smile that none of the Rowdyruffs bought for a second, the man almost sweating out of his suit. "We're nearly there, son."

Butch's head snapped up so fast it nearly smacked into Brick's. His green eyes sharpened, flashing dangerously. "I ain't your son."

The guy barely flinched — though that was more because he clearly froze in place — but his smile definitely thinned just a little more. "Of course."

Brick, who had spent the entire ride staring straight forward, eyes distant and half-focused, snapped back to life as he shot Butch a look. Not the hard warning kind, just a quiet one, enough to say not now.

Butch caught it, clearly, judging by the way the Green Rowdyruff huffed and rolled his eyes, but he knew well enough not to push it. For now.

Boomer, oblivious to all of it, pressed his forehead harder against the window, looking one stray thought away from wiping the glass down with his tongue. Brick held back a sigh, Wouldn't be the first time.

Lucky for his sanity, Brick didn't feel like doing a spit clean today. "I don't see a super secret base," he mumbled. "All I see is trees. And some deer. And, oh look, more trees."

The agent barely had time to open his mouth before the pilot's voice crackled through the intercom. "Beginning descent."

Boomer squinted his big blue eyes, the youngest clearly trying to focus his enhanced senses to see what he was missing out on. "Descent to where? There's nothing dow—"

And then the ground split open.

Boomer practically slammed his face against the glass, only instinct and years of practice keeping him from actually making a hole in the helicopter with his forehead. "OH MY GOD, THE GROUND OPENED UP. LIKE A SECRET LAIR. SO COOL. ARE WE GOING UNDERGROUND? IS THERE A HIDDEN CITY? DO YOU HAVE DINOS? T-REXES? STEGOSAURUSES…ES? TELL ME!"

"It's James Bond. Not Jurassic Park," Brick muttered, but his eyes hadn't stopped scanning every detail.

"That's what they WANT you to think," Boomer whispered, eyes wide, breath fogging up the window again.

Butch clicked his tongue, unable to hide his appreciation as the massive metal doors slid apart, a vertical shaft in front of them glowing with cold blue light. "Okay. That's kinda sick."

The helicopter continued to descend, completely swallowed over by the enormous opening, Brick immediately noticing the walls lined with security checkpoints. He already counted at least five, and was currently trying to read the numbers and words painted along the sides as they passed. He would have had an easier job at it if Boomer wasn't yelling in his ear the whole time like they each couldn't hear a mosquito fart from the other room. "This is SO COOL. Brick, do you see this? Butch, look at this! This is like a supervillain lair! Wait, are we gonna be supervillains?"

"We already are, dumbass," Butch snorted. "This just means we're gettin' PAID for it."

The GDA agent across from him visibly flinched now, face paling several shades as he looked at each one of the boys in turn, before landing on Brick finally.

"Major lockdown vibes," he muttered under his breath without realizing it. His hands rose up to his hat, instinctively adjusting it on his head as his eyes locked everything in the hyper-efficient computer that was his mind. "Reinforced doors every couple hundred feet. Pretty serious security."

The GDA agent's eyebrows raised slightly, obviously surprised by Brick's assessment.

It took another good minute for the helicopter to finally level out. Brick raised a single eyebrow as the landing pad stretched out below, massive and sterile, buried in the guts of an entirel underground complex at least a mile underground.

The rotors whined down, letting Brick hear his own thoughts finally.

Boomer barely waited for clearance before jumping out, landing harder than necessary, grinning at the way the impact sent a strong shudder through the floor. Butch followed right after, arms stretching over his head, back cracking loud enough to make the agent standing nearby flinch. Brick moved last, slow and deliberate, eyes already sweeping the hangar, mapping out exits, guard positions, blind spots.

Huge space full of cold industrial lighting you only ever saw in high-tech bases like this; Brick was pretty sure Mojo had a discount on the stuff the way he bought it in bulk after the Powerpuffs wrecked his lair every other week. Aircraft lined up in neat rows—helicopters, jets, something weirdly shaped Boomer had never seen before. A few GDA personnel loitered near the perimeter, some in tactical gear, some in lab coats, all of them doing a bad job of pretending they weren't staring.

Boomer spun in a slow circle, arms out. "Okay, so, where's all the cool superhero stuff? No giant statues? No holograms? Not even a big screen with a world map full of blinking red dots?" He sounded personally offended. "This is just an airport parking lot."

The agent looked mildly insulted but kept it professional. Before he could respond, Cecil Stedman emerged from the far side of the hangar, moving like a guy who expected the world to adjust around him instead of the other way around. Suit still perfect. Expression unreadable.

"That's precisely the point," Cecil said, coming to a stop in front of them. "Subtlety is an asset in our line of work."

"Subtlety is boring," Butch muttered, kicking at nothing.

Cecil ignored him, nodding slightly to the agent. "Thank you, Jennings. I'll take it from here."

Jennings. Not Johnson. Not that it mattered.

He turned, already walking toward the heavy doors across the hangar. "Follow me."

Boomer fell in first, Butch prowling next to him, Brick trailing behind, watching their backs, tracking exits, cameras, the way the guards were still pretending not to watch.

The farther in they went, the tighter things got. Not physically. Structurally. Like the space itself was slotting into place around them. Guard placement. Reinforced doors. Cameras shifting between them and the access points like the system couldn't decide which was the bigger problem.

Security ramped up fast. First checkpoint: ID scan. Second: two guards, two scanners, too much attention. Third: full-body scan.

Boomer stepped in. The machine hummed. Crackled. Made a weird choking sound before beeping like it was dying. Then shut off completely.

Boomer blinked. "Uh. Was that supposed to happen?"

Cecil didn't turn. "Ignore it."

Butch grinned, cracking his knuckles. "Wow. Super advanced."

Personnel passed them, trying too hard not to stare. Lab coats. Tactical gear. Some of them looking at the Boys like they were something dangerous. Some like they were something new.

They stepped into the elevator. Cecil pressed his palm to the scanner, hit a button with no numbers. That sat wrong.

"How far down does this place go?" Boomer asked, shifting, rocking on his heels.

"Far enough," Cecil answered, which wasn't an answer.

The doors slid open to another corridor, identical to the ones above, except the stripe along the wall was blue instead of green. Brick didn't like it. The deeper they went, the more it felt like something was slotting into place around them, walls closing in piece by piece.

Cecil led them into an office labeled OPERATIONS DIRECTOR. Bigger than Boomer expected. Walls lined with monitors, surveillance feeds ticking away in real time, a man at the center manipulating holographic displays like he was conducting an orchestra. He turned when they entered.

Average-looking guy. Plain features. Brown hair going thin at the temples. Suit just a little too loose, like he hadn't quite grown into it and a pair of mirrored sunglasses hiding his eyes.

Cecil barely slowed. "Boys, this is Donald Ferguson, Deputy Director of the GDA and your primary liaison."

Donald smiled stiffly, expression not quite making it to his eyes. "These are the subjects?" His voice was higher than Boomer expected. "They're... smaller than I expected."

Butch tensed up fast, that sharp, animal gleam sliding into his eyes as he stepped forward, all teeth and bad intentions. "Who you callin' small, pencil pusher?"

Donald took a step back—barely—but Brick caught it.

A sound that his ears recognized as a mechanical whirr, faint, too clean.His red eyes narrowed, locking on, because now the guy was interesting. The way he moved—too precise. His blinking—too timed. Normal people had natural tics; they twitched, hesitated, breathed wrong when they got nervous.

Donald didn't. Not the way he should.

Cecil cut in smooth, placing a hand on Donald's shoulder like he was redirecting a loaded gun that was also a family heirloom. "Donald is my number two and is uniquely suited to processing the data you'll generate. He'll be coordinating your missions and handling your integration into GDA operations."

Brick's hearing picked up another sound—the faintest click of servos as Donald's fingers curled, uncurled. Not just human, then. Something built into him, definitely. Probably expensive but nowhere near advanced as what Brick had seen before, otherwise he'd never have noticed.

Six Million Dollar Man? More like a jumped up RoboCop.

Donald cleared his throat, awkward, and blurted out: "So... do you boys like video games?"

Oh brother, this guy stinks.

The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on.

Brick barely moved, just exhaled, slow and long, like the patience was physically leaving his body. Boomer actually did like video games. He was about to say so, too, but Butch snorted first, loud, completely dismissive. Boomer caught his brothers' reactions, hunched slightly, and deflated. Right. They were supposed to be tough right now.

"Let's get a move on already," Cecil suggested, the old man already walking away. "We need to prep and debrief you before we discuss your first assignment."

They moved through the whole massive facility like tourists in the world's most boring museum. Cecil pointed things out—communications, research and development, personnel quarters—while Donald trailed behind, occasionally spitting out details so dry even Brick stopped listening.

The communications center was pretty big as it was already but nothing compared to the massive hangar and atrium they'd already been through. This place had line after line of analysts hunched over their screens, monitoring what looked like pretty much everything on the planet. Brick's gaze skimmed the screens, red eyes reading too much, too fast.

The detention area made Boomer's skin itch, though he tried not to show it. Dozens of long halls lined with cells. Some empty. Some not. Cecil was clearly showing them this for a reason, and Brick could see why, even if the old man wasn't bringing attention to it.

One cell to Boomer's side had a guy pacing back and forth in it, the dude made of pure white crackling energy, the weird electricity around him making it hard to tell what he actually looked like. A second cell held a big dude with a super weird skull, like if a rhino and a bulldozer had a baby, who kept slamming his massive head against the reinforced glass, while a third had one who the boys couldn't stop staring at. It was this freaky guy whose body kept changing – one second he had T-Rex arms, then shark teeth, then these huge bat wings – and Boomer honestly had to admit he'd give up Animal Planet to have powers that cool.

Butch's eyes flicked toward the empty high-security cells near the end, a smirk playing at his mouth. "So, this your plan? Get us down here and shove us into three empty cells?"

Boomer gasped and Brick rolled his eyes, well aware his brothers were just playing.

Cecil's expression didn't change. "Of course not. But we prepare for all contingencies."

Brick's eyes landed on one door near the back. No viewing window. Just solid metal, more locks than any of the others. His head tilted slightly to the right. Hm.

The research and development sections of the GDA facility were even deeper, another elevator taking them down to a space full of white coats.

Scientists moved through sealed labs, glancing up when the Boys passed. Most of them went right back to work, but some didn't. Some kept looking. Whispering.

"...power scaling off the charts..."

"...energy signatures unlike anything—"

"...metabolic rate suggests—"

Boomer wasn't listening, not really. Too distracted. There was a glowing blue thing in one of the labs, pulsing behind thick glass. He drifted toward it, fingers reaching out—

Donald's arm shot out, blocking his path. "Don't touch that."

Boomer flinched back.

Donald's face stayed stiff, serious. "It's highly unstable."

Boomer shoved his hands in his pockets. "I wasn't gonna touch it," he lied, stepping back toward his brothers. "Just looking."

"Alright, enough of that," Cecil's voice cut through after he let Butch have a break for a moment.

Brick could only guess that the old man was already regretting that choice.

The room was still settling from the wreckage of Butch's ego trip when they moved on. The table was cracked in half, the guard was still rubbing his wrist, and Butch was still looking for another challenger. No one was stupid enough. Probably for the best.

Cecil didn't slow. He was already leading them down the next corridor, already talking like that hadn't just happened. Brick had to wonder how much experience the old guy had with superhuman antics to not even blink at it. He's like sixty… so maybe forty years? Brick raised an eyebrow. Still a lot.

The testing range was big, loud, scorched to hell. Reinforced walls, blast marks, floor still grooved from whatever had been tested last.

"This is where we calibrate containment tools," Donald said, gesturing to an entire wall of weapons. "Each one designed for specific superhuman suppression."

Brick's eyes flicked over the display. He didn't react nor did he need to. Butch's attention didn't shift either, because he already couldn't care less. Boomer was staring at a cannon bigger than he was, tilting his head, probably thinking about what would happen if he pulled the trigger.

Then the particle cannon fired.

The air went sharp. The whine built fast, cutting through bone. The beam hit the target, ripped a crater straight through the back wall, and kept going.

Boomer blinked. "…Okay. That was actually kinda cool."

Brick's mouth twitched. Barely. "Not bad… for humans."

Donald exhaled. Something in his face clicked, literal. "Don't worry. These are only for threats."

That landed wrong.

Brick's expression stayed neutral, not even blinking. Butch stopped breathing for half a second. Boomer felt something weird in his stomach, but it was gone before he could pin it down.

"You don't think we're threats?" Brick said, before he could stop himself, eyes narrowed.

Cecil didn't miss a beat. "We think you're assets. But it's important you understand our capabilities."

That ended that. Cecil was already moving. They had to keep up.

They were handed earpieces next. Sleek, black, expensive-looking. Some technician—young, purple streaks in her hair, not as scared as the others—handed one to Boomer. "Just put it in your ear. It's biometric-calibrated."

Boomer did.

And the lights immediately flickered.

Sparks ran up his fingers. The earpiece let out one last pitiful shriek before dying completely. Crap.

"Sorry," Boomer winced, pulling it out. "That happens sometimes."

The technician forced a smile. Her hands shook when she handed him another. "This one's… reinforced."

Brick was already dissecting his earpiece. Turning it in his fingers, too focused. His eyes landed on the tiny tracking component inside. Boomer saw the way his mouth tightened.

The briefing room was too clean, too smooth. Glass walls, glowing screens, data flashing too fast to read. Cecil gestured at the seats. No one sat.

"Before we discuss your first assignment," Cecil said, activating the display, "you need to understand the landscape."

The main screen lit up. Faces. Names. Heroes.

Boomer leaned in, eyes going wide.

"The Guardians of the Globe are this world's premier hero team," Donald said, swiping through profiles. "Immortal. War Woman. Red Rush. Darkwing. Green Ghost. Aquarus. Martian Man."

Brick was already cataloging threats, taking in the fake Justice League this dimension had as major heroes. Boomer was already losing interest. Butch, on the other hand, stared at War Woman a little too long.

Something about her; the battle stance, set jaw, the way she carried herself, or maybe the way she knew her way around a hammer.

It reminded him of Buttercup.

And not in a bad way.

Butch suddenly shoved off the wall, shaking his head to push all sappy thoughts aside. "So when do we see if we're stronger?" He jerked a thumb toward the screen. "That Immortal guy looks tough, but I bet I could take him."

Cecil raised an eyebrow at Butch'e eagerness. "That won't be necessary. Our goal is cooperation, not competition."

The last profile loaded on the screen and Butch narrowed his forest-green eyes at the image of a big ol' guy with a chest the size of a muscle car grill with a square jaw, thick mustache, and a white-and-red suit with a blood-red cape. Square in the center of his chest was the exact same symbol Brick had spotted all over the country, plastered on billboards, merch, and graffiti.

"This here is Omni-Man," Cecil announced, gravelly smooth voice even as he stood to the side of the screen. "The Global Defense Agency's most powerful asset."

Boomer blinked at the stats listed under the picture, blue eyes wide as he realized everything was maxed out on the screen, no ceiling in sight. Strength, speed, durability, endurance, all off the charts. The words 'asteroid the size of Texas' on the screen made all three boys actually blink.

Brick stood still, expression unreadable but eyes flicking across data points, tracking inconsistencies like he was trying to solve a puzzle no one else could see.

"He looks like Superman!" Boomer finally blurted out, the youngest jumping to his feet with one finger pointed at the screen. Brick and Butch blinked again at their brother's words, opened their mouths as if to argue, and then stared back at the screen for a second, nodding after a moment, because, honestly, yeah… if Big Blue decided to grow a mustache… the guy really did.

Donald frowned, the name clearly not ringing a bell for him. "I'm sorry, Super... who?"

Brick barely moved, but something in his posture tightened—so small, Boomer wouldn't have caught it if he wasn't looking, and the Blue Rowdyruff flinched as he realized he once again said too much.

Cecil didn't blink at the seemingly odd choice of words from Boomer, something that Brick paid attention to, even as he held back a sigh at Boomer's words. "Moving on," the old man continued as if he hadn't heard any of that, dress shoes already click-click-clicking down one of the GDA's massive hallways. "Time to assess your capabilities."

Butch's ears perked up immediately, the earlier tension already forgotten. Finally, something fun.

The "assessment" turned out to be an underground chamber that either Mojo or Professor Utonium would have come up with and in the same colors too—all white reinforced walls, and huge observation windows probably made out of extremely bulletproof super-thick glass where a bunch of lab coats huddled behind control panels, whispering in nervous tones. The air smelled like ozone, like burnt metal and something chemical he couldn't name.

Donald stood near the entrance, expression fixed in its usual unreadable place. "We're testing for speed, strength, durability, energy projection," he listed, one finger tapping against a screen in front of him as the boys moved into the assessment room. "Do your best."

Speed came first.

Brick moved first, a red blur tearing across the chamber with his red trail behind him, stopping and starting so fast that shockwaves cracked through the walls. Butch tore past him a second later, fists clenched as he painted the room green with his lighttrail. Boomer took off flying just to keep up, blue trail darting through the space he left behind. The room's sensors flickered violently, half of them blinking out with error messages.

Strength was barely a challenge. They went from crushing reinforced plates to breaking the whole damn mechanism in under two minutes. Boomer at least tried to make it look like he was trying, but Butch still smirked like he had something to prove, cracking his knuckles as he shattered a testing plate by tapping it hard with the back of his knuckles.

Durability testing was just another Tuesday. They started with rubber bullets. Brick simply sighed. Then normal lead rounds. Then armor-piercing. Boomer only got interested when they cranked up to particle cannons—because those he could actually feel.

Then came the energy projection tests. Boomer grinned as he lifted his hands, electricity jumping between his fingers before lashing outward in chaotic, flickering arcs, blasting straight into a reinforced panel. The metal hissed, groaned, and finally slagged under the onslaught. Butch's blasts were raw force, green light crackling as he fired them in controlled bursts that seared deep into the panels. Brick's turn came last, and his heat vision carved a line through one of the thickest walls like a blade through butter, molten metal dripping down like wax.

Somewhere behind the glass, a scientist muttered, "Sir, their power levels exceed our standard classification system."

Cecil turned to him, expression flat and half-eyes lidded as he simply told the whitecoat three simple words, "Revise the system."

Brick was the only one of the three paying attention, so he was the only one that heard it, the only one whose mouth quirked up in a smirk at the thought of how they were still on top, no matter what this Cecil guy had planned.

The tests wrapped, and they were led back to Cecil's office, standing in a loose, instinctive formation once they finally got inside the man's space; Brick straight-backed, sharp-eyed; Butch leaning against the wall, arms crossed, barely feigning disinterest; Boomer still bouncing on his toes, buzzing with leftover energy.

Cecil glanced at a tablet, flipping through data with an unreadable expression. Then he said, "Based on your capabilities, we're designating you as Team Trinity."

Brick's nose scrunched up immediately. "That's lazy and boring and dumb. We're the Rowdyruff Boys."

Cecil's face didn't change. "That name doesn't exactly inspire public confidence."

"What about 'The Destroyers'?" Butch threw out, fistpumping the air with a grin on his face like he was already imagining the name in flashing lights.

"Or 'Lightning Force'!" Boomer tossed his idea in with a wide eager grin.

Cecil let out a little breath of air, so tiny it could barely be called an exhale, before he looked the three of them in the eyes. "Rowdyruff makes you sound too much like children. And those other two names are… generally taken."

Boomer blinked. "But… we are children?"

Butch frowned. "Who cares? We'll beat them up and take their names.

Brick raised an eyebrow. "Generally?"

Now, Cecil actually bothered with an annoyed sigh, the man actually managing to seem like just a regular man as old as he looked for at least a full second. That second vanished quickly however and Brick watched as he became the cold calm GDA head the man claimed he was.. "For now, it's going to be Trinity. It's already in the system. Just try it out for a month or two. See how it fits."

Brick's jaw tensed, his hands curling slightly before he forced them flat. "Whatever. But we're still calling ourselves the Rowdyruff Boys."

Cecil's mouth quirked—just barely, like he wasn't supposed to be amused but was anyway. "Off camera, off the record, I don't care. You can go ahead and call yourselves the Banana Bunch for all you want."

Boomer narrowed his eyes, a proper frown on the blond Rowdyruff's face. "...I hate bananas."

Their final stop was their assigned quarters – a reinforced living space located near an evacuation shaft for what Cecil called "quick deployment." The room was huge, easily at least half the size of Mojo's main lab, and also modern but deliberately minimial, with three separate beds, reinforced furniture, and barely any decorations.

Brick rarely missed much.

It was kind of his job as the Rowdyruff that used his braincells by choice. It was that exact same reason he was the leader and why he was the oldest of the triplets. He especially didn't miss the fact that their little living area looked more like some kind of containment space redesigned as a room last minute but... could he really blame them? Nominal determinism or not, they were called the Rowdyruffs for a reason.

Long story short, reinforced walls, reinforced doors, reinforced furniture—everything was built like they were expected to break it. Because they probably were. The whole space was massive, bigger than Mojo's lab but weirdly empty, all clean lines and cold efficiency. Being honest, they could have tried to make the place look nicer but Brick knew they probably didn't have the time, given they just agreed to give this whole thing a try a few hours ago. Three identical beds, three desks, one table, one couch. No posters, no color, nothing fun. Even the screen on the far wall was showing some fake-ass mountain range, like that was supposed to make it feel welcoming.

Donald stood awkwardly near the door, hands folded in front of his waist. "Well, here it is—home sweet home," the man said, with an attempt at cheer in his tone that felt about as useful as Cecil would find a barber.

Brick just stared at the cyborg man flatly. No glare, not even a frown, he simply stared at him with as flat an expression as he could manage.

And he was real good at those.

Donald shifted, the man actually grimacing a little after barely even a couple seconds. "Yeah, okay," he muttered, stepping aside like he hadn't just embarrassed himself.

Boomer, completely unaffected, immediately took off for the bed closest to the fake window, flopping down and bouncing lightly on the mattress. "Dibs! Hey, does the screen change? Can we put up the ocean? Or, like, space? Or—oooh, can we do dinosaurs fighting robots?"

Butch had already kicked off his boots and was standing on his bed, testing the bounce like a wild animal scoping out new territory. One good jump, then another, and then—CRACK. The whole frame gave way beneath him. He landed ass-first in the wreckage, looking vaguely pleased with himself.

Donald actually winced, blinking at the broken bed. "...I'll put in a requisition for something more durable."

Brick ignored all of them. He was scanning the room, slow, methodical, noting every vent, every corner, every weirdly specific structural reinforcement. His gaze flicked over the ceiling, then the far wall, pausing just long enough to let whoever was watching know that he knew. Without a word, he adjusted the panel near his bed, a small pulse of heat vision slipping out so quickly it barely left an afterglow. One of the hidden cameras sparked and died.

Nobody said anything about it.

Cecil showed up not long after, holding a tablet with their so-called "first mission brief." The screen lit up, throwing a holographic projection of a facility onto the air between them—a squat industrial complex surrounded by nothing but trees.

"Your first assignment," Cecil began, sounding like he was giving some big speech, like they hadn't already been punching people through buildings for years, "is nothing too complicated for your first outing. This," he pointed at the hologram in front of them, "is a now-abandoned lab belonging to a group of twin scientists known only as the Maulers. We don't know why they abandoned it, but they're not one to waste equipment and property so there must be a damn good reason. Your mission — if you choose to accept it — is to engage in surveillance only."

Brick's eyes narrowed.

Boomer tilted his head as he studied the hologram with narrowed eyes. If you didn't know him, you might actually think he actually cared about the information and didn't just wanna poke at the pretty lights.

"What exactly are we looking for?" Brick dropped the question sitting on his mind.

Cecil met his gaze with that same unreadable expression, before that scarred moutb opened again. "Anything you think might be dangerous. Anything that might need punching."

"Yeah, okay," Butch muttered, sounding bored already despite slightly perking up when the P word was mentioned.

Cecil didn't stick around long. He and Donald left them to "prepare," whatever that meant, because as soon as they were gone, the Boys just looked at each other.

In the deep levels of the GDA, Cecil and Donald watched the Boys through multiple monitors. Cameras caught them from every angle, tracking their movements, their expressions, the way they settled into the space they'd been provided.

Donald frowned slightly, the man clearly concerned by how his superior had left the facility this morning and returned with three pint-sized hydrogen bombs. "Sir, are you sure about this? They're... unpredictable."

Cecil's eyes looked like they were on the verge of rolling as he cast a glance toward his number two. "They're pre-teens, Donald. Of course they're unpredictable. Are you kidding? It'd be downright suspicious if they weren't." Director Stedman tilted his head as he finally chose to look at his number two. "But they are powerful. And right now, they're cooperating. I'd rather have them with us than against us."

Donald's gaze flicked to another monitor, one showing lockdown protocols and containment measures, wondering how it could possibly hold against three preteens that could individually survive an impact upwards of Mach 100 and be unbothered by it. "And if they'd rather be against?"

Cecil's expression stayed unmoving,, but something in his tone shifted regardless. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that."

Back in their room, the three of them huddled close, each of their faces barely a foot from each other.

"Here's what we're actually doing," Brick whispered, his sub-vocalizations too low to be caught by any but the most sensitive of microphones but easily picked up by his brothers as they focused their ears. "They're testing us. They want to see if we'll follow orders. They don't know anything about us, and they don't trust us. But they're scared too."

Butch's grin widened, practically humming with excitement. "So what's the plan?"

"We do what we do best," Brick said, clenching a fist and thrusting it out with a smirk on his face. "The only way we can. The Rowdyruff way."

Boomer smiled and Butch grinned, the other two meeting Brick's fists in the middle. "The Rowdyruff way."

Across the room, their Global Defense Agency assigned communicators blinked quietly, the things still on.

Chapter Text

The chopper blades made way too much noise for this early. Like if someone was trying to grind up the sky and didn't know when to quit. Not that any of the Boys flinched—they heard everything anyway.

Always did.

You couldn't not when you were built like them.

Brick kept his eyes on the tablet in his lap, fingers flicking through the mission brief like he was bored of it already. Mostly because he was. They'd been over it twice already and he was skimming out of habit more than anything, catching details he already knew or had already memorized out of spite. He wasn't reading it to learn anything—he was reading it so no one could say he wasn't paying attention.

Butch was lying across the seat like it was his, one leg kicked over the armrest and the other hanging off the side, boot heel rhythmically thudding against the wall with no real beat to it. "Why are we even awake right now? It's still dark, practically. This is messed up. I'm gonna start breaking stuff if I fall asleep on my feet."

Brick didn't bother looking up. "Then don't fall asleep."

"But why though," Butch whined, dragging out the vowels like he was trying to summon a nap by force. "Ain't nobody gonna be doing evil science at six in the morning. This is dumb."

"You're dumb," Brick shot back, monotone, eyes still on the screen.

"Bad guys like us don't even get up this early," Butch muttered louder, mostly to himself as he started peeling a scab off his elbow with his thumbnail. He watched it start to bleed. Then watched it stop bleeding like it always did. Barely even a mark left behind.

Boomer was nose-pressed to the window beside them, eyes huge, fogging the glass up every time he exhaled. "Yo—guys—hey! Cows! There's cows down there! Like, for real, cows!"

Brick ignored him.

"They're all teeny! Like, bug-size! Wait—wait—what if they are bugs. Like, cow-bugs. Bug-cows."

"Those are ants, genius," Butch said, not looking. Then kicked Donald's chair hard enough to make the poor guy jolt and fumble his tablet.

Donald coughed into his hand, trying not to look annoyed as he turned in his seat. "Boys, I just want to go over—"

"We got it," Brick said, finally blinking up, face flat and voice flatter. "Don't break stuff. Look at stuff. Call you if we find stuff. Yeah?"

Donald opened his mouth like he wanted to protest, then shut it and sighed like grownups always did when they didn't wanna admit you were right.

"It's not a video game," he said anyway, because he had to. "This is real-world surveillance protocol—"

"We're two minutes out," the pilot called back, and Brick exhaled through his nose. Best thing he'd heard all morning.

The building underneath didn't look like anything worth raiding. It was flat and ugly and gray, and the trees around it were already losing their leaves even though it wasn't that cold yet. Looked like someone buried a school and gave up halfway. Chain-link fence, a gate, no real cameras they could see—though Brick figured if he could see the cameras, they were already bad at their job.

Donald pointed anyway. "Secondary lab used by the Maulers. Not a primary facility. The main one's gone—we did a sweep a few days ago after the President declared them threats to National Security, but they cleared out first. Intel says they had satellite sites. This is an older one, one they haven't touched in a while." The cyborg clicked his tongue. "We're not sure why."

Brick leaned forward slightly, eyes narrowing. The layout made no sense. One door. Two power lines. Four heat outlets, none of them warm. No cars. No movement. "And you want us to go poke around and see what jumps out."

Donald nodded slowly, like he hadn't expected them to follow. "Exactly. Recon only. No activating systems, no pressing buttons, no engaging threats if there are any. Just observe. Report. Got it?"

Boomer raised his hand, like this was a real class or something. "What's a Mauler Twin?"

Donald turned. Blinked. "The… the blue supervillains? Super smart? Super strong? One clone, one original? They've been on every newschannel for weeks, after trying to flood San Diego."

Boomer tilted his head, glanced at Brick. Then Butch.

Both shrugged.

"We've been watching Duck Dodgers," Brick said.

"And WWE," Butch chimed in.

"And Shark Week," Boomer added.

Donald closed his eyes like that physically hurt him. "Just… don't touch anything."

The chopper door screeched open before anyone could say more, and the wind slammed into them like a punch—but none of them even flinched.

Donald pointed at the rope ladder dropping down toward the trees. "We'll maintain hover while you—"

Red, green, and blue flashes of light filled his vision, but before he could say anything else, they were already gone.

Down below, the boys landed on the concrete with only the usual, lined up like they'd practiced it, though they never really had.

Donald's voice crackled over the comms, already defeated. "Was Donny ever that bad?"

Brick didn't answer. He didn't even blink.

He scanned the building again, focusing his eyes until the walls turned see-through, not literally but close. The whole place was empty. "No heat sigs. Nothing moving. Dead."

Butch cracked his knuckles loud enough to echo off the trees. "Can I punch a wall now? Way cooler entrance."

Brick tilted his head, eyes not leaving the structure. "We're supposed to be subtle, remember?"

Butch snorted. "I am subtle."

"If we smash through and there's nothing inside," Brick muttered, already walking toward the building, "we're just the idiots who broke a wall for no reason."

"Breaking stuff ain't ever for nothing," Butch muttered under his breath, but his boots still hit the ground behind Brick's like he hadn't just complained the whole walk over. He was already stretching his arms like he was warming up for a fight that hadn't started yet.

Brick didn't answer. He didn't have to. The whole setup already looked like a problem. A thick slab of a door, metal reinforced and locked up with some kind of keypad glowing faint green like it was waiting for someone smarter than it to try something stupid. If they were back in Townsville, he would've just torched the hinges and been done in five seconds. But then he remembered the lecture Cecil had dropped on them back at HQ about "restraint" and "discipline" and not turning infrastructure into craters every time you feel itchy.

He wasn't about to ask permission.

Before he could think of something clever to do with heat vision and plausible deniability, Boomer practically skipped up to the panel with a grin already cocked on his face like he was about to do a magic trick.

"I got it! I got it, I got it," Boomer said, both hands splayed on the panel like it was a birthday present, tongue poking out the corner of his mouth. The keypad buzzed once, flickered, then caught a thin trail of blue lightning like it had sneezed wrong.

Lights flashed, clicked twice, and then the door hissed open all dramatic.

Boomer spun around, already grinning too wide. "Ta-da."

Brick gave him a nod. Just the one. It was enough to make Boomer light up like Christmas.

Inside, the place was dark, well, less dark and more dim, with that kind of fake-red emergency lighting that made everything look like a horror movie on mute. The floor was concrete. The walls were concrete. Everything was concrete and it all stank.

Like copper and chemicals and something that hadn't been cleaned in way too long.

"Wow, this place… smells like death," Butch snorted, already making a face as he stared around the place. "Like the lamest version of death. Not even cool villain death. Just... janitor death."

What does that even me- The oldest Rowdyruff shook his head and glanced over at his brother with narrowed eyes. "Stop talking," Brick said, quiet but sharp, stepping in and scanning the hallways with quick flicks of his eyes. "Let's split up. We'll cover this whole place faster."

He hadn't even finished the sentence before Butch blurred past him, gone down a hall like a streak of bad decisions. Boomer was already zooming in blue, shooting out toward a room glowing with screen light.

Their comms sparked to life with Donald's voice, full freak-out mode already online. "No no no! You are to stay together! That is a clear protocol breach! I repeat—"

Brick popped the earpiece out and pocketed it. If he had to hear the word "protocol" one more time, he was going to burn it into the walls just to be spiteful.

He took the center path.

The main hall was wide and quiet and too long. Every door he passed was either open and full of nothing or locked and screaming to be opened. Half the stuff in the rooms looked like it hadn't been touched since whoever ran this place bailed. Broken monitors, stacked-up trays of unused syringes, one desk with what looked like blood still dried under the corner.

He wasn't a scientist. He didn't need to be.

Biggest lab was at the end. Rows of tubes. Not the glass kind with frogs. These were… different. Cylinders full of green liquid, glowing faint, and filled with things. Not just bits. Bodies. Half-built bodies. All of them wrong. Some had extra joints, some had too many eyes, some had no skin. Some were blue, others purpled over like bruises on meat.

"Gross," Brick muttered. Not like scared-gross. Just... why would anyone build this kind of gross.

He leaned in without stepping closer, eyes narrowing. They were shaped like people, but only in the vaguest sense. All muscle and no sense. Like someone remembered what a guy looked like but couldn't draw one without cheating.

A buzz came out from his pocket, Brick groaning as he fished the earpiece back out just in time to catch Donald yelling.

"—completely unacceptable, boys! You cannot just disregard orders! This is an absolute breach! Director, they've gone totally off-script!"

"Let's wait and see," Cecil's voice slid through after, lower, calmer, like he wasn't surprised at all.

Then Boomer chimed in, way too loud. "GUYS! You gotta come see this!"

Brick blinked once. That tone only meant one of two things—something cool, or something disastrously cool.

"Don't touch anything!" Brick barked, already moving, feet a blur against the floor as he zipped through the hallway, sensors and lights reacting too slow to track the motion.

He skidded to a stop outside one of the heavy sealed doors just as it finished hissing open. Boomer stood there with his head tilted, glowing light painting his hair blue, wide-eyed like he'd walked into a candy store that might also be haunted.

"Whoa…" Boomer whispered, staring into the massive chamber beyond.

Tubes. Dozens of them. Taller than the others. Bigger. Inside each one floated a massive body—blue skin, bald heads, cartoon-muscle big and like seven feet tall with every single one of their faces all the same. Empty looking.

But alive.

Brick stepped closer, eyes narrowed. "So these are the Maulers, huh," he said, mostly to himself. Not the real ones, clearly. Just copies, all grown from scratch.

Boomer had drifted to the console by then, eyes wide and hands hovering way too close to the one glowing button that obviously meant don't touch me in every language ever.

"I think this opens 'em," Boomer said, curious like he was picking out candy.

"Boomer. Don't," Brick warned, hand half-raised—

Too late. A green streak smashed through the doorway, Butch skidding to a stop behind them as with his grin halfway carved into his face just as Boomer's finger tapped the control.

Click.

For a beat, the world held its breath.

Then it broke it.

Alarms screamed with a sound like a hundred screams at once as lights as reds as Brick's shirt flared all around. Green liquid rushed out of the tubes so fast it splashed across the floor like a dam gave out. The glass hissed and cracked and slid back into itself.

From the comms: Donald, already full-volume panic mode.

"WHAT DID YOU DO? BOYS?!"

Brick let out a slow, exasperated breath, rubbing at the bridge of his nose like it physically hurt to be right all the time. "You're such an idiot," he muttered, mostly at Boomer but also at the universe. Then again—finally. Something real.

The first one came out heavy, slumped and twitching, green fluid dripping off it like the tank had spat it out halfway finished. The head was too small, neck crooked, chest ballooned out in one spot and sunken in the other. Its arms didn't match—one longer than the other, muscles twitching like they weren't attached right. More started dropping out behind it, wet and slow and wrong. One pulled itself out sideways like it hadn't figured out what legs were. Another had four arms and used all of them wrong.

"Oops," Boomer blurted, edging backward, hands up like the clones could see him and might care. "Didn't mean to—uh—sorry?"

Brick didn't even look at him. "Talk later. Smash now."

Butch cracked every joint in both hands, already bouncing like a kid who saw cake at the wrong part of the party. "Been waitin' all morning for this."

They didn't talk about how they fought. Never needed to. It was just how they were built. They moved.

Butch hit first—because of course he did. His whole body blurred green as he launched himself into the biggest cluster of the freaks, fists swinging fast enough to bend the air around them. Bones snapped. Skin folded. One clone's whole upper torso folded in half like a box getting stomped.

Boomer launched straight up, midair already crackling with blue, and threw out a net of lightning in a wide arc across the far wall. It slammed into the exits and stuck there, a living fence. Any clone that stumbled too close jolted, spasmed, dropped twitching in a smoking heap.

Brick stayed grounded. Heat vision came first—tight, surgical bursts that cut through two coming at him slow. He ducked under another's swipe, spun, and drove his heel into its back so hard it cratered into the floor. His knuckles caught one in the jaw, caved it in. They weren't fast. They weren't smart. Just bodies. Heavy and dumb and gross.

Somewhere in their comms, Donald started panicking like a smoke alarm that couldn't find the fire. "They're destroying scientific assets! Those were specimens!"

"No, Donald," Cecil's voice cut in, low and calm and unmoved, like he was already watching it happen. "They're cleaning up a mistake."

Brick didn't say it, but yeah. Agreed. These weren't anything. Not animals. Not people. Just meat that moved.

They should've been done fast. Would've been, too, if the dead ones had stayed dead.

It started with one puddle. Then two. Then four. The blue-green goop from the downed clones didn't sit still. It slithered. Crawled. Found other puddles and stuck to 'em like they belonged together.

"Uh," Brick said, frowning as the liquid swirled in circles across the floor, "that's not good."

"Hey guys?" Butch called, not grinning anymore. "Think we made it mad."

The puddles formed a body. Then more of one. Bigger, heavier, shifting as it pulled more clone-mess into itself. Heads sprouted from shoulders, arms knotted together, some flailing, others twitching. Legs didn't even form the same way twice. The whole thing rose like a bloated tide, sucking in everything that had been broken and screaming as it grew.

It hit the ceiling like it hated roofs and blew clean through, smashing into the next level up with a bellow that made half the remaining glass shatter. Debris rained down in clumps.

Brick lifted his comm again, jaw clenched. "Yeah, we've got a problem. Thing's mutating. Big."

"Contain it!" Donald's voice cracked like a bad radio. "Do not let it leave the facility!"

Cecil, still ice-calm: "Do whatever it takes."

The Boys didn't wait.

They launched.

Brick went first, a red blur trailing static heat as he fired upward through the rubble tunnel. Boomer and Butch followed half a second behind, walls vibrating from the force of their exit. Every light in the hallway shorted out as they passed.

Above, the thing was bigger now. Bulkier. Still growing. It crashed through a wall and dragged its limbs down a corridor like it hadn't figured out how many legs it needed. Butch shot toward it like a missile.

"This is the coolest freakin' thing I've ever seen!" he yelled, slamming shoulder-first into its middle with a force that made the abomination bend.

He carved through the torso, a streak of green gore behind him. For a second it looked like he might've cut it in half.

Then it swallowed him.

Literally. The flesh closed around his trail mid-flight and snapped shut like he'd never been there.

"IT ATE BUTCH!" Boomer shrieked, panic yanking his voice up an octave. "IT ATE OUR BROTHER!"

Brick didn't flinch, rolling his eyes. "Three. Two. One."

The creature jolted and twitched, spasming as its veins pulsed grotesquely. Then… it eased up, suddenly calm. Brick took this moment to blink. Huh… Before he could finish that thought, the thing ballooned outward with a wet, horrible sound, and Butch exploded out of the center screaming.

"THAT. WAS. AWEEEEEESOME!"

He was dripping in sludge, eyes wide, hair matted in neon gunk, grinning like it was Christmas and someone gave him a nuke.

"Boomer!" Brick barked, already flying high above it. "Go loud."

Boomer nodded, blue light building from the tips of his fingers to his whole body. He hovered midair, electricity lashing around his arms until he glowed like a blue sun on the fritz. Then he threw it. Hard. All of it.

The lightning hit the creature like a wave. It convulsed, screeching, limbs jerking in all directions.

Brick dove. Sliced through the air faster than a breath, heat vision tearing across three of the upper heads before he landed fists-first into its chest. He kept going. Ripping. Punching. Breaking everything that looked like a weak point and half the ones that didn't.

Butch barreled back in, spinning midair before slamming his whole body through whatever counted as its heart, tearing it out like he was pulling a prize from a cereal box, cackling at the top of his lungs like a maniac.

The thing screamed one more time, then collapsed. Nothing fancy, no more fight in it. Just hit the ground and turned into sludge.

They hovered above it in the aftermath, breathing hard and not tired at all, just juiced up on adrenaline as the wreckage below stretched out in every direction. The roof was gone, walls caved in, tech busted, and everything soaked in blue-green slop.

Sunlight poured in like someone forgot it was supposed to be a secret mission.

"...our bad," Boomer said, voice real small for once.

The air above the wreck still shimmered from the heat. Brick could feel it against the back of his neck as he dropped to the gravel, boots skidding a little from the sludge. Blue-green gunk clung to his sleeves like slime from a vending machine capsule. Not the worst thing he'd been covered in.

Rotors thundered overhead, a whole swarm of GDA choppers circling like flies already late to the corpse. Trucks hit the fence line in convoys, doors popping open before tires had fully stopped rolling. Suits and gear. Scramblers, retrieval techs, medbots—everything except someone saying you did good, kid. Because they didn't say that. Not to them.

Brick didn't look at any of them. Didn't need to. He knew who mattered. And sure enough, Cecil stepped out of the lead truck, long coat trailing just enough to remind everyone who paid for the gas.

The boys landed right in front of the crater like they were supposed to. Like they hadn't just turned a science facility into a pit full of broken walls and soup-thick goo. Brick kept his chin level, stance neutral. Trying for not embarrassed, which was harder than it should've been when Butch was still vibrating from head to toe.

"DID YOU SEE ME PUNCH THAT THING'S RIBS OUT?" Butch shouted, pointing back toward the hole like it was a trophy he forgot to bring. "I WAS LIKE BOOM—THWAK—AND THEN BRICK DID THE LASER THING WITH THE THREE HEADS AT THE SAME TIME AND—"

"We contained the threat," Brick interrupted, louder than he meant to be, voice clipped and stiff and nothing like confident.

Cecil didn't nod as the old man turned in a slow circle and took in the damage. The roof was gone, the support beams bent into weird spaghetti shapes and every surface slick with clone juice. The concrete lot looked like a giant stepped on it, then slipped, then decided to nap.

"Sure," Cecil said finally, flat as cardboard. "You neutralized the threat. And the facility. And any evidence we might've extracted from the site."

The silence that followed was long enough to notice how cold the wind had gotten.

Boomer kicked at a piece of rubble with the toe of his boot. His mouth pulled sideways like he wanted to say something and also not exist at the same time. He squinted at the ground.

"Are we like… in trouble?" he asked, voice low and trying to sound casual. It didn't.

Butch huffed. "Nah."

They didn't get yelled at. Not at first. The yelling came later, back at GDA HQ, where they'd been shuffled into a debrief room that looked like someone had taken a classroom, removed all the personality, and replaced the walls with judgment.

Boomer couldn't stop messing with the edge of his shirt, picking off dried bits of whatever monster goop had crusted there. His chair creaked every time he moved. Which was a lot.

Butch slumped like he was trying to merge with the furniture, legs kicked out, flicking something sticky off his fingernail and aiming for the ceiling tiles. Brick kept his arms folded tight, spine straight, not because it was comfy but because he didn't trust anyone else in the room to not mess this up even more.

Cecil stood at the far end of the table, tablet in hand. It reflected flashes of the footage—frames of carnage, flashes of heat signatures, streaks of light moving too fast for the camera to follow. One clip caught Boomer lighting up the creature like a Christmas explosion. Another showed Butch getting swallowed and then exploding back out.

"Let's be very clear," Cecil said, still staring down at the tablet like it personally insulted him. "You ignored protocol. You activated systems that were not yours to touch. You released unstable genetic specimens into an unsecured space. And you destroyed a building that cost more than all of you combined."

The boys exchanged a quick look.

Boomer winced.

Butch snorted.

Brick didn't move.

Cecil swiped to the next clip. "But," he said, and that word carried way too much weight for being three letters long, "you also prevented a developing Class-A threat from breaching containment and reaching a populated area."

They waited.

He didn't elaborate.

Then: "You are—destructive. Loud. Uncontrolled."

Boomer swallowed. Butch grinned.

Cecil looked up, just barely. "But you're effective."

Brick felt the shift. Not in what was said. But how it landed.

"So… we passed?" he asked carefully.

"You finished the job," Cecil replied. "And made cleanup harder."

Butch scratched the back of his neck, brushing dried gunk off his collar. "Well, yeah, but we smashed the right guys. That's the part that counts, right?"

Cecil blinked. Once. Brick watched the muscles around his jaw tighten, the flex that came just before a man changed how he thought about something. It was small. But it was there.

He saw it.

Cecil wasn't looking at kids. Not anymore.

He was looking at tools.

Later, in their quarters, Boomer and Butch wouldn't shut up.

Boomer bounced from one end of the room to the other, still talking about the big zap he threw and how next time he was gonna make a lightning spear or a lightning lasso or maybe a lightning bazooka.

Butch kept shadowboxing at the wall, half narrating his own moves like a wrestling commentator. "THEN I TURNED AROUND AND—WHAAM—RIGHT THROUGH ITS UGLY FACE!"

Brick sat on the edge of his bed, elbows on knees, listening without really listening. His eyes tracked the same spot on the floor they'd scuffed yesterday. He wasn't tired. Just… thinking.

Brick stood, slow and quiet, eyes still on the door. "Next time we do it my way," he said, and the noise dipped just enough for him to cut through it. "No splitting off. No pushing random buttons. No surprises."

Boomer saluted. "Aye aye, Captain Buzzkill."

Butch rolled his eyes. "What's next, curfew?"

Brick didn't look at them. Just walked toward the gear shelf, gloves already halfway on.

"...shut the hell up."

Chapter Text

Brick hated the suits. He hated the way they fit, the way they matched, the way they made it obvious they were part of something. He hated that most of all.

It wasn't the material—he could admit, fine, whatever, the stuff was high-end. Smooth, breathable, strong enough to survive Butch going full meteor through a truck. But it clung too clean. Vacuum-tight around his arms, tight at the ribs like it was trying to squeeze obedience into him. Fire-truck red with black stripes that made him look like a bootleg action figure. And dead center, on his chest: a dumb, shiny Roman numeral. Just I. Not even a cool logo. Not even a skull. Just a number.

Like they were inventory.

Like they weren't already.

The gloves were worse. Fingerless. Like he was supposed to go lift weights at the mall or something. And every time he looked to the left or right—Boomer in blue, Butch in green—they all had the same look. Same suits, different colors, same numbers. II. III. They didn't even like numbers. Who looked at three violent, flying preteens and thought, Yeah, they should be a list.

Two months.

That's how long they'd been doing this. Not missions. Training. Practice violence with seatbelts and rules. Memorizing camera angles. Sitting through Donald's dry voice walking them through de-escalation scenarios while Butch chewed on a stylus like it was edible. Pretending like any of that mattered.

Brick hovered high over the city, arms crossed like his brain was locked behind them. Below, Baltimore yawned into the morning—glass towers all glint and gridlocked streets crawling with ants that thought they mattered.

Boomer hovered close, doing a lazy spiral like a balloon that lost half its helium. His blue suit clung to him even tighter, the cowlick above his forehead pointing sideways now. Looked like it gave up trying.

"How much longer we gotta float up here?" Boomer asked, dragging the syllables out. He was turning in place, spinning slowly like he expected to find something new the next time around.

Brick kept his eyes on the bank, ignoring that. "A few minutes."

Boomer groaned like that was somehow worse than an hour.

Then Butch barreled into view from the side like he'd been launched out of a slingshot, barely missing Boomer and spinning him around once. His suit was already wrecked, the green seam along his leg starting to split, III half-hanging. He'd been chewing it earlier.

"This is so frickin' dumb," Butch muttered, flexing like he wanted to punch the sky. Which, knowing him, he definitely did. Butch would punch the concept of punching if you let him and he could figure out how. "Why we just waitin' up here? Thought the bank was gettin' hit today."

"Because we're supposed to wait 'til it actually gets hit," Brick said, deadpan, eyes still on the front doors of the First National like they might blink and disappear. "Observe and report till the guy actually does the thing. No jumping in."

Butch pulled a face. "Observe and report," he mimicked in a bad falsetto as if Brick actually sounded anywhere like that. "Cecil says jump, we say 'how high,' huh?"

Brick didn't answer.

Then the alarms started.

A sharp wailing shriek of a noise the Boys had long gotten used to. Without a moment to waste or even a single word, Boomer's head whipped down toward the bank like someone slapped him. Butch was already laughing.

And already dive-bombing towards the ground.

"Wait for the signal," Brick called, already resigned. But Boomer peeled off too, a blue streak cutting through the air after his brother like a puppy chasing a lawnmower.

Brick followed. Not because he was told to. Because he wanted to.

Because he wasn't gonna miss out on some real fun.

They dropped like meteors. The speed made the wind scream and Brick felt the rush rip around his ears, past his teeth, into his spine as the buildings blurred. His whole body buzzed. He came to a stop a hundred feet above, the street half a breath behind the explosion.

The bank's west wall tore outward, concrete flying like it hated being a wall. Metal groaned, rebar twisted, and a full-grown war machine stepped out of the hole like it had somewhere better to be.

Red armor, gleaming like blood, all the thick metal plates on a frame that was seven feet tall easy, big mechanical limbs swinging with hydraulic smoothness. Two giant fists full of bags—cash, probably, maybe gold—and the kind of confidence that meant it'd walked away from a hundred other scenes just like this.

"Vault has acquired the necessary assets," the robot-thing droned, voice flat like a text-to-speech app left on default. "Departure sequence commencing."

Squad cars skidded into place around the scene like they knew it wouldn't help but had to do something. Doors popped, cops ducked behind them, guns drawn but nobody eager to fire. They knew. You could see it in their faces; that moment of pure oh, we're not enough.

Brick had seen it before.

Lots.

Usually when officers had to face him.

Vault raised one arm.

The blast wasn't even trying to hit anything. Just a flex. A car flipped like a soda can kicked across the pavement, smashed roof-first into a mailbox and stayed there, half-balanced like surprisingly good modern art.

Vault didn't even look at it.

"Wise choice remaining behind cover," the robot said, servo motors whirring as it stepped into the street like it owned it. "Vault has no quarrel with law enforcement unless provoked. Let us avoid needless property damage..."

Brick didn't laugh, but he might've twitched. Okay, maybe more than a little. Which wasn't a good sign. You really couldn't blame him for that, honestly.

The villain in the power armor they had been briefed on — some scientist who had made a power armor in the 90s and decided that made him Lex Luthor but broke — had a hole behind him the size of a dump truck and was talking about not causing damage like it wasn't already a lost cause. Brick hovered mid-air as his red eyes tracked Vault's steps, but his brain was already split between the next move and the stupid script Cecil had drilled into them like they were stupid child actors on the Disney Channel, not living weapons of mass destruction.

Twelve years old. Super-powered. Supposed to smile for the cameras. Right.

He flicked his gaze left—Butch already drifting low to the pavement like he wanted to taste the concrete before he punched someone through it. Boomer was jittering in place to the right, doing that dumb thing with his fingers where sparks popped between them because he couldn't sit still for anything longer than a sneeze.

This was it. Debut day.

Brick gave the smallest nod.

Three blurs moved at once. Left, right, above. Like a slingshot unraveling. Butch dropped like a cannonball, cratered the sidewalk, both fists planted on either side of his crouch like he'd just punched the planet.

"Breakneck!" he barked, voice cracking just a little even as Brick covered it up quickly with just enough growl to sound cool.

Boomer came next, spinning midair with one hand glowing and the other raised in a V he definitely thought looked awesome. "Blitzkrieg!" he shouted, bouncing once when he landed and grinning like an idiot.

Brick didn't descend—he dropped. Heat rippled off his boots when he hit, one knee to the ground, fist planted like a meteor touchdown and pavement crackling out beneath him. Head up, eyes already glowing.

"Brimstone," the oldest Rowdyruff said, voice just loud enough to carry. "Bank's closed."

Vault cocked his head, the weird stilted movement making it feel less robotic somehow. Like a confused dog with a jetpack.

"Who the hell are you to stand in Vault's way?" That voice again. Metal-wrapped and modulated and trying too hard to sound above it all.

Brick straightened. Floated up an inch. Arms behind his back, chin up, like the war general Cecil probably wanted him to be. "Already told you. Brimstone. We're here to shut this down."

Vault shifted his stance, weight recalibrated like he was about to pivot into something dumb. His helmet moved from Brick to Butch to Boomer, then back again.

"You have five seconds to remove yourselves. This is a high-efficiency withdrawal operation. Vault does not entertain child dramatics."

Butch actually barked a laugh. "Hey, Boom, this toaster just called us dramatic."

Brick smirked before he could stop himself. Small. Controlled. Like the pressure valve cracked a notch.

"You're right," he said. "It's not a show. It's a beatdown."

Vault's arm whined, rising like a cannon being primed for war. The energy at the barrel's end coalesced into a twitching white-red knot of heat.

"Confidence is commendable in trained assets. Dangerous in children. Vault will remember you fondly."

The blast fired.

Brick blinked out of its path.

One frame he was there, next frame gone. Just a red smudge of afterimage and then nothing else. The beam carved through the air and slagged a parked SUV, melting the frame into a bent pool of chrome and flame.

Boomer dropped from above, feet-first like a lightning bolt with opinions. He hit Vault's shoulders with a thunk, hands already sparking blue.

"Hi there!" he shouted, too loud and already frying something. Arcs danced across the armor, crawling into joints, sliding down metal seams and lighting up the inside like a short-circuit Christmas. "Bye there!"

"Voltage spike—unacceptable—system reboot initiated—error—override!" Vault choked out, voice glitching like a scratched disc.

Butch came in low, his green speed line bending the air around him, an angry missile with a face and fists. One, in particular, as he drew it back and hit Vault in the ribs.

Everything bent.

Vault flew.

One block. Maybe two.

Brick caught the recoil in his teeth, the sound of the impact rattling the windows hard enough to spiderweb glass half a block away.

Butch was already under him again, grinning like a maniac as he slammed his foot high in a brutal upkick. Armor folded around his leg as the power suit went limp for a second, then stiffened—just in time for Butch to spin around to the villain's back, maintaing pace with Vault's flying form. Without warning, he let his other foot axe down like a guillotine.

Vault hit a parked bus hard, the whole thing collapsing in on itself with a noise like God crumpling a soda can.

Inside the wreckage, Vault twitched.

Boomer skipped across the sidewalk to the opening in the hull like a kid chasing a bouncy ball. Brick floated overhead, scanning for a second target that wasn't there.

Vault dragged himself upright with one hand. The red paint on the armor was blackened at the edges now, like scorched candy. At least one panel was split right open, servos underneath whining.

"Who ARE you brats?"

Brick didn't even raise an eyebrow as Vault started pulling himself out of the wreckage, gears screaming from somewhere deep in the chest unit. Sparks were still stuttering out across the bus frame, cutting hard flashes over the street.

He stayed hovering above the busted asphalt, a few feet higher than the others, the air around him still vibrating from the earlier impact. His brothers shifted back into place like magnets snapping to charge, formation automatic. They never even had to look.

Boomer buzzed in low, breathing a little too fast, fingertips twitching like he wanted to blast something just for the hell of it. Butch popped a vertebra with a tilt of his neck, still grinning, still riding that buzz like a sugar high and a fistfight tangled together.

Brick watched Vault stagger upright through the smoke. The suit was dented, yeah, smoking a little around the joints, but not down. Not yet. He hated that part.

"Cecil said to keep collateral down," Brick muttered, not even turning his head. Quiet enough to avoid hot mics, loud enough to hit their ears. The buzz in the comms was silent but always there, pressure in his skull.

Butch rolled his eyes like his whole head might fly off. "We're standin' in a hole the size of a semi, Brick. Little late for that."

Boomer elbowed Butch in the ribs and lit up his palms with a zap. "What if I just zap the back of his knees? I won't melt anything! Promise. Mostly."

Vault's suit clanked open like a bad toy commercial, shoulder plates pulling back and weapon ports locking into place like the whole thing had been holding its breath. Panels along the forearms hissed out puffs of gas.

"You children insist on escalation," the voice said, deadpan mechanical. "Vault shall accommodate."

Mini-missiles popped out like seeds from a pod, no delay, trails of smoke curling across the sky as they split wide. Ten, twelve, maybe more. The whine of tracking systems buried under the sudden roar.

They split apart immediately. Boomer cut up vertical, corkscrewing past a pair of missiles so fast the smoke hadn't even caught up yet. Butch took the sidewalk like a wrecking ball, baiting three into slamming into the busted remains of a deli, fire and metal swallowing the front of the building.

Brick twisted through the middle, shoulder-feinting left before darting hard right, pulling two warheads into each other just a breath behind his head. The explosion cracked like thunder, concussive and deep enough to rattle glass a block away. Heat licked his heels.

A few strays didn't find targets. One blew apart a mailbox. One slammed into the corner of an office complex. One tore through a parked van and knocked the fire hydrant loose. Water sprayed up like a geyser, pressure-sheared. The sirens hadn't even started yet. Too early.

"You knock that crap into a law firm, I ain't takin' the heat," Brick growled.

Vault dropped into a crouch, fists at his sides, as if copying Butch's landing pose. The V on the chest plate slid up and the panel beneath that opened up sideways, yellow light flooding the street, too bright and too steady. "This concludes your opportunity for retreat. Vault will now initiate final protocol."

There was a thrum in the air. Not sound, not smell, but something in the charge that made static crawl up Brick's skin.

Boomer skidded to a stop behind the mech, feet barely grazing pavement. He cracked his neck once, fingers snapping together in a rhythm only he understood. "Lemme try somethin'."

The blue Rowdyruff raised a hand and sparkked it off before Vault could get off whatever he was trying to. No overkill, no sparking theatrics. Blue lightning lanced out and stabbed right through the glowing panel on the villain's chest, the power armor seemingly starting for a moment. It looked like a hiccup.

Vault's whole frame seized.

"Critical destabilization—core—access point—" the voice hiccupped, distorted and drowning as Vault's arrms locked at weird angles, chest light flickering like a dying bulb.

Butch landed at his side, teeth bared. "My turn."

Two fingers under a shoulder plate. Ripped it off like wrapping paper. The metal howled.

Vault bucked once, sparks blowing sideways from the open cavity. A human face blinked through the exposed inner cockpit. Pale, sweating, eyes wide.

"Whoa, whoa—wait! Okay!" the guy yelped, hands flying up fast. "Okay, okay, I surrender! I'm out, I'm done!"

Butch let go, not because he had to. Just to stretch his arms. Pop his knuckles slow.

The second police van finally squealed up. The cuffs weren't needed. They were just for show.

Cameras showed before the medics. Boom mics came before stretchers. A guy in a Channel 6 jacket yelled something that sounded like a question. Another crew was already filming the bus wreckage.

Boomer waved like a puppy who just won a ribbon. Butch flexed hard enough his whole shirt wrinkled weird at the seams.

Brick was a solid statue, the only thing changing on his person being his expression. Blank, but just confident enough. Chin up. No slouching. A pose like he'd seen Superman pull off before.

A woman pushed to the front of the press wave. She wore heels too expensive for the neighborhood and a blouse that had definitely never seen sweat. Makeup was still perfect.

"Excuse me!" she called, mic already raised. "Were you sanctioned to intervene in this incident? Who are you?"

Brick fought the urge to scoff. That'd show. He blinked once, remembering the script.

"We're Trinity," he said through his teeth, every word like chewing tinfoil. "A new superhero team… here to take down threats to… the people."

Cameras swarmed even closer with the press people, like flies to a dead thing. Mics on sticks, lenses shoved close enough Brick could've snapped one off with his teeth if he wanted to.

"You're kids!" some guy shouted, squinting through a viewfinder like he was the first genius to figure that out. "How old even are you?"

Brick's jaw twitched. He locked eyes with the reporter, flat and unmoved. "We're trained to handle superhuman threats."

The line slid off his tongue just like Cecil taught it. Perfect pace. Perfect dodge. No mention of the number twelve anywhere in there. No one needed to know what grade they should be in.

"You shoulda seen the mutant freak we fought last month!" Butch yelled, flexing both arms at once like the cameras were measuring bicep size now. His grin was full-on stupid. "That thing made this guy look like a busted vending machine."

Brick stayed stone cold, but he heard the sharp breath behind him. Knew the moment the feeding frenzy kicked in.

"Wait, monster? What monster? When was this? Where?"

Boomer's eyes went wide like he was being asked to describe Santa Claus. "Oh yeah, it had these arms—like way too many—and the face was like all—"

Brick stepped on his foot and instantly, Boomer squeaked and shut up.

It didn't help.

Another guy shoved forward, one of those older reporters with the face of someone who wanted you to lie. "Weren't you three the same kids who robbed two casinos in Vegas? That video with the flying kids? That was you, wasn't it?"

Brick felt Butch freeze, like something coiled tight and ready to swing.

Boomer's breath hitched.

Don't freak out don't freak out don't freak out—

He forced his mouth to move. "Nah. Those were evil clones."

It sounded dumb. Dumber than what Cecil told them to say, something about being kidnapped by an evil scientist and experimented on and mind controlled. He said it anyway.

Boomer nodded like his neck was on a spring. "Yeah! Totally evil. Like mirror universe evil. With goatees."

"They ran off to space!" Butch blurted. "After we kicked their butts!" He paused, then nodded, serious-like. "Hard."

The pause that followed wasn't silence. It was outright confusion. Pens hovered. Cameras zoomed.

Cecil sat in the GDA control room, eyes locked on twenty feeds of what had to be one of the worst GDA press conferences and superhero debuts in recent history. His jaw clenched so tight, the director wouldn't be surprised if his molars rubbed themselves smooth.

Donald stood next to him, arms behind his back like a polite death row inmate, as he watched with the patience of one used to the antics of preteen boys. The corners of his mouth twitched. He coughed once. Definitely not laughter.

Probably.

"This is not a joke," Cecil said, voice slow like each word cost him something.

Donald nodded, still polite. "Of course not, sir. I'll alert damage control."

"Right now."

Donald tapped his ear comm. "PR team to Command. Code Yellow. They're... improvising."

Brick tried to shift the subject back on track. Whatever that was supposed to be.

"Trinity exists to protect the people," he said, straight from the flashcards. "We have been training to stop threats before they escalate."

Boomer tried. Really. You could see it in his eyes, how hard he was trying to remember the script. "We uh. We want to work with, like... the government dudes. Y'know, to fight... bad guys… and stuff."

The moment slipped sideways again.

Someone asked if they were affiliated with the Guardians. Another reporter shouted over them, and another after that. It turned into white noise, overlapping questions, chaos barely held together by press badges and hope.

Boomer started sparking at the fingertips again, bouncing a little too much.

Butch floated upside-down behind Brick's head, doing slow somersaults. He waved at a random phone like it was a fan.

Brick held the line. Chin up. Shoulders straight. Pretending he was still in control of the whole thing when even the cops didn't know where to look anymore.

"Can you tell us your powers? How did you get them? Where are you from?"

He chose not to answer that one. Ignore it, more like.

"We're here to stop bad guys," Brick said. Voice smooth. Eyes empty. "That's it."

The woman from before made sure she wasn't pushed back or spoken over, a look on her face that told Brick she was the kind of person who'd eat you alive on morning television if you flubbed a syllable.

"Were you authorized to act today? By who? Who exactly signed off on this?"

And right as Brick felt the last thread pulling loose from the edge of the whole thing—

"That's enough. Return to base immediately." Cecil's voice crackled in their ears like it was spliced straight into their skulls.

The Boys exchanged looks and shrugged. With a sound like an air cannon and three tri-color bursts of light, they were gone.

Miles away, tucked into and beneath a surprisingly large mountain nestled in Utah nobody important ever noticed, the Guardians of the Globe watched three children dismantle a supervillain with the casual ease and maliciousness of kids stomping anthills.

Their monitoring room hummed with machines too expensive to have commercial names, screens everywhere showing the bank fight from angles the news crews couldn't access. Satellite feeds, traffic cams, Cecil's own surveillance network that nobody was supposed to know about – the Guardians saw it all in Ultra-16k HD clarity that only made the whole thing more disturbing.

They watched in silence. Well, mostly.

A kind of silence that buzzed, pressed in too tight around the room like it was holding its breath for them. Surveillance feeds stacked across the walls in layers, some of them looping and reframing the same thirty seconds from a dozen angles. One close-up of the green one cackling as he flipped a city bus. Another zoomed shot of the blue one landing like a bolt through steel. One wide drone angle showed all three landing in formation like they rehearsed it for TV.

War Woman stood dead center, arms crossed, jaw tight. Her body was statue-still, but her eyes never stopped moving. Tracked every punch. Every blast. Every line that kid in red delivered like it wasn't a line at all. Her muscular arms crossed over her chest, brown hair pulled tight enough that it should have strained her divinely young face. Yet it didn't, the only strain on her appearance being the hard look she wore.

Nothing about her had been soft for centuries.

She didn't look away. Not even when the armored villain begged. Not when the camera zoomed so close you could see the bruises blooming under his helmet.

"Children." The word landed heavy, not shouted but felt. "They send children to war again. We swore we'd ended this."

Her voice wasn't raised, but it cut.

Darkwing stood just inside the shadow of a column, almost blending into the wall itself. His arms stayed low. Fingers twitching just enough to suggest he'd rather be holding something sharp.

"No," he muttered. "Cecil sends them. That's not the same."

They all knew Cecil's ways.

Red Rush wasn't leaning on anything, the man just stood in that same blur that rarely settled when he was in costume, an outline that flickered across four places in the room in between sentences. "The blue one adjusted a live circuit through insulated composite armor. The green one breaks trajectory laws when angry. Frightening implications."

The Russian hero finally stilled—almost—and squinted at the monitor like it offended him. "But they move like they've fought each other more than they've trained. That is not training. That is instinct."

Nobody answered.

The Immortal hadn't spoken yet. He stood back, the way he always did now. Distance a habit that he'd taken to more since the loss of his last wife a decade or so back. His arms were crossed, eyes on the footage as the green one pulled a villain's armor open like a soda can. America's oldest hero failed to flinch when the human face screamed. Eyes stayed firm when the cameras caught a child grinning above a collapsed wreck.

"They don't hold back." The Immortal finally said, voice steady and low. "They haven't learned to. This will end poorly."

Martian Man shifted where he stood, green flesh rippling as his form subtly rearranged itself. His expression remained flat, alien eyes unblinking as they tracked the footage. "Their capabilities exceed normal human parameters by... significant margins," he noted, pausing as if accessing internal reference points. "Their physiology is inconsistent with known baselines," he said, calmly. "Shared genome, perhaps. Eyes degrees too wide and despite different appearances, those differing features distinctly identical. Possibly not human."

That made a few heads turn.

"Possible," the Martian refugee repeated, slower. "But not confirmed."

Aquarus sat apart, mist curling from the rim of his collar as his breather adjusted to the dry air. His tone was slow as ever, but not dull.

"Unpredictable."

He watched the feed where Boomer spun midair like a coin before hitting Vault's back with all the precision of a lightning strike.

"Young ones ripple outward," he said. "One splash becomes many."

Green Ghost hovered above them all, half-phased through the ceiling panel.

"I mean—sorry—but did no one else clock the fact that they coordinated all that without a word?" Her voice tripped over itself, rising as she gestured midair. "Because that kind of syncing? That's usually power armor or mind links or something and they're just… k-kids. Literal kids."

Her glow jittered at the edges.

"And that red one? The oldest? He doesn't miss. Not once. Not even in the smoke."

The Immortal finally stepped forward. The screens lit half his face blue. He stood like he'd buried kings and would again.

"This world does not need another wildcard," he said, slow enough to make everyone shut up. "I'll speak with Cecil. We need answers. The kind that don't come from press briefings."

Green Ghost looked like she wanted to object. Maybe five different objections. She made a noise but nothing came out of it.

"I just think…" she tried again. "If they feel threatened, if they feel cornered—"

"Then better we know what happens when they're cornered," the Immortal said.

War Woman hadn't looked away from the screen since it started.

"They are not soldiers," she said. "Not yet. But they are already weapons. And weapons with no wielder cut indiscriminately."

Her hand dropped to the hilt strapped across her back. No flourish. Just memory. "Children have no place in warfare," she said. "This has always been true. This will always be true. Some lessons are written in blood across millennia."

Mark couldn't make sense of his own handwriting.

Which wouldn't have mattered if Mr. Gleason stopped insisting on collecting actual paper like it was still 1994, already assigning a ton of homework despite the first week of school. The high school senior pushed his pencil under the graph line he was trying to solve, but the numbers weren't behaving and the graphite had already smudged under his wrist. His elbow stuck to the kitchen table, math in front of him pointless to his future if he was going to get his powers.

He stared at it anyway.

The news was still on. Background noise. Until it wasn't.

A car flew through a bank sign, and then three tiny bodies drop-kicked it out of the air like it owed them money.

He blinked.

The pencil slipped from his fingers and hit the linoleum with a dry clatter. He didn't pick it up. He leaned forward, mouth halfway open, watching the rerun footage without blinking. One of them—the one in green—spun through the frame like a plane that hated physics. Another was hovering, arms up, crackling bright blue, something between a conductor and a sparkler. And the red one just stood there, floating with his arms behind his back like he thought he was royalty or something.

"What…?" Mark muttered, then louder: "What the hell?"

Nolan walked in like he hadn't just missed child-sized nukes taking apart a tank with legs. He had his usual look on. The one that meant he either hadn't seen the news yet, or he had and just had no interest in it.

Mark pointed at the screen. "Those are kids. Dad, those are kids. That one's like—I dunno—eight? Nine?"

Nolan looked. Not long. A second. Two. Maybe. "Hmm."

Mark gawked at him. "That's it? 'Hmm'?"

He gestured toward the screen again like maybe Nolan didn't get it the first time. They were on a loop now. The green one bicycle kicked Vault into the ground and flexed at the camera. The blue one waved. The red one melted through a power armor like it was drywall.

Nolan exhaled through his nose. "For what it's worth, they seem effective."

Mark turned. "They're literal children."

"You said that already."

"And they're fighting real villains! That guy they beat up was in, like, top-tier armor. Vault? He took out half of Capes of Cleveland last year."

"Sloppy technique," Nolan said flatly.

Mark looked back at the screen. The footage zoomed in as the red one cracked the villain's helmet in half with his bare hands. "He tore open a power armor chestplate with fists."

"Undisciplined," Nolan added. "No strategy. No focus."

"They're like eight!"

Nolan remained silent, lips pursed. He poured himself coffee like this was Tuesday. It was Tuesday. Mark stared, then back at the TV. The boys had started taking questions from the crowd. Cameras everywhere.

Mark slumped forward on his elbows, dragging both hands down his face. "I haven't even gotten my powers yet."

Nolan Grayson paused. The coffee machine beeped behind him. For a moment he just stood there.

Then he walked over, hand resting on Mark's shoulder. "You will," he said. "And when you do, you'll do more than them."

Mark looked up.

"Once you get your powers, son."

As Mark looked back down and got back to his work, he failed to notice his father's eyes remaining locked onto the television.

Cecil stood in front of them, backlit by a grid of monitors rolling through every dumbass second of the press conference. He paused the footage with a remote and spun it around like he was about to read them their last rites. The screen froze on a shot of Brick mid-sentence, face caught somewhere between smirk and guilt, Boomer mid-blink, Butch halfway through a shrug.

The text bar at the bottom read: BREAKING – TRINITY CLAIMS EVIL CLONES ESCAPED TO SPACE.

Cecil didn't say anything right away.

"Okay, but like—" Boomer started.

"Evil clones?" Cecil's voice was flat, pinched like someone jamming their fingers in a vice. "That ran away. To space."

Boomer made a face, that scrunchy little pout he did when caught. "You said don't say the other thing."

"I said don't admit to robbing the goddamn banks," Cecil said, dragging his hand over his face like he was trying to sand it off. "Which is why I gave you a cover story. A simple one. Evil scientist. Brainwashing. Escape. Redemption arc."

"Didn't read that part," Brick said, real calm. He wasn't gonna apologize for something he did on purpose. The lie came easily, though in truth, he had read every word. He just thought it was a stupid cover story, one that hit too close to their actual creation by Mojo.

Butch snorted. "Was like twenty pages. I'm not doin' homework after blowing stuff up."

"I had it highlighted," Cecil said. "In three different colors. Your colors."

"Well that's your mistake," Butch muttered.

Cecil flipped to another monitor. Footage rolled. Vault getting obliterated. The bus incident. The part where Butch laughed while kicking a car in half.

"Public. Trust," Cecil said, slowly. "Isn't just some fake-ass phrase. It's why the public doesn't scream when you fly past their windows. It's why they let us operate without fifty lawsuits a week. It's why I haven't been fired yet."

Butch leaned back so far his chair tipped for a second. "You make it sound like we want their trust."

Boomer shifted in his seat. "I mean, some of 'em were clapping…"

"Some of them were running," Cecil said. "From the building you almost collapsed."

"Collateral," Butch shrugged.

"You're not funny."

"I wasn't trying to be."

Brick hadn't moved. He just kept his eyes on the screen, watching his own frozen face.

"Being heroes isn't a toy commercial," Cecil said. "It's not about flash and catchphrases. It's about restraint. About keeping your damn fists holstered until the right moment."

"Sounds exactly like something they'd say," Brick said, biting the word off before he could stop himself.

Cecil's head tilted. "They?"

Brick was quiet. Boomer winced. Butch cracked his neck.

Cecil didn't push. He could've. He chose not to. More than anything, Brick was surprised that Cecil hadn't pressed them further about their past. Almost two months of training and working with the GDA, and the scarred old man had barely asked about their dimension of origin beyond the basic details they'd unthinkingly volunteered.

Instead, he turned back toward the wall of screens. "The Immortal wants to meet you. Him and the rest of the Guardians… but mostly him. Didn't say when. But I doubt he waits long."

The Boys stared blankly.

Butch was the only one who chose to speak up. "...Soooo why do we care?"

"Because," Cecil said with a sigh, the sound of a man reaching the limits of his considerable patience. "Because he's the leader of the goddamn Guardians of the Globe. You'll find updated files in your room. I suggest you actually read them this time."

Later, in their reinforced quarters, Brick paced angrily while Boomer flipped through Guardian files on a tablet. The room bore the unmistakable signs of superhuman habitation: dents in the reinforced walls, scorch marks on the ceiling, furniture that had been replaced multiple times.

Butch worked out his frustration on a reinforced punching bag, each hit sending vibrations through the floor strong enough to rattle the furniture.

Brick paced, feet eating the room in loops.

Boomer lay across the bunk upside down, tablet above his face, legs kicking idly in the air.

"I told you this'd happen," Brick snapped, spinning mid-step. "We're drifting. Look at us. We're one training montage away from Saturday morning cartoon crap."

Butch paused mid-punch, wiping sweat off his forehead with the back of his glove. "You mean we weren't supposed to be the Powerpuff Girls?"

"Shut up."

"I'm just sayin'."

Boomer peeked over the tablet. "At least we still fight bad guys. That's cool."

Brick stared. "It's not about cool. It's not supposed to be fun. We were made to—"

He stopped himself. Too late. It was out there.

"We're the bad guys," he finished, quieter.

They all just stood there for a second, like the air had dropped ten degrees.

Boomer sat up slowly. "Are we, though? Just because we're bad guys, doesn't mean we have to be bad guys."

Brick sighed. "...stop watching Wreck-It Ralph."

Boomer stuck out his tongue.

Butch scratched at his jaw, looking around like he expected Mojo to materialize from the closet and start barking orders. "…Ain't nobody telling us what to do anymore."

Brick sat. Just sat. Like gravity tripled all of a sudden. "We weren't built for this," he muttered.

Boomer did his usual distraction thing and tilted the screen toward him. "This Immortal guy… says here he can't die."

Butch grinned, all teeth. "Bet he ain't been hit hard enough."

Brick stayed quiet His eyes tracked the ceiling like it might give him an answer.

"What are we doing here?" he asked. Not loud. Not for them.

Boomer was still scrolling. "Maybe we're figuring it out."

Butch stopped punching and looked over. "No one here knows who we're supposed to be."

Brick looked at both of them. Eyes sharp. Tired.

"So we could be…" he started.

The words failed for a second.

"…anything?"

In the study, the light was too warm. The windows were shut, the door half-closed, the room still.

Nolan sat motionless at the desk, right forearm braced beside the keyboard, left hand barely grazing the edge of the trackpad. The laptop hummed. The screen cast hard light over his jaw, over the faint crease in his brow that hadn't relaxed since he first hit play.

He didn't blink, not that it was a hindrance to him at all. The footage stuttered, paused, reversed in increments too small to register. Vault's chest folded inward again, crushed under a green blur. Again. Breakneck's fist dented the street with a twelve-year-old's knuckles. Again. Lightning blooming across the mech's shoulder servos like fractures. Again.

Again.

He narrowed the frame. Dragged a finger across the timeline. The blue one's charge lit up half the corner. Energy crackled against insulated metal. It shouldn't have.

He zoomed in until the pixels broke down into noise.

Behind him, soft footsteps padded across hardwood. No surprise in them.

"You've been in here for two hours," Debbie said, setting a mug down beside his elbow. Her tone was breezy, but the kind that wanted a response. "You planning on blinking anytime soon, or is this your new meditation routine?"

His eyes stayed firmly on the screen. "They move differently."

Debbie leaned her weight against the desk, arms folded loosely. "They're kids. All of them look like they're moving differently when they've got adrenaline and too much power."

"That's not what I meant."

"Yeah," she said quietly. "I figured."

He advanced the footage again. Watched Breakneck twist midair like a rocket with bloodlust, watched Brimstone hover a few feet above his brothers, still, poised, eyes tracking every angle of approach. Not improvisation. Not instinct. Patterned. Calculated. Coordinated.

"You're thinking they're not from Earth," she said, not asking.

His silence was confirmation enough.

"You think they're Viltrumite?"

Nolan could have outright laughed at the absurdity of that if he wasn't so focused on the here and now. "No."

"Something else, then?"

"...that could mean anything, you know that?"

He clicked through more frames. Paused on a wide shot. The energy flares were wrong. The thermal residue should have remained. It hadn't.

Debbie's tone flattened. "Nolan."

He closed the laptop like a man finishing a report. "It's probably just Cecil and the GDA again. Another experiment. One that got out before it was ready."

She looked at him. "If you're sure."

He kept his eyes off hers. "Whether or not I am, it doesn't matter."

"Mark thinks it does. He's a little jealous of them."

That did pull his head up. Slightly. "Mark is seventeen. He'll forget."

She straightened, the edge of her blouse brushing his shoulder as she stepped back. "I know work is work, but there's no reason to stress over things too much."

No response.

"Try to remember that."

She left without the mug.

When the door shut behind her, Nolan opened the laptop again.

Just once.

Frame by frame, the footage unspooled. The blue one — Blitzkrieg — raised his hands. Discharge bloomed outward, branching like nerves.

Something about the pattern.

He froze it mid-flash. Stared.

It's nothing.

He closed the screen for the last time.

But his frown remained.

Chapter Text

Brick clocked the cameras first. Sixteen easy ones—two in every corner, a couple tucked in vent slits, ceiling panel seams. X-ray vision wasn't required to feel the rest watching. The whole place buzzed with the kind of sterilized tension that tried to pretend it wasn't afraid of them. Like covering a bomb in white tile made it safe.

It wasn't. Not with them in it.

He kept one eye on the mirrored glass at the far end of the room. Cecil behind it, obviously; once again, X-ray vision wasn't even necessary, though it helped. Probably arms crossed like always, face smooth in that fake-calm the old man did when he thought he was being clever. Like the three of them hadn't torn holes in smarter plans.

The room looked like it was built to survive a meteor strike or three of them, maybe.

Reinforced floor, blast doors at both exits, enough steel in the walls to make a battleship blush, like that would matter. Brick could already see how it'd fall apart. One misstep. One punch.

Boomer was spinning again, his brother doing just enough to annoy but not enough to be worth Brick's attention yet as he hovered a few inches up and swayed like he was about to burst into song about how he was a little teapot. His fingers twitched like he was playing piano on his own thighs. Tap-tap—pause—tap. The front of his suit still had that stupid shiny "II" like a cheap toy.

Somehow still intact.

Brick figured the moment they walked out, he'd catch it on a door handle and cry about it for a week.

Butch skipped the whole pretending part. He was using all that energy to pace hard, slow lap after slow lap, every step like he was trying not to break the floor. His eyes stuck to every guard, every camera blink, every noise. He looked ready to punch someone just to see if they bled differently in here. His sleeve was burnt through the left side again, something Brick was not at all surprised to see.

"This place sucks," Butch muttered without looking. "Can we go already? I ain't waitin' around just to shake hands with some hero losers."

Brick exhaled through his nose. "Because Cecil said so."

He made no attempt at hiding the tone. They'd had this exact exchange. Ten times. Maybe twelve. Butch always acted like every rule was a personal attack. Like the world owed him a fight he hadn't gotten yet.

Up behind the glass, Donald hovered near Cecil like a bad second thought, tablet gripped like he was hoping it might deflect lasers. His lips moved. Brick could barely hear him through the reinforced wall, but with a little focus—

"Are we sure about this?"

Brick tilted his head just slightly to catch Cecil's answer. His voice stayed firm. "We're introducing allies, not starting a war."

Donald said something else. Cecil kept his head still. "Double the structural reinforcement."

Brick almost laughed.

It took a week.

A week of dragging through training drills and "mission debriefs" and rooms full of adults trying not to flinch when Butch stretched. Brick read everything Cecil sent. The others could care less. He read it twice. He still didn't get what the point was. Make them heroes, maybe.

Or just tame them.

When it finally happened, it came with escorts. Five GDA agents, black suits tight across shoulders, sidearms strapped high like it would matter. They walked too carefully. Eyes darted too much. Brick clocked which ones were sweating.

Boomer vibrated beside him, floating without thinking. He had a grin half-loaded on his face like he wanted someone to ask him a question just so he could talk. His hair stuck up in the wrong direction again.

"This place is wild," Boomer said, doing a quick spin in place. "You think they built it just for us?"

"Built it for something worse," Brick muttered. "We just happen to be what showed up."

The walls were thicker here. The floor changed texture halfway through the hall, some kind of non-slip alloy, probably heat-resistant. He kinda hated that he noticed that. He also hated the fact that it made sense.

Butch moved just behind him, one hand on the wall as he passed, dragging his knuckles along the seam of the panels like he wanted to peel them back. His shoulder bumped into a guard. The guy flinched and kept his mouth shut.

Brick watched it and filed it away with barely a thought.

The room opened up real wide at the end, almost massive. Even still, it wasn't flashy. This clearly wasn't a stage, no, just space. Big enough to hold a fight.

Clean enough to pretend that wasn't the plan.

Boomer hovered higher, voice rising with him. "So are the Guardian guys, like, actually important? Like, for real?"

Brick simply rolled his eyes when Cecil teleported in a crackle of electricity at his side—shifted his weight a fraction to the left, the way you do when something cold brushes too close to your neck. The guy just did that all the time, always popping up. Like he'd never left. Like he'd been watching the whole time, which—of course—he had.

"They're the world's premier superhero team," Cecil said, his voice calm and flat, like it wasn't obvious he was waiting for someone to break something.

Boomer blinked up at him, head cocked like a dog that hadn't figured out what trick it was supposed to do yet. "Yeah, but like... how premier?"

He was winding up already. Brick could hear it in Boomer's voice. That stupid excitement creeping into his voice like it was about to explode into something that would make them all look like morons by association.

"Back home the Girls got, like, three—"

There it is.

Butch's fist hit the wall. Metal groaned. Not loud, but loud enough. Just a dent, shallow, controlled. For him, anyway. Brick saw the twitch in his shoulder—he'd been thinking about it, probably hadn't even meant to actually punch the wall. That was the scary part with Butch, all body, little brain.

No one moved. Cecil's eyes remained blank and unbothered as he looked at the dent like it was a coffee stain on his couch, before turning to look back at Brick, not a single word said.

Brick made a sound in his throat. "Right. Be polite. Smile. Don't melt anyone's face off. We remember."

He was already floating a few inches higher, involuntary. Not because he wanted to. Just because Butch was close to slipping and Boomer was close to spiraling and someone had to look like they had a grip on the room.

Then the doors hissed open.

The Immortal walked through like he belonged to gravity. Like it owed him.

Tall, broad and anncient without looking old, the Immortal was America's greatest superhero since the end of World War II back when he used to wear a cape. Brick had studied the file three times—had the stats memorized. None of that mattered. What mattered was the way the guy carried himself like time hadn't killed him yet but had definitely tried.

He didn't even stop moving when War Woman came in behind him. She was taller than Brick expected. Everything about her looked carved, deliberate, solid as the round mallet-thing riding her back. Her eyes scanned the room like a queen evaluating the worth of a province she hadn't decided whether to conquer or spare.

Red Rush flickered into existence and out of it again, just long enough for Brick to lose him twice. Third time, he stuck the landing beside Immortal. Toned, twitchy, red and impatient all over. His eyes tracked faster than his body, which Brick had no idea was possible till right now.

Darkwing moved behind them like he wasn't there. Cape didn't flap. Boots didn't tap. Just... appeared, silent as a thought Brick hadn't finished yet.

And then the rest came. Martian Man, unreadable as a dead signal, eyes like a no-trespassing sign. Green Ghost hovered just above the floor, twitchy glow giving her a shape that felt nervous to look at. And Aquarus looking like… well, a giant fish man.

The Guardians.

They looked at them like someone'd handed them a bomb made out of middle schoolers and told them it might start talking.

Cecil had no need for intros. Just gestured like he was unveiling something, like the three of them weren't already on the news. "You already know who they are. Guardians—this is Trinity. I, II, and III. Brimstone, Blitzkrieg, Breakneck. You've seen the files."

The Immortal's eyes settled on them. Heavy. Still. Like he was memorizing a threat vector, not a name.

"These are the children from Baltimore," he said. Not a greeting. Not even a question. Just confirmation that the puzzle piece fit the slot labeled problem.

Brick's jaw clenched before he knew it. His body rose half an inch. Not enough to show off. Just enough to respond.

War Woman didn't even look at them when she spoke. "Cecil. The Teen Team was already reckless. These are infants."

That one hit hard.

Butch mouthed infants, slow like he was tasting it as his hand flexed. Brick could feel the moment he decided not to deck her in the face .

Cecil was smart enough not to take the bait. "Capability is the measure that matters. Not age. I believe you've said that before, War Woman."

She gave him a look like she was weighing whether to argue or just record the insult and kill him later.

The silence after sat wrong. Too heavy. Like everyone forgot what air was supposed to taste like.

Cecil sighed, and all of a sudden, it felt like he dropped ten pounds of civility. "Let's get this over with."

A blur. Red Rush reappeared two inches from Boomer's personal bubble. Brick saw his brother flinch before he recovered, feet touching down with a soft tap.

The Russian squatted to his level, eyes bright behind the mask, grin crooked and friendly. "So! You kids move at supersonic? That is good. Fast ones are hard to find. Most people? Statues. You say 'hello,' they take five minutes to blink. Drives me crazy, yes?"

Boomer lit up like someone plugged him in. "It's not that hard. We been flyin' since we were five."

Brick flinched. Just a fraction. But it counted.

Green Ghost blinked from across the room, drifting closer like her shoes never touched the floor, aura humming soft. "Wait, five? Like five years old?"

"That's when we were made!" Boomer said, voice too loud, too cheerful, nodding like he was proud of it, like he hadn't just tossed a grenade into the middle of the room. Hair bounced. Smile big.

The air snapped tight. Silence turned glassy.

Even Cecil looked up.

Brick's stomach dropped like an elevator cable just got cut.

Darkwing's head tilted, subtle. "Made," he echoed, voice low, like grave. Not just a question, from the look in the hero's eyes.

"Made...our suits," Brick cut in, stepping forward. Not too fast. Just enough to nudge Boomer back with a shoulder. "Boomer meant we made the suits ourselves."

No one answered. No one needed to. It was a terrible save. It sat there, wet and obvious.

War Woman's eyes sharpened, the corners of her mouth tilting just enough to say I see you.

Cecil's brow twitched. Not raised. Just a twitch. Brick had learned that twitch meant you've stepped in it.

Aquarus floated forward, palms splayed like he was tasting them through the air. "Sssuch power, ssso small... curiouuus."

Boomer blinked at him, head tilting. "He's like... fishy Aquaman."

Boomer.

Aquarus blinked once. "Aqua...who?"

Butch groaned, half-laughing. "Oh c'mon. You know. Justice League? Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, Aquaman?"

Shut up.

Brick didn't say it. The crackle in his jaw probably said enough.

Butch barreled on. "You guys are, like, the knockoff versions. Old guy's bootleg Superman, Ninja Batguy's the dollar store Bats—"

"Red Rush is Costco Flash!" Boomer chirped.

They were spiraling. Fast. Brick watched it happen in real time, helpless to steer.

Martian Man's head rotated a few degrees, slow. "I do not recognize these entities."

Cecil stayed quiet, unmoving. Just watched. Eyes tracking. That was worse than yelling.

Brick took a breath, then another, as he tried not to snap. "They're comic book characters," he said, flat. "From stories. Fictional. Not real."

The Immortal's expression stayed the same, but his gaze pinned them like insects. "Fascinating fiction."

Then the quiet stretched too long. Until The Immortal stepped forward.

"I witnessed your handling of Vault. It was... sufficient."

Brick stiffened, floated a half-inch higher. "He was nothing. We didn't even go full-out."

A flicker in the old man's eyes."Then perhaps you will indulge us," Immortal said, voice like a mountain deciding to speak. "A demonstration."

Cecil looked over. "What are you proposing?"

Immortal motioned toward the reinforced arena to their left. Quiet, calm. "A simple match. Observation only."

Brick didn't wait and definitely didn't ask. "You're on, old man."

War Woman moved, hand up. "Immortal, I must object. These boys—"

"Will be fine."

That shut her down. Almost.

Cecil ran a hand down his jaw, clearly thinking about it. "Fine. No lethal contact."

Technicians scattered like they'd been waiting for the cue. The floor cleared in seconds. White tiles and reinforced everything waited for them, as all the cameras repositioned.

Boomer floated back, eyes wide. Butch cracked his knuckles like he was jealous.

Brick touched down in the middle. The red on his suit looked too loud under the lights.

The Immortal stepped in opposite him. Arms at his sides

For a breath, no one moved.

Then Brick exploded forward, floor cracking behind him, air splitting loud. Fist chambered, aimed center-mass.

One fist extended, aiming directly for The Immortal's chest.

The Immortal's arm met Brick's fist with a sound that cracked the air apart. The floor jolted under them, reinforced plating flexing like wet paper before settling with a groan. The windows above rattled. Two techs went sprawling from the impact wave, and no one said anything about it.

The Immortal didn't stumble. But he registered it. There was a flicker—eyes narrowing just slightly, chin lifting—not pain, not shock, not quite admiration. Recognition. And something that might've been doubt. Brick didn't give it room to grow.

He vanished left, pivoted hard, broke through his own airwake and came in low. Faked a hook to draw the block. Slipped under a return blow with the quickness of a bullet and and hammered a kick into the ribs hard enough to turn a spine to literal dust.

It barely moved him.

Again. Left jab. Feint. Elbow. Brick was running math mid-motion, adjusting per fraction of a second. Distance too tight? Angle too clean? He clipped under the guard anyway. Crossed up. Dug into the soft under the arm. Hit, recoil, vanish. Keep pressure up. Find the tells. The Immortal was slow. Compared to him, anyway.

Every block was faster than it should've been.

Not fast enough.

He caught the next strike to the ribs, drove it in and heard the hiss of air, forced or drawn, didn't matter. The follow-up cracked against the shoulder, twisted the man on his axis, turned his stance wide.

For two full seconds, Brick had the advantage.

He didn't press it. He tested it.

The young government agent let it ride long enough to watch the recovery. Every return strike was deliberate and controlled. The kind of precision you couldn't fake,. Even if the old man wasn't as strong, tough or fast as he was, he was still good.

Butch hit way harder. Boomer was definitely faster. But neither of them fought like this.

Monitors blinked in rows above the observation deck. Flashing glyphs, pulse lines. Somewhere in Brick's periphery, he knew the numbers were spiking. Cecil didn't say a word. Not yet.

Laser heat bloomed behind his eyes. The Immortal dodged left, cloak scorched on the trailing edge. Brick exhaled, inhaled deeper—let the pressure build under his ribs. Fire spilled out in a wide cone.

The Immortal braced, hands forward and let it wash all over him.

When the smoke cleared, he was still standing. Blackened suit. Not burning. Brick hovered, high enough to stay out of reach, heat still radiating from his chest.

"Not bad, young man," the Immortal said, voice granite-thick and clipped clean, each word like it'd been dragged out of a furnace and cooled slow.

Brick smirked. "I'm just warming up."

They met again mid-air. The next collision rocked the floor plates, rattled the entire far wall. Strikes came faster. Block, duck, return. Push. Counter. Heat building under skin as bone jarring hits that didn't leave bruises as they landed but registered all the same.

Brick could feel it—that edge-of-breaking point where he could've surged. He could've made it hurt. But Cecil hadn't called for full power.

Yet.

"Enough," Cecil's voice echoed through the system, flat and final, like it'd been held behind his teeth the whole time. "That's sufficient."

Brick pulled back. Breath sharp. Shoulders tense. He didn't feel done. Didn't want to feel done. He lowered slowly, touchpoint landing, boots humming.

The Immortal dipped his chin. "Formidable." No smile, just fact. Brick felt the pride like a cold burn behind his ribs, even as he fought against it. You're no Superman.

Red Rush zipped in next, kinetic buzz trailing behind him. "My turn!" He pointed, already sliding across the floor toward Boomer. "Blue one. We race, yes?"

Boomer nearly tripped over his own feet trying to get there. "Heck yeah! Let's go!"

Cecil didn't even try to stop them. They were gone before he could.

Red and blue streaks looped the room, whipping past the walls so fast the air warped behind them. Brick could track them, because he'd trained his eyes for it and made his brothers do so too even while standing still, their reflexes usually tied to how fast they were moving. But he could feel the difference. Boomer was putting some work in. Red Rush wasn't sweating.

He clenched his jaw.

Their laughter spiraled around the room in distorted echoes, doppler-warped. Boomer's was louder.

Red Rush skidded to a stop with a slide that barely disturbed his hair. "Finally! Someone who moves at speed I do not want to murder! Usually I wait for people to breathe before they finish sentence."

Boomer landed beside him, cheeks flushed, beaming. "That was awesome! You're, like, not slow for an old guy!"

Red Rush laughed, bright and real. "Old! I am thirty-six!"

Boomer blinked. "That's ancient."

The speedster cracked up harder, clapped Boomer on the back like they were already teammates.

Brick remained unmoving, face the same way. "Show them the arc trick."

Boomer turned, brightening more—if that was even possible—and raised both hands. Static flickered instantly, blue-white veins threading the air between his fingertips. Then between his palms. Then spiraling outward as he wove the energy like it was string and he didn't know how to untangle it fully.

Lights overhead flickered twice as Brick's eyes cut to the nearest technician, his tablet flashing red.

Cecil didn't react. But his face tightened.

Boomer grinned, hands still pulsing. "Oh! Also, I can read every language too! And animals—kinda. They don't, like, talk back, but they get the gist." Boomer's grin kept flickering at the edges, like it wasn't sure if it wanted to stay or break into something bigger. "Also, any language… I think. Kinda automatic. It just sorta happens in my head, I guess."

Green Ghost drifted closer, and Brick clocked the twitch in her fingers before she spoke—nervous habit, probably. "Any? Like... any-any? I mean, that's, wow, that's a lot. Right? That has to be—okay, no, yeah, that's just—really?"

Donald slid in from stage right with the practiced glide of someone whose job it was to stay invisible until something needed solving. He held up a tablet already loaded with columns of scripts that Brick couldn't recognize—his fingers tightened instinctively when he saw it. "Let's test it."

Boomer barely glanced at the screen before he started reading. Not slow. Not stumbling. One after another: Arabic, Mandarin, Russian. No hesitation. No stutter. Brick didn't even know how his brother knew what to emphasize in those languages but then again Boomer's language thing wasn't something they ever questioned.

"Incredible," Green Ghost breathed. Her voice had smoothed out, less filler, more awe. That warm-breathy tone like she wanted to hug a puppy.

"I can also scream real loud too."

Brick couldn't see her eyes but he could tell Green Ghost widened them right before Boomer pivoted on his feet and opened his mouth wide.

The sound that followed was loud the way Geese were sorta jerks. Glass spiderwebbed on the far wall, then shattered, raining down in chunks big enough to impale. Red Rush flinched back with a muffled swear, hands over his ears, face scrunched in a wince that looked too genuine for someone who ran faster than sound.

"Ow, okay! No more opera!" Red Rush muttered, shaking out his hands like that'd fix his skull.

Boomer didn't stop. Not really. Shifted seamlessly into another show-off cycle—X-ray, thermal, motion tracking. Brick saw it in the way his eyes narrowed, the way he pointed out a weak structural seam beneath the paneling, how the lights above flickered in tandem with whatever current he was pulling. One tech flinched when a nearby monitor sparked. Good.

Boomer beamed like they were clapping.

Butch had checked out six seconds in, the middle Rowdyruff pacing, flexing, generally ready to do something fun. His knuckles were already white as he tightened them and glanced over at the heroes.

He caught War Woman's eye mid-pace and immediately locked in.

"Wanna go?"

Her expression tightened. One breath—then the start of a 'no,' polite and clearly meant to end it.

"You scared?"

Brick didn't even roll his eyes. He just sighed. Loud enough.

War Woman's back straightened by degrees. Her voice came out low and deliberate, metal in every syllable. "A brief exchange, then."

That was all Butch needed. He launched himself before she even stepped forward.

The collision of his fist and her hammer rang out like a cathedral bell snapping in half. The reverb slammed through the floor, up the walls. Brick felt it in his teeth.

She stopped underestimating him after the third exchange.

Butch had no desire to fight fair, because fair was stupid. He fought like a kid who learned by winning. Concrete split under his boots. Equipment folded under stray punches. A severed training bot leg skidded past Brick's foot and he barely even blinked. Green laser vision arced wild. A beam cracked the corner of the ceiling.

"I can see your heartbeat," Butch grinned between blows, eyes glowing faintly green. "It's picking up."

War Woman wasn't bothering with words at this point. Her war club came down hard, slammed him into the wall hard enough to crater. Plaster peeled. Metal groaned. Brick watched the shift in her stance when Butch laughed.

She adjusted immediately as her movements snapped tighter, hammer blows swinging faster.

And Butch—idiot that he was—matched her.

There was strategy in the chaos. Hidden in the shoulder tilts, the way he absorbed hits without flinching so he could get in closer, the way he knew when to fall back and when to surge.

Not a lot. But enough.

Cecil's voice sliced through the madness, perfectly timed like always. "That'll do."

Red warning banners flickered on a dozen monitors.

The Guardians regrouped, most of them quiet. War Woman exhaled through her nose and cracked her neck. Martian Man didn't blink once.

Immortal crossed his arms and gave a nod, slow and heavy. "Their capabilities are... considerable."

Red Rush zipped a short circle, practically vibrating. "Did you see that? Feel that? The blue one's brain might actually work fast enough to carry a conversation! Finally!"

"He read half that tablet in under two seconds," Green Ghost added, voice still recovering from the sonic boom. "Like, flawlessly. That's—seriously, that's not normal."

"Neither is fighting like a feral dog," Darkwing cut in, calm as ever, but the edge under it was razor-sharp. "They're weapons. Just haven't picked a direction yet."

Martian Man's gaze hadn't moved from Butch. "Their emissions are anomalous. Power fluctuations display patterns unlike any registered classification. Cross-dimensional resonance is possible."

Cecil's hands folded behind his back. "That's why they need oversight. Structured development. Guidance."

The Immortal remained unmoving, the man older than most statues, as he just stared Cecil's way, voice low and absolute as the old hero focused his eyes on the older-looking man. "You want us to train them."

"I thought joint exercises might be beneficial," Cecil said, tone even, neutral in that way that meant it wasn't. Brick had no need to see his face to know his jaw was tight.

War Woman folded her arms slowly. "They are children, Cecil. These ones are too young to be thrown into battle, no matter their power."

Brick hovered a few inches higher without realizing. Heat in his throat as he bit back the urge to drown the old demi-god in fire. We're not—

"We're not children," he snapped, voice louder than it needed to be.

Boomer tilted his head, shrugging a little.

Butch snorted and floated up beside him, still glowing a little from the brawl. "And we can hear you, y'know."

That froze the air. Every head turned. Brick clocked the shift in Darkwing's shoulders, how Red Rush stopped pacing, how even Martian Man blinked. The Immortal stayed still, but his eyes fixed—like the beam of a lighthouse clicking onto one ship in a storm.

"No," the old man said, slow, the word dragging centuries behind it. "Not quite children. But certainly not adults, either."

Brick held his stare, bright red eyes doing what they did best. "We can handle ourselves."

"You've demonstrated that quite clearly," The Immortal added. "The question is not whether you can fight. It is whether you should."

Brick opened his mouth, but nothing made it past his teeth. He wasn't ready for philosophy. He was ready for another round.

Cecil stepped in like he'd been waiting. "We'll revisit this after debrief. Everyone's learned something today. Let's let that settle."

The Guardians began to turn. Brick caught bits as they passed—

"Cecil has truly outdone himself this time," War Woman muttered to herself.

Darkwing, dry, to Immortal: "The red one could give you a proper fight."

Martian Man, unblinking: "The electrical manipulation alone warrants sustained observation."

They were gone by the time Brick looked up again. Cecil was still there, unreadable as ever.

"Well," he said. "That went about as expected."

Which told Brick nothing. Which meant it was bad.

Something was changing. Again. He could feel it in the air like pressure before a storm.

And if history meant anything, it was probably going to suck.

Given their track record, Brick wasn't optimistic.

Chapter Text

The walls of the primary GDA headquarters nearly a mile under the Pentagon hummed faintly. A low buzz came off the holo-displays, filtered lighting too sterile to ever feel like morning or evening, just permanent nowhere. Cecil stood at the edge of the operations floor, half-shadowed by data projections washing the room in pulsing amber-blue. His arms crossed. Lips tight. Watching.

Stats floated around him like flies: mission durations, collateral percentages, approval ticks inching up like it mattered. Sixty-two percent. Like usual, the director didn't smile.

Donald entered like the air hadn't shifted, tablet tucked under his arm, posture brisk. "Sir, we've got a situation out of Anchorage."

Cecil didn't look away. Just arched a brow like he already knew.

Donald brought the tablet up and tapped. The center of the room bloomed open with a shimmer of hologram—grainy live feed of a four-story white-haired creature kicking its way through parked cars like rocks in a stream. Looked feminine, almost, in a specifically monstrous sort of way. Maybe it was the fur to her hips, or the fur everywhere else. It certainly wasn't the feet like excavators.

"Well," Cecil said, almost bored. "You know the drill."

Donald didn't flinch. "With respect, sir—the boys just got back from Montreal. They're still in recovery cycle."

"You're joking, right?" Cecil cut him a sideways glance, the measured but somehow cutting look that he mastered his first month in that prison twenty-three years back. "When's the last time the Terrorbrat Tykes actually needed recovery?"

Donald hesitated, his breathing clipped in a way that Cecil couldn't help but wonder how his brain translated to the mostly metal that made up his form. Achievements in ignorance, he supposed, as amazing as that was. "Point taken."

"They're twelve, Donald. If we had living nukes, the boys would shit on them and use tthose living nukes to beat over other living nukes and laugh about it. Let 'em stretch their legs." Cecil stepped past the table with a sigh. "Besides, green one's already bitching about how soft the Canadian targets were. Might as well give him something that hits back."

"I'll launch the call." Donald turned, muttering, "And file another skylight requisition while I'm at it."

The ops center doors split wide.

Boomer got there first, already mid-sentence. "—and then he says, 'this isn't even real poutine,' like what does that mean? It had fries, it had gravy, that's poutine!"

Butch flashed in and was already upside down on one of the chairs. Literally. The green Rowdyruff dug into the backrest, arms hanging off the edge like he might snap the whole thing just for fun.

Brick walked in last, quiet. Eyes locked to the tactical display before Cecil even finished turning.

"We've got a situation in Alaska, boys," Cecil began flatly.

Brick raised an eyebrow. "When you say situation…"

"I mean, a goddamn situation, Brick," Cecil answered back without hesitation. "Frost Giant. Downtown Anchorage. Civilian casualties already climbing."

That got Butch's attention. He flipped to standing in the blink of an eye, feral grin wide on his face. "Finally. Something big."

Cecil went on, tone dry enough to flake as if Butch didn't say that once a week. "These things predate most society's gods. Think glaciers with feelings. One of 'em wiped out a town in the 90s before we figured out how to bring it down without nuking a foreign country."

Brick squinted at the display. "We extracting or containing?"

"Up to you," Cecil said. "Just don't get anyone else killed."

Brick nodded once, already analyzing. "Alright, boys," he said. "Flight pattern Alph—"

"Oh my god, just say fly normal," Butch cut in, already cracking his knuckles.

Boomer tilted his head, giving Brick a look of his own. "I told you that pattern didn't mean anything!"

Brick's mouth twitched. He didn't blink. "Fine. Fly normal."

They shot through the launch shaft, glass and steel shuddered from the force ripple, metal giving way in their wake.

Donald winced. "So that's... what, the sixth skylight this month?"

Director Stedman didn't bother to look away from the screen. "Small price to pay for the world's safety, Donald. Besides, they're improving."

Alaska kinda sucked.

Dull sky. Wind like razors. Nothing but white for miles.

But they weren't here to sightsee. Besides, they didn't have time as they crossed hundreds of miles in a matter of seconds. And then they were there.

Buildings split down the middle, scaffolding twisted into scrap. Brick's eyes widened slightly as they came to a sudden halt in the air. There she was—towering over downtown like someone forgot to scale her model back to reality.

She wasn't roaring. That was the worst part. She was humming, almost like she was enjoying herself. It would have been almost cute, if her humming didn't sound like a fast-moving avalanche.

Boomer hovered lower. "Oh wow. She's, like... bigger than the courthouse. Like way bigger."

Brick adjusted his internal metric. "Size-to-force ratio is… uhhh…"

"Fucky?" Butch offered.

Brick rolled his eyes, but accepted the choice of words. It wasn't exactly as good as any, but it was good for them. "Fucky," he replied back. "I'm thinking magic-boosted."

"Magic," Butch said, grinning. "Good. Been a minute."

Their comms crackled.

Donald's voice, chipper as always, chimed in. "Just a reminder, gentlemen, we can level her from orbit, but it would cause—let's say—irreversible downtown issues. Talk her down if you want but we had one of these show up four years ago. They don't see anything that's not their size worth anything but a distraction or a meal."

The yeti stopped and looked up, it's dark eyes sharp. She was old, but definitely not dumb. Not all that confused either.

"Well," she rumbled in that rumbling voice of hers. "You're new. When did the tiny ones start flying and speaking such pretty words?" A dark laugh left her mouth a moment later. "My last time hunting in these grounds, you only grunted and threw sticks."

Boomer waved, smile twitching a little as he clearly took in the crazy things the frost giant was saying. "Uh—hi!"

Brick ignored him. "Target is vocal. Sentient. Apply nonlethal unless escalated."

Butch pulled a face. "She's eating people. Let's just waste her hairy ass."

The giant's arm carved through the upper floor of an office tower and pulled out a man in a dress shirt and tie, screaming his head off. She held him up like a novelty pen as if showing him off to the boys. "So breakable," she mused. "Even in these odd tall nests of yours."

The Boys circled, fast. Brick took top. Butch to the left. Boomer crackling right.

Brick raised his voice—not loud, but sharp enough to cut. "Put the stuffed suit down. Now."

The giant didn't just laugh—she barked, the sound dragging itself up from somewhere low and ancient, like tectonic plates shifting. Then, without another word, the jotun squeezed. Brick saw the man pop like a tube of paint between her fingers, blood and bone painting the air before gravity remembered its job.

That hand could snap a bus. She did it with her thumb and forefinger. Brick's eyes narrowed at her, annoyance at the thing increasing it's kill count on his watch. "I told you not to do that."

"Little rainbow pests givin' orders now?" the yeti drawled, ice cold breath steaming as it rolled past cracked lips. She blinked slow. Her huge eyes were focused, not dumb, and clearly not all that confused either. "I'm lookin' for my mate. Went huntin' while I was nappin'. Didn't come back."

Boomer edged closer, hovering just behind Brick's right shoulder. "Uh—how long ago was your nap?"

One of her feet casually turned a Honda Civic into folded steel. No change in expression. Like she was swatting bugs in the kitchen. "Short rest, I think. A few millennia, not too long. Ice was real nice."

Butch snorted hard through his nose. "Yeah, well, sounds like your man's been ice jerky since mammoths were trending."

Her face split open like a chasm cracking through bedrock, clearly not a fan of that joke. "YOU LITTLE SHIT!"

The swing came fast, faster than she had any right to be. Butch caught the backhand across his forearms, whole body bracing—and still flew through a building. Glass and concrete peeled off like skin from fruit.

Brick didn't flinch.

He just clocked the numbers in real time, eyes narrowed. Knew it. Size-to-strength ratio's off. Magical class. He'd dealt with worse, technically. Not often, really, considering he didn't usually make it his job like the Powerpuffs.

Street-level panic spiked as civilians fled in clustered, twitchy packs, like every wrong movement might make her look twice.

Boomer blurred down, trailing arcs of blue that snapped the air like firecrackers. Two kids in a frozen yogurt shop were gone before the windows finished shattering. A dog, too. Brick saw to that.

The yeti tilted her head, more curious and less angry now. More—interested. "Not prey. Too quick. Too... shiny."

You don't get to be curious about us, Brick thought, and keyed the comms. "Lead her out. Waterfront. Get her out of the grid before she levels a block."

Butch crawled out of the rubble, grinning like someone gave him candy and a concussion. "She hits like a truck made of hate. I'm into it."

Boomer skidded back into the airspace above, lightning coiling around his arms. "Hey! Snowcone! Wanna dance?"

She followed. Of course she did. Tracked them like prey. Not with rage. With hunger. Hunting reflex. Visual lock. Quadrupedal stance option suppressed but not forgotten.

"So glowy," she mused, almost fondly. "You might taste like sunfire."

"Once clear," Brick said low, "terminate."

Butch's laughter popped over the channel. "There it is! The nerd's back. 'Terminate with prejudice.' 'Execute with efficiency.' 'Decimate completely.' Man, just say kill."

"You knew what I meant."

"Yeah, but your thesaurus is showing."

"Focus," Brick snapped, but his voice snagged mid-command because Butch was looping under her reach again, smiling too much. Not out of cockiness. Just because he was built to enjoy this.

And because, naturally, he couldn't help himself, "Hey, while we're here," Butch said, blasting green concussives into her knees to stagger her forward, "Why we still callin' ourselves Trinity?"

Brick blinked. "What?"

Boomer chimed in immediately. "I've been wondering that too! I mean, it sounds cool, but like—not us."

"Not now," Brick said, already preemptively regretting giving them the space to think.

"Kinda corporate," Boomer muttered.

"Exactly! Thank you!" Butch called out, swerving around a boulder-sized fist.

Brick sucked in a breath through his teeth. "We're not doing this now."

Boomer hovered just behind him, shrugging in midair. "I mean... we're kinda always doing this now."

"Fooooocus. Giant. Monster. Rampaging."

Butch, of course, grinned wider. "I'm just sayin'. If we're stuck in this freak dimension forever, we should at least name ourselves something awesome. Not like... churchy."

The yeti roared again, pawed at an apartment tower, peeled it open like a sardine tin. Nobody inside anymore. Brick had made sure.

And then—

"PFTTT," Boomer snorted behind him, holding his gut like the joke got stuck halfway out.

Brick didn't look over. He didn't need to. He could feel it coming—Boomer winding up like a toy about to say something incredibly dumb in only the way Boomer could fucking manage.

"What?" he asked anyway, flat and already done with it.

Boomer's face crumpled before he even got the words out, like his mouth couldn't decide if it was supposed to make noise or fall off entirely. "It—uh—hehehe—it sounded like you said 'fuck us.'"

Brick blinked.

Butch lost it too. That sharp, throaty snort of his turning instantly into laughter loud enough to bounce off glass.

"Fuck. Us." Butch rasped, barely keeping himself upright midair. Brick's glare hit him too late to matter. Boomer was already cackling, doubling over mid-hover like his own joke had knocked the wind out of him too.

And then a massive pale hand backhanded Boomer out of the skyline like he'd tripped into a missile test.

Brick closed his eyes. Just for a second. Just long enough to regret ever being conscious today. "Idiot."

The frost giant's thunderous bellow rolled through the city like it had weight. Buildings shook. "WHERE IS HE?! WHERE IS MY HUSBAND?!"

Boomer zipped back into frame with nothing more than a few scuff marks and a lopsided grin. "Hey, if we're picking names, can we not be Trinity? I vote Mega Force! Or, or—ooh! Thundercrash?"

The yeti swung again, this time catching a whole parked SUV with the back of her hand and hurling it without looking. It embedded into the side of an office like a thumbtack. "WHY DO THE TINY ONES SPEAK SO WELL NOW? LAST TIME I STRETCHED MY LEGS, YOU GRUNTED AND THREW DUNG."

"Her name's Kaltora, by the way. We just got her name fresh off a report from our thaumaturgical department," Donald's voice buzzed in over comms, still calm and upbeat in that way the glasses guy did. "A Jotun goddess worshipped by ancient Inuit tribes and fed to her as a sacrifice. She's been in quite the deep sleep under the ice a few miles from here for roughly three thousand years. We didn't know she was still alive until Anchorage lit up our seismic grid like a Christmas tree."

Brick narrowed his eyes as a girder flew past his head, red lines of heat melting it before it could hit anything or anyone important. "And what are we looking at for her hubby? We fighting another one anytime soon?"

Donald was quiet for a few moments, but not in the way like he was reading, more like he was trying to recall something. "Deceased. GDA confirmed kill four years ago. Special Agent Brit handled the kill himself, with… with some GDA assistance, I believe."

Brick frowned. You believe?

Butch snorted mid-pivot, zipping sideways to avoid a meaty swipe. "So she woke up all hangry and single. Great."

"You're not normal prey," Kaltora snarled, reaching for Brick this time. "But maybe if I eat you and a few thousand of the screamers, my mood will improve."

Donald's voice chimed in again. "Civilian casualties are ticking up. You need to get her away from population dense areas immediately."

"Yeah," Brick muttered, rerouting altitude. "Let's play tag."

Boomer's smile split his face in half. "Best. Game. Ever."

"You're it!" Butch shouted, green blur slamming into Kaltora's knee like a freight train. Concrete spiderwebbed under her, pavement turning to dark gravel from the force of the blow. Her scream cracked more than a few windows but Boomer zipping up to yell in her ear with that sonic scream of his cracked at least twice as many.

"Come get me, frosty!" Boomer yelled at a more normal tone, voice peaking with joy as he let lightning ripple behind him in bright blue trails. He popped her in the side of the head with a focused sonic pulse, loud enough to make her stumble.

The chase started fast. Kaltora roared and lunged, and the Boys pulled her—left, right, up through buildings, down into streets. Luring her further and further out of the city. Brick stayed back to cut escape vectors, roasting a clean melt through snowbanks with a quick burst of heat vision. Faster.

Butch wasn't shutting up.

"So listen, if we're stuck here forever—and let's face it, we probably are—we should keep the real name. Rowdyruff Boys still hits."

"Cecil wants something more marketable," Brick replied as he continued his forward pace, tracking the next path through the hills..

"Yeah?" Butch did a motion with his hands, the green Rowdyruff flying upside down for a few seconds to pull it off. "Then tell him to market these nuts."

Boomer giggled. "Rowdyruff kinda rules, though. Trinity sounds like a math problem."

Brick clicked his tongue. "What do you know about math, Boom?"

Boomer stuck his tongue out. "That it's hard."

"Idiots," Brick muttered to himself, shaking his head. Seven years of stupid, and his brothers still managed to get on his last super-tough nerve. "Stay tight. She's getting sloppier."

Kaltora's meaty hand dove into the ground, treating packed snow and dirt as little more trouble than water as she ripped a tree out by the roots. The noise croaked across the landscape like a roll of thunder as she hefted it up, and cracked again with another thunderous noise as she hurled the whole thing like a javelin.

"Whooo-hooooo!" Boomer literally spun upside down, still laughing at the top of his lungs as the massive tree whiffed his head of messy blond hair.

"I'LL TURN YOUR BONES INTO SNACKS," she shrieked, rumbling voice thick with fury now, no longer just annoyance. "I WILL USE YOUR SKULLS FOR ORNAMENTS."

If there was one thing Brick appreciated about his brothers, as ridiculous as they were, it was how they often managed to do what he needed, right when he needed it. Case in point, Butch was already baiting the thing again like it was a game, not a near-god-tier apex predator with biceps bigger than some city buses. "Yeah?" Butch called back, peeling through the air in a sideways loop, lazy even now. "You gotta catch us first, Bigfoot!"

Focus, Brick almost said. Instead, he tapped the side of his comm, three syllables coming out quick as he could manage, probably fast enough that a normal person couldn't even make out a single word. "Pincer. Now."

There was no protest this time, no joking, no interuption from either of his brothers. Boomer peeled off in a streak bluer than the Alaskan sky could ever hope to be. The Bluest of the three zigged high and zagged low, sparks shedding off his fists like static from a balloon rubbed too hard, give or take a few million extra. The air around him warped faintly from speed, voice already cracking with the excitement that came from a fight like this. "Hey! Snow lady! Bet you can't tag me twice!"

From the other side, Butch dove in close, both fists glowing a bright green that looked downright toxic. The Green didn't throw punches so much as hurl his whole body like the living weapon he considered himself. He skimmed her thigh, then lit up her calf in a spray of jade energy bursts. "Your man probably bailed 'cause you snore like glaciers!"

What that meant, Brick really wasn't sure, but it had to be some kind of slur to Frost Giants from the way Kaltora wheeled around, roaring, eyes darting between the streaks harassing her like flies. She missed the third.

Brick went vertical. No taunt. No flash. No stupid theatrics.

Just a sharp rise, air cracking behind him as he angled upward into the open blue. Then nothing. For one second. Two. The wind stilled.

And then the sky ruptured.

Mach 9 turned his frame into a warhead. Brick punched down from orbit, every molecule in the air around him boiling off in a ring of compressed heat that made the world blink. His body didn't bounce on contact. It tunneled, all of him focused through a single tight impact point—the crown of her skull.

Bone split. Air burst. Kaltora's face snapped forward like a marionette getting its strings cut.

Brick came out the other side soaked in something that wasn't blood but definitely wasn't not. Blue. Bits of pinkish brain stuff. A single tooth.

She didn't fall right away. Just... stood there, swaying. Like the body hadn't gotten the message yet.

Then gravity remembered.

The sound she made when she hit was almost quieter than it should've been. Big things always fell soft. It was the concrete under her that screamed.

Brick hovered above her slowly cooling corpse, blinking red out of his eyelashes.

Boomer coasted in behind him, nose wrinkling. "Dude. Dude. That was so gross." He squinted at Brick. "You got brain on your chin."

"Handled it, huh," came a new voice, dry and not surprised. The Immortal dropped in, arms folded over his chest like he thought it made him look cooler. Which, sure, it did.

Brick gave him a look. A nod. Nothing else.

The zoo stank.

Old trees. Wet hay. Screaming. Metal. Shitty nachos. And sweat.

Also dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs were a very big part of today.

Because apparently, the San Diego Zoo had a whole dinosaur exhibit.

Actual Cretaceans.

"Hold still, you lazy lumpy loser-ass iguana!" Butch was straddling a T-Rex like it was a dirt bike, tiny arms trying to wrap around its giant neck as it bucked and snarled beneath him. "I said chill!" Brick had to give him credit, he was doing a good job in not hurting the thing. "CHILL!"

Doing a great job.

The prehistoric section of the San Diego Zoo looked like it'd lost a bet. Broken pens, crushed fences, food carts snapped in half. One of the gift shops had a velociraptor halfway through its front door, blinking like huh, doors now?

Civilians trapped behind the ticket counter. Screaming. Always with the screaming.

Red Rush zipped by again, leaving a trail of crimson behind him as his afterimage as he hauled off two kids under each arm. "This is not normal day!"

What is a normal day, exactly? Brick thoyght to himself as he hovered thirty feet up, tracking the herd paths, cross-referencing grid data from their last sweep with satellite overhead. This seems pretty normal for the last month or so. Really, it wouldn't have been too crazy if it was back in Townsville or even Megaville, being honest. Townsville was crazy, but Megaville was just... insane. Somehow even worse than Metropolis.

Brick turned his head slowly. "Boomer, herd them east. Keep the raptors boxed in."

"Trying!" Boomer flailed midair, narrowly dodging a swooping pterodactyl. "I think they understand me, but they're being jerks about it!" His gaze darted off to the left as a screech sounded his way. "How rude!"

Butch frowned his way with a look that couldn't have said confusion any more clearly than if he wore a neon flashing sighn. "They said what?"

Boomer pointed at the raptors, face deadly serious. "That one just called me ugly. I swear. That one? It was personal."

The air reeked of damp fur and overturned mulch. Brick didn't care. Not when Butch was actively suplexing a T-Rex while screaming about anime power scaling and Boomer was getting into an actual argument with a raptor that seemed just as emotionally unstable.

"You can talk to dinosaurs?" Red Rush blinked into view again, blur-shift settling just long enough to be annoying.

Boomer lit up. "Yeah! I mean—I can talk to anything, technically, but like, they don't always listen? These ones are kinda stubborn. And loud. Real loud. That one over there keeps calling me 'shiny snack.'"

Brick didn't answer. He dropped low, let a stream of frost-fire coat the feet of an incoming stegosaurus. Ice splintered up its legs like glass over water. It shrieked, pitched high and ancient, and buckled. Petting zoo behind it intact. For now.

"Dinosaurs are just animals," Boomer added belatedly, half to Red Rush, half to himself as he backed away from another raptor that looked mildly offended. "Big, scaley, angry animals, but still."

"Very bitey," Butch grunted, digging his heels into the T-Rex's spine. "And ugly. This one looks like a wrinkly foot."

The T-Rex lunged. Butch caught the jaws with both hands and held.

"Nothing like Jurassic Park," he growled. "These things actually fight back."

"Jurassic Park's different here anyway," Brick said, eyes scanning for the next issue. Too many civilians still clustered near the reptile house. Red Rush was fast, but even he couldn't evacuate people who didn't move right. "Movies in this dimension are weird."

"Yeah," Boomer piped up, sparking out a shield as two raptors tried to leap past him. "These dinos talk. And wear little hats."

Butch snorted. "No DBZ. Talking animals in suits. This place sucks. The comics in this place suck. They don't even got Dragon Ball."

"I like the comics here," Boomer said brightly, shifting to redirect the lightning around a kid with a balloon. "That Boku No Hero Academia one's pretty cool—"

"It's My Hero, you moron," Butch snapped. "Say it right or I'm throwing you into the next triceratops."

"I did say it right!"

"You said the weeb version!"

"They're anime! They're both the weeb version!"

"No, you said the Japanese one! This is America!"

Red Rush looked between them, bewildered. "You are fighting about cartoon while dinosaurs attack?"

"First off, it's anime, not cartoons," Butch corrected. "Big difference."

"And second," Brick added, freezing another dinosaur in place, "multitasking is a valuable skill."

Boomer, still trying to reason with the velociraptors, called over his shoulder: "You're the one who goes as Vegeta every Halloween!"

"I go as different Vegetas!" Butch shouted back, clearly as offended as if Boomer had insulted their nonexistent mother. "Base form, Saiyan Saga, Super Saiyan, Majin Vegeta—they're completely different costumes!"

"Still the same character!" Boomer stuck his tongue out.

"Shut the fuck up, Sonichu!"

Boomer squawked, the blond barely missing a beat as he bonked a raptor over the head, the smaller dino trying to take a chunk out of his arm first. "It's a mix of my two favorite characters!"

"It's creepy!"

Red Rush skidded to a halt nearby, caught mid-rescue between two civilians dragging a stroller. He looked at Brick, baffled. "They are… always like this?"

Brick didn't flinch as a pteranodon screeched overhead. Laser-precise heat vision clipped its wing. The bird dropped fast but didn't die. Just enough damage.

"Every day," he muttered.

Butch finally had the T-Rex choked out and was laughing as it collapsed under him. "Man, first the big snow bimbo, now this Jurassic shitshow. What's next, aliens again?"

"Hope not," Boomer said, skipping sideways as a raptor tried to nip his arm. He zapped it—gentle, controlled—and winced. "At least the lizards don't talk about our feelings."

Brick didn't say anything.

Red Rush circled again. "This is very strange job. Dinosaurs. Children. Screaming."

"We used to just rob banks," Boomer offered, too cheerful. "Honestly, it was kinda boring."

Red Rush tripped. Just a stutter in motion. He caught himself.

Butch didn't let it go. "GDA's using us," he said bluntly, dragging the unconscious dinosaur by its tail. "That one scientist with the funky face hair looked at me like I was a test tube that could punch."

"Fu Manchu," Brick muttered. "And yeah. He's curious."

"I like Cecil," Boomer said, petting a raptor now like it wasn't trying to eat him a minute ago. "He gave us separate rooms."

"Because you broke three walls last time we shared," Brick said. "Because you fought over a toothbrush."

"You used mine!"

"You licked mine first!"

"I marked it!"

Red Rush looked like he was reconsidering the contract. "In my country, we say 'Trust, but verify.' Cecil is… complicated man."

"See?" Butch jerked a thumb at him. "Even Dash agrees."

"My name is Red Rush."

"Whatever, Dash."

It was still a little odd, Brick wasn't gonna lie, seeing the ground splitting open like this, when it wasn't because of an earthquake or watching someone superstrong wreak some havoc.

Granted, the ones wreaking said havoc were usually them, but eh...

Whathever the reason and no matter the cause, the way the ground creaked open now, breaking the quiet of the otherwise calm Southern summer night, was still something to see, if you liked that kind of thing at least. Cracks spread faster than an ice cube would melt in this heat, and Brick couldn't make sense of the energy that seemed to pour off the cemetery even as he tried to focus on it—Smells like corroded metal, tastes like... old rot.

Whatever it was, the air was sharp with it, the stench almost stilling the area in a way that felt dead.

Speaking of the dead...

Brick was the first to say that when he had heard they had a situation at a cemetery, he hadn't expected the situation to be the occupants.

Dry bones wrapped in tattered gray, pulled themselves up and out of the shattered cemetery ground, pushing through both wood and dirt with the strength only the dead could have. Brick wasn't exactly sure how they were managing even that much on what had to be barely-there strings of rotted muscle but Brick had a good guess... a pretty pretty good guess that it had something to do with the dark purple swirling necro-glow that surrounded each and every one of the undead. Confederate uniforms, crusted with mildew and legacy and way too much history to die proper.

Brick hovered sixty feet up, boots twitching toward the soil as he stared at the first horde shambling their way towards the cemetery exit. He wasn't saying anything.

Not yet, at least.

He hadn't since they pulled up to the cemetery and the first one had pulled itself out of the grave sideways and started moving on a missing leg and groaning through a broken jaw as it hopped toward town like it still had errands to run about a century and a half later.

"So like... are these the slave guys?" Boomer asked, voice cracking over the earpiece like he already knew it was a dumb question but couldn't stop it leaving his mouth.

Gravestones—cheap, crumbling, mossbitten—leaned every direction, toppled by the literal dead weight clawing out from below. Some held bayonets, personal items they'd clearly been buried with, but after all these years, it's not like they would even w-Crack.

A bullet plinked off his forehead, Brick staring up at the mindless shooter and down at the glowing purple bullet that seemed to vsnish almost as soon as it plinked off his head and fell to the groumd. Okay, so I was wrong.

All of them had those stupid glowing eyes, like light purple LEDs had been shoved into rotted sockets and no one told them till they woke up one-hundred and fify years after the fact.

"Yep," Butch muttered, then cracked a grin Brick couldn't see but could hear in his voice. The crunch that followed sounded like he'd just driven a fist through something you shouldn't step on, let alone punch. "Zombie Confederates. I probably don't say this all that often but best. Mission. Ever."

Boomer's lightning cut across the dusk like it thought it was helping. "So we get to see history come alive? And win a war again. That's kinda cool."

Brick raised an eyebrow so high that if he still wore his hat right now, it might have disappeared under the brim. "How is that cool?"

Boomer shrugged. "I dunno," he trned to Brick with a smile, "we're serving our country, I guess."

Our co- Brick fought to keep his eye from twitching as he promised himself to keep Boomer from listening to Donald again, that perfectly placid and smiley cyborg stuffing his patriotic and self-sacrificing dumbassery into his little brother's already too-small brain. "We've been here three months, Boomer. Don't tell me the ice cream parties and pizza rotted your brain already."

Boomer shrugged. "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."

Brick didn't answer this time, not even to roll his eyes at the bullshit that he knew Boomer didn't even buy into... yet. He was still tracking the way the corpses moved. His breath hitched once, then flattened.

His thumb clicked the earpiece. "Donald," he said, low and clipped, "what the actual hell."

Donald's voice came in like it always did—polite, smooth, like someone stapled military protocol onto a cruise ship captain. "According to records, a Confederate necromancer based out of Alabama—"

"You're kidding." Brick almost hoped he was because that was literally only half a sentence and most of those words already didn't belong anywhere near the same zipcode.

"—cast a national-scale resurrection spell in the early 1950s. The Liberty League stopped the worst of it, but the fail-safe was already in place. The phrasing used was... 'The South shall rise again.' And again. And again."

Brick didn't blink. He just opened his mouth and let out a long, guttural, "Oh my god, is this the sort of shit the Girls dealt with?"

Butch cauht his muttered grievance and grinned his way. "Probably, biggest of bros."

Brick shook his head and grunted. "Yeah, I'd have killed me too."

Boomer zapped another corpse and winced as a finger went flyin. "Wow, they really stink. Like old people soup."

Brick felt his eye twitch as he turned to his brother, fist crushing the skull of one that ambled just close enough. "Boom-Boom... what does that even mean?"

Butch was already three bodies deep, his fists coated in green-tinged blood that steamed where it hit grass. "Who cares? They're Confederate zombies. It's like a punching bag but racist."

Brick sucked in a breath and froze half a dozen at once with a single exhale. Ice crawled up pant legs and over cracked boots. "Confederate zombies? It sounds so cool on paper," he admitted out loud, "but just so dumb when it's in front of you.

Boomer hovered overhead, squinting. "Why they all got the same costume?"

Uniform. Brick didn't bother correcting him out loud, letting the word sit in his head instead. Thank you, Mojo, for thinking you could homeschool, Brick thought with such a heaping helping of sarcasm even Boomer wouldn't ask for seconds.

For all he could do with his Chemical X-ed up gray matter, it didn't take much time around Mojo Jojo to realize that the super-smart simian was about as effective in designing a good curriculum as he was in getting his point across in anything approaching a timely manner, if at all. As a result, Boomer could probably sing you a bunch of classic musicals, including and especially the Pirates of Penzance — entirely unrelated was that Brick hated that musical for… no reason at all, not because his brother wouldn't shut up singing it, but no reason — but the blond Rowdyruff still had little to no skill in anything math or science related.

Well, nothing except an nearly instinctive mind for advanced electromagnetic theory and application.

Case in point, Boomer zipped between gravestones, creating an electrical field that short-circuited several corpses that dropped several corpses.

You take the good with the bad. "Good job, Boom," Brick voiced as he lazily catalogued the field again with his eyes able to pierce the gloom easily. Boomer's flight path had been erratic the last fifteen seconds. Distracted. Butch's hits were getting sloppier.

More impact, less control. Not like it was necessary, these were zombies.

"Do you guys ever miss Townsville?" Boomer asked it too fast, too light, like he hadn't meant to ask it at all.

The question came out of nowhere, momentarily halting Butch's rampage.

Brick grunted, snapping his fingers at both his brothers in a sign that told them to ditch the earpieces. Without wasting a moment, they complied, all three of them shutting off and pocketing their communicators.

"What? No," Butch scoffed, resuming his destruction with slightly less enthusiasm. "Why would I miss getting our butts kicked by the Powerpuffs all the time?"

Brick remained silent, methodically eliminating zombies with precise blasts of heat vision.

The bodies were still burning—ash and steam curling up from loose limbs and fractured graves like the air couldn't decide if it was supposed to carry the stink or choke on it. His heat vision cut a clean line through the last straggler. Precise. Controlled. Gone.

Boomer's voice came out a bit quieter than usual. "I dunno, man. Sometimes I dream Bubbles is looking for us. Like, actually looking. Crying and junk."

"That's stupid," Butch said, already moving again. No push behind it, though, no real heat to anything he was saying. "They probably threw a party soon as we blinked out."

Blinked out is a real good way to describe that, honestly. Brick's voice cut through after a beat too long. "Nah. They probably think we're planning something."

Butch perked up, the way he did when someone threw gasoline on his ego. "Yeah! Bet they're all huddled up, freaking out. Waiting for the big comeback."

A Confederate officer made the mistake of getting too close to Boomer mid-thought. Thunder cracked and the thing exploded into bone dust.

Boomer didn't even flinch. "What if they're not, though? What if they're actually worried?"

Butch scoffed, loud and fast. "Who cares?" Another crunch. Another body dropped. "We got a better gig now. People actually want us here."

Brick's tone stayed flat. "Heroes, huh?"

Boomer drifted closer, sparks still hissing off his hands. "I mean, we're not scaring folks anymore. We're saving them."

"Still breaking things," Butch pointed out. His fist went through a mausoleum wall. "Just with better PR."

"Different intent," Brick said. "Different outcome."

Boomer's head tilted. "But still us, right?"

None of them answered. Not out loud. They just kept going. Systematic. Efficient. Quiet.

Then Butch grunted, popped a zombie's head off with the heel of his boot. "I like it here. People cheer. Even when I do some insane shit like a skyscraper high elbow drop."

"Food's better too," Boomer added with a widening smile. "Last time we cleaned up a town, Cecil let us eat whatever. Like, literally anything. I asked for that banana-flavored cereal they don't make anymore and it just showed up."

"It's control," Brick said. "Keep us happy, keep us useful."

Butch snorted. "Why you gotta make everything sound like a prison, bro?"

Brick shrugged. "I like the tools. The backup. The challenge. Doesn't change the fact that a prison still gives you all those things."

"Told you he likes it," Butch muttered to Boomer with a smirk. "He only does this kind of dumb smart guy thinking when he wants to find reasons to hate something."

Boomer perked up. "So we're staying?"

Brick rolled his eyes. "I didn't say we weren't. I was just saying..."

Butch pumped both fists like he'd won a game. "Yes! I can finish all of Science Dog. Season three just dropped, and I need to know if Dr. Wrench makes it."

Boomer blinked. "Wait… you actually like that show?"

Butch's face twisted. "It's complex. It's got themes and such."

"You mean violent," Brick said.

"Same thing." Butch grabbed a corpse's arm and beat another zombie to pieces with it. "It's got layers."

"Uh-huh," Brick muttered.

Boomer hovered upside down. "This makes up for the dinosaur mess last week. Their heads didn't even pop this easy."

Butch grinned. "Watch this."

Snap. Say what you will about zombie heads, but when they popped, they popped. Wet. Loud. Satisfying, if you were into that kind of thing.

Brick wiped his gloves off on his sleeve and popped his comm back in. "Focus. At least nine more sites to check after this one."

Boomer groaned and Butch rolled his eyes, but both of them followed along.

"Donald," Brick said, tone already back to work-mode, "get me every Confederate cemetery within a 500-mile radius."

"On it," Donald's voice replied smoothly.

Butch sighed. "Nine more? We're gonna be out till breakfast."

Boomer was all chipper again as he added, "Better than math homework."

Brick let himself smirk, barely. "Not bored. I'll take it."

Cecil Stedman watched the screens. No reaction. Eyes scanning.

Yeti takedown: clean. Collateral high but contained.

Dinosaur breakout: chaos, but stylish.

Confederate dead: efficient. Brutal. No loss of civilian life.

Three boys seated at a round table in a steel-gray debriefing room. One stretching like a cat. One buzzing in his chair. One stone-still, watching the screen like it might blink first.

Cecil didn't smile. Not really. But something in the set of his jaw shifted. "Three weeks. Seventeen ops. No civilian body count. Impressive."

Brick sat forward slightly. "Protocols scaled better than expected."

Butch stretched harder, arms behind his head. "Translation: we're freakishly good at weird shit."

Boomer let out a loud yawn. "Can we get pizza again? I'm literally dying."

Cecil didn't blink. "You boys are catching on faster than most full-grown agents."

Brick met his eyes. "We adapt. Always have."

Cecil's nod was small, the measured movement the most the man usually did. "World's noticed too."

One gesture from him and the screens switched.

ANCHORAGE SAVED BY TRINITY

DINOS TAMED BY TEEN HEROES

TEAM TRINITY SPOTTED OVER TENNESSEE

Butch grinned. "Told you we'd be famous."

Cecil's tone dipped low. "Fame's a loaded gun, son. Folks start looking your way for all kinds of reasons. Not all of 'em friendly."

Brick nodded slowly.

Boomer, oblivious as always, tilted his head, "So… pizza or what?"

Cecil didn't sigh but something settled in his face. "Pizza party's already waiting in your rec room. You earned it."

Without a moment's hesitation, they zoomed out of the room in a tri-colored burst of light, leaving the good director alone in his office.

After a few seconds of silence, wrinkled fingers tapped the screen atop his desk, the last file still open with a heading that was clear as day: Team Trinity Power Readings

Three graphs. Three names. Three spikes.

Brick. Butch. Boomer.

All trending up on a slow, yet decidedly steady scale over the course of nearly a dozen weeks.

Cecil leaned in, hands flat on his desk. "Now how in the hell is this happening?"

Chapter Text

Inside the dorms, the lights were still down, but Boomer shot up like someone had yanked a cord in his spine.

His breath hitched in his chest, despite his lack of need to breathe at all, shirt stuck to his skin like he'd been dunked in something. Sweat was thick in his hair, hot and clammy and itching and his blue sheets twisted around his legs, half-kicked free, half strangling him. His heartbeat didn't feel right. Too fast, too deep, like it was trying to outrun something still chasing him through the walls.

Something was still in the room.

He blinked around, pupils blown. Waited for movement, for a blur of Pink. Green. Blue.
Instead, he was met with nothing.

He wasn't sure why that made him sad.

Just that blinking red light up near the ceiling.

Recording.
Watching.
Always watching.

"...Bubbles."

The room stayed quiet as the words left his mouth like steam, like saying it might call her up out of the dark.

The monitor blinked red again, tagging the spike in his heart rate. More data for Cecil. Morning fuel for the cold press conference he called coffee. Donald would pretend not to notice while checking his little clipboard and thinking way too loud.

Boomer stared at the lens and kept himself from blinking, another something he didn't need to do if he didn't really need to, keeping his eyes on the camera in the world's most pointless staring contest. After a few seconds, he just stretched his mouth into a grin that failed to touch his eyes and threw a weak thumbs-up.

The camera didn't blink either.

The lights came on like punishment.

No sunrise, no warning. Just harsh fluorescents slicing through the dark and dragging the day out by the throat. The locks disengaged in sequence, hallway by hallway, like dominoes made of steel.

Brick'd been up since 3:12 AM.

He'd stopped checking the clock an hour ago. The screen of his tablet threw a ghostlight across his face, edges flickering as he scrolled through a physics model that stubbornly refused to match anything on Earth. His Earth, that is. The numbers weren't adding up. Too many variables in the dimensional constants, no anchors to test against.

He rubbed his eyes, fingers digging into the sockets until stars flared behind the lids. He wasn't really tired anyway. Just sick of thinking in circles.

Another model. Another dead end. Mojo hadn't taught him how to run calculations, but you couldn't be made of super-intelligent primate DNA and live with said super-smart monkey for years without picking up some advanced physics and engineering here and there. Still though, none of that did anything to change the fact that the math here wasn't just different. It was wrong.

Or maybe he was.

A crash from the next room. Something heavy. Brick's jaw locked as he kept his eyes on the math in front of him.

Second crash, louder. This one Brick recognized as a door slammed open so hard it might've come off the hinges.

Butch.

Of course it was Butch.

The floor thudded under his boots. Green and black training suit already clinging to him like a second skin as he walked through. Behind him, the training room wall—formerly reinforced, titanium-core, theoretically indestructible—was missing a chunk shaped like a boy who refused to believe in limits.

The intercom popped. Static hiss, followed by Donald's voice, stretched thin and brittle. "Butch, that's the third wall this week."

Butch scoffed, not turning around to even glance at the speaker. His hand flexed once, fingers cracking. "Wasn't strong enough," he said, half to the air, half to no one.

The oldest Rowdyruff just stared back, jaw tight, fingers white-knuckling the tablet.

"Hey, fearless leader," Butch said finally, loud enough to punch through the silence. His voice had an edge to it's usual rasp. "You see the new walls? All fancy with the titanium? Not fancy enough."

He grinned, savage and sharp, like he wanted someone to tell him to stop just so he had an excuse.

Brick kept his eyes down

"Keep it down. It's early."

"Early?" Butch snorted, flexing his hands like they were new to him. "Been up since four. Already broke a treadmill, two dummies, and I think I dislocated that training bot with the dumb little voice."

Brick rolled his eyes with nothing to say to that, both of them well aware the thing had Donald's voice. Instead, he just pinched the bridge of his nose and went back to the tablet.

"Still not strong enough," Butch muttered again, low this time, almost thoughtful.

"Is anything ever?" Brick muttered, still not lifting his head.

Rather than respond, Butch redirected his energy elsewhere like a green-tinted Energizer Bunny if it was also a sociopathic little boy. Same pressure, different angle. His boots thudded against the floor too hard, too fast, like the place owed him for waking up still breathing. Cabinet doors opened and slammed again. Half a loaf of bread got sniffed and tossed. Fridge light flicked on, off. Back on.

Every motion carried that edge he hadn't filed down yet and probably wouldn't until he found something to distract him.

Finally, eventually, Butch crashed onto the couch. It groaned loud under the weight and tension both, one side tilting uneven. His arm draped over the back like he owned it. Like he might tear it off for fun. "So what's the game today, huh? Another round of 'watch Butch get bored to death in public' or we finally doing something that counts?"

Brick kept silent.

"C'mon. At least lemme break something. I'll even aim this time."

A sigh left the Red Rowdyruff's lips. "Whatever Cecil assigns."

"Cool. So nothing," Butch snorted. He stretched like a lion in a cage, full-body and deliberate. "I swear, next time one of those clipboard freaks gets in my face, I'm snapping their glasses just to see how long it takes 'em to cry."

The far door hissed open.

Boomer shuffled out from the hallway leading to their bedroom looking like his bed swallowed him, rolled the blue Rowdyruff around in its mouth then spat him out when he realized showering wasn't high on his list of priorities. His blond hair was a disaster zone, blue eyes bleary and dark underneath. He was quiet for a few seconds, just sort of existing there in the frame like he'd forgotten how rooms worked.

"Morning," he said finally, voice cracked around the edges as if he was Butch.

Brick's eyes flicked up, taking in everything about his little brother all at once.

"Bad dreams again?" Same as yesterday. Same as the last couple weeks.

Boomer blinked like he hadn't expected the question. His mouth opened, closed, twisted. "Nah. Just... y'know. Weird sleep."

Brick let it lie. No one needed that fight right now.

"You look like ass," Butch said with unusual brightness, downright pleased as punch to have a target again. "Like... rotting shoe gunk."

"Shut up," Boomer muttered, already drifting toward their kitchen space. The Blue Rowdyruff opened the fridge, and stared inside like it had answers.

Butch leaned forward, voice dropping just enough to be worse. "You have a little accident, bro? Dream of your little blonde babycakes again? What was it this time—Bubbles with the knife or Bubbles with the chainsaw?"

The fridge door slammed shut, nearly hard enough to send the thing through the wall if it wasn't bolted to the floor so many times over. Boomer turned, jaw clenched. "I said shut up."

Brick's hands slammed on the table with a loud, deliberate noise. "Enough."

They froze, the same way they did every time he put that edge in his voice, reminded them who was in charge, and they turned to him eyes wide. Almost like dogs after you pulled on the leash or something.

Brick glanced at them both as he felt the way they both pulled toward him—Boomer trying not to sway, Butch practically vibrating with unburned tension. The moment cracked open between them, held together by the same unspoken agreement that always had—he leads, they don't spiral.

The intercom cracked. Static, then Donald's voice, scratchy and too tired to fake calm.

"Trinity. Briefing room. Fifteen."

Butch lit up. "Finally. Something to hit."

Boomer perked too, weaker but there. "Could just be talking, though…"

"Get ready," Brick said, already moving. The tablet slid into his bag without looking. "And don't break anything on the way."

Cecil's office was lit like a morgue. Cold white and bleached blue from the wall of monitors, which spat graphs and pulse charts and energy sigs in real time. None of it looked good.

The air reeked faintly of sterilizer and the kind of coffee you had to earn by surviving something. Donald stood off to the side, hands clasped behind his back, like posture alone might save him from the conversation.

"How long's it been showing like this?" Cecil's gaze remained fixed, not shifting from the screens. His finger moved with surgical intent, flicking data between panels like a general drawing killboxes.

Donald pulled up a graph. "Started just after they met the Guardians. Two weeks and change."

Cecil nodded, once.

Only once.

The files weren't telling him anything the director could not already feel in his spine. They'd been different since the moment that first handshake went down—watching the Guardians like kids watching gods bleed. As much as they seemed to like the Guardians, they were clearly disappointed in them, viewing them as… knockoffs, was what they said.

Justice League. They'd said the name like it mattered. Like it was real. He still wasn't sure if they were playing a game or confessing something. Whatever this Justice League was, as silly as Cecil found the name, they had to be some kind of hero group.

Far from fictional, no matter what Brick would have him believe.

Donald cleared his throat. Nervous tick. Too loud in the silence. "Sir, I... I've been wondering... where are they really from?"

Cecil's mouth twitched. "Not from around here, I can tell you that much."

Donald's eyes jumped to the nearest screen—Brick's vitals from what they recorded against the Immortal; at least 3x the older hero's muscle density—and back. "So... alien?"

"Something more complicated, unfortunately, Donald."

Donald shifted his weight. "Sir... do you... do we even know?"

Cecil's fingers never stopped, tablet still humming under one palm like it mattered more than the man standing in front of him. He scrolled with one hand, reached for his coffee with the other, sipped without flinching.

"No, Donald. I don't know."

He said it like he was correcting a child. Like he was bored of the question before it finished. "I've got hunches. Strong ones. Some conclusions. But no confirmation."

Donald stayed standing, his shoulders set too stiff, like someone who wanted to sit but had a strong distrust of the furniture.

Cecil finally paused, the old director blinking once. Not for effect—just inventory. "They're opening up on their own. Enough, anyway. Brick's got control issues the others don't, but he's learned to lie with silence. The rest? They leak."

Donald opened his mouth, and closed it again as the clipboard in his hand shifted slightly.

Cecil tapped once. Closed the file. "Schedule Bridges. Full psych workup."

There was a pause, one a bit too long for comfort. Donald's mouth twitched like he was about to argue. "They're not gonna like that," he said finally. Midwest still clinging to his vowels.

"They don't get a vote."

The briefing room was not a place the Boys enjoyed being. As a rule, the Boys did not like being told what to do even if it came with rewards, and the briefing room was pretty much where they got told what to do all the damn time. As usual, Brick walked in first, already bracing for whatever orders they were about o be given.

Cecil stood in the usual spot. Monitors behind him casting blue across his skin, cutting weird across the lines in his face. Donald to his right, clipboard ready like he was gonna take minutes at a PTA meeting.

Boomer slid in behind Brick, eyes low, fingers already tapping the table like they were trying to drum something out of his head. Butch slammed the door without meaning to, probably and sat down hard enough to make the chair whine.

Brick took center. Butch to the right. Boomer to the left. Like always.

"Morning," Cecil said. Not a greeting. More like a test. "Sleep alright?"

Boomer twitched, just a hitch, but Brick felt it before he saw it.

"We're good," Brick said flat. "What's the job?"

Cecil's mouth did something almost-smile-adjacent. The kind you couldn't afford to trust.

"We'll get there."

A manila folder slid across the table with a red tab at the top. Brick simply stared at it as he raised an eyebrow at Cecil. "Performance metrics," Cecil answered the unspoken question, voice casual. Like the data wasn't obviously about them. "Figured we'd debrief first."

Boomer's tapping stopped.

Brick opened the folder. Pages. Charts. Readouts. The same loops of strength, stamina, efficiency. All the stats people needed when they wanted to quantify a weapon instead of understand a person. Butch leaned over to look at his own and scoffed.

"We're killing it," Butch said, loud, satisfied.

Brick glanced sideways. "They wouldn't drag us in here just to say good job."

"Heh. Butt," Butch muttered, but the joke went nowhere. Not even hitting with Boomer.

Cecil tapped again. The monitors behind him shifted.

The screen in front of Butch lit up first—him, slamming a villain's chest cavity into the sidewalk like he was trying to find out what was under it. Then Brick. Surrounded by dark, with the glow of six screens on his face, searching something he wasn't supposed to. Boomer's footage was the worst one of them all. The blond Rowdyruff tangled in sheets. Thrashing. Face caught mid-scream.

No one moved.

"Anything you wanna share?" Cecil asked lightly.

Boomer shrunk back, mouth closed.

Butch's fingers started pressing dents into the armrest.

Brick avoided looking at his brothers. Instead, he let out a breath. "We're adapting."

Cecil's eyebrows lifted just slightly. "Adapting."

Brick stared straight through him. "You got a better word?"

There was a pause. "I'd call it concerning."

Another tap. The wall behind Cecil shifted again showing new overlays, new footage, and just more of everything.

"All three of you are running hot. Elevated aggression. Irregular sleep patterns. Escalation behaviors," Cecil's gaze turned to each one of them in turn. "Brick, you've bricked two more tablets since Tuesday by attempting to acces five restricted databases. Boomer's screaming in his sleep. Butch can't go forty-eight hours without structural damage."

"We're fine," Butch snapped.

"You're not," Cecil said, tone flat as rebar.

"Well, you're weak," Butch muttered.

Brick shot him a look.

"And what about you, Boomer?" Cecil's voice turned, shifting downwards in tone. Not kinder, just quieter. "Bad dreams over and over. What are you seeing?"

Boomer's throat moved. Nothing came out. His fingers twitched. "I—I don't remember."

"You expect me to believe that?"

His voice cracked, hardening in a way Boomer's oddly did. "I don't care what you believe."

"Hey," Butch barked towards Cecil, chair screeching as he shifted. "Back off."

Brick shot in sharp, voice hard enough to cut through all the noise. "Is there a point to this?"

"The point," Cecil said, slow like he was chewing the words before spitting them down the center of the table, "is I need Trinity functional. Whatever this is—however it's rattling your aim or your judgment or your sleep—I can't have it bleed into the field."

The GDA Director hadn't specifically looked at anyone when he said it, the man just swiping left on the tablet in front of him, the screen flashing past graphs Brick had already memorized and dismissed. The kind of numbers that didn't matter when Butch snapped a man's jaw in six places or Boomer sparked his way through a steel door because he got startled.

"I've got Dr. Bridges cleared for evals. Full sit-down. You're on her docket for tomorrow afternoon."

Butch scoffed—loud, rude. "You kiddin' me? A shrink?"

Brick shut his eyes. "We're not doing a psych eval." His voice came out quieter than he meant it to.

Donald, standing off to Cecil's right with a clipboard tucked like a shield, cleared his throat too politely. "With all due respect, gentlemen, the assessments are standard protocol. Especially for new assets in long-term ops. It's nothing to be alarmed about."

"It's not optional," Cecil said, still scrolling.

The room went still for a second. Not quiet—Butch was still breathing too loud, Boomer's heel thumped the floor twice in uneven rhythm—but still. Tight. Like something was stretching under the table.

Brick stayed still. He wasn't gonna give them the satisfaction. But his jaw clenched, just once. Hard enough he tasted blood.

Cecil finally stopped scrolling and turned the tablet off. After a half-second pause, he tapped it once, like punctuation. "That's three o'clock. Bridges'll be waiting. You miss it, I send a team to fetch you. Simple math."

He said it with a smile that wasn't.

Brick hated that smile. It was the kind you wear when you already know where the bodies are buried. Hell, when you buried them.

"Now," Cecil said, shifting gears mid-step like he hadn't just dropped a lit match, "your next pull is Westfield Research. Officially, it's been dead since '09 on the books, but we've got chatter that's not the case. Unregistered power flares. Movement in a place that shouldn't have movement. You'll go. You'll observe. You'll report. Don't engage unless you're in the dirt already."

Butch groaned so loud it was performative. "Seriously? Another stakeout? Might as well tape my eyes open and glue me to a wall."

Donald stepped in. "With all due respect, Butch, observation is vital to the collection of long-term threat metrics."

Butch turned his head just enough to drop a long look at Cecil's number two. Donald's breath hitched, the cyborg still obsessed with acting like a normal human, and he adjusted his stance.

Cecil let out a sigh, "Officially, Westfield was medical research. Unofficially? Metahuman experiments. Technically legal and non-criminal but dirty enough that digging through it might get you something useful."

That got Brick's attention, his fingers stilling on the edge of the chair. "What kind of useful?"

Cecil's voice flattened. "Genetic engineering. Power amplification trials. Attempts to replicate extranormal capabilities in unaugmented subjects. And failure. A lot of it."

He met Brick's eyes for the first time. "Departure's in thirty. Mission files are live in your rooms," Cecil said. "And don't be late for your sit-down. I'll know if you try to duck it."

He stood. Donald mirrored the move like he'd rehearsed it.

"Sir," Donald said, nodding to the table, "I'll notify the psych wing."

Cecil was already walking. "Good. Let's see what we're really working with."

The door shut behind them.

Butch's hand balled into a fist against the table before Brick could stop him. Not a punch, just pressure. The metal groaned.

"No way in hell I'm sitting through that."

"You think I want to?" Brick muttered.

Boomer kept his eyes down, looking at his hands as he fiddled with them. "You think it even matters?"

Butch turned on him. "Better than crying in your sleep every night."

Boomer's shoulders twitched. "...'m not crying."

"Stop it," Brick snapped as he stood up quickly. "We'll deal with it later."

Butch threw his hands up, standing up too. "We are dealing with it. Or we should be, but noooo, can't break anything or light it up, can't do nothin' but sit on our asses and nod for some rich lady who's gonna ask how we feel—"

"You done?" Brick asked, voice as cold as his breath was hot.

Butch stopped moving, just long enough for his shadow to catch up.

Boomer stood last. For once, the quietest. They all filed out.

The doctor's office tried too hard. That was the first tell. Soft lighting instead of whitewash fluorescents. Potted plants on every surface, like that was supposed to make up for the surveillance density. Chairs arranged in a semi-circle, too spaced for comfort, too symmetrical for coincidence.

Brick stood near the door, spine locked, arms crossed like posture might be armor. Butch made a beeline for the window—standard. He needed sightlines, an exit. Boomer drifted behind them both, hovering between chair and wall, fingers twitching at the hem of his uniform.

The doctor was already in the room.

She just stood there, polished and poised, with a clipboard Brick really doubted she needed and a watch that probably cost more than everything she wore twice over.

Dr. Bridges smiled, exactly once. Not warm. Not fake. Just… measured. Like she'd already finished this conversation before they walked in and was waiting to see which script they'd choose.

Brick felt the floor settle wrong under his feet. Like a trap that hadn't sprung yet.

The Boys stepped in anyway.

Brick was the first one to make a move as usual, the oldest brother near the door as he scouted the place out as if something that could hurt them was waiting inside. Butch peeped in through the room's large window, shoulders loose but twitching, tapping his foot then his finger then his foot again against the floor as he seemed to test whether the walls had secret GDA weapons hidden inside them, Boomer hovered mid-room like he hadn't decided whether this was a trap or a test or both as his fingers curled tight and uncurled just as fast.

Dr. Bridges didn't flinch. She smiled, but it failed to go all that far across her face. "Adjustment's been difficult. That's expected."

Brick's voice came out smooth and cold."We're good."

The older lady nodded at that. "Homesickness can manifest in different ways."

Brick stayed quiet this time and his brothers followed his example.

"Talking helps."

He narrowed his eyes. "Does it?"

"I'd like to know more," she said. "About your previous environment. Your family unit. Any formative traumas."

Brick's brow barely twitched. "Why."

"Understanding context sharpens diagnosis," she said. "And homesickness is—"

Boomer flinched. It was a small motion but Bridges clocked it like she'd been waiting for it.

She shifted her gaze without moving her face. "Boomer. Your sleep data shows irregularity and REM disruptions. Any recollection of your dreams?"

He blinked too fast. "Nope. I don't—uh, I don't dream."

A lie. A weak one but she was smart enough not to call it out.

"Dreams help us process things our conscious mind resists. That includes trauma."

She said it like it was weather. Like nightmares were a natural side effect of being displaced across dimensions.

Brick didn't breathe. Not really. Not when the word wrapped around the edge of his skull and started scraping.

Trauma.

Mojo's voice in his ears, sharp and high and cracked with genius. The first time they opened their eyes, stinging with chemical rot and sewer stench. The first scream. The first punch. The first time they tore something soft apart with hands they hadn't known they had.

Three girls. Three smiles. Three victories in dresses and bows and color-coded pity.

Then the kiss.

Then the light.

Then—

"We're not traumatized," Brick said finally, voice iced over as he pushed everything that wasn't here and now aside. "We're fine."

"Are you?" Bridges said, more a shape of a question than an actual one. "Cecil said you've been combing through dimensional mechanics. That's an uncommon hobby for your age bracket."

Fishing.

He could see it already. Talk about home, you start remembering. Start talking. Start giving her leverage she would take back to Cecil.

Red eyes narrowed. "Session's over."

Dr. Bridges remained in her seat, blinking in confusion. "We've barely started."

Brick didn't repeat himself. His brothers followed the shift like instinct.

The door slammed hard enough behind them that the frame creaked..

"Boomer."

The younger boy raised his hand on command. A blue pulse of energy burst out and hlit the ceiling for half a second. The cameras in the corners popped. One sparked. Two died. The air fizzled.

"Three minutes," Boomer said, almost proud. "Maybe four."

"They're gonna figure it out," Brick muttered, already pulling his tablet.

"They can choke on it," Butch snapped. The dam finally cracked. "I'm sick of this shit. Pretending like we're little mascots or science fair projects or something. Sitting there like this is school and she's just—what—grading us?"

He slammed a boot into the wall. The dent spidered.

"It's necessary," Brick said, not looking up.

Butch spun around, fists clenched as he turned angry forest-green eyes Brick's way. "Necessary for what, boss bro? To smile while they poke us with sticks? Pretend we're adjusting?"

"You think I don't know this isn't home?" Brick snapped, head up now, voice sharp enough to cut. "You think I'm not doing everything I can—every second—to get us out?"

He didn't yell but Butch froze anyway.

Boomer collapsed backwards, legs giving out like something cut loose in the knees. He hit the edge of his bed with too much bounce, sank into it like it might swallow him whole, hands limp at his sides as he laid back, looking up at the ceiling.

"Had it again," he said, voice fuzzed at the corners, as his eyes stayed straight up. "The dream. They were after us again but this time I—"

He swallowed on the words, like he was choking on it. In fact, it took a good second or two before he got the rest out.

"I wanted 'em to catch us."

The words just sat there. Like they were waiting for someone to pick 'em up and say they didn't mean anything. No one did.

Brick said, "The Girls," even though there was no reason to. It was almost as if confirming it could make the thought less sharp. Didn't work, he realized a second later, shaking his head to himself.

Boomer nodded, eyes still glued to the floor. "It's worse now. Feels more like... I dunno. Real. I can hear 'em. Smell 'em. Bubble's shampoo—stupid strawberry crap. Buttercup laughing. Not the nice kind."

Butch scoffed, but there wasn't any bite in it. "It's dreams. That's it."

"No," Brick said, and this time his tone flattened like it'd been scraped clean. He turned the tablet toward them.

Numbers. Vectors. Frequency maps. Dimensional ripple graphs. Simulations half-rendered. The whole screen was bleeding red and static but it made sense to him. Some of it, at least, as weird as this world's physical laws were.

"I'm working on it."

Boomer looked up too fast, eyes wide and hope already racing ahead of the facts. "You mean like... home?"

Brick nodded, one time. "It wasn't a fluke. Or, at least, not entirely one. The breach that sent us here. Something in us—speed, mass, chemical X saturation—it hits this frequency, and the whole thing reepeats. I just gotta catch it, map it, stabilize it. We can—"

Butch cut in like he always did when it got too sciencey. "So we can go back to what, exactly? Getting our teeth kicked in? You remember that, right? Us losing? Over and over?"

He punched the nightstand as punctuation, the entire thing caving in around his fist, reinforced wood splintering like it owed him something.

"We were jokes, Brick. Three-for-one sale. We couldn't beat 'em on our best day the last couple years."

Three, Brick corrected in his own head.

"I just want to go back to knowing who the hell we were," Brick snapped, louder than he meant to, voice tearing in the middle like the thought was too sharp to swallow.

Butch growled. "We were fuckin' delinquents, man! No one came to Townsville except the usual suspects cause of the Girls and if we caused too much trouble out of town, the League would crack down on us and half the time, you," he pointed a finger at Brick, "would stir shit up just to get Superman's attention, you... you... you boyscout!"

Brick reared forward in a blur until he was only inches away, growling in Butch's face. "Boyscout?!"

Butch bared his teeth, growling back as his eyes glowed the toxic green they often did when his blood was up. "You heard me! Calling yourself Brimstone like you're really bad and hellspawn or whatever, like we all don't know you're a Superman lover!"

Brick's nostrils flared, unable to deny that much. Yes, he loved Superman, but that wasn't fair. What twelve-year old boy doesn't? He also liked Lex Luthor too, that counted for some villain points, right? Whatever. He wasn't going down without a fight. "Like you don't looooove Batman, you little sneak!"

Butch reared back, shock clear on his face as he gasped soundlessly for a good five seconds. "That's not... that's not fair! He's the world's greatest fighter, and without powers. Everybody knows he can beat Superman!"

"Batman isn't the world's greatest fighter," Brick shot back.

Butch narrowed his eyes. "Oh, yeah, Einstein, then who is?"

"Uh, the Richard Dragon!"

Butch rolled his eyes. "No one cares about Richard Dragon. Only reason you like him is cause he's ginger!"

"Yeah, and you're a hypocrite for liking Batman!"

"Why am I a hippop- a hippocrip, a h-" Butch grunted and shook his head, eye twitching, "Why can't I like him?"

Brick screwed up his face in confusion, the hypocrisy actually confusing him. "HE'S A HERO!"

"VIGILANTE!" Brick roared back. "THAT'S TECHNICALLY A CRIMINAL!"

"I think the Flash is pretty cool."

Glowing red and green eyes turned to the side immediately, so fast that the air actually cracked. "Shut the fuck up, Boomer!"

"Yeah, Boom," Butch chimed in. "Shut up!"

The Blue Rowdyruff shrugged, unbothered.

Brick glanced back at Butch, blinking in confusion as he realized they had lost the point somewhere several insults back. "...what were we talking about?"

Butch blinked. "Oh... uh, something about you wanting to go home."

"Right, right..." Brick nodded slowly as he got back on track. "Look, it's just back there... at least we knew the rules. We were made for something."

Boomer's hands were lit faint-blue, trailing sparks that didn't reach the bedspread as he played with sparks. "Mojo made us. For one reason. Destroy them. That's it. That's all we ever were."

No one touched that. Brick watched the broken stand drop wood slivers to the floor and did the math on how many nights he'd heard Boomer tossing in his sleep lately.

"It was still ours," he said, quieter. "It was still us."

Butch scoffed again but slower. Less venom this time. He kept his eyes off anyone else's when he dropped onto his own bunk. "We got it better here. Ain't gotta answer to Mojo, or HIM, or whatever. We eat. We fight. They give us stuff. Feels like a win to me."

Brick's head tilted. Just slightly. "You think Cecil's not Mojo with better teeth? You think this ain't a leash?"

Butch didn't answer.

Boomer kept staring at his palms like they had something written on them. "We're helping people now. It's different."

Brick looked at him like he'd grown another head. "Since when's that ever mattered to us?"

The room didn't get quieter, just heavier.

Then the intercom cracked loud overhead—no chime, just barked noise. Cecil's voice cut through the walls.

"Trinity to Command. Code Yellow. Repeat, Code Yellow. Now."

Brick's red eyes narrowed as he pushed all his other pointless thoughts to the back of his head. The Rowdyruff just stood, posture already locked and loaded. "Move."

Command center looked like someone shook a hornet's nest full of caffeine and wires. Monitors everywhere. One showing a high-rise with the side peeled open, like God took a bite out of it. Smoke curled out the top like it was lit from the inside.

People running. Screaming.

Cecil stood in the eye of it, jaw locked, eyes pinned to the damage like he'd seen worse and wasn't impressed. Donald hovered beside him, voice clipped and smooth as he passed updates through a headset, the air around him tense like he was trying to stay useful enough not to be noticed.

"Killcannon," Cecil said, not even glancing at them. "Downtown Baltimore. Financial District. Thirtieth floor's a mess, elevators shot, hostiles confirmed inside."

Donald tapped a screen and Killcannon's mug filled it. Helmeted, armored, heavy ordinance built into the left arm rig. Brick's mind filled in the rest before Donald said it.

"Level seven threat," Donald recited. "Plasma weaponry. Energy burst class. Capable of structural destabilization. Civilian casualties likely."

Brick was already in leader mode. "Boomer, evac. Butch, hold structure. I'll pin the target."

Cecil blinked, looked at him like he'd handed over a test answer too early with all the answers correct. Then nodded.

"Bay Three's got your teleport lined."

Brick turned before the sentence finished. "Don't need it."

His brothers followed.

"We'll fly."

They didn't wait for the bay doors to finish opening.

Boomer shoved ahead first, heel-spring off the ground in a blur that left the air wobbling behind him, the fastest Rowdyruff doing his thing. Butch cracked his neck, flexed once, then launched with a shockwave that set the floor groaning. Brick went last—just a breath behind—but still first in formation, always, because that's how it worked.

Red-blue-green tore out of the launch bay like they'd been shot from a goddamn railgun. The sound ripped open the sky. Clouds sheared. Wind folded. Birds dropped out of the way like they'd hit a wall.

Below, the woods blurred past in streaks of brown and green, then suburbs. Brick blinked once and watched a cul-de-sac stutter into a grid of city blocks. Then smoke.

Then skyline.

Then there.

Downtown Baltimore was bleeding.

One of the towers had its ribs showing—steel bent outward like a peeled can. Fire crawled up the side, clinging to shattered windows, flickering orange against the broken shell of forty-something floors gutted mid-spine. Smoke poured out in curtains. Brick watched glass fall in slow arcs, light bouncing off it like someone had upended a jewelry store across the air. Streets below were choked—cars flipped, civilians running with no pattern, responders screaming over radios no one could hear.

He broke formation without calling it.

"Gamma spread," he said anyway. It was habit, sue him.

Boomer veered left, a shock-pop of blue streaking across collapsed scaffolding. He didn't dodge debris—he moved before it fell. A kid pinned under a chunk of awning blinked, and Boomer was gone again, the wind yanking a scream out of the little girl's mouth like an afterthought. Then another civ, then another. The air rippled with displacement and flared with a blue streak every time he passed.

Butch slammed into the plaza like he'd been fired from orbit. The street cracked under him. and concrete exploded like a missile went off. He caught the edge of a tilting support beam before it could finish its collapse and grunted like he'd just found something fun to lift.

"C'mon, then," he muttered, shoving against steel like he was benching the whole district. Rebar whined as he pushed off against nothing and moved up into the air.

Brick hovered above the chaos, scanning. Not just looking—calculating. Damage angle. Heat bloom. Blast pattern. Something felt off.

"Boomer."

"Yeah?"

"Where's the target?"

Static, then breath. "You mean Killcannon? Thought he was lighting this place up."

"Someone else is already engaging," Brick said, eyes narrowing on the top floors. Movement.

"What? Who?"

"Hold position."

He rocketed up, body snapping forward into a sonic pop, windows near him buckling from the pressure wake. He hit the breach in the skyscraper like a missile threading a needle, fire licking at his boots as he punched through the smoke.

Inside was carnage. Desks were split in half, wall panels half-melted, wires drooping from the ceiling like the insides of a kaiju. Water pooled on the carpet where a cooler had burst and scattered plastic like shrapnel. The air tasted... burnt.

Brick hovered mid-floor, one arm lifted in reflex.

Killcannon was down, the cyborg villain slumped against a cracked support column, armor fractured, helmet caved halfway in. Still breathing but clearly unconscious.

Standing over him was a stranger. Blue, black and yellow spandex, with shoulders broad enough that he was probably no older than eighteen at most. Pretty tall, but not as tall as the Immortal, and standing with his back to him.

Brick said nothing at first.

He floated in lower. Not enough to make noise, just enough to cast shadow with his hands clasped behind his back in the perfect posture he'd copied from videos of Lex Luthor in his battlesuit.

"You gonna explain who the hell you are or should I start guessing?"

The figure spun, surprise clear on his face before shifting into a flicker of confidence as he smiled.

"Me?" he asked, voice catching on the turn. "I'm—"

Chapter Text

"Nobody who matters," Brick said, flat like a blade, the syllables clipped on the way out.

The air still stank of scorched circuitry and melted glass. Everything had that greasy, ion-burned edge to it—static crawling over his skin like nerves trying to peel away. The smoke alarms lower down howled behind concrete and steel, too far away to be useful, too close to ignore. It all just grated.

So did the guy in front of him.

Blue and yellow spandex, the thing too good to be store-bought or anything even close to what a regular person could get their hands on. Definitely not normally tailored. No, there was nothing normal or standard about it, Brick could see that with no X-Ray or micro-vision. Not even bootleg GDA. Professionally made, meta-materials too.

The suit might have been professional, sure, but the guy wewaring it definitely wasn't.

Brick's eyes darted all around the guy, spotting weaknesses and tells. The guy was green as grass, that much was obvious. He was a bit too jittery, too twitchy, still unsteady even when he hovered, in the way that fresh flyers always were.

Not even that, but just his body language made it clear this guy was weak, in the mind if not the body. His stance was too open, his hands wrong like he wasn't sure what to do with them quite yet. All in all, he had that kind of nervous in him where both body and brain made it clear they were new to this.

Has… has this guy ever been in an actual fight before? Brick didn't blink and definitely didn't bother hiding the evaluation. Like, in his life?

"This was a government-op," he said, arms crossing slow and tight. "Team Trinity-led. Which means you being here? Interference."

The guy opened his mouth, then closed it. It took a whole two seconds before he even tried again. "I wasn't—I mean—I was just helping, alright? The building was—was coming down and I saw people, and I didn't know anyone was—"

A sonic pop cracked through the air behind them—Boomer's reentry, sudden and too close. A familiar blue streak moving with little to no spatial awareness, per usual.

"Yo. bro boss Brimstone!" Boomer giggled at his own alliteration for a good second, before seriousing up slightly. "Civvies are good, and Butch's—whoa, hey!" Boomer's whole trajectory halted mid-sentence as his eyes caught on the spandex. He tilted his head, wide-eyed. "Who's that?"

The stranger latched onto the moment like it was oxygen. "I was saying, I just—"

BOOM! Drywall exploded out from behind them, chunks spitting into the air as the new kid flinched. Brick didn't so much as move a single muscle. He'd been waiting for Butch's dynamic entry soon anyway.

The Greenest Rowdyruff stormed through the debris like he'd been born from it, dust in his hair, boots grinding cement to powder, and ash in his face, grinning all the while with perfectly white teeth. "North side's good. No collapse."

His gaze found the stranger and locked on. He tilted his head, eyes narrowing at the possibility of a potential tussle. All followed by a slow, almost lazy curl of his lip as his tongue hung out of his mouth.

"Who's this clown?" Yeah, Butch was hungry for a fight.

Per usual. Brick exhaled, jaw tight as he clicked his tongue a moment after. "Still figuring that out, Breakneck." The subtle reminder that they were on the job stiffened Butch up slightly and his tongue went back in his mouth, but the slight restlessness to his stance remained.

Brick turned back to the older kid in the spandex, who had stopped trying to explain and was now shifting his weight between both feet like his shoes were on fire. Brick clocked the way his fists kept twitching. "Got a name, new guy, or you just trying to win a Darwin Award?"

The guy in front of the three of them straightened up his spine, and looked down at them, clearly trying his very best to mimic someone that actually had authority. It cracked around the edges, it being his voice. "Look, I was handling it. The guy was frying cars and buildings and cops… I think one cop died, honestly?—Look, nobody else was there yet, so I... I stepped in."

Brick flicked a finger toward Killcannon's body.

"He's Class D. Energy projection, plasma-based, wide-radius splash damage. He can liquefy concrete and max hit is at least 50 tons of force exploding in your face. You being alive means you got lucky." Brick tilted his head. "Can you tank that hit, new guy?"

"I… I c-" The kid's jaw moved like he wanted to argue. "I handled it."

Butch barked a laugh, full of mocking, malicious humor. "Sure. Is that why the place looks like it got bitch-slapped by a kaiju?"

"That was him! Not m-me!" The kid's voice cracked hard on the last word, pitching high and defensive. "And who do you guys even think you are?"

Butch snorted. "We're the Beastie fucking Boys, what does it look like?"

Boomer grinned and winked at the new guy. "We're Team Rocket. The Green ones our Meowth. Ignore him."

"Hey!"

Brick ignored them both and floated forward, still at eye level with the new guy "We're Trinity. When the government needs someone to break shit, they send us. Guess what it is we do?"

The guy flinched. "B-break shit."

"Smart. Now, you see, new guy, this here little dust-up was our op. Our playtime." Brick paused to point at Killcannon again. "Our toy. You broke our toy. That's kinda rude, new guy."

Boomer hovered a foot or two closer, curiosity entirely unbothered and uncontained by Brick's attempt to start a fight to blow off some steam. "Hey, that suit's actually kinda cool." He put a finger on his chin as if thinking. "Your mom make that for you?"

The kid flinched like he'd been smacked. "What? No! I mean... no, m-my dad's friend made it for me?"

"Aw, that's sweet," Boomer said, completely genuine even as the other guy's scowl deepened, fists clenching.

Brick tracked that. Good job, Boom-Boom.

Butch circled right, moving like the natural predator he was. No tactic, just instinct. "What's the 'I' stand for?" He grinned a sharp-toothed smile. "Idiot?"

Brick said nothing, just watched as the teenager flushed hard beneath the mask, visible ears reddening. "I'm—look, this isn't important! We should be focusing on—"

"No," Brick cut in. "You don't get to steer the conversation. You show up to our op, screw the containment, damage civilian property — saw the massive hole through that apartment building back there — and knock out a hostile without any intel or backup. You don't get to act like you've got authority here."

The teenager's fists were clenched now, voice thinner and trembling. "You don't even know who I am."

Brick met his eyes, steady and sharp. "I don't have to. Seen enough."

Butch grinned. "Yeah, we're the big dogs here."

"Woof-woof!" Boomer chimed in, not even tracking the conversation.

The new guy floated a foot forward, clearly angry.

"Look, I get it," Brick said, flat and low, voice honed down to the steel edge he kept hidden most days. "You probably popped powers two weeks ago and thought, hey, lemme go save the world."

The hit landed. Brick saw it— that small little flinch, barely a twitch at the corner of the kid's mouth. Good.

He pressed harder. "Go home before you die doing something stupid."

The guy's fists curled like he wanted to argue but couldn't line the words up in time. "You don't know anything about me."

Brick held his gaze. "You said that already."

That's when the kid tried to flip it, tried to take the ground back. "You're just—just kids. You shouldn't even be out here, this is insane. Shouldn't you be, I dunno, in school? Where the hell are your parents?"

Brick's blood iced. Not like a dramatic freeze, not like shock. Just—stopped. Like it locked up inside his chest. A shutdown.

Boomer didn't breathe.

Butch stopped moving.

Brick tilted his head. "What did you say?"

The idiot kept going, flapping his mouth like he hadn't noticed the floor dropping out from under him. "You're what—ten? Eleven? I saw you guys on TV, but you shouldn't be—"

"We're twelve," Brick said. Not loud. Just sharp, like a precise kick bursting through a locked door. "You think we need supervision? You think this is a game?"

Something flickered in the guy's expression.

Butch's voice cut through, rough and eager. "What's your name, man? You got a name or you just rolling with 'Mom's Favorite Boy'?"

The older kid hesitated, then straightened like that would help. "I'm… I'm Invincible."

Silence landed like a punch.

Then Butch laughed, the kind of laugh that could carve someone open. "You're what?"

"Invincible," the kid repeated, more force behind it now. Like saying it louder made it more true.

Boomer cracked up instantly, doubled over mid-air. "That's—it's the dumbest name I've ever heard. And I live with Butch."

"Hey, screw you," Butch muttered, still grinning.

Brick's mouth tugged at the corner. Not a smile. Not quite. "Invincible? Let me guess. Immortal fanboy?"

The kid's face went red under the mask. "So what if I am? He's literally the greatest—"

"Oh my god," Boomer wheezed, doing laps in slow circles now. "He is! Look at him! It's the same color scheme! That big dumb 'I'? He totally ripped it!"

"I bet he's got Immortal pajamas," Butch added. "With lil' booties."

"I don't—" the kid started, voice cracking mid-denial. "I don't, okay?"

Brick floated up, a few inches. Just enough to be level with the guy's eyes. "Gotta say, Vince. That's bold. You walk into a mission we were handling, slap your name on it, and expect us to clap?"

"Don't call me that."

Brick leaned forward, just enough to make the distance feel like a threat. "Why not, Vincey? Doesn't fit anymore?"

That fist came up fast.

Stopped just short.

Not a punch. A warning. A line drawn by someone who hadn't learned how to control what came next.

Butch's teeth flashed, his own fists raised. "You wanna fight?"

Boomer chimed in without missing a beat. "You really, really should. We'd love to see it. We're, like, totally invincible too."

Brick locked eyes with him. "You hit Killcannon hard, but he's nowhere near A-tier. Let's see what you do when it's someone your own size."

The mask twitched. Not a flinch—something else. Uncertainty clear on his expression from the way his scowl fell. "I—wait, no. No, I'm not doing this. I almost threw hands with a bunch of babies."

The word dropped.

Babies.

Brick's eye twitched. Boomer stiffened like he'd been electrocuted. Butch's whole frame tensed.

"What," Brick said. Talking about parents was one thing, but the B-word… that was just uncalled for.

Butch leaned forward, all his motion compressed into one muscle flex. "Say that again."

A blur of blue cracked across the room. "WHO ARE YOU CALLING A BABY?!" Boomer hit him center mass, knuckles burying into Invincible's gut with a crack that echoed like thunder.

The older boy's body folded. Air punched out of him as he crashed backward through what was left of the windows, glass shearing off his shoulders as his body vanished into open sky.

Brick stood there, pulse thundering in his ears.

There went the mission.

Eh... Brick shrugged. Screw it.

"After him."

The glass hadn't finished falling before Brick was gone, red streak carving through smoke and sirens. He didn't look back to check if they were following—he didn't need to. Butch's laugh cracked like thunder off the steel frame as he surged out behind him, and Boomer shot after them both with his jaw clenched and eyes locked ahead, the usual bounce in his flight ironed out by something tighter.

Yeahhhh, Boomer really didn't like being called a baby.

Invincible—if that was still his name after this—was already flailing through the skyline, arms out like balance was a new concept. His trajectory spiraled, messy. Brick waited a second, maybe two, then angled down like a dive bomb and slammed both fists into his shoulders.

The crack rang out across a couple dozen rooftops.

Invincible buckled under it, yelped, spun, tried to throw a punch that actually connected— and snapped Brick's head sideways with more power than expected. Enough to sting. Enough to draw blood.

Okay. So he had some weight.

But Butch had more.

He roared in from below and brought his whole arm under Invincible's ribs, launching him into the sky like a skipping stone. Boomer was already moving, blue blur catching the timing just right to corkscrew through Invincible's path mid-spiral, heel-first.

It was clean. Too clean.

"BOYS, STAND THE HELL DO-."

Cecil's voice didn't crackle. It roared, tinny and furious through their comms. Brick reached up and yanked his out mid-sentence, pocketing it without even thinking. The others followed suit without needing the order.

This wasn't a mission anymore.

Not for Cecil. Not for the GDA. Not for the neat little boxes they were meant to fit into.

This was them.

Invincible tore back into view, ripped free of the water tower with steam clinging to the edges of his suit like it didn't want to let go. Torn sleeves, blood on his lip, and a look of tight rage on his face. His flight was steadier now—like anger was holding him up better than control ever did.

Good.

Brick hovered high above the blocks, locking coordinates and momentum in his head like variables. Boomer looped low, Butch rising just enough to trap altitude. Once again, they were in their triangle pattern. Familiar.

Back in Townsville, this net held up long enough to almost catch the Girls. Almost.

But almost didn't matter. Now it was just one guy.

He made for the clouds.

Obvious. Predictable, even.

Brick surged after him, didn't even need full throttle to catch up. A small hand grabbed the larger ankle and yanked the guy sideways like trash off a curb.

Invincible spun, the new hero off-balance again, just in time for Butch to wrap arms around him like a vice. "You bouncin' already, Vincey?"

The other guy bucked, muscles tightening. He actually got some movement. Butch's arms slipped an inch.

Brick narrowed his eyes. Interesting.

"He's kinda strong," Butch grunted, adjusting his grip.

"Then break him."

Butch followed the command. One arm came free in a tight fit, and that fist met kidney. A sound like thunder snapped through the air, a shockwave surrounding the blow.

Invincible wheezed like a balloon losing air. Butch spun, let him go mid-pivot, chucked him downward.

He almost cratered.

Instead, Invincible pulled up just before impact, skimmed the road, carved a groove in the asphalt so deep a parked sedan bottomed out behind him. Horns screamed and brakes locked as cars swerved out of the way.

They kept pace without blinking.

Boomer zipped along the sidewalk, skating more than flying, as he plucked loose bricks and tossed them at Invincibled like he was paving the way for chaos. Butch headbutted through a traffic light and didn't even notice. Brick dove low, closing angles.

The older kid tried, he really did.

With a hard grunt, he spun in a blur, landing a spinning heel into Boomer's gut that knocked him into a Metro bus. The metal crunched around him like foil but Boomer bounced back with a grin anyway.

Butch took a hit next—clean to the nose, blood spraying before it sealed. He looked pissed about it. Not hurt.

They swarmed him.

Brick caught a wrist mid-swing, twisted hard. Heard cartilage move.

Butch drove a punch straight into his solar plexus. The guy folded.

Boomer rebounded off a parked SUV, spun in, both feet to the back. Solid impact.

"You still feelin' invincible, bud?" Brick asked, breath steady. His hands twisted again, tighter. Elbow grinding.

Invincible's glare narrowed through his broken goggles, the pain behind his teeth sharpening into something steadier. "You asked for it."

The headbutt came fast. Clean. No telegraph.

Their skulls cracked together with a noise that echoed off every wall for a quarter of a mile.

Brick saw red. Not metaphor.

Just stars.

And blood.

The teenager didn't stop. Invincible spun, fist leading, and cracked Brick's little brother square in the chest. Boom.

The hit sent Butch flying into a truck parked across the street, metal crunching like an empty soda can as the vehicle caved around him, a spurt roaring up the side of the cab. Something popped—fuel line or tire, Brick doesn't bother to clock it—and Butch vanished in a fireball that lit up half the street, heat rolling out and biting at the concrete.

Brick doesn't flinch.

He tracked a blur instead, blue and crackling, a snarl of static behind Boomer's teeth as he came flying in from the blindside.

Boomer came from the side, electricity arcing down his arms, face tight in a way Brick wasn't used to seeing. Invincible saw him coming. The older kid twisted at the last second, and slipped under him—barely any wasted motion this time—and grabbed Boomer by the wrist mid-swing. Somehow using that same over-eager momentum, the same stupid open angle, Invincible spun him up and around in one dizzying arc.

Then let go.

Boomer shot off, immediately breaking the sound barrier.

He heard the glass shatter before he saw Boomer's landing spot. A whole storefront gave out like tissue paper, mannequins exploding out of the building like they were evacuating for their lvies.

Brick breathed out through his nose and wiped at the blood running down his temple. His hand came away red. The taste of copper hit his tongue, and he let it sit there a second. He was… impressed. Not that he wanted to say it, but the guy was adjusting. Getting better, Brick realized. Fast.

"Not bad," Brick called across the ruined street, voice even. Loud enough to carry, soft enough to bait. "For a rookie."

He launched.

The world blurred sideways, red streak tearing across the air with a sound like cloth ripping off steel. Invincible braced wrong—too stiff, too slow—and Brick twisted midair, curving into a hard left as he rotated around the kid's shoulders and drilled his elbow into the back of his head. The hit landed with a wet crack as the teenager slammed skull-first into the hood of a taxi, crumpling the entire engine block on impact. Glass starbursts and metal screams as the whole thing gave way like tinfoil.

Then Butch came roaring out of the flames.

The Green Rowdyruff lookedlike a demon, soot-streaked, half his sleeve still smoldering, grin stretched too wide to be anything but real. Boomer climbed out of a broken display case with a mannequin arm somehow halfway down his shirt. He ripped it free, flicked it over his shoulder, and flew up next to Brick like nothing happened.

Invincible pulled himself out of the wrecked car slowly. Lip split, mask cracked. One lens gone. He spat blood to the side and stood up straighter than Brick expected.

"Three on one," the kid said, rough. He was breathing hard, but he stayed up. "Real brave."

"Cry harder," Butch answers, cracking his neck.

"We're just getting started," Boomer added, sparks dancing down his arms. "You gonna keep up, or you need to call your mom?"

Invincible's body shook, fists curling so tight Brick could see bone shift under skin, clenching like they were holding something back. Something behind his eyes had changed—panic gone, fury bleeding in behind it.

And then—

"THAT'S IT!"

His shout cracked as he surged up, shaking loose from the damage like it hadn't happened. He hovered for a breath, then snapped forward with a boom loud enough to rattle windows two blocks down.

Brick moved to intercept, already calculating. Distance. Trajectory. Timing. He pulled back a fist, ready to meet him dead on.

They collided.

Brick's punch landed flush, but instead of folding, Invincible met it. A wall of resistance. The impact snapped up Brick's arm like lightning. Pain shot all the way to his shoulder. He reeled back with a hiss—and that's when he saw the wall of white.

Red and white.

Big. Bigger than the kid. Bigger than any of them.

Cape. Broad chest. Red O.

The man floated between them like gravity bent for him. Wide shoulders. Thicker chest. Mustache that felt like a threat.

He registered the mustache half a second before the voice hit.

"That's enough," the man said. Calm. Dead calm. But something under it made the hair on Brick's arms try to lift through his suit. Something old. Something final.

Omni-Man.

Not a single word of argument left Brick's lips. The Red Rowdyruff jerked back, body coiled, shoulder burning as he dropped altitude fast, rejoining the formation before Butch could pick another fight. Boomer hovered just off his shoulder, eyes round, lips parting like he wanted to ask something and was too smart to.

The man didn't move, perfectly still and unmoving in the air in a way that Brick was still struggling to master after seven years..

The teen wobbled in midair behind him, bent at the waist, arms shaking. "D-dad?"

Brick's eyes narrowed.

"You okay?" Omni-Man turned, his attention shifting to the boy behind him. Invincible. Still upright, barely. Blood smeared his jaw. Suit wrecked. One eye visible through a shattered lens, blinking hard.

"I… I don't know." The kid wheezes. "I think… I think I broke a rib."

"You'll walk it off," the world's strongest hero declared. Because that's what you did with a voice like that. You declared things. "Go home."

The teen glanced back once, blood still pouring down his chin from his broken nose, one tooth missing, suit torn to hell. There was anger in his eyes still—but also that thing Brick recognizes.

Fear. Real fear.

Brick drank it in.

Then Invincible left. One boom that rattled street signs and set off four alarms, and he was a streak of color, vanishing into the sky.

And then it was just the three of them and the mountain.

Brick couldn't deny one thing. Being in front of the guy… finally… it felt like being in front of Superman again. Immortal definitely tried, but he was nothing compared to this guy.

The three of them hovered tight. Butch looked ready to spit fire, and Boomer had gone quiet, oddly serious. They all flinched when Omni-Man turned to look at them. That stare landed like pressure.

"Cecil needs to keep you three on a leash."

Then he was gone. No wind-up. Just one snap of movement and he tore through the skyline, several sonic booms in his wake.

No one spoke for a second. Brick's breathing came out steady but shallow as he flexed his hand. The pain was deep now, dull and humming.

He pulls out the comm. Slotted it back in. Static.

Then Cecil's voice explodes into his ear.

"—reckless, off-book, public fallout—DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA—"

Brick exhalesd slow, not really listening.

"Cecil," he said eventually, voice low, throat dry. "You've got Omni-Man rated as an A1… officially."

Static cuts off. Silence.

"...I do."

Brick glanced down at his hand. Already swelling.

"Yeah. You might wanna bump that up a little."

Chapter Text

The klaxons had been screaming for almost twelve minutes now, dragging metal claws through Brick's concentration, but his posture hadn't budged. Legs crossed on the edge of the mattress, back rounded over the triple tablet rig balanced against his thighs. The glow from the displays lit up the bruises under his eyes like war paint, flickering as the air raid lights swept red across the walls. Static-charged air buzzed low through the reinforced room, a headache hum he'd tuned out somewhere around the five-minute mark.

The math stayed. That's what mattered. Everything else could scream itself hoarse.

Three panels. One mapping transdimensional interference through a harmonics lattice that didn't actually want to hold still. One scraping telemetry off whatever half-broken sensors the GDA let him skim. One looping the breach sim he'd built from memory, projection, and spite. It kept breaking at the same line of code, error-riddled and cruel about it.

Behind him, Boomer kicked in his sleep. His breathing hitched.

"—no, don't—"

Brick didn't look. He didn't need to. He knew what the whimpering meant, what name was going to fall out next. He heard it every time.

"Bubbles."

There it was. Like clockwork.

Boomer had sweat plastering his bangs to his face, whole body curled like he was trying to make himself smaller than his frame could go, fingers fisting so hard into the pillow it looked like they'd gone numb. His knees were almost to his chest. Twitchy. Gasping like he was choking on dream-air again.

Brick blinked once and refocused on the trajectory matrix. The dream wasn't new. Boomer always dreamed about her. Always.

Butch was dead to the world on the opposite side of the room, one leg hanging off the bed, arm bent under his chest at some dumb angle, his cheek mashed flat against the pillow. His mouth hung open. A shallow pool of drool glistened under it. Every now and then his fingers sparked against the metal flooring with a soft crackle, green static fizzing up from his knuckles. He didn't stir. He never did.

The alarms cut harder. Klaxons peeled through the room like they were trying to rattle the rivets out of the walls.

Then the door banged open hard enough to shudder the frame.

Donald stood in it, wild-eyed, damp at the collar, one sleeve half-rolled and the other still buttoned. Tie askew and glasses sliding off one ear. He looked like a man who'd tried to sprint through panic and only gotten halfway there.

"BOYS! Up now! Not a dril!" His voice cracked mid-sentence. He slapped the wall panel, and the overhead fluorescents blared to life, blasting the room with light so bright and sanitized it could have killed the Gangreen Gang in minutes. "Brick! Command center!"

Brick's head came up. He didn't ask for clarification. A burst of red and a sound like an air cannon on steroids and the Reddest of Rowdyruffs was gone before Boomer could even sit upright.

Boomer came out of the nightmare with a gasp that was almost a sob, hair sticking to his forehead, hands shaking like they didn't know what to do without lightning in them. His head whipped around, eyes a big and bleary blue. "Wha—what time is it?"

Donald glanced down at his watch, glasses nearly falling off from the sudden motion. "9:17. We've got a global event. Trinity needs to mobilize."

Boomer's face drained. "Wait—where's Brick?"

Butch groaned and rolled to his other side, tossing a pillow over his head like it could somehow shut off the powerful lights beating down on him. "Tell the global event to wait till noon."
Donald crossed the room with three quick strides, snatching the pillow from Butch's grasp with enough force that the thing tore right open and stuffing spilled out like a slasher scene for furniture. "NOW! Get dressed and report to command in two minutes! We don't have time!"

"Hey!" Butch jolted upright, hair wild, sparks flaring off one wrist.

"Two minutes to suit up. Move."

Donald was at the door before either of them had found socks. His voice hitched at the threshold.

"And boys?"

Boomer and Butch both froze.

"This one's bad."

The command center was chaos in full costume.

The curved wall of monitors spat out flickering images—downtowns cratered, airspace no-fly zones, black plumes turning morning to dusk. Bodies blurred under compression artifacts. Half the satellites were still recalibrating, but it didn't matter. The damage was too big to miss. Even without sound, the disaster read like war.

Cecil stood at the central console, shoulders rigid, eyes fixed on the largest display. His face gave away nothing, same as always, but his fingers tapped a rapid, irregular pattern against the edge of the control panel—a tell Brick had catalogued weeks ago.

Brick was already there, already halfway through the feed logs, side-eyeing a seismic signature he didn't like the shape of. He didn't look up when his brothers entered. Didn't need to.

He felt them fall in behind him—Boomer's breath still stuttering, Butch still crackling with not-quite-awake violence. Everyone else turned when they walked in. The whole damn room.

Some people stared like they expected miracles. Others didn't bother hiding how much they hated what they were looking at.

Brick heard it all in the cracks between footsteps.

"Thank god."

"They're children."

"They're what we've got."

Cecil didn't flinch. Just gave a sharp glance toward the boys. "Prep status?"

Brick's voice cut through the room without weight, just steel. "Combat ready."

He turned the data feed over with one hand. "Briefing?"

Cecil's breath left his body in the tightest sigh Brick had ever seen as the old man tapped the screen like it owed him something. The center display blinked—map gone, now a churning, orange-red vortex gnawing through downtown Baltimore.

Shit. The thing looked more like a tumor in space than a portal. Orange energy warped the edges and, honestly, colors around it just bled wrong.

"Breach just opened. Two minutes ago. Landfall already happened." Cecil made another one of those too-tight sighs, breath not leaving him so much as it was pushed out. "Harder to fight them when they're controlling the bottleneck and in the middle of a major metropolis."

Butch cracked his neck loud on purpose, grin crawling up like it was wired to the part of his brain that didn't process consequences. "Awwwwwwwww hells yeah! Finally! No more training sims and wannabe baddies in capes. Time to hit something that hits back."

Brick didn't answer. Eyes on the data running down the edges—radiation levels, density spikes, frequency bleed. Familiar signature. Too familiar, honestly. One too close to what he'd stared at for eight hours straight last night. His fingers twitched toward the tablet pressed against his ribs as he asked a different question than the one he was tossing around.

"Where's Omni-Man?"

Donald and Cecil swapped a look. One of those fast, quiet exchanges that carried weight. Donald blinked first.

"Fighting some transdimensional entity in North Africa. Thing called itself... Omnipotus," Cecil said. Drier than bone. "Omni-MAN got pulled through another portal about two hours ago. Radio silence since."

Brick's fingers stilled. Cold metal under skin. Omni-Man gone. Great. That explained the twitch in Donald's shoulder, the weird pacing in the room, the agents' eyes darting like flies in a bottle.

Boomer shifted beside him, arms loose, expression stuck somewhere between 'awake' and 'kid caught sneaking cookies.' "Wait—Omni-Man's just... gone?"

The blondie was still looking at Cecil like he was waiting for a but. None came.

"Okay... so Omni-Man's gone," Butch shrugged. "Big whoop. No Mr. Mustache. We still got the Guardians?"

Cecil's mouth pulled tight. He didn't answer fast. Brick already knew before the man started speaking that this was going to be some shit news.

"The Guardians of the Globe were found dead this morning," Another too-hard sigh, like gettin rid of bad air was the priority. "HQ was quiet when our team arrived. No footage. No alarms. Just... bodies."

Boomer's breath hitched. Brick heard it. Butch stopped moving. That's what made it real—Butch going still. He didn't do still.

"All of them?" Brick's voice didn't crack. Really, it barely even counted as a question, especially when he knew the answer.

Cecil gave a slow nod. "Every single one. No forced entry. No signs of resistance. Preiliminary autopsies say that they all died in the same second or two. Whatever happened—it was fast."

The screen flickered again but Brick didn't blink, not even as numbers filled the edge of his vision. Redline thresholds. Breach harmonics. Too close to theirs. Like someone'd taken their accident and ran it through an industrial printer.

He did the math faster than the software could. "We're all you got left. Your only nuclear option."

The Red didn't even look at the others when he said it. There was no need to, honestly. The words had landed like a ten-ton weight on a coyote and nobody argued.

Cecil didn't try to remind them they were twelve or bring up PR optics or civilian casualties or what people would say if they saw kids covered in alien blood on the five o'clock news.

No, the old man just nodded, with yet another one of those hard breaths that started in his throat and not his chest.

"Lethal engagement approved," he said. "I don't care how it gets done, as long as it doesn't leave a crater the size of downtown D.C. Understood?"

Butch made a sound that wasn't quite a laugh. His fists clenched and unclenched like his muscles were itching to tear something open.

Boomer stepped forward, less certain. "Uh—what about Invincible?"

And Brick's jaw locked. Hard.

Three days. Three days since the rooftop. Since that fight. Since the older kid took away their one source of stress relief and called them babies after the fact. Like they were just dumb kids playing at capes.

Cecil's eyes didn't twitch, despite his anger that very day. "He's been out of costume since your very first tussle. Either way, we've sent someone to try and loop him in. But right now? You're what we've got."

Brick just glanced to his left. Boomer blinked and nodded. To his right. Butch cracked his neck again, grin sharp.

No words needed.

"Baltimore. Now."

The launch bay doors barely had time to open. They didn't wait.

Three streaks—red, blue, green—snapped through the sky like loaded rounds, blowing past the speed of sound in seconds and leaving it behind as they crossed triple digits Mach, easily meteor speed. Windows screamed. Clouds sheared sideways.

Brick took point as they met Baltimore seven seconds later. He always did. Tactical run-ups spun in his brain as the street in the heart of the city came into view like an ant hill from over a dozen miles up. Buildings slumped inward. Roads curled upward. Sewer lines cracked open like veins. And in the center of it—

The breach. Still there. Still hungry. At least a hundred and twenty feet tall and at least as wide in the heart of a mangled plaza, twisting orange-red like a glitch in reality.

The first wave of aliens had already landed. They were tall, but then most people were compared to them. Green-skinned, sure. Uniform but not identical. Some armored, some wearing what looked like muscle-tight jumpsuits with no seams. All of them carried rifles that fired red beams strong enough to punch holes through concrete and send cars clean into the air.

Which they demonstrated.

With glee.

"Brace for landing," Brick called, not needing to yell. "Formation three."

Butch peeled off instantly, trailing green, spinning mid-air like a warhead with a personality problem.

Boomer shot higher, arcing like a slingshot about to snap.

Brick dropped into a dive so fast the air fractured around him, pressure bending glass in nearby towers as he dropped like a warhead.

"Remember," he said, voice tight through comms. "Cecil said we can full send. So full send these suckers down to HIM!"

People first. Always people first.

That was what Cecil prioritized in their training and what Brick tried his best to do—before the math, before the strategy, before the monster. Half of him was pretty sure that Cecil didn't care as much about collateral as the old man usually claimed— lives, sure, but property?. Judging by the looks Donald often gave him he thought too fast for no one to notice, that was new for the Director.

Which meant it was a lesson for them.

Teaching them to be careful.

The red one rolled his eyes. He knew careful.

Brick tracked the civvies falling out of frame like sparks kicked from a grinding wheel. Faces turned wrong, slack and peeled back by wind or terror or both. Half of 'em didn't run, just… froze as the aliens attacked. Half-stuck in the middle of Baltimore like someone paused the street and forgot to hit play again. A dad with a stroller. A chick on her phone. A dude mid-sip with his coffee splashed across his jacket like blood.

"Boomer, evac pattern," Brick said, already watching him break formation without waiting. "Butch, containment. I'll hit command."

No questions. Boomer zipped off with a "Yep!" half-mumbled, half-sung, the kind of distracted tone he always used when his brain was already ahead of his mouth.

Butch didn't say anything. Just cracked his knuckles loud enough to register over the comm and dropped like a meteor.

They hit in sync. Triangle formation.

Perfect.

Brick low and fast, Butch loud and higher, Boomer streaking between like a skipping stone on fire. The crater they left behind was a statement. Asphalt gone, aliens under them splattered like pinatas filled with purple jelly. Hell, just the edge of the shockwave sent a wave of aliens tumbling like bowling pins.

Brick didn't stop moving. He quickly hovered up just enough to see the whole board. His eyes flared hot—numbers in motion, layout bleeding through the chaos and then flared hotter as a red laser cleared the platoon attempting to flank him and opened the space up for him to pay more attention. The big ones stuck out first.

Not size, not armor, just posture.

Higher position, thicker gear, skull tech pulsing red like it was alive. Three command nodes, all flanking the breach like it was sacred. That's where it started.

"Not random," he muttered, quiet to himself as he watched one direct fire with a flick of a wrist. "Not raiders. Not scouts. This is coordinated. We're not the only ones full-sending here."

His focus jolted as Boomer flashed across the left side of his vision, dragging a pair of kids out from under a shattered walkway, yelling something cheerful like they hadn't just almost been turned into pancakes. One kid waved. Boomer waved too, already gone before Brick could roll his eyes.

"Northwest clear!" Boomer's voice cracked through his comms, half-laughing, breathless. "I think—I think I got all the people in that block!"

"South too," Butch barked, and the ground shuddered as he slammed a white alien tank into a building and kept going as he used it like a giant hammer, the alien inside already shaken to death and far past being a single cohesive organism anymore. "You shoulda seen it, Brick. Thing was armored like a vault door—now it's a souvenir."

"Stay focused."

"Yeah, yeah," Butch huffed, already slamming into another group of soldiers like a green lightning strike with fists. "Tell that to these guys tryna laser my face off."

Brick didn't reply. He was already rising, wind shrieking against him as he popped up into high air and locked on to the first node. Heat vision charged up again. He saw the flicker before it fired. Three hits, precise and pointed. The alien tower cracked open like a ribcage.

He blinked across the air and landed in the middle of the command group before their tech had stopped sizzling.

They fired. He moved. Not all that fast but quick enough, to the right. A sidestep that dropped the leader's shot past his head and got him inside their guard in half a heartbeat.

Brick's fists moved like blueprints. Left arm to disrupt the rifle, spin kick to drop the guy behind. Didn't kill. Didn't even maim. Enough force to break ribs without puncture. Precise.

They needed a couple aliens to interrogate and he doubted the other Rowdys would care or remember with their blood up.

One got off a lucky blast. It skimmed his side and left heat behind like a sunburn. His vision flared red for a split second.

"They're learning," he snapped through the comm as green skin turned to ash and dust in front of him. "Spreads are tighter. Don't stand still."

"Copy," Boomer breathed. "Gonna—gonna try to short the tech . They got charge packs, I think."

Butch was yelling something incoherent. Sounded like a challenge, maybe a song lyric, possibly just "GET SOME!" screamed at the top of his lungs as he broke another tank in half over his knee.

Brick snapped the last comms unit with his boot and jumped.

He scanned the skyline. Scanning, again. It wasn't right. Something was—

"Bri, I got movement northeast tower—"

Boomer's voice cut off with a crackle and a scream of static. Brick's head whipped around. Blue streak, knocked sideways. The blur tumbled through three glass windows and vanished into an office block, debris fountaining out like confetti.

"Boomer!"

His body reacted before the thought finished. He blurred through air, red streak carving through the sky toward the source. Rooftop. Heavy Sniper unit. Five. No, six. One recharging.

He crashed into them like a missile. No finesse. He was done with finesse.

First one got hit in the ribs so hard he split in half, the top half dissapearing into purple mist. The second tried to scream before Brick's uppercut took his head off and sent it a good five miles up. The rest scattered. Two got laser-eyed, clean through.

One dove for cover. Like that would help.

Brick didn't speak. He just landed where Boomer had hit and tore through the floor until he found his brother under a flipped conference table.

Boomer pushed himself up, blond hair smoking, one eye blinking too slow.

"I'm good," he gasped. "I—uh—ow. But I'm good."

"You sure?" Butch's voice snapped in through the comms, static shredded behind it. "Cause I'm 'bout to break someone's entire family tree over this."

Brick grabbed Boomer's arm, hauled him up, shoved him out the hole.

Butch hit the street like a goddamn bomb. Brick felt it more than saw it. One of the tanks went airborne, spinning like a bottle rocket with no trajectory control.

"YOU DON'T HIT MY BROTHER," Butch howled, the words wild and huge in a voice he didn't usually use unless he was winning a fight too hard to enjoy. "ONLY I HIT MY BROTHER!"

Aliens scattered. Like actual scattered. Lost formation. Too many variables. Brick saw them panic as Butch started throwing rubble like boulders and using bodies like battering rams.

Boomer blinked back into the air. Still smudged up, but smiling now, the corner kind. "Back in. I'm fine. Kinda."

"You got zapped through buildings," Butch snapped.

"I said kinda."

"Focus." Brick's voice sliced through both of them. "They're not here for resources."

He hovered again, just high enough to see the flow. The spread. How they moved. Not just shooting, not just looting.

They were securing. Claiming.

Boomer looked up at him, face still half-dust. "Wait… you said they're like us?"

"No, don't compare us to ants like this." Brick muttered, laser eyes taking out several more green-skinned soldier goons with pinpoint accuracy. "We got dumped off a giant cosmic accident."

His eyes tracked three fresh units forming around the breach, like laying bricks. "They're exactly where they wanna be."

Brick hovered above the swarming chaos, scanning for any sign of a command structure that might be holding this alien incursion together, his mind automatically sorting the battlefield into threats and non-threats, moving shapes color-coded by muscle mass or weapon charge. The swirling edges of the dimensional breach still spat out troops in bursts of red-orange energy, while the rest of Baltimore reeled under the onslaught. He resisted the urge to check on Butch and Boomer again, trusting his readouts and comm logs to know neither of them had screamed or gone radio-silent yet.

He noticed a flicker of blue and yellow slicing the air beyond the breach's perimeter, overshadowed by the acrid smoke and flickering fires. Invincible, of course. Brick recognized that still-shaky flight path and the street-scraping landing that left cracks in the asphalt as the older teenager touched down near a row of wrecked cars. A fresh crater spider-webbed outward under Invincible's boots, showing more power than sense.

He had better not get in the way again, Brick thought, resisting the impulse to remind him who was stronger. The battered city around them groaned with every new weapon's impact, each building another potential coffin for the civilians still scattered on the ground. Brick could feel the adrenaline chewing at his nerves. If Invincible decided to mess up a serious op like this one, Brick wasn't sure he had it in him to hold back this time

He tried to ignore the bright spandex posture that looked so… practiced. Invincible stood with fists braced on his sides, chin tilting up in that classic pose—like maybe he'd rehearsed in front of a mirror. The teenager cleared his throat, voice carrying over the bedlam in a forced show of confidence. "Need some help?"

Brick exhaled through clenched teeth, scanning the next wave of alien foot soldiers nearing from the west side of the street. "People are dying, Vince," he called, not bothering to hide his impatience as he pummeled another set of green-skinned soldiers with a flurry of short, brutal hits. Their rifles clattered away, half-charged blasts firing off into nothing.

Butch's laugh sounded from somewhere behind the blazing husk of a bus, loud enough to compete with gunfire as he lifted the wreck above his head. "What, you run outta kittens to rescue, or old ladies to help across the road?" With barely a grunt, the Green sent the burning thing flying hard into a group of aliens. "Not enough warm fuzzies for you?"

Invincible's jaw tensed. Brick could see the muscle twitch from this distance, even amid the swirling smoke. "I'm Invincible. I can help," the older teen insisted, though the slight waver in his voice hinted that he remembered how they ended things last time.

A fresh wave of aliens rushed them from two directions. One group was pinned down by Boomer's crackling arcs of lightning that shielded a group of bystanders making a break for safety. Another bunch peeled off to focus on Invincible, apparently drawn to the new guy's bright uniform. Brick caught himself rolling his eyes, certain the older kid had no concept of situational awareness in a war zone.

"Hey, great, he can soak a few blasts," Butch barked after a jab that splattered an alien into purple gore against the side of a wall like graffiti. "If he keeps them busy, that's better for us."

Invincible turned, clearly picking a spot to jump in. A half-second later, Brick rolled his eyes as he immediately got pegged by a random beam that left a smoldering streak across his chest and sent him spinning back.

Credit to him though, he quickly shoved through, tearing into the alien squad with raw force that almost made you forget his inexperience. Hell, it was enough for Brick to note the difference from a few days ago: the older boy had grown a bit more used to his powers or at least fighting with them, hitting harder than before.

He was still behind the Rowdyruffs, but the gap had shrunk... by a fraction.

Aliens adapted in seconds, reorganizing around a cluster of parked vehicles that half-blocked the street. Invincible pelted them with wide swings and direct hits, but they coordinated to press him back with crossfire he only partially dodged. The repeated blasts rattled him obviously, his movements becoming less certain.

"Rookie," Brick muttered, turning from the scene to deal with a specialized assault vehicle that rumbled over broken asphalt. Its giant tires rolled on a carpet of rubble. He recognized it as one of the alien tanks with organic plating that fused to the occupant's nervous system. Possibly the same design as the others he'd disabled earlier. He tensed his fists, then heard Butch roar a laugh from across the street.

Butch had lunged forward, tackling the vehicle's front end so hard it reared up like an enraged beast. He wedged his fingers under the barrel, hoisted it with a grunt of savage satisfaction, and lifted the entire white alien tank overhead by that single protruding cannon. Armor plating shrieked, sparks flew, and Butch whirled around with the tank clutched in both arms like a makeshift club. He roared something incoherent and brought the tank crashing down on a squad of aliens who made the dire mistake of standing too close. Concrete and plating exploded outward in a wave of dust that stung Brick's eyes.

Boomer zipped past overhead, depositing another handful of trembling civilians near an evacuation route and flashing Brick a breathless grin. He was gone again before Brick could say a word, probably off to shield another corner of the battlefield with lightning or yank someone else out of rubble. The entire scene blurred with screams, alien roars, electric arcs, and laser pulses that hissed by.

A blast from a tank caught him on the side of the head, making Brick turn as he blinked the stars from his eyes, sliding back from the force. It was then Brick saw Invincible pivot from the fight toward a battered sedan pinned under debris, flames licking toward the gas tank. Inside, a father sat slumped at the wheel, mother screaming in the back seat, kids pressed to the windows. The mother's voice cut through the noise so sharply that even Brick winced.

"I'm coming!" Invincible shouted, launching himself across the street with single-minded focus, posture brimming with the raw desire to do something heroic. Brick picked out an alien sniper leaning out from the edge of a half-collapsed building, red muzzle flash already forming. He tried to warn Invincible, tried to bark a direction: "Three o'clock, move!"

But the beams lanced out in a storm of light before the older boy could react.

The first blast tore into the sedan's undercarriage, igniting the leaking fuel. Fire blossomed in a whoosh of heat and thunder. The entire vehicle erupted, hurling Invincible backward in a plume of fiery shrapnel that shredded the surroundings. Brick heard the mother's scream swallowed by a thunderous roar, along with the father's body vanishing intothe fire.

Smoke churned outward in a black wave, stinging Brick's nose with the tang of burnt plastic and worse.

Invincible crashed into a chunk of pavement and slid for yards, goggles partly shattered so Brick could see his wide, disbelieving eyes.

Torn pieces of metal clanged around him as the remains of the sedan rained down in chunks. The teenager stared through the swirling smoke at the annihilated car, breath hitching in his throat. He looked to Brick, or maybe past him, mouth opening silently before sound emerged.

"No… no, no, no!"

Brick didn't wait. Three red beams—tight, clean, silent—sliced the air and punched straight through the aliens' necks, just below the armor plates. They dropped without dramatics. No smoke, no screams. Just meat hitting the ground. One was still twitching when Brick turned away.

Not the time. Couldn't afford it. Not when Butch was foaming at the leash and Boomer kept dipping too low between buildings, chasing screams.

Invincible scraped himself off the rubble pile like he'd only just remembered how legs worked. Blood in his teeth. Dust smeared across his chest emblem. Kid looked at the bodies like he'd just watched them choke to death instead of being flash-fried clean through.

"You... you killed them!" His voice cracked—too high, too loud. "They're dead because of you!"

Then he came. Not smart, not strategic—just heat and noise and raw, teenage rage, flinging himself forward like his body could carry his grief faster than his brain could catch it.

Dumbass.

"Butch," Brick snapped, already half-shifting to intercept but calculating angles, impact, momentum, collateral. Boomer was busy. Too far off-course. Civvies in the line.

"The rookie needs backup. He's gonna get himself killed."

"Babysitting? Seriously?" Butch's reply buzzed over the comm, jagged and loud and too casual. "That what we're doing now? Fine. Whatever."

But his blur was already cutting a sharp green wound through the smoke, the sound barrier tearing behind him like paper.

Brick moved to cover—rotated mid-air, eyes on the fire zones, counting seconds. Something flickered behind the smoke line.

Color.

Pink.

A dome snapped into place across three city blocks, bright and humming. Alien rounds hit it and vanished. No scatter. No ricochet. Just gone.

Then she dropped. Through the haze like some kind of Sunday school painting—arms glowing, cape fluttering, voice too calm for the situation.

"Everybody back! Get behind the shield!"

Pink. Red hair.

If Brick hadn't already gotten over his sense of Deja Vu weeks ago after seeing her file, he might have frozen. He didn't, obviously, as he blurred forward to rip apart an alien in his uncontrolled speed wake before it could fire its gun his way. Still, it was weird seeing what looked like an older Blossom right in front of him.

Weird in a lot of ways.

Aliens aimed. She flicked a hand in their direction. A thick beam of red light hit her concave wall of pink, only to bounce back just as fast and erase three of the bastards in the same second.

That wasn't luck. That was math. Geometry. Control.

She didn't flinch.

A shriek of turbines, then a flying platform hissed in overhead—sleek, military, GDA-funded if Brick had to guess. Or at least built with what had to be real money. That wasn't a junk build by any means.

Riding it was akull-face robot pilot, with orange-red plating and green optics sweeping the battlefield like it was solving a crossword puzzle. Two others sat behind it. Brick squinted—a masked redhead with a cocky lean and fists already lighting up with sparkling yellow energy, and a Chinese girl in tactical gray and black who didn't look old enough to be that done with everything but somehow was.

"Look at this mess!" the redhead yelled, already mid-jump. Yellow sparks followed him down, trailing from his hands. "Y'all started without us? Rude."

The gray one—split. Literally.

Bodies peeled off her like soap bubbles popping backwards. Each hit ground in sync, no fanfare, already herding civvies like they'd done this a hundred times.

They hadn't. But they moved like it.

Robot's voice cut through the din, calm as a corpse: "Extra-dimensional origin confirmed. Unknown energy matrix. Proceeding with containment."

Brick had read the files. Teen Team. The GDA — aka Director Stedman — kept them off-book, pretending they were freelancers. Most weren't in on the joke. Hell, seventy-five percent of the team weren't in on the joke, most likely. Seriously, as if three teenagers who all had deep connections with the GDA just happened to magically find each other.

Brick wouldn't have believed it even if their file didn't say so.

Pink girl: Atom Eve. Gray clone-girl: Dupli-Kate. Redhead bomb freak: Rex Splode. The bot? Just Robot.

Eve floated up on a hard-light platform. Scanned the chaos. Paused when her gaze hit blue.

"Who are they? With the trails?"

"Don't care," Rex muttered, palming a rock and supercharging it until it buzzed. His eyes locked on Butch and rolled his eyes. "They're in my way."

He hurled it at an alien standing by the Green Rowdyruff.

Fast.

Dumb.

Butch caught it like he'd expected it, hand snapping out—boom—light flashed, smoke swallowed everything. Brick felt the impact in his teeth.

When it cleared, Butch stood still. Glove burned open, skin untouched as smoke rose off his enclosed fist.

His head tilted, almost slow. "That supposed to hurt?" His voice was as flat as Butch could ever manage, aggravation tamped down just enough to be mocking. "You throwin' pebbles now, red boy?"

Rex Splode blinked, almost stumbling back. "That... should've taken your hand off. What the flying fuck are you made of?!"

Brick didn't give him the dignity of a reply. He dropped altitude, and cut between both brother and ally like a blade. "Coordinate or get benched. Friendly fire again and I will put both of you through a wall."

Eve moved first. A barrier snapped into place in front of Boomer, catching a sniper shot aimed center-mass. Energy fazed against pink and dissipated, but not without leaving a major crack in the shield.

As he saw it, Boomer lit up like a Christmas tree.

"WHOA! Thanks, uh—pink girl! Lady!" He waved both hands, eyes wide behind the glow. "You're awesome!"

Eve squinted, took him in fully now and realized that Boomer would only come up to her waist if standing on the ground. "Are you... kids?"

Butch grunted something indistinct and melted another alien in a flash of green. "No," he said, not even looking at her. "We're Trinity. Now fight."

Brick didn't yell. He didn't need to. The weight of his voice hit like something dropped from orbit, clipped and cold. "I give the orders here. Now fight."

Nobody clapped. Nobody high-fived. No heroic team-up pose. No nothing. It was just noise after that—motion and reaction and two teams pretending not to size each other up even as they slipped into sync like predators circling the same wounded animal. No one liked it, but they moved like they did.

Invincible was still an angry screaming mess, his brush with death having him dart back and forth punching any alien that got near him and more than a few that were running away. Brick could tell this was his first time seeing people kick it, but the guy was already getting pretty used to it, judging by the way he wasn't pulling his punches.

"Whoa, what's that guy's problem?" Rex was the first to run his mouth, naturally, the former GDA black ops child assassin shrugging his shoulders. Without missing a beat, the former government killer ripped a jagged hunk of concrete from a blown-out curb, eyes gleaming. "That's nine!" he called out as the chunk exploded mid-air, taking out three bug-eyed rifle freaks.

Butch didn't even look his way. "Eighty-two," he said, and turned a whole rooftop into plasma with a green-laced shockwave that vaporized the structure and everyone on it. "Keep up, sparklehands."

"That's not even a real number," Rex shot back, recharging another rock.

"Your mom's not a real number," Butch muttered.

Rex actually laughed at that. "You're right, my mom's a total bitch anyway."

"Guys," Eve snapped, breath tight, eyes glowing as she diverted a laser from catching Rex off guard with another pink wall, "less whatever this is, more saving civilians?"

A second later, she whipped a pink ramp under Dupli-Kate's feet mid-sprint, not even looking, like they'd rehearsed it as the move landed clean. Kate and three of her copies used it like springboards, launching through the smoke toward a skimmer squadron flanking the east tower.

Boomer blurred across the sky just under them, the blond boy crackling blue like a blown transformer, intercepting a blast that would've fried the whole formation. "Whoops—gotcha! I mean, you're welcome! Wait—am I shielding you or—"

"You're in the way," Kate said flatly, diving past him with her copies already landing blows. "But... thanks, I guess?"

Eve exhaled. "You okay?"

Boomer beamed, face smudged, hair sparking, hands twitching from the voltage still riding his veins. "Yup! Totally. Just doing my part! Y'know—saving girls and stuff."

Kate gave him a look.

"What?" he added quickly. "Are you... not a girl?"

Brick closed his eyes and sighed as he shot up into the sky and began to triangulate angles. Too many airborne pods. Too many blind spots. He needed oversight, but the ground was crawling. Robot drifted beside him on his hover-cycle like a ghost with weapons.

"The dimensional breach is self-replicating," Robot stated, voice as inflectionless as a scalpel. "Continued incursion guaranteed without intervention."

"Already seeing it." Brick's reply was clipped. "If we collapse the outer seams first, the internal lattice can't stabilize."

"Adequate hypothesis. Syncing parameters."

The breach pulsed again—red, then orange, then something uglier. Energy bled into the sky like it wanted to replace the sun.

"We need to cut the feedback loop," Brick said, recalling what he'd unwillingly learned from being the only child of Mojo who paid attention to the powered primate's hour-long rants. "Localized overload, sharp frequency variance."

"Convergent pulse strike," Robot confirmed. "I am adjusting the weapons platform."

They didn't get to try.

Because then the street exploded.

The eastern flank turned to fire. One second it was combat—lines, shots, screaming. The next, it was gone. Just crater and flame. Then something moved inside the burn zone. Walked out.

He wasn't subtle.

Long white hair in a ponytail behind a full-face flag mask patterned after the stars and stripes. Shoulders like reinforced steel beams stacked with dual paldrons with the same American iconography. One arm was already mid-shift into a gatling cannon as the new arrival raised it up and by the time he did, the gears locked with a metallic shriek.

"Finally!" the man yelled, voice rough and grinning like a war crime. "Been dying for a real fight!"

Hell broke loose as plasma energy bullets tore through the air like glowing metal teeth, each shot a hyper-accurate kill as purple brains and hearts were blasted out of bodies before the greenies knew what was happening.

Second by second, aliens died before they could even scream.

Butch slowed mid-punch, spinning around instead and delivering a human-speed backfit that was still powerful to disintegrate an alien arm. "Yo. Who's Robo-Rambo?"

"Super-Patriot," Rex called, uncharacteristically respectful. "Fought the Nazis in World War II. He's, like, a hundred years old and still beats ass."

"Dude's killin' it," Butch admitted, nodding once.

Super-Patriot launched himself into the fray, cyberlegs kicking off like springs as he surged fifty feet up, flipping mid-air with the casual grace of a man who used to do this before everyone else's parents were even born. He landed with a flamethrower already lit, spraying fire in a perfect arc.

"Not Nazis this time, but close enough!" he yelled. "Aim low, boys! Or high, whatever works!"

Another flash lit up near the breach—tight, cold and crackling white. Brick's eyes narrowed. GDA teleports. As far as he knew, only two people were authorized to use it; one of them freely, and the other for tactical insertions.

Which meant...

Brit materialized, rifle slung over the 127 year old muscular old man's red jumpsuited shoulder, jaw clenched, walking like the ground pissed him off.

"You're late," Brick said. He'd only had a few encounters with Brit over the last couple of months but he knew him well enough to know the man didn't trust him yet.

Brit didn't slow. "Didn't feel like making a damn entrance."

An alien beam tagged him dead in the chest. His shirt scorched. Skin refused it.

"Cute," he muttered, then charged up his own weapon and eviscerated his attacker's body with a beam the size of his arm.

Super-Patriot caught the movement and called across the battlefield, "Look who finally showed! You bring pie, sweetheart?"

"You're lucky I brought a pulse," Brit shot back, driving his boot through an alien's face. "You old toaster."

"Still mad about Budapest?"

"You brought up Budapest."

"Never should've trusted you with the map!"

Brick tuned it out. He was triangulating threat clusters, ignoring the bickering, except Butch was grinning way too wide now.

"I like those guys," Butch said, blocking a laser beam from tagging Rex with his bare hand, his gloves blasted to all hell as they hung on by threads.

Boomer skidded in beside Kate and Eve, hair wild, grin wide as he spun around in a lightning tornado, taking out half a dozen fliers. "Okay! That was awesome, right? Right? Not just me?"

Kate blinked. "Are you always like this?"

Boomer puffed his chest. "Mostly! You're, like, cool too. Like scary-cool. It works." He waved and zoomed off again, electricity charging around his arms again as he let it fly.

Eve just sighed. "We're letting children handle alien invasions n-?"

The pink girl didn't get to finish as Invincible screamed past her, Eve's eyes going wide as the hybrid Viltrumite slammed through a flier heading her and Kate's way.

Breathing heavy, he looked at the both of them, one goggle gone and costume torn up from all the fighting. "Y-y-you guys okay?"

Eve blinked back. "U-uh-huh, yeah."

Brick didn't hear Kate's response. He was already moving. Already locking onto the next line of fire, internal calculations adjusting.

Feelings were a luxury. He didn't have time for luxuries.

He knew the portal wasn't just leaking aliens anymore. It was folding. Buckling in at the edges, like skin blistering around a burn. He could feel it in his teeth, the way light bent wrong and sound got all stuttery near the breach. They were breaking it.

Finally.

"Trinity, push north! Keep 'em boxed!" He didn't shout, didn't need to. The comms carried the tension in his jaw.

The battlefield blurred.

His brothers weren't even pretending to hold back anymore. Butch was laughing. Not the good kind. Not the funny kind. The kind that meant someone was about to get pulped. He ripped an alien in half by the antennae, and used one half as a projectile to rip through the rest of a squad. His hands sparked green and never stopped moving.

Boomer was everywhere at once, streaking through the smoke like a glitch in the air. Blue lightning trailed behind him in jagged stutters. He grabbed two civvies, vanished, reappeared with a new burn on his shoulder and zero explanation.

"We're winning!" he yelled mid-flight, as if it wasn't obvious. As if Brick hadn't already factored in the collapsing formation and the alien line snapping under pressure like wet cardboard.

Invincible was... "I'LL KILL YOU!"

Invincibling.

Teen Team held. Surprisingly.

For a bunch of GDA-manipulated teenagers and Robot, they were actually pretty effective at their jobs.

Eve's shields pulsed hard-pink against the wave of retreat fire, creating a moving bubble around the support team and civvies still stumbling through the wreckage. She looked wrecked herself—hair clumped with sweat, jaw set. Not blinking enough. She didn't flinch when the fliers dove for her. She just flicked one wrist and re-routed her hard-light into a fan of darts that nailed each of them center-mass.

Kate was in four places at once, all of them tired. One clone caught a laser in the thigh and fell to the ground as gore and flesh puddled on the ground. Another rolled into position without losing pace, catching a toddler out of a crumbling minivan like it was a relay handoff. No comment. No complaints.

Rex threw another overcharged brick like he was trying to impress a ghost. "That makes sixty! Or sixty-one? Depends if that first guy lost his legs."

Butch didn't miss a beat. "That's cute. I stopped counting at four hundred."

Brick said nothing. He didn't have time to babysit egos.

He did the math instead.

Vectors. Retreat trajectories. Heat signatures dimming in clusters. Alien movements weren't just sloppy—they were deteriorating.

"Something's wrong," he said. His voice crackled through comms, low. Focused.

He zeroed in with his optics, narrowed to the pixel. Green skin paling. Limb movements jerky. The shimmer around their armor plates thinned like whatever powered them was leaking out of sync with the environment.

They were dying.

Not from them.

From here.

The portal pulsed again, shuddering like a heartbeat made of static. The structure wavered, like a half-built engine tearing itself apart mid-startup. The aliens didn't hold the line. They ran.

Not aimless. Strategic. Some of them covered the retreat. Others shielded a collection of weird tech boxes, glowing faintly with blue core light and shielded plating.

Brick clocked it. Immediately.

"They're not just leaving. They're taking their stuff with them."

He didn't wait for agreement.

The world blinked red behind his eyes and he snapped toward the central tech platform like a round out of a gun. Three aliens moved to block. One got close.

Too close.

Brick twisted mid-air. He didn't vaporize it. He avoided it.

That's the part that pissed him off.

He should have gone through. But they needed data. They needed salvage. So he turned.

It cost him the play.

The last of the equipment cleared the breach and the portal imploded like a lung collapsing inward. No noise at first—just light. Then the sound caught up, slapped them all backwards in a thundercrack.

Air folded. Sky went white-orange. Debris snapped into the blast and spat back out across the whole district.

Boom.

And then stillness. The kind that made Brick's ears ring and his brain scream move.

He got up first. Then Boomer, wobbling like he just spun around nine-hundred forty-two times trying to find his limit again. Then Butch, brushing purple crust off his shoulder like dust.

The plaza was carnage. Half the towers pancaked. Roads curled. Sewers bleeding. Fires and black water and too many things that used to be people and now weren't.

Teen Team regrouped fast, all of them quickly coming together.

Rex made a show of breathing heavy, the teenager pulling his mask back and dragging a hand through his sweaty, filthy mess of hair. Once again, he was the first to break the silence, motor mouth supreme. "Well, that sucked major balls," he said, almost at the top of his lungs for no reason. "Like, big-time. I vote nap."

"Aww," Butch drawled, fake-sweet, brushing soot off his cheek with a crackle of static. "Redhead need a blankie?"

Rex flipped him off without heat. "I still dropped more than you."

"Nah," Butch grinned. "Not even in your dreams, bro."

Pink light shoved between them. Eve. Glowing. Done.

"Can you two not? Just for five minutes?"

They both flinched. Slightly.

Super-Patriot strolled in like the last hour hadn't happened, mask half-off, cyber-eyes whirring as they adjusted to the gloom. He looked the Boys over. Long pause. Then a bark of a chuckle. "Cecil's crew, huh? Figures." The cyborg shook his head as he clicked his tongue. "That old spook wouldn't flinch at child soldiers if they could do the job."

Brick straightened. Not that it helped. He still barely came up to the guy's ribcage.

"We're Trinity. GDA-affiliated."

"Quite the name. You boys stupid or confident?"

Brit limped in on his left, rifle slung, face tight. "Still think it's both."

"We handled it fine," Butch growled. "Didn't see you till the last five."

Super-Patriot barked another laugh. "They got teeth, at least."

Boomer floated down with a bounce, trailing arcs, eyes big on the cybernetics as they reconfigured back to normal, weapons vanishing in place of segmented steel prosthetics. "Whoa. Your arms do the spinny thing? That's so rad."

Brick rolled his eyes.

Invincible landed on the street like someone broke his steering, with a hard crunch and knee to pavement. He stood slow.

His costume was shredded. One goggle gone. Red blood crusted under his chin. Purple blood staining his chest and hands. His eyes were red, but not from dust.

Brick didn't mock him. "First real one?"

Invincible nodded. Didn't look up.

"You learn."

Robot hovered in from the smoke, sparking, analyzing like nothing had changed.

"Incomplete engagement. Premature withdrawal inconsistent with known tactics."

"We wrecked them!" Boomer said brightly, fists up.

"Negative." Robot didn't pause. "Their speech patterns suggested swarm tactics. Their departure was not defeat. It was preservation."

Eve was already working on doing her part to fix the skyline. Pink scaffolding, pink cranes, pink support beams. Efficient. Careful.

She paused just long enough to glance back. "You guys were... impressive. Considering."

Butch scowled like she'd kicked him in the pride. "And here comes the kindergarten line again. People keep acting like we belong back in Pokey Oaks."

Kate rejoined them, two dozen duplicates behind her. Some treating wounded. Some organizing. One walked over and looked at the three of them with tilted-head curiosity.

"How old are you anyway?"

"Twelve. Thirteen next year," Boomer said it with no filter, no hesitation. Why would he have either of those? After all, it was just his age, right? Why wouldn't he tell someone curious?

But it was what he said next that Brick was dreading. "But we weren't, like, born. Not the usual way."

And just like that, the air pinched. Brick felt it. Like tension pulling teeth.

Teen Team froze mid-breath. Rex's eyebrows jumped like a cartoon character who just found out the pie was a bomb. "Wait—what? Made? You guys like clones or robots or some shit?"

Boomer blinked. "No? I mean—kinda? Wait, is that bad?"

Before Butch could open his mouth and say something so much worse and somehow even more wrong, Brick cut in. "Humanoid chemical constructs. Artificially accelerated development. Made, not born. Sentient, autonomous, a whole new type of human. Transhuman, basically."

He didn't blink. Didn't give Boomer space to add whatever dumb follow-up was loading behind his teeth. "Or demonic homunculi, if you're the religious type." He smiled. It was about as warm as Blossom's breath.

Kate made a face. Rex choked a laugh. Eve just stared with a look on her face that felt... sympathetic.

Robot, though—Robot tilted his head. His whole face was unreadable but the optics got brighter, which Brick had learned meant interest. Or threat calculation. "My scans did indicate your molecular structure is non-standard. Your explanation supports several anomalies I observed."

"I don't even know what the hell half of that meant," Rex muttered. "Chemical what now?" He squinted. "That some kind of punk band or—?"

"A chemical found in toxic waste," Brick said, dry as carbon. "Refined, stabilized, mutated. Works better than gamma radiation."

"Wait, like—actual waste? Like trash juice? That's nasty, dude."

Butch snorted. "Made us better than you, though."

"Yeah, okay, robo-Spawn," Rex shot back. "You ever smell like a normal person?"

Eve stepped forward, arms crossed, voice all soft edges and steel under it. "Wait, so... the GDA just uses you? Like that's normal?"

"We're twelve," Boomer said brightly, like he hadn't just admitted to being a weapon. "And we save people. Sooo."

"Don't mean ya ain't kids," Brit said, walking up from the edge of the crater with the casual gait of someone who'd seen worse and didn't care to talk about it. "Still got milk teeth. Still too small to reach the good liquor shelves."

"You done?" Brick asked without looking at him.

Brit shrugged. "Wasn't talkin' to you, kid."

"We made our own choices," Brick added faster than he meant to. It hung there. He smoothed his tone. "We could leave if we wanted."

"Yeah," Butch added, cracking his neck with an audible pop, "like, we chose to outscore y'all by triple digits. That's called freedom."

Rex barked a laugh. "Man, shortstack, you really think you scored higher?"

"I know I scored higher."

"Liar."

"Babyhands."

"Third place."

"Your face is third place."

Kate groaned so hard it carried.

Eve made a barrier out of pink light and didn't say a word. Brick appreciated her restraint. It was... unfamiliar.

Super-Patriot walked up like he had nothing better to do than judge Brick from ten feet up. His eyes were cybernetic but still managed to narrow. "You the one callin' plays?"

Brick nodded.

"Good formation discipline. Smart calls. Clean work," the old man said, surprising him. "Tight triangles. Good fire control. Most grown men can't get that right."

Butch made a noise like a muffled cough. "Told you we don't need babysitters."

"No, what you need is a leash," Dupli-Kate muttered, one of her clones wiping blood off her sleeve. "You tossed a tank through a building."

"It was empty," Butch said. "Mostly."

Brick's eye twitched. He was going to log that later.

Brit just grunted nearby, tapping a busted alien gauntlet like he was checking for resale value. "Cecil's collecting weirdos like trading cards." He glanced over. "Need a lift?"

"We fly."

"Suit yourself."

GDA cleanup hit the ground like ants—black suits, white masks, hazmat teams moving with the kind of precision Brick trusted more than most people. VTOLs bleeding steam, medics fanning out. The battle was over, which meant the posturing was starting. GDA agents swarmed the wreckage, locking down tech, tagging bodies, sweeping for data. Stretchers dragged out civvies, portable containment bubbles rolled in. Smelled like scorched ozone and red tape. Brick knew the play. Extraction was next.

One of the hazmat guys dragged a fried alien cannon past Boomer, who immediately crouched down to poke at it.

"Whoa—do you think we could, like, fix this? Or turn it into a bike?"|

"No," Brick said, already scanning the perimeter.

"But like—"

"No."

SuperPatriot's arm whirred as it folded back into place. "Y'know, for lab rats, y'all ain't bad."

"We're not rats," Butch said, voice flat.

Eve's voice gentled, the same way people talked to stray dogs. "You guys okay? Like, after all this?"

Boomer blinked at her. "Oh. Yeah. We're great! I mean—some bruises, a little crispy maybe. But hey, we got good bones."

"You're still bleeding," Kate said, pointing.

Boomer checked. "Oh. Cool."

Brick watched Mark drift in, shoulders slumped, one goggle gone, suit shredded. He looked like he'd swallowed smoke and guilt in the same breath and hadn't figured out how to spit either out.

"You good?" Brick asked.

Mark started to nod, then stopped, then shrugged. "I—I tried. There were these kids, and I—"

"We saw," Brick said. "You'll be better next time."

"Right. Next time."

Time to bounce. He turned. Looked once more at the others.

"Not bad for amateurs."

Rex nearly tripped over his own ego. "Okay, what?! We've been in this game for years, kid!"

Boomer waved like it was a parade. "Bye pink lady! Bye copy girl! Bye Mister Unbreakable! Bye robot dads! Bye sword gramps!"

Butch shot Rex a nod like they hadn't been trying to kill each other twenty minutes ago. "Try not to blow yourself up before round two, sparklefist."

Then they were airborne. Three streaks—red, green, blue—ripping the sky like brushstrokes through smoke.

Brick didn't look down again. Not yet.

But he was still thinking. Still tracking. Still re-running the feed.

Guardians. Gone.

Omni-Man. Gone.

The dimensional tech that could've pointed them home?

Gone.

Too many gaps. Too much coincidence.

He grit his teeth. "Townsville was easier."

Chapter Text

The afternoon sun cast long shadows over suburban Baltimore as Mark Grayson—Invincible, for those not in the know—flew slowly homeward, body aching in places he hadn't known could ache. His costume hung off his body in tatters, the blue and yellow fabric darkened with soot, blood, and whatever passed for bodily fluid in the alien invaders. 

Whatever it was, it was purple, sticky and it stank like you wouldn't believe.

But it wasn't the physical pain that slowed his flight. It was the weight of failure, the civilians he couldn't save, the family in the burning car who had died because he wasn't fast enough, wasn't careful enough, wasn't enough.

Those kids—those trinity kids or whatever they called themselves—they weren't even teenagers yet and they'd handled everything like it was just Tuesday. No big deal. Just another alien invasion.

"So they were right," Mark thought, his internal voice fluctuating between awe and humiliation. "Dad was right. Everyone was right. I'm not ready."

That blue kid had literally saved four people in the time it took Mark to spot one. Four! He'd zipped past Mark with this stupid little grin like, catch up, amateur. It didn't even make sense, Mark was pretty sure he was faster than them.

And that red one—Brick?—he'd been calling shots like he was born doing it. Probably was, according to him. Seven years of fighting. What was Mark doing seven years ago? Watching cartoons? Playing with action figures of his dad?

He banked left, aimlessly adjusting his flight path to avoid a flock of birds. His costume made a sad flapping sound where it had torn across his chest.

This was his fourth day wearing it.

Fourth day, second time getting it wrecked.

Great track record, Invincible, he thought bitterly. Real superhero material.

They might not have been faster than he was, but those three kids had been stronger, more capable, more coordinated than he could imagine being. They fought like they'd been doing it their whole lives, which apparently they had. Twelve years old and already perfect soldiers, while he, at seventeen, still couldn't save a family trapped in a car.

And not even just that, but he had gotten so angry.

So angry.

He didn't know what it meant that he didn't feel bad for killing all those aliens.

Everyone else was doing it, so... it had to be okay, right?

Mark's stomach twisted uncomfortably. The Trinity kids hadn't hesitated. The government guys hadn't hesitated. Even the Teen Team—people closer to his age—seemed to have no problem with lethal force.

Maybe this was just what being a superhero meant?

"Dad would know," he murmured to himself, then immediately regretted it. The idea of asking his father made him cringe. He could already picture the disappointment on Nolan's face, the lecture about how Viltrumites don't hesitate, how Earth needed protection, not sensitivity.

His enhanced hearing picked up a distant scream, cutting through his self-recrimination with the precision of a surgeon's scalpel. Head snapping toward the sound, vision focused on a shopping mall parking lot several miles away. A teenage boy stood alone amid parked cars, clutching his chest, face contorted in obvious distress.

The boy looked around frantically, calling for help, but the few people nearby seemed oblivious to his plight, hurrying past with shopping bags and children in tow.

Mark's heart leapt. This. This was what he needed.

"Okay, redemption time," he whispered to himself, changing direction immediately, concern overriding fatigue. He could still save someone today. He could still prove he deserved the name he'd chosen.

Don't screw this up, don't screw this up, the mantra played on repeat as he accelerated.

Landing near the boy, he approached cautiously, hands raised in a non-threatening gesture. 

"Hey... are you okay?" He tried to sound confident, authoritative—the way his dad would sound—but his voice cracked slightly on the last word. "Can you hear me?"

The kid flinched like Mark's voice had weight to it, like it might hit him, and maybe that should've been the first sign—something too sharp in the way he jerked, too wired, too scared to breathe all the way.

"Hey, hey, I'm not gonna hurt you, I swear," he said, hands up. Soft tone. Hero voice. Not Dad's version. A lot closer to the Immortal's, maybe, at least from what he saw on TV, when the old hero talked down a jumper from a ledge. "You're okay. You're—"

"Don't come near me!" the kid yelled, and Mark felt like he just took a punch to the gut from Butch again. Not because they hurt, but because the words made him pause enough to finally notice the thick metal vest attached to his body.

Red numbers. Just bright enough to cut through the daylight. Just far enough into the countdown he didn't want to believe he saw it right. Ten. Nine. Eight—

"Oh shit," Mark breathed. Too loud. Too slow. He didn't move. Didn't know how.

"What is that? What is that on you—" he started, voice breaking and brain breaking and everything spinning in a way that had nothing to do with flight.

"I don't know!" the kid sobbed, arms out like he could claw it off, tear it out, like Mark had answers if he just looked hard enough. "I swear to God I just—I woke up and it was there and it won't come off and I—I didn't ask for this, man! I didn't—"

"Let me help, okay? I can—look, I can probably fly you up, maybe throw the vest, or, or something, I don't know, but I can—"

"NO!" The kid's whole body twitched, and Mark saw it too late—the instinct. The same one that had made Nate Palmer flinch in Chemistry every time someone raised their voice near him.

"Wait, hold on—don't you go to—"

Zero.

Everything cracked open.

Sound didn't come first. Not really. Not even pain. Just light. Pressure. Like the air turned to fists and started swinging.

Mark hit the ground hard. Hard enough to rattle something inside him. The rest of the world hit harder.

He blinked.

No.

He blinked again.

Where the kid had been was just a hole. A crater. A heat-scored memory. Mark's ears rang. His chest burned. Something sharp in his thigh and he didn't remember being cut. Didn't remember much except the look on Nate's face.

Nate, he realized a half-second later.

It had been Nate. Same kid from the back row. Always mumbled when called on, cracking jokes too fix the mood. Took forever to solve equations on the board but never got them wrong.

That had been Nate.

Now...

Now, there wasn't even enough left to bury.

"I could've—I should've grabbed him," Mark muttered, throat dry, fingers digging into asphalt like it could rewind time. "I'm fast. I'm fast enough. I should've—"

A scream cracked through the air. Not his. Not yet.

A woman—older, hair a mess, knees bloody where she knelt beside a man who wasn't moving. Her hands slammed his chest in rhythm, but his head lolled wrong. Limbs wrong. He wasn't there anymore.

Sirens.

Some people were running. Some just stood there like if they didn't move, it wouldn't be real.

Mark's voice cracked open in his throat, too high, too small. "What the hell is happening?"

​

Chapter Text

The frosting was fake. Plastic-sweet and thick like it was afraid of being edible, like it came out of a tub labeled WARNING: FOR DECORATION ONLY. Brick didn't care. He took another bite, chewed it like drywall, swallowed.

Perfect.

The banner drooped sideways over the GDA conference room, half-taped to a ventilation grate, dusty like nobody wanted to admit how long it'd been since they last needed a "MISSION SUCCESS" sign. The room smelled like stale coffee and off-brand sanitizer. Someone'd brought punch. It tasted like melted battery acid. Boomer drank four cups.

Boomer had also somehow managed to get frosting on his ear, cheeks smeared in chocolate, one whole slice of cake clenched in both hands like it was going to escape if he didn't inhale it as soon as possible. "This is the best cake ever," he said through a full mouth.

Crumbs everywhere.

Butch had claimed the pizza table like it owed him money. A stack of slices wobbling in one arm, other hand already mid-shove into his face, chewing like someone dared him to beat time. Brick glanced once, saw sauce on Butch's bicep, and looked away before it got worse.

The room was full of agents pretending they weren't flinching every time one of the Boys moved too fast. Their smiles stuck, plastic and wide, cups trembling slightly in practiced hands. They'd seen the casualty report. They'd seen the portal. They knew what it should've been.

Should've been a crater.

It was the eyes that gave them away though—too bright, too alert for people who were supposedly relaxing. These were government agents who'd just saw an alien invasion. Their guard wouldn't be down for weeks. That was fine.

Brick's guard was never down.

A young analyst shuffled over, probably drew the short straw. "Sir—I mean, uh… Mr…. uh, Brimstone, sir… that thing when you had the aliens… take each other out like that. That was—really impressive. Tactical genius, honestly."

Brick shook his hand just firm enough to remind him who he was. Who they were. "I do what I do."

The guy nodded way, way, way too fast, almost fast enough that Brick was worried for the safety of his neck. And the way his heart was beating as he tried to look Brick in the eyes, the guy might as well have had a gun to his ribs. There was always something in the eyes. HIM had once told him it was because humans could sense when something wasn't quite human, even if they couldn't understand or explain why.

The sixty-million dollar man chose that exact moment to show up with a tablet like he was bringing birthday presents, at least judging from the smile on his face. Whatever it was, Agent Ferguson looked weirdly upbeat, the guy's smile too soft at the edges. "Director Stedman sends you boys his highest commendation for excellent work against the invaders," was what he chose to open with as he came to a stop. "You boys ran textbook containment. Couldn't have asked for a cleaner op."

Butch let out a burp that shook his table.. "Where's old man scarface?"

Donald blinked, just onceas he took in Butch's nickname for the director, then quickly recovered as if Butch had been normal about who Brick had come to understand was effectively the unelected king of Earth's politics and defense infrastructure. "Still handling priority matters elsewhere. The world doesn't pause for one invasion, I'm afraid."

Brick made a note. He didn't say anything else, just pivoted. "Casualties?"

Donald's fingers tensed around the tablet. "We've got them confirmed so far at an official one hundred nine, civilian. First responder numbers place the total slightly higher. Granted, that's mostly from initial shockwave and breach fallout. Nothing else thanks to you boys." The cyborg shook his head. "Frankly? It's a miracle."

Boomer looked up from plate number… actually, Brick had stopped keeping count a while ago, honestly. "That's… good, right? I mean, we stopped the aliens, so it's over?."

Donald smiled again. Professional, this time. Like the gears had clicked back in. "Yes. You most certainly did."

The hum wasn't loud. That made it worse. It crawled under your skin instead of pushing against your ears, made the whole room feel like it was pretending to breathe. Brick didn't move. Not because he couldn't. Because he was listening.

The pod they had him in was probably worth more than a stealth jet. Smooth pressure around his limbs, pulse synced to the slow inhale of reinforced gel lining. The lid was see-through, like a coffin with a window.

Somewhere near his right boot, Rosenthal was whispering again.

"Recovery metrics are well past expectation," the doctor muttered, paper-thin voice cut with reverence. "Baseline exceeded across all primary indexes."

Another voice answered—Chen, maybe. Brick didn't care. "You mean they're stronger than when they walked in?"

"Markedly."

Brick didn't blink. He tracked the click of styluses tapping through digital projections. The displays over their pods hadn't shut up since they got dragged back from the invasion site. Still flashing color-coded percentages. Still crawling with numbers.

Strength: +47%
Durability: +52%
Energy Output: +38%
Speed: +23%

Unbalanced. He'd felt it. Strength climbing faster than coordination. His own fists hitting harder than expected, follow-through lagging behind. Boomer was sparking before he thought. Butch was breaking things by accident.

Next pod over, Butch cracked his knuckles loud enough for someone to flinch. "See? Told you losers I was getting jacked. Must be the push-ups."

"Push-ups don't count if you're floating," Boomer mumbled from his side, peeling a patch off his chest and examining it like it owed him an answer. "Wait—do mine say that too? I wanna see my stats."

Brick sat up. Deliberate, slow. Not tired. Calculating. He wiped a smear of frost from the inside of the pod cover with two fingers and studied the projection again. Cross-referenced numbers against last week's sim logs, recalibrated for stress factors. Still didn't like it.

Rosenthal noticed he was awake. Brick could tell by the way his tone changed mid-sentence, like a tightrope walker realizing there's no net. The man stepped into view a second later, fake calm wrapped in an expensive lab coat.

"Ah. Good." Rosenthal cleared his throat, then brought up a new hologram. "We think we understand what's happening."

"Do you."

"It appears your bodies are adapting."

No kidding.

The image twisted into a scan overlay. Old cellular samples next to new ones. The old stuff was dimmer, fuzzier. The new stuff sparkled. Tighter clusters. Brighter energy traces.

"Think of it like… high-altitude conditioning. Your physiology's reacting to the new physics baseline of this dimension."

Butch flexed both arms like a cartoon boxer. "So we're getting extra powers? Cool."

"It's not a guaranteed outcome," Rosenthal said, way too fast.

"But it is happening," Brick pressed.

The hesitation confirmed it.

Rosenthal shifted. "As of now, yes. Your power curves are trending upward. Unpredictably so."

Boomer's voice cracked as he sat up too fast. "Wait, unpredictably like… dangerous?"

"No signs of harm," Rosenthal lied, visibly. "Minor irregularities during REM cycles. Nothing outside of tolerance."

Brick didn't respond. Didn't need to. He'd already made the connection.

Boomer's dreams. The ones he didn't like talking about. Waking up yelling names he swore he forgot. That one time he almost lit the ceiling tiles up in his sleep.

Nothing outside of tolerance.

Brick slid out of the pod and stood barefoot on the floor. Cold. Not uncomfortable. Just real.

The scans still glowed behind him. He let them.

His brothers were arguing about muscle mass now. Boomer was holding his own stats up to Butch's and insisting they must've been switched. Butch was laughing too loud.

Rosenthal said something else. Brick didn't register it. He was already thinking ahead.

If the universe was changing them to match it, then the question wasn't whether they could still go back.

It was what would be left if they did.

And what would happen if they found a way back?

The training bay stank like ozone and sweat and whatever compound the GDA used to mop up after kids who could crater walls without trying. Brick stepped through the blast doors without announcing himself. He really didn't have to, honestly. The room was loud enough already—Butch was trying to kill the punching bag again.

Not metaphorically.

Each and every single punch cracked air like a sonic boom, and sent the whole setup rattling like bones in a box. "When's big scary dad-face gettin' back?" he shouted mid-swing. "I wanna see if I can suplex him into the Earth's core."

Boomer was hovering nearby, arms loose, fingers twitching with baby jolts—just enough spark to be annoying, not enough to matter. "You? Against Omni-Man?" He let out a loud snort, baby jolts sparking off his fingers brighter as the sound left him. "What, you gonna blind him with your BO?"

Butch's laugh came out sharp, teeth behind it. "Nah, I'll knock him out cold. C'mon, you saw the readouts. I'm, like, double my old numbers. Easy."

Boomer hovered maybe six feet off the ground, lazy arcs of static popping from finger to finger like he was trying to tase the air into submission. "Dude, I'm tellin' you, you try that on Omni-Man and he's gonna feed you your own teeth."

Butch's reply was a grunt and a crack like drywall folding in on itself. "He's not untouchable. You punched him."

Brick frowned at that. He had punched Omni-Man and it did fuck-all. "Yeah, I did punch him. Doing it almost broke my hand."

"Yeah, I saw it," Boomer said, voice going up a full octave and a half, "he didn't even blink!"

Brick didn't say anything again until he was close enough to drop the container. It thunked against the bench hard enough to make both his brothers look.

"Omni-Man's stronger," Brick said, calm and flat like a slap in slow motion. "Smarter. Meaner. He'd ragdoll you."

Butch turned, mouth already half open. Brick didn't let him get it out.

"And experience matters. He's got at least as much combined practice as all our years alive combined."

Butch's scowl was sharp enough to draw blood, but he didn't swing again. Just flexed, jaw tight. His right knuckle was already cracked open, blood trailing halfway to his wrist. Brick clocked it. Didn't comment.

Boomer buzzed over, hair doing that thing again where it spiked out on one side more than the other. Static clung to his eyelashes. "We're still getting stronger though, right? Like, that whole acclimating thing—"

"Yeah," Brick said, flipping the latch on the container, "we're getting stronger."

He didn't open it right away. Let the pause stretch. Let them feel the weight of the box before they saw what was in it.

Butch narrowed his eyes. "That from the portal fight?"

"Salvage," Brick corrected. "Not theft."

Boomer landed with a stumble, already leaning in. "Wait wait wait—what is that? That glowy part looks like—"

Brick opened it. Soft, dull pulse. Orange-red. Crystal core cracked down the center like a lightning bolt frozen in time.

They both went quiet.

"That's from the gate," Butch said, voice lower now. Less bark, more… something else. Like awe in a headlock.

Brick didn't nod. Didn't smile. Just watched the way their eyes tracked it. "Residual energy signature. Still active. Barely."

Boomer's fingers hovered an inch too close. Brick grabbed his wrist without looking. "Don't touch it."

"I wasn't gonna—!"

"You were."

Butch's arms crossed. "So what, we gonna build a new portal?"

"No." Brick didn't look up. "Not yet."

"So what's it for then?"

"Research," Brick said, quiet, eyes sharp on the readout flickering across the crystal's fractured plane. "Backup plan."

Boomer squinted. "For what?"

Brick didn't answer. He just closed the lid again. "For research purposes." He said it like a maybe. He meant it like a plan.

Boomer's voice quieted. "I kinda... miss them sometimes. The Girls."

Brick didn't look at him, instead just closing the box again. Can always count on you, Boom-Boom. Maybe it was all the electricity in his system, maybe it was just his brain, but his little brother could not stay focused.

Butch laughed. "I don't. Go back just to get our asses kicked again?"

"We're stronger now."

Boomer perked. "You think we're stronger than them yet?"

"No."

That shut it up. Truth was cleaner than comfort. It always was.

He slid the container behind him, out of their reach. Just in case. "But we're getting there. Faster every day."

Boomer nudged the tablet. "What's this one?"

"Dimensional wave resonance. Fracture modeling. Gateway recalibration."

Boomer blinked. "...So nerd stuff."

Butch smirked. "Told you. Nerd stuff."

"Yeah?" Brick said, deadpan. "Tell that to the guy who builds the parachute before you hit the drop."

They shut up for a second. Butch punched the bag again. The chain held this time.

Boomer's eyes narrowed. "But we can fly"

Brick didn't flinch. "Shut up, Boomer." The redhead just sighed, adjusted the screen angle and got back to work.

"Knowledge is power," he muttered, quiet enough it might've been just to himself.

Or maybe not. He didn't look up. Especially when you're planning for all contingencies.

Three hours and two skipped meals later, Brick had commandeered one of the deep-lab rooms four levels under the primary GDA research wing—soundproofed, shielded, secured. He didn't ask. He didn't need to. Cecil had already flagged the request as approved before Brick sent it.

The room felt colder than it was, like something permanent had been stripped from the air. Not that it mattered. The bench was cluttered, diagnostics running hot from looping input errors, none of the equipment calibrated for what he was trying to map. The alien tech—torn open like a cadaver—sat in half-sorted components across half the table. Most of it was junk. The crystal core wasn't. That part still pulsed. Faint. Irregular. But alive.

Every few seconds, the oscillation drifted out of range and set off another soft alarm. He muted it.

Data streamed across the tablet at his elbow. Still garbage. He was trying to reconcile seven different dimensional models at once and none of them were cooperating. Not fully. Not yet. But the math was stabilizing. That meant something.

The door hissed open. Didn't creak. Didn't clunk. Just hissed like a lung giving up. Brick didn't flinch. He already knew who it was.

Cecil moved like a guy who already knew what the room looked like. Hands in his coat pockets, boots scuffing the tile a little too soft to be casual. He stopped just short of the workbench.

"Late hour for diagnostics," he said, low and dry, like it was a joke too old to bother finishing. "Figure I'd find you pokin' the bear eventually."

Brick didn't look up. "It's not a bear. It's a key."

"Hm." Cecil glanced down at the crystal, the pulse lighting up the underlines of his face. "That thing got a name?"

"Not yet."

"You planning to give it one, or build it one?"

Brick adjusted the angle of the spectrometer. "Depends on what it does when I finish."

Cecil hummed. No judgment in it, but the weight was there anyway. "And what's your hypothesis?"

Brick paused. Then: "Gate anchor. That's my best bet right now. Portal stabilization module, maybe half-corrupted."

"And you know that because…?"

"Because I recognize the structural resonance pattern. It's fractal-based. Mirrors the original signature from the jump."

"Same jump that dropped you and yours into my backyard."

Brick didn't respond. He already knew a long time ago that Cecil had figured out that much. The guy would have to be an idiot not to, and Cecil Stedman may have had fake skin but his brain cells were all in functioning order.

Cecil reached into his coat, pulled out a tablet, tapped once. Cecil set the tablet face-down on the bench. "You trying to go home, Brick?"

Brick's fingers stilled over the console. "I don't know."

"That's not a no."

"I'm gathering data."

"Mm." He folded his arms. "And what's your data say so far?"

"That this universe runs hot. Higher energy density, increased material resilience, inconsistent temporal geometry. And we're adapting to it."

Cecil nodded like he already knew. He probably did. "You boys are outgrowing your own footprints. You know that, right?"

Brick looked at him then. Really looked. "Was that your goal?"

"Goal?" Cecil chuckled without smiling. "Son, I've seen what happens when people get obsessed with outcomes. I don't set goals. I manage fires. Right now, you're burnin' hotter than anything else on my board."

Brick said nothing.

Cecil let that linger, then tapped the console once. The display jumped—data spike. Dimensional fluctuation. Not the same pattern as the aliens.

"Got ourselves another tear," Cecil said. "Out near Salt Lake."

Brick leaned in. "Not them?"

"Different flavor. Stronger. You'll feel it when you get there."

"We deploying?"

Cecil met his eyes. "You're already dressed."

Brick nodded once, grabbed the containment kit, and powered the bench down.

"Bring your brothers," Cecil added, already halfway to the door. "If it's another invasion, I want my biggest guns up front."

"And if it's not?"

Cecil paused, the old man giving him a look like cracked stone. "Then I still want my biggest guns up front."

The door hissed shut behind him.

Brick stared at the darkened bench for half a second longer. Then followed.

The woods looked carved out by a fist. Trees twisted in the same direction, blown outward like something had dropped dead center and rewrote gravity on the way down. Splinters hung from the trunks like wet scabs. The ground stank like ozone and burning copper. And the numbers Brick was getting from the handheld weren't numbers anymore—they were errors. Spiked, scrambled, resetting too fast to stabilize. Something had cracked reality open and forgot to shut the door.

They touched down in a wide V-formation, standard perimeter spread, Brick in front. Butch hit the ground loud, Boomer didn't land at all. Brick hovered just above the dirtline, enough to keep visibility, enough to keep mobile. Air was humming. His skin itched.

"No gate," he muttered, eye on the thermals, but there wasn't even heat to track. "No breach residue. No exit arc."

Boomer fidgeted beside him, lightning twitching across his fingertips like his body didn't know what to do with calm. "This feels off. Like, real off. Like maybe-we-shouldn't-be-here off."

"We're always not supposed to be here," Butch grunted, cracking his knuckles loud enough to echo. "That never stopped us before."

Brick opened his mouth to cut him off—but then the air above them bent.

No warning. No flare. Just a ripple—like the world shrugged—and the sky split down its spine. A soundless implosion, light without heat, color without logic. Space tore, and something fell.

"Move!"

He yanked Boomer mid-air by the wrist, kicked off hard, Butch already throwing himself backward. They cleared just before the shockwave hit—ground caving, sound chasing light like it was late. The impact hit like a freight train made of planets. Trees flattened. Rock cratered.

And in the center of it, a crater cracked open the ground like an egg, dust boiling up in a choking wave. At the heart of it, something was breathing.

Boomer coughed. "Did we—did we just get nuked?"

"No active heat signature," Brick said, blinking the flash out of his vision. "Not a bomb. That was re-entry."

Butch dropped to a knee at the rim of the crater, eyes squinting through the dust, grin spreading as he clenched his fists tight. "Tell me that's a challenger."

Brick floated down slow. Readouts stabilizing now on the GDA scanning device—barely. Pulse was huge, but not exact;y expanding. Not spreading. If anything, it was concentrating. He blinked twice, focused past the dust, past the noise.

A cape.

Red.

Holy shit. Brick froze. "Wait."

The dust peeled back, revealing a body face-down, uniform shredded, cape torn. He wore a thick scraggly beard and his chest was half-moving.

Boomer's breath hitched. "No way."

"Omni-Dad."Butch let out a long low whistle, kicking some dirt casually forward like he wanted to bury the crashed superhero. "Dude got wrecked."

Nolan Grayson lay at the center like someone had ripped the power out of him and stapled what was left to the dirt. Bleeding and bruised all over, with his eyes closed and his body half-buried in the dirt of the crater.

Brick didn't speak, the team leader already running diagnostics. Pulse steady, vitals erratic. Cell damage—regenerating. Fast.

Butch poked him in the ribs with a boot. "Is he dead?"

Brick slapped his foot away as he crouched down. "No. Just broken."

Boomer hovered behind him, quieter now. "Who could even do that?"

Brick didn't answer as Nolan's eyes cracked open, his eyes unfocused, and breathing unsteady as he whispered something. "Omnipotent… idiot."

Then he was out again.

Brick activated his comms. "Trinity to base. We found him."

Cecil's voice came in low and sharp like it'd been waiting behind his teeth. "What's his status?" It was barely a question.

Brick raised an eyebrow, glancing down at the man unconscious on the floor. "Alive. Unconscious. Injuries extensive."

"Visuals?"

"Severe physical trauma. Suit damage. Timeline inconsistent—beard growth, cellular repair rates…" Brick frowned. "Either beard growth is one of his powers or he's been gone longer than we thought."

Cecil was quiet again, for a second. "Did he say anything?"

Brick hesitated. "He said the word 'Omnipotent.' Or something. Called him an idiot."

The line was silent for a good three seconds.

Then Cecil spoke up again, colder now. "Full containment. Medical evac already in motion. Don't let anything near him—not even civilians."

Boomer looked at Brick. "What's it mean?"

Brick didn't look back. "We stand guard."

Cecil again, voice hard as usual. "Until arrival."

Chapter Text

Brick didn't like medbays or hospitals, or whatever else people called them.

Maybe it was how sterile everything felt. Hell, it could have just been the hum in the walls.

Not loud. Not sharp.

Just… wrong. Too clean.

Like everything else in this place—filtered, vacuum-sealed, and dead behind the glass. White. Flat. Sterile.

Part of him had to wonder if it was at all related to being born in the filthiest and least hygienic of environments. There had to be something psychological about that, right?

Either way, the oldest of the Rowdyruffs didn't shift or fidget as his arms stayed clasped behind his back, spine military-straight, feet planted at precisely the width he'd seen from GDA agents.

Despite that, as always, his eyes moved. Left to right. Corner to screen. The steady drip of telemetry from the wall monitors didn't change much, not really, not unless you were looking for the micro-spikes. He was.

Fifty-six percent accelerated recovery. He noted quietly, eyes still tracking. Seven… no -eight hours ahead of projected curve as seen from Omni-Man's injuries before. Something accelerated his mitochondrial resync rate.

The beard looked stupid, in Brick's opinion. Not the length—it was longer, obviously, like someone yanked him through a fast-forward montage. But it didn't look right. Downright patchy in the wrong places. It was almost like whatever had hit the guy scrambled his regeneration before his cells remembered what they were supposed to be.

"Old man looks like shit," Butch muttered from the corner, green energy sparking off his fingertips in lazy pops. He wasn't looking at the screens. He was watching the door like it owed him something.

"He's not awake yet," Brick said, his correction wrapped in indifference.

Butch snorted, the Greenest of the Rowdies shrugging his shoulders. "Don't need him awake to know he got his ass kicked."

Boomer, halfway crouched near the medbay entrance, perked up like someone had flipped a switch. "What if it wasn't just one alien, though?" His voice bounced, too fast, already halfway to a new theory before the last one finished forming. "Like—okay—what if it was, like, a space horde bigger than we fought? Big, ugly, all teeth and laser guns—oh! Or a space worm! A big one! Like the ones in that movie with the sand—"

"Boomer," Brick cut in, eyes not leaving the monitor, "shut up."

That only slowed him down for a second. "You think he fought a time monster? He's got old-man beard now. What if he—"

The door hissed open.

Brick's body reacted before his thoughts did, spine somehow getting straighter, fingers tightening behind his back. Cecil entered like he always did—like the room had been waiting for him. Donald trailed two steps behind, posture ramrod and tablet in hand, like always.

"Vitals're stable. Recovery's ahead of schedule." Cecil's drawl dragged across the sterile air like sandpaper on tile. "He'll be awake by sundown."

Donald glanced up from his tablet. "Sir, Grayson family ETA under fifteen."

"Already cleared," Cecil replied, not looking at him. He was looking at the boys now. At Brick.

Brick didn't blink. "You should know that there's a mismatch in the dimensional signature. From the portal that returned him."

Cecil's brow twitched—barely. "You sure?"

"I watched the Salt Lake breach frame-by-frame. This one flickered."

Donald chimed in, still too upbeat. "Chromatic shift logged at entry. Harmonic profile skews… uh, more dynamic. Far more angular distortion across localized space."

Cecil glanced over. "Translation."

"Different kind of hole, sir. Natural rather than man-made."

"Mm."

Butch flicked another spark. "Cool. So we wait. Again."

"You don't wait," Cecil said, tone so flat it scraped. "You observe."

"And do what?" Butch asked, pacing now. "Take notes on how bad he got stomped? Bet he's not even gonna remember it."

"He'll remember," Cecil said.

Boomer was picking at the seam of his glove. "Is he gonna be mad?"

Brick's jaw clenched. "That he got beat? Probably."

Donald's voice stayed sunny. "Would you like access to the energy readings from the crater, Agent Brick?"

"Yes." He nearly flinched at how quickly the word left his mouth.

Cecil's gaze didn't leave him. "You think you're gonna solve it before we do?"

"I think I'm gonna try."

There was a pause. Long enough to feel like a test.

"Good," Cecil said. "Try hard."

The tablet beeped. Donald tapped it. "Sir, family's here."

Cecil turned to them fully now. "Last warning. No talking unless prompted. No games. No gags. No eye-lasers unless fired upon."

Butch gave him a salute that would've gotten someone punched in Mojo's camp. "Sir, yes, sir. Gag reflex disabled."

Cecil didn't blink. "And Butch—"

"Yeah?"

"If you throw their kid through another city bus again, I'm not covering for you."

Butch held back a snort. "…Understood."

Brick hadn't moved. The monitors beeped behind him, the fluorescent hum pressing against the back of his skull like a threat with bad manners. Omni-Man lay motionless in the center of the room, beard long, breath steady. Twelve hours since reentry. Fifty-three since the crater. Something broke him. That mattered.

If he'd known the truth earlier—if he'd known Invincible was his son—he might've held back.

Or at the every least, not start a fight in the first place.

Too late now.

The door hissed open and the Boys turned, all three heads moving in unison.

Debbie Grayson stepped through like she'd been waiting to burst, her hair tied back in a bun, low and tight. Her face was nervous, stressed and worried like she had held it back the whole ride and only now started to come apart. Her eyes hit the bed, locked there like she couldn't blink without losing ground.

She rushed over to the comatose superhero like nothing else in the room existed. Not the blinking tech, not the armed guards outside, not the three boys standing off to the side like static. Her hand trembled when it landed on the side of her husband's face.

"Nolan," she said as her fingers traced his jaw, careful, like it might break.

Mark followed slower, like he wanted to be smaller. Not that he was—guy was tall for sixteen, maybe seventeen. But his steps felt short, almost hesitant. His eyes jumped from the bed to the floor to Brick's team and back.

"Who—" he started, then froze up as he took in both the boys and his dad, confused by both in the same room. "What… happened?"

Brick raised an eyebrow as Butch shifted first, the Green Rowdyruff already moving. He pushed his weight off the wall, boots scraping against steel. "You're the guy from Baltimore," he said, eyes narrowing. "Invulnera—wait, no… You're Invinciboy."

Mark Grayson blinked, clearly frustrated at the name and seeing the boys again but fighting the urge to get angry as his eyes drifted back to his dad. "It's Invincible." The correction was quick but the tone wasn't sharp. More tired than pissed.

Butch grinned like he'd found a bruise to poke. "Sure. Invincible. 'Cause you look real un-breakable right now."

Boomer leaned in from the wall, eyes wide as if he was just now paying proper attention. "We broke him pretty good last time though, right?"

"Boomer," Brick warned.

Cecil was already in the room, strutting in as casually as a man who had seen more in a single hour than most people had in their entire life. Donald shadowed him, tablet already live, eyes skimming. Brick kept his spine straight, hands clasped behind his back. He could feel the tension roll off Debbie in waves. Mark just looked confused, tired, definitely out of his depth.

"Boys," Cecil drawled. "Why don't you let me handle this part?"

Debbie turned, not fully, just enough to see them. "Cecil, these boys…?"

Cecil's eyes didn't move. "They're called Trinity. Official superhuman GDA operatives who've been working with us for some time now. They recovered Nolan after he dropped out of a hole in space over Salt Lake."

Donald nodded, tone steady. "Nolan's stabilization was complete in twelve hours. Minimal intervention required. Strong recovery baseline."

Debbie's face went pale.

Mark blinked hard. "Wait, wait. He fell out of a what?"

"Dimensional rift," Cecil said flatly. "Big one. Same one he fell into while fighting some being. An alien that called himself Omnipotus. Real chatty. Clearly not all that bright."

Boomer snorted. "That's not even a cool name."

Butch folded his arms, eyes locked on the bed. "Did Dad win?"

Cecil didn't answer immediately. After a moment ot two, he spoke what was on his mind. "He's here. The other guy ain't."

Mark's face twisted like he was trying to do the math but the numbers kept changing. "But it's only been a day. He's got a beard."

Donald piped in again, reading off his tablet. "What you're seeing here are the effects of localized time dilation. Subjective timeline seems to indicate that several weeks passed for him during a twenty-four hour interval."

Brick tracked Mark's reaction, the way the older boy's face shifted, his shoulders tightening. The kid hadn't seen anything real yet.

"So Omni-Man's universal now?" Butch's question almost made Brick shake his head.

Cecil raised an eyebrow. "What in the hell does that even mean?"

Brick just pinched the bridge of his nose. "Butch. I told you to stop watching those powerscalers. They rot your brain."

"Nuh-uh. There's math."

Boomer grinned. "I like TikTok dancers."

Debbie turned and looked at them fully now, her eyes softer than Brick expected. She stepped forward and, before Brick could move or think or plan an exit, she wrapped her arms around all three of them. One motion.

Like they were hers to thank.

Like they were… kids.

"Thank you," she said, voice like gravity finally letting go. "Thank you so very much."

Brick locked up, the oldest Rowdyruff freezing in place like contact might shatter him.

Not that she was rough.

It wasn't that kind of hug. It was warm. Soft. Controlled, even. But it hit like a charge going off in his spine—arms wrapping around him, Butch, Boomer, all at once, like she could just do that, like it meant something she thought they'd understand.

He held position. Straight-backed. Hands locked behind him like he was still waiting on mission orders. He could feel Butch's shoulder twitch under the weight of it—fight impulse just barely held back. No fists yet. Just tension coiled like a spring under his jacket.

Boomer made a noise. Tiny, half-choked, half-startled. His hands hovered up and didn't know what to do. He looked at Brick. At Debbie. Back again. Like someone had swapped out gravity and forgotten to tell him.

Debbie let go.

No big speech. No dramatic pause. She just stepped back, turned, and returned to her husband's side like she hadn't just laid a hand on a live wire and survived.

Boomer leaned sideways. Whispered, way too loud, "Wait—was that… a mom hug?"

Brick didn't respond.

He couldn't move or think or feel anything about that without something breaking. He just watched her hand find Nolan's and linger like it was allowed.

Mark heard it, obviously. His head turned so fast it might've whiplashed, and the look on his face—yeah, no. Brick didn't want to deal with that right now.

Chapter Text

Brick had sectioned off the corner of their GDA quarters like it owed him rent. Scraps of stolen tech were laid out with surgical aggression—stripped wires, fractured crystal matrices, scorched paneling that still hummed with something alien if you got too close. He'd rewired one of the light fixtures to handle overvoltage from a Flaxan capacitor three hours ago. It was still flickering.

Cecil hadn't said anything yet, but the camera in the ceiling had started moving slower.

He leaned over the reinforced workbench, hands careful even when his mind wasn't, red eyes scanning the guts of a dimension-stabilizer module they'd ripped out of one of those yellow-masked cowards four days ago. Flaxans.

The name had been cracked open by Robot, but it didn't matter. Brick wasn't after semantics. He was after structure. Stability. A map out.

Boomer slid in like static, all fidget and aimless limbs, face lit up with boredom like it was contagious. "So—sooo… what'cha makin'? Is it a bomb? Or like, an anti-bomb? Ooh, is it alien Legos?"

"Back up," Brick muttered, voice flat and folded. "Don't breathe near it."

Naturally, Boomer leaned closer. Fingers twitching. Clear curiosity all over his face dragging him toward the edge of the table.

"What's this do? Wait—wait, no, this. This glowy thing. That looks important. Important usually means explodey, right?"

Brick didn't lift his head. "Dimensional anchor, I believe. Helps to stabilize their portal, I think. They have a bunch of them scattered around to keep the portal going strong on our end."

Boomer blinked. "Okay, cool, yeah—but like… could it play music? Space music? Maybe if I just—"

"Boomer." His name came out like a shot.

Too late.

Boomer's finger hovered just too close to a crystalline wedge—jagged, half-pulsing, like it remembered where it came from and hated being here. It lit up and gave off a feedback hum that rolled through the table like a threat.

"Okay!" Boomer yelped and flinched back. "No touch! No touch! Definitely not touching!"

Brick stood fast, eyes already tracing the glow's harmonics, pattern recognition searing into place. That energy—he knew that energy.

Before Brick could even open his mouth, the room flashed red.

Alarms flared and those same red lights began to spin. Somewhere far off, Cecil's voice slithered through the intercom like it had teeth.

"TEAM TRINITY to Baltimore. Dimensional breach. Not a drill."

Boomer turned, mouth open as his eyes focused on Brick. "Should I get—?"

"Get Butch. Now."

Three streaks tore the air, carving color through clouds. Red. Green. Blue. No grace, no theatrics—just speed weaponized until the wind peeled sideways and left them deaf to everything but pressure.

Baltimore below them. Loud already. Sirens, panic, engines failing to flee fast enough. Brick didn't hear it. He was already running scenarios. Every angle. Every variable. Every mistake they hadn't made yet.

"So," Butch yelled, voice riding the wind like it was begging for a fight, "we smashing the same dudes or new ones?"

Brick locked eyes forward. "Same species. Flaxans."

Butch scoffed. "Dumb name."

"You asked."

"I didn't ask for a vocab quiz."

"Shut." Brick clicked his tongue. "Up."

"Wait, wait, wait," Boomer chimed in, the blue Rowdyruff floating fully upside-down and sideways relative to their axis. "Those green guys from last week that kept crumbling like old cereal before they went running?"

"They weren't crumbling," Brick snapped, "they were aging. Like flies. Their timeflow's compressed here and that's kinda hard to deal with in real-time. Even despite the age, it was making them sick. What looks like one day for us, has to be two years for them. Do the math."

Boomer whistled low. "Dang. So like… they've had a whole high school career since we last kicked their butts?"

Brcik rolled his eyes at his little brother's lacking skill in anything mathematical. "More like a decade, Boom-Boom."

The blond tapped his chin. "…so more like, marriage, kids, divorce?"

Butch grinned. "Midlife crisis invasion, huh? Hope they brought sports cars."

They broke cloud cover. Brick's stomach turned—not from the drop, but from the skyline.

Baltimore was boiling. The whole city wasn't on fire. Not yet, not even close to it with only one block invaded. But Brick had no doubt that it would be soon.

Becuase dead center in the plaza: the portal.

Not a fracture, a half circle even more massive than the one from a few days ago, and pouring out an army even bigger.

Flaxans poured through the thing, ready for war. Each one of them had bigger weapons, better armor. Bikes slicing through the air like knives. Tanks that floated forward over the ground intent on destroying all in their path with guns that charged up menacingly. Drones flickering in and out of visibility. too. They'd learned.

The Boys landed hard—triangular formation, muscle memory locking them in place. Brick hit pavement and rolled his vision into microspectrum immediately, scanning cell degradation, heat loss, suit weave.

"…they've adapted," he muttered. "They're not aging anymore."

"Dumbasses look the same to me," Butch said, stretching his neck until it cracked.

"No cellular decay," Brick contradicted. "They're anchored now. They're not burning out."

Butch grinned, no real humor in it. "So they'll last longer in a fight? Good."

Baltimore had teeth again. They were back in it before Brick even recalculated.

The sky above the city rippled. Pried open. Portal light shearing out over buildings like a sick second sunrise, red and mean, as Flaxans swarmed through like they remembered everything.

And this time, they'd come to finish it.

Boomer was already talking, voice clipped with nerves. "There's way more now. Like, way more more. Like I don't think they fit in there."

Brick didn't answer. Too busy watching the commander spot them—tall, armored, mouth-plate twitching in something that looked close enough to a snarl. One barked order, and the squad fell in behind it, weapons spinning up with shrieking blue cores.

"Split!"

They broke formation. Brick veered low, skimming heat off broken asphalt. Butch peeled hard right, plowing through a hoverbike mid-turn and sending the rider flipping into a wall. Boomer whipped vertical, lightning tracing behind him like nerves misfiring in the sky.

Second breach cracked open ten blocks east—ripped out of thin air with a stomach-sick pop. New squad pouring through before Brick could reroute.

"They're flanking," he muttered. "Boomer—east! Now!"

"Got it!" Boomer peeled off, trailing static.

Brick caught a pulse cannon out of the corner of his eye, pivoted midair, and scorched it dead with heat vision. Impact chewed concrete behind him. A Flaxan slammed into his flank and Brick twisted midair, grabbed its arm, bent it backward until something broke, then flung it at a cluster of its own.

A shockwave hit from his right two seconds later—Mark dropping in too fast, landing like a bomb. Brick's vision snapped white from the blast.

"Hey!" Mark shouted, already moving, already punching. "Looks like you guys started early!"

Brick didn't look. "You're late." His voice was iron. "And still calling yourself Invulnerable?"

"It's Invincible!"

Eve dropped behind them, barely slowing, shields flaring as she caught a falling civilian and redirected debris with a flick. "Invincible. Less talking, more punching."

"Right! On it!"

Flaxan tanks shifted forward. Brick burned through one—heat vision cutting along the seam—then moved again before the explosion could blind him. Eve passed overhead, painting the air with glowing platforms. Civilians scrambled up and vanished into rooftops. Rex flung a cluster of charges, only half of them landing clean.

"C'mon, did none of y'all pack armor-piercing this time?"

"They adapted," Brick snapped. "Shield harmonics are different."

"Oh good, smart aliens." Rex huffed. "Love that for us."

Butch slammed down next to Brick like a hammer, shoulder-checking a Flaxan hard enough to fold it around a car. "Where's more?"

"Everywhere."

Boomer dropped into a skid beside them, crackling with loose lightning. "They're learning from each other now. It's like… like they have playbooks."

Brick gritted his teeth. "Good. Makes 'em predictable."

Robot buzzed in overhead, calm and clinical. "Confirming evolved pattern recognition and adaptive countermeasures. They've trained for us."

"Let's untrain them."

Brick torched two more tanks with a belch of fire that engulfed them both and moved on without a moment to waste. Boomer flared an EMP burst that shut down three drones. Butch grabbed one of the shield generators and ripped it out of the ground, smashing it into a Flaxan squad so hard the street cratered.

Rex and Butch were now side by side, trading punches, blasts, and insults.

"That's three!"

"I just took out five, you jackass!"

"Yeah, and one of 'em was already bleeding!"

"Still counts!"

Eve created a launch ramp midair and Boomer launched off it, flipping upside-down mid-jump, tossing a lightning bolt through the viewport of a tank mid-glide, the alien weapons platform blowing up like the world's biggest firework.

Kate's clones blurred through the mess, grabbing kids, elders, and everyone else too slow to get out of the way in time while Robot tracked structural collapse zones in real time.

And then—flash.

A blast arced from the commander, precise and screaming through the air. "Aaaaaaaah!" The red blast shot Eve in the back mid-air, and all her constructs buckled and gave way as she dropped like a marionette with its strings cut.

Mark saw it.

Everything in him changed shape.

Brick felt it like a second sun behind him, the raw force rippling like a shockwave. Mark hit the Flaxan that fired, and the Flaxan along with the three behind it… disappeared. Not pulverized.

Not pulped.

Not broken. Gone.

Butch blinked from across the plaza. "Yo, Boomer."

"Yeah?"

"He fights better when he's mad. Like you."

"What?" Boomer pulled a face.

Butch rolled his eyes and slapped his arm back, fist cracking into an alien face in a backhand with enough power to send its head flying off and into a building like a bullet. "Like you!"

Mark's knuckles were still dripping when Brick clocked the shift.

Not the gore.

That was background noise—pink splash, fractured torso, nerves catching fire in air. The Flaxan hadn't died so much as deatomized, going from biology to pretty much just chemistry and physics so fast it hadn't even registered to the green-skinned invader.

It was the power spike that hooked him.

Brick didn't flinch, didn't comment. The Red Rowdyruff just logged it. Rage-triggered strength multipliers. Emotional stimuli: Eve. Emotional state: protective, escalating. Useful.

But the real intel was lower and not Mark at all. No, it was wrist-leve and on the alien Mark just blasted apart with the shockwave from his punchl.

Bracelets. Clearly not decorative, considering they were standard issue. Not status-based or role-based as every alien had one. Uniform now, but not previously.

And now? Glitching.

Cracks spidered through the crystalline cores like sweat fractures under stress. One soldier's started pulsing arrhythmically. Another's sparked.

Gotcha.

Brick tapped his earpiece. "Boomer. Sonic. Tight frequency, wide dispersal. Not a scream—resonance. Stay centered, draw them in."

Boomer froze mid-hover, blinked, then nodded hard and zipped thirty feet up and out, centering himself like he was bracing for a trust fall. Deep inhale. Then—

The shriek that came out wasn't even loud.

It hurt. Clean, high, sharp enough to make bones hum. Flaxans twitched. Their gauntlets twitched harder. The sound slashed through their stabilizers like it was custom-built to shatter.

And Brick knew it was.

He'd guessed the harmonic instability. Boomer just proved it.

Bracelets started failing. One soldier aged a year in half a second—wrinkles folding into deeper cracks, posture collapsing in real-time. Another's fingers snapped inward like old twigs. Someone screamed. A third Flaxan clawed at his own wrist, then dropped, bones liquefying before impact.

It was clean. It was fast.

It was awful.

They broke ranks. Ran for the portals like they knew what was waiting on the other side might still be better than this.

Brick didn't watch. He moved.

Slipped through the holes in the fight like water—too fast for crossfire, too small for notice. The leader of the team grabbed a still-glowing shard from the busted tank. A second later, he yanked a cracked stabilizer off a twitching corpse. A half-second after, deft hands pried loose a bracket still linked to half a forearm.

And immediately pocketed the only intact one without a pause.

The last portal collapsed with a noise like a collapsing lung—one final implosion, tight and surgical. The silence hit harder than the blast. Streets were still smoking. Concrete peeled open like fruit skin. Air sharp with heat-warped ozone.

Sirens on the edge of things.

Brick's blond little brother landed near Eve, dropping to the ground and skidding to a stop as the already cracked ground gave way under his impact. "Yo, pink lady! You good? You took a raw hit back there."

Atom Eve sat up slow, the matter manipulator breathing heavy and clearly tilted, if not outright tired. "Atom Eve, actually. And yeah. I'll live."

Boomer scratched his head. "Yeah okay, Atom's cooler. Kinda science-y. Better than Invulnerable, right?"

"Invincible," Eve corrected, grinning anyway.

"Right. That one."

Across the wrecked street, Butch was replaying his own greatest hits at Rex like he was on commentary. "Then I decked that big one—like boom, right in the gut. He skipped like a rock."

Rex crossed his arms, not quite unimpressed. "Yeah? My chain blast took out a whole cluster."

"Cluster of what, whiners?" Butch smirked. "You blinked and missed mine. Shoulda filmed it." The bragging didn't even sound hostile.

Brick didn't join in.

He was crouched near what used to be a Flaxan sergeant, the red-eyed Rowdyruff extracting a last chip from a shattered wrist device. Brick turned it over once in his fingers.

Robot walked over without a sound, which was impressive for a quarter-ton hunk of metal. He just appeared beside him like a math problem solved itself.

"Your sonic strategy was effective." His voice carried no weight, but the sentence landed with surgical precision. "You exploited the harmonic vulnerability of their stabilizers."

Brick didn't look up. "Yeah."

"A well-executed improvisation. Efficient."

Brick pocketed the chip.

Robot's head tilted two degrees. "Your scientific aptitude continues to exceed age expectations."

"Don't care."

"You should. Recognition ensures future autonomy."

Brick finally looked at him. Just a flick of red eyes. "If I did anything for recognition, you'd know it."

Robot's sensors scanned him top to boots and paused, almost imperceptibly, on the intact bracelet tucked under Brick's jacket line.

He said nothing... which kinda said a lot on its own.

Brick rose to his full height, and cleared his throat.

"Indeed." Robot's voice didn't change. "This conversation was interesting, though."

"Sure."

Mark's wrist buzzed. His face shifted.

"I gotta go," he said to Eve. "My dad—he's awake."

And right on cue, Cecil's voice crackled into the Boys' comms like molasses over broken glass.

"Trinity. Report back to the medical wing. Now."

Brick turned and saw both his brothers already looking at him, waiting for his order.

He nodded once. "Let's move."

Three tri-colored bursts of light shot off into the Baltimore skyline.

Robot didn't move.

But his sensors stayed locked on Brick's pocket.

He could already hear one of the machines start beeping faster as they entered the GDA medbay. Donald's voice cut in as the three boys flashed into the room, Mark already there a good second or two before them . "Sir, spike in neural activity. Respiration's syncing."

Butch grunted. "Plain English, Don."

"He's waking up."

Debbie surged forward again, both hands on her husband's arm now. "Nolan? Hey. It's me. I'm here."

His eyes opened like it hurt, slow and flickering. "Debbie." He sat up as he said it, with only a slight groan.

"Hold," Cecil said, tone dull and low.

"I'm fine." Nolan's eyes weren't on Debbie anymore. Instead, they moved around to lock onto them. "You three."

Not a question.

Brick nodded. "Engaged post-breach. Extracted from rift."

Nolan studied them with new interest, his gaze lingering on Brick. There was something calculating in that look, an assessment that went beyond simple gratitude. Brick met his eyes steadily, refusing to be intimidated despite knowing the vast power difference between them.

"The Rowdyruff Boys, correct?" Omni-Man asked.

"Trinity," Cecil corrected quickly. "Their official designation is Trinity."

Butch snorted. "Still stupid."

Nolan didn't smile, but something shifted in his eyes. "You helped me. That's no small feat."

Boomer puffed up like a balloon, voice cracking, "You were—uh—yeah, you're like, super heavy, dude. Like, not in a bad way, just in a weird way, you know? Muscle-mass heavy. It's a compliment."

Butch let out a cough that sounded like idiot.

Brick didn't look at either of them. "Mission completed successfully."

Cecil gave the nod. Medical stepped in. Brick caught the movement before the order was spoken.

"Let's give them the room," Cecil said. "Let him breathe."

They turned. Quiet, but not orderly, only to stop as Debbie's voice landed behind them.

"Boys?"

They stopped.

She was still watching them, eyes tired but clear. "Why don't you come by sometime? For dinner. We owe you at least that much."

Dinner. Dinner. Brick didn't know what to do with that. They'd never sat around a table for a meal—not with Mojo, who was always too busy with schemes, and certainly not with HIM, whose realm didn't exactly feature kitchen tables.

"Wait—wait, like… actual dinner?" Boomer blinked as he blond's voice cracked mid-sentence, shot up again on the last syllable. "Like with... um, like with the mashed potatoes and spaghetti and meatloaf? Like, do people still eat those?"

Butch shot his brother a look, holding back a laugh and doing a pretty good job at that, honestly. "Yeah, Boom. People still eat spaghetti."

"Ma'am," Brick said finally, voice flat as he tried not to look at the Grayson woman's soft eyes. "We have scheduled duties."

Debbie's smile didn't waver. "The offer's open. And it's Debbie, not ma'am. You're not soldiers."

Brick nodded once and immediately turned on his heel, not trusting himself to say anything else as he started walking. As expected, the Boys followed with him.

Behind him, he felt it again—eyes. He turned his head just slightly and yeah. Nolan. Omni-Man. Watching him. Not casual. Not grateful. Not soft. Measuring. Assessing. Like a man memorizing weak points in armor he might have to break later.

Brick met the gaze. Didn't drop it.

Didn't win either.

He turned back.

Boomer, still twitchy with emotional aftershocks, jogged up beside him. "She said dinner. Like, for real. I mean, do you think she knows how weird that sounds? Is it a trap? What do people do at dinner? Do we have to talk?"

Butch grunted. "It's fake. Probably just PR. Get the freak trio in front of a camera and go 'look, they're normal, they eat spaghetti.'"

"Spaghetti would be dope though," Boomer muttered.

Brick exhaled slowly, clipped. "We stay sharp. Especially around him."

"What?" Boomer frowned. "But he seemed chill. Big guy, good hair. Woke up and didn't start punching anybody. That's a win, right?"

Brick shook his head once. "He clocked us. Before his vitals stabilized, he already knew who we were. Where we stood. What we could do. That's not normal. That's trained. And that smile wasn't thanks. It was calculation."

Boomer stopped bouncing. Butch didn't say anything, which was louder.

They moved through the GDA corridor—lights humming overhead, sterile white giving way to darker blues as night cycle engaged. No sound except their footsteps and Boomer breathing too loud. Brick didn't tell him to stop.

His brain spun sideways, replaying the hug, the tone of voice, the dinner—like that was something kids like them were supposed to be offered without contingency clauses.

This dimension was becoming more complicated by the day.

Chapter Text

Mojave heat warped the air and made everything look like it was almost underwater, that was just an unfortunate fact of the place. Miles of dead sand stretched under a bright blue sky that didn't blink and a sun that refused to waver for even a second. The GDA's outpost clung to a rock formation half a mile off, watching like a bunker that wanted plausible deniability. They'd marked the combat zone with nothing but scars—craters, blackened ground, and bone-dry silence. Nothing lived out here anymore.

Definitely not after the Solar Flayer incident of '07.

Too many bodies. Cecil Stedman thought to himself. And at the same time, not enoigh to give to the families.

One of the few villains the Guardians never caught and the GDA couldn't track, the tricky bastard.

Inside the main tent, the air conditioning hummed like it was scared. Monitors flickered with heat-distorted feeds. Every angle locked on the three streaks ripping the desert apart.

Cecil stood motionless. Back straight, arms behind, dead quiet.

Donald fidgeted with the interface again, posture stiff. "Power readings are… still climbing, sir. Butch in particular. Up another twelve percent since the last run against the Flaxans."

Cecil didn't turn. "Mmh. Green one's angry."

"Yes, sir." Donald checked the secondary display. "And their styles are separating more distinctly now. Dr. Rosenthal thinks it's compensatory—similar power sets pushing divergent tactics."

Cecil's eyes narrowed just slightly. "You're dancing around it."

Donald hesitated, the man swallowing a mouthful of what Cecil knew to be a special GDA-created nano-solvent that mimicked human saliva perfectly. "Puberty, sir."

The GDA director let out a long-suffering sigh. "Of course."

---

Three streaks blurred low across the sand, then split. Brick hooked hard left. Boomer kicked into a rolling ascent. Butch? Butch went down.

He slammed into the ground like he hated it. Sand exploded skyward, a geyser of grit and heat. Brick pivoted mid-flight, breath already syncing to the pattern he'd mapped out—

Two seconds. Butch rose as the pressure spiked, exactly like Brick expected he would. He lunged in at the only angle he knew: wide, his lead leg tilted—left side open.

Brick dove.

His elbow clipped Butch in the ribs, and redirected his momentum into a roll as he hit the ground bursting back up. Butch snarled—loud—fists flaring green as he twisted and shot forward toward his older brother, already swinging.

Brick didn't block. He vanished sideways, sliding across packed dust and carving a half-circle before Butch's follow-through detonated behind him.

Another crater to pockmark the half-blackened ground.

Boomer corkscrewed in from overhead, laughter trailing like static.

"HEY BRICKY—"

Brick caught the ankle mid-flip without even turning around to look. Predictable. So fast that he knew the GDA's high-speed cameras would barely catch a red-blue blur, Brick twisted it and slammed down. Boomer let out a yelp that was far more surprise than pain as he hit the ground hard and headfirst and bounced like one of those cheap rubber balls, tumbling ass-over-teeth right into Butch's next charge.

They collided. Sand thundered like the world's stupidest rainstorm.

Brick didn't give them a second to catch their breath.

He launched forward, footsteps carving triangles in the ground. Feints, redirections, misdirection built into his movement. Every strike landed somewhere soft—armpit, neck, under the ribs.

All of it controlled. Measured. Sharp. There was a reason he was the leader and it wasn't just because he was the oldest and the smartest and the only one who knew what a plan was other than "punch it" or "blast it". He was the leader because both of his brothers couldn't beat his ass in a fight if their lives depended on it.

He wasn't the strongest.

No, he darted back, narrowly escaping an angry hammer fist from his greenest brother that cracked the desert floor open. That was all Butch.

He also wasn't the fastest.

Boomer came flying back with a spinning heel-kick that might've looked cool if it had any aim. No, that was all Boomer Brick sidestepped and, flashing Boomer a smirk that he saw in his accelerated vision, once again twisted Boomer's foot, used the momentum, and full-force flung him into Butch—again.

This time Butch caught him. And suplexed him.

Boomer hit like a firework, face-first into the sand, groaning from the tag-team combo and opened his mouth wider to try and say something.

Butch didn't wait. Scaled the nearest boulder pile like a pissed-off squirrel. At the top of his lungs, Butch yelled something wordless, feral (completely ignoring the fact that yelling at super-speed only made it harder to understand you without perfect control of your vocal chords) and leapt—full elbow-drop from thirty feet.

Butch landed shoulder-deep in a brand new crater, giggling like a lunatic. "WORTH IT."

Boomer flipped up from the sand with a groan. "I think I bit a scorpion."

"You'd taste it, idiot."

"Would you taste it?"

Brick said nothing. His breath was even, but his pulse was spiking. He adjusted his stance, weight shifting, realigned posture. No, he didn't have the most powers and no, he wasn't naturally the best when it came to fighting either.

That was, once again, Boomer and Butch.

Boomer sprang again—this time a low flip, foot-first, spin-kick blurring toward Brick's head.

For the third time in twice as many seconds, Brick caught the knee and rolled his eyes as he twisted under it, before delivering a hard shoulder check to his little brother's undefended torso. Boomer grunted, flipped again mid-air, landed sideways and kicked up sand as cover. A fraction of a second later, he surged back in—punches this time, fast ones. One hundred in two seconds.

Brick blocked ninety-nine The one-hundredth hit his jaw.

He didn't flinch, just blinking as he stepped in and tapped Boomer in the solar plexus, the blow fast and controlled. Never mind that it was strong enough to shatter a small hill, that was just the cherry on top.

"Ow." Boomer dropped.

No, the reason he was leader was the simple fact...

Butch, meanwhile, wasn't waiting. He launched again, this time with both fists up like a barbarian from a side-scroller.

Brick didn't move.

Right before impact, Brick dropped. Butch overshot, hit air, landed in a skid that turned into a roll, turned into a sprint right back into Brick's side—

Fist caught him. Diagonal jab. Made Butch stagger, but not fall.

Boomer yelled something incoherent and cartwheeled into both of them, legs wide.

Brick ducked.

Butch didn't.

The impact sent them flying in opposite directions. Butch flipped twice, skidded, then sat up laughing.

"HAHA!"

... the simple fact that he was the only Rowdyruff that paid attention.

---

Cecil hadn't blinked in a good three minutes.

Both his eyes were fixed to the monitor wall, like it held the cure for quick hair loss and age reversal, his fingers folded just low enough that it seemed like he was almost holding himself back from jumping into the tussle in front of him. The Boys were mid-spar, sand flying in pulsed detonations across half a klick of desert floor—red, green, and blue blurs moving and sounding like the best part of Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture.

Behind him, Donald adjusted the readouts like they were going to give him better news if he just squinted right.

"Sir, about the Guardians…"

Cecil didn't turn. "What about 'em." Cold words for the World's Greatest Heroes, especially considering they were dead, Cecil would easily admit that much, but he had to focus on the other eight billion people still living and the three in front of him were pretty much his best bet at keeping the world a-turning.

"The media... the media embargo's cracking, sir," Donald answered, once again almost stunning Cecil with how human someone that was more filament than flesh could sound. "We've had seventeen press hits in the last hour. If one more outlet calls from New York, I—"

"I'm aware."

Donald hesitated, lips tight. "Should I prep the statement, sir?"

"It's already been prepped," Cecil answered back. "Check my private files you think I don't know you look at. It should be marked 'Obit'. Push it at five."

Cecil could almost hear Donald blink from behind his glasses as he took in everything his superior just said. "S-sir, that's in four hours."

"Exactly," Cecil said with a scoff that had some humor to it. "Evening cycles'll clear, we'll own prime time."

Donald thumbed his tablet, then looked up again. "And if they want the truth?"

Cecil exhaled through his nose. "They'll get what we give."

Onscreen, Butch clotheslined Boomer mid-spin. Dust and static rippled across camera three.

Donald swallowed. "And them?"

"Push 'em harder."

"They're kids, sir."

Cecil's voice didn't rise. Didn't have to. "And they'll be kids after we push them as hard as they can go. But they'll be kids on a living planet, Donald."

The feed showed Brick pivoting under Butch's elbow, then ramming a palm into his solar plexus like a pressure-release valve. Butch grunted. Boomer crashed into the same spot two seconds later.

Cecil's jaw flexed, voice still low. "They're the line now. Fight Force is a bunch of pretentious pricks looking to be in front of the camera. Disaster Force is no better, and most of our in-house contractors couldn't kick it in the big leagues if we pumped them full of roids and dumped them in radioactive waste." Cecil shook his head. "They're our prime time. Until we find ourselves a second set. And even then—"

Cecil paused to watch Butch leap into the air off a boulder and came down elbow-first, his green trail right behind him. The crater spiked seismographs in three outposts.

"—the second won't be better than these tiny little disasters. We won't be that lucky.."

Donald made a noise that wanted to be a protest and landed as a nod.

"Besides," Cecil murmured, "they've seen worse."

"How do you—"

"Just a hunch, Donald." Director Stedman nodded to himself. "Just a hunch."

---

Brick pivoted as Boomer rushed him again. Feet skating over superheated grit, he tracked his brother's wind-up, waited for the tell. There. Wrist angle wrong. Again.

"Third combo's soft," he said flatly.

Boomer flinched. "It's not!"

It was. He overcommitted and Brick twisted in, redirecting him straight into Butch's path.

"Tag," Butch barked, and hit them both like a sledge.

All three skidded, tumbling across desert until dust swallowed the world. Brick hit first, flipped, rolled, landed clean.

"Again."

He heard Butch laughing before he saw him. "Why fix what's not broke?"

"Because you're dumb and I'm tired of fixing your mistakes."

Butch jerked up, teeth gritted. "What's that 'sposed to mean?"

Brick raised an eyebrow. "You're not that dumb to be asking me that."

Boomer bounced on his heels, clearly uncaring of Brick's taunts. "Wanna race to that mesa?"

They didn't get a response off. The comms chirped in unison.

Cecil, low and clipped: "Trinity. Command. Now."

Everything went still. No breath. No movement. Then Brick turned.

"Move."

Three sonic ruptures cracked the world apart. They hit the outpost ground like meteors.

The tent flaps fluttered. Three boys, dirt-streaked and still sparking ozone, stood sharp and silent.

Brick stepped forward. "Flaxans?"

Cecil nodded. "Flaxans."

Brick's jaw locked. "Rowdyruffs. Roll out."

Butch snorted. "Seriously?"

Boomer lit up. "That was sick."

"Shut up," Brick muttered, and launched.

The ground didn't just crack. It cratered.

Cecil watched the trails burn across the sky. "We ever figure out why they fly like that?"

Donald checked notes. "Uh. No, sir."

"Figured."

---

Baltimore again, a full week after the last attack. Different day. Worse mess.

The Flaxans weren't stupid. Not anymore. Power armor had clearly been handed out like candy. Super-guns and personal force-fields were all the rage in the Flaxan army now apparently. And the personal shield walls?

Well, those looked tough enough to take a punch.

Clearly, they'd adapted.

Brick clocked the threat matrix in under three seconds.

"Boomer, east. Butch, west. I'll center."

They scattered.

Boomer intercepted a bolt meant for a family sprinting between debris. It caught him in the ribs and sent him spiraling. He came up wheezing.

"Okay—ow. That actually hurt."

Butch elbowed a Flaxan into a wall and followed with a knee that cracked reinforced plating. "Wait, really?"

"Kinda?"

Brick's voice cut sharp across their comms. "Less commentary. More body count."

Butch grinned and shattered someone's helmet with an uppercut. "I am multitasking."

It was kind of annoying how persistent these green bastards were.

Scratch that, it was very annoying.

Extremely angry-making, is what Boomer might have said.

Hell, the skyline wasn't even all the way rebuilt from last time and the Flaxans came back like roaches that'd learned to wear steel. Power armor, heavy suits, smarter spacing. Layered the streets with formation drills and shock tactics that looked like they'd actually been training this time. Like someone told them the third try's the charm and made sure they brought their A-Game.

Boomer bounced off a light post—bent it in half with his ribs, yelped, kicked it down mid-spin like that made it better. "Cheese and rice, they do hit way harder now! Ow! Ow—Butch, watch your left!"

Butch didn't watch his left. He ate it, grunted, and grabbed the guy who'd tagged him by the arm, spun him like a hammer throw, and launched him through the third floor of a parking garage.

Brick didn't even have to check to know his armor's shields failed after the first two walls he went through and splattered him inside it by the fifth.

"Stop whining," he barked, ducking under a blast that vaporized part of the sidewalk. "You sound like a microwave."

Boomer zapped the guy who shot it with a chainbolt that fried three others. "A microwave? What does that even—?!"

Brick didn't answer. He was too busy mapping lines of fire, marking suit types by glow pattern, counting drain lag on their shields. Forty-two up, six downed, two recovering. That one with the dual shoulder cannons had a three-beat reload, and the one tracking Rex had a weak point at the collar seam. They weren't just armored. They were synced. Controlled. This wasn't desperation—it was war prep.

And it was working.

Eve was getting pushed back even with her best tricks. Asphalt spikes, density traps, suit sabotage—she buried five in concrete, only for seven more to blast out behind her. Air too thick to breathe. Ground too soft to run. Everything she tried felt like it was buying time instead of stopping anything.

Rex detonated another street corner. His new throws were meaner, louder—more kinetic force behind them now, like someone finally let him off the leash—but every time he cleared a space, another Flaxan filled it. Even as he let out an explosion that Brick knew would have rocked him a little, even more Flaxans just poured out of the portal to take their place.

"Come on," Rex yelled, hurling a glowing fastball that splashed fire across a shield wall. "How many of these assholes are there?!"

"Too many," Dupli-Kate muttered, splitting again mid-leap to haul civilians out from a collapsing diner.

Brick gritted his teeth. "We need to split their front. They're herding us."

"Working on it!" Boomer shot back, then got tackled out of the sky by a white-armored Flaxan, their power armor not a joke. The tackle shook windows and Brick lost visual for three seconds. Boomer came back up with a nosebleed and a grunt, static-crackling through the comms as he tore the head off the belligerent Flaxan, the thing clearly not smart enough to keep his distance from a pissed Boomer Mojo. "Okay, okay, yeah—they're mad this time! They remember us!"

"Good," Butch muttered, leveling a building with a single slam. "Let 'em be scared."

Brick saw it before Mark did. Ten feet tall, bulkier than the rest, a red cape around it's shoulders, armor customized like a grudge—left side heavier, counterweighted for balance. Red eyes widened as he recognized this one, the one Invincible disarmed for daring to get in his way during one of his rages last figth.

It roared and charged. Mark didn't dodge fast enough.

Brick's stomach dropped.

Invincible got hammered into the pavement. Kept trying to get up. Got stomped. Hammered again. That power armor was designed for him—counterpressure plating, kinetic thrusters, reinforced servos for power-brawling. And Mark was losing.

"Invincible" Eve shouted, voice strained. Her blast fizzled off the giant's shoulder. Useless.

"Invincible—get outta there!" Kate snapped, breaking formation.

And then the air shifted.

The Flaxan stopped mid-swing, the alien in the massive armor basically keel-hauled off Invincible and tossed up into the air, swinging wildly like a five year old held by his collar.

Only in this case it was his cape.

Brick's gaze jerked upward. Another red cape, this one without white fur trim, and a chest that was the size of a car's grill.

The strongest superhero on the planet hovered over his downded son like a storm cloud with a mustache. He didn't look anywhere else or at anyone else when he spoke. "You alright, Mark?"

Mark coughed, pulling himself to his feet. "Y-yeah. I think so."

"Lati M'oi!"

Then came the barrage. Every Flaxan in visual range opened fire at the command from the struggling alien. White-hot plasma lit the skyline as each and every blast hit Omni-Man's figure.

Nolan didn't flinch. The beams bounced. His cape didn't even wrinkle.

Brick's eyes could only widen. HOW.

"My turn."

And then the sky ripped.

He moved like gravity was a rumor. Flaxans folded in half, broke against buildings, vanished in blood sprays. One got dragged through four floors of a hotel. Another got torn from its armor and tossed into the harbor like a skipping stone.

Butch exhaled. "Okay, maybe he is universal."

Brick didn't answer. Just breathed once, shallow, and turned back to the map in his head. Flank pressure easing. Fewer targets in motion. Time to press again.

"Back to it," he muttered.

Together, they moved. Brick took the left. Butch broke through center. Boomer strafed the far side with lightning arcs and reckless speed. They didn't win—they swept. Until the Flaxans turned, finally, and bolted for the portal like it was home and fire and all they had left.

Omni-Man followed them in.

Mark shouted after him, "Dad!"

Rex blinked. "Wait—Omni-Man's your dad?!"

Brick stepped out of the GDA showers with a towel draped like a cape and hair still dripping into his eyes. This was not a good fight. They hadn't won this one.

No, Omni-Man had won this.

And he hated that for them.

For himself.

Not like his brothers gave a shit. They were gonna get a treat anyway.

He grit his teeth. Hell, he wasn't even sure why it bothered him so much. He didn't even want to stay here. This whole thing was just a way to keep his brothers occupied while he found them a way home, but despite that simple fact, it didn't change that he hated not winning every challenge Cecil put in front of them.

It made no sense. He knew Cecil was using them like weapons, and doing everything short of training them like dogs. He could pinpoint all the psychological tricks the old man was using. Hell, he wasn't giving them anything The Boys couldn't just take.

Yet, it was still working. They were aligning their goals with the GDA. Even the jokes Boomer made weren't all that fake when it came to serving his country, and again Brick wanted to melt Donald's circuits for talking to his little brother too much. Butch was loving all the opportunities Cecil gave them to punch new people and things and it was obvious how psyched he was, declaring every other misison the "coolest thing ever".

And then there was him, the leader.

He couldn't help it too. He wanted to prove himself to Cecil. Every failed mission paremeter was a black mark on Cecil's mental scorecard of him and he just couldn't stand the thought of that.

Brick walked out of the bathroom proper, the last thought spinning around in his head for a few seconds before another one rose up.

...Do I have daddy issues?

"Agent Mojo."

His head snapped up and, as if summoned by his thoughts, Cecil waited at the corner of his room like a ghost that paid rent.

"We should talk."

Brick didn't blink. "Talk about what?"

The man didn't shift.

"About where you really come from."

Chapter Text

Cecil's office smelled like old war and colder secrets. Steel walls, lightless corners, glass that didn't reflect. Brick could tell with an idle look around the place that Cecil didn't allow any surveillance in here.

Which meant there was nothing keeping him from speaking the truth but his own choice.

No cameras, no recorders, just the three of them and the director.

They didn't sit. Brick stood center, arms loose but his stance set—feet apart, weight even, not relaxed. Boomer hovered on the left, tugging at the corner of his uniform like it might unravel if he didn't keep an eye on it. Butch leaned into the right side like the wall might fight him first—shoulders cocked back, chin lifted, one foot tapping like it was daring the floor to say something.

Across from them, Cecil didn't move, the man staring at each of them in turn.

"I been real patient with you boys," Cecil said finally, voice low, molasses slow, like he was halfway through a thought he didn't need help finishing. "Three months now. World about to bury it's golden team of heroes. And guess who's next in line."

Brick didn't blink. "We figured."

Cecil's gaze sharpened, but not at the words—at the tone, not but cautious but calculating, like he wanted to make sure of something. "That so? Then let's skip the little song and dance and make one thing clear. We're on a timetable right now. At least once a year, something happens that puts our little blue ball at risk of being cracked in half. Above everything else, I need to know if I can trust you."

Butch met the director's words with a shrug. "Yeah, okay."

Boomer chimed in as fast as usual, already grinning wide and clear. "Totally."

Brick's jaw tightened. "That depends on what you're asking."

"I'm asking," Cecil leaned forward, fingertips steepled, voice cool enough to frost over, "where you really come from."

Boomer's head tilted. "Oh. Like—origin story stuff?"

Butch grinned. "You want the tragic flashback or the epic one?"

Brick let out a breath through his nose. "Alright. But you're not gonna like it."

"Try me."

A red-eyed glance from Brick locked onto his brothers. Blue and green ringed eyes stared back at him, silent and focused. They didn't need to nod.

"We're not from here," Brick said, voice starting off slow with what he already knew Cecil was aware of. "We're from another Earth. Another dimension. One with different rules."

"Tell me something I don't know, Brick." Cecil's tone didn't change as he raised an eyebrow at the softball the Red Rowdyruff threw his way. "That much we figured. You came in surfing a dimensional rupture and smashed into the Atlantic like it owed you money."

Butch's eyebrows shot up. "Wait, so you knew?"

Brick rolled his eyes. "Of course he knew. He probably knew what color boxers I had on the second we landed."

"Red," Cecil said without blinking.

Boomer blinked. "Wait, seriously?"

Cecil smiled just enough to make it a threat. "Relax, son. Lucky guess."

Boomer hesitated. "You're not... mad we didn't tell you?"

Cecil's expression didn't soften, but the edge dulled. "Mad? Are you joking? On the list of things I have to be mad about, you three keeping secrets doesn't even register. I'm in the business of cleaning up messes, not whining about how they got made. What I am curious about is what you've been working on. That interdimensional ping I caught off your little tech stash is more than just research."

Brick's shoulders pulled taut. "Backup plan. Insurance."

Butch muttered, "Wasn't like we were tryin' to run away. I like it here. We get all the food we want."

Brick tilted his head to the side, aware that they already had all the food they wanted. They just had to take it before. "On top of that, this place actually more..." He wasn't sure how to put this, "structure? Yeah, let's go with that. Structure."

Cecil raised an eyebrow. "And your world doesn't?"

Brick hesitated. "Ours was... noisier."

Cecil gestured, permissive. "Go on."

Brick's eyes narrowed as he continued his softball. "We weren't heroes there."

"Didn't expect you were," Cecil said, the man rolling his eyes at Brick's attempt to dripfeed him a story. "Last I recall, your first few days in our fair dimension involved a police chase, three military jets, one robbed bank, and several dozen insurance claims."

"We were made," Brick continued his story, skipping right past their earlier escapades. "Built. Created. Whatever term fits. We were made to kill our town's protectors."

That got Cecil's attention, as Brick finally admitted what he'd been avoiding for months. "Made by who."

"First by Mojo Jojo," Boomer blurted. "He's like, this evil genius monkey. Real big brain. Real big mouth. But the brain is the biggest part, I mean like huuuuge," the blond boy gestured with his hands high above his head. "He made us with... snips of some armpit hair, snails, puppy dog tails. Dropped us in a prison toilet. Boom. Instant bad boys."

Cecil didn't react.

Butch added, "Then we got kissed to death, so then our other dad, Satan rebooted us. Gave us upgrades."

Boomer grinned. "Yeah, made us stronger," After a second, his face fell in a frown. "I wish he would wear pants though."

Brick didn't flinch. "Yes and no. Im mean, yeah, it's technically accurate. Mojo did make us but we're not really monkeys. Mojo had some human DNA in him from... something and he's more human than monkey, because of that. He even has a Japanese accent, too." The Red Rowdyruff frowned, realizing the correction was getting away from him. "Long story short, we're biologically human, sort of. Post-human biological androids, if you want to split hairs."

The silence snapped.

Cecil's fingers tapped once. Then stopped.

"I'm gonna need you to back up quite a bit."

Chapter Text

Snips and snails and puppydog tails! These were the ingredients chosen to create the perfect little terrors. But Mojo Jojo purposely added an extra ingredient to the concoction: Chemical X from a prison toilet!

Thus, the Rowdyruff Boys were born!

Using their ultra-super powers, Brick, Boomer, and Butch have dedicated their lives to causing chaos, destruction, and the dismantling of everything good!

BRICK! The commander and leader with a strategic mind and fiery temper!

BOOMER! The joy and laughter of demolition with a penchant for random violence!

BUTCH! The toughest fighter with uncontrollable energy and a thirst for destruction!

So once again, the day is doomed thanks to... THE ROWDYRUFF BOYS!

Cecil stared at the three boys quietly, the scarred side of his mouth twitching slightly as he took in that little explanation. The man was the figure of composure 99.9% of the time, but it was that last tenth that Brick had been seeing more and more. With a sigh, the director adjusted his red tie and leaned back in his chair, his black suit jacket falling open.

Butch glanced over at Boomer with a weird look on his face, eyebrow raised high as his brother finished his speech. "I didn't know you could do voices, Boomer."

Boomer gave him a weird look. "Sound is my whole thing. Besides, that guy is always on the Townsville news talking about the Puffs like once a week."

Butch shrugged. "... I guess."

Hologram blinked on—shaky drawings hovering over Cecil's desk in clunky two-frame animation. Boomer's work. Of course. Thick lines. Way too bright. Brick didn't look at them. He was already embarrassed.

Boomer pointed proudly. "Okay so Professor Utonium—he's, like, a quantum scientist guy—was tryna make the perfect girls. Used sugar, spice, everything nice. The usual."

"You forgot unicorn farts," Butch muttered.

Brick held up a hand. "Let him talk."

Boomer didn't even factor in the interruption, still mid-explanation. "So, yeah! But he slipped in this stuff called Chemical X by accident. Boom! Superpowers. Giant eyes, floaty powers, day-saving."

Cecil's gaze narrowed and the man stared down at the three of them with harder eyes than Brick had ever seen from him, even at their worst. "Chemical X." The visible twitch in the man's jaw, the portion of scarred skin on his face quivering as he spat out those four syllables. "That's the origin of your enhancements?"

Brick nodded, one eyebrow raised as he tried to understand Cecil's sudden shift. "It's something like toxic waste, or refined from it, I'm not..." He frowned, actually unsure. "Entirely sure. Either way, it pretty much restructures DNA on contact. Our bodies are pretty much made from the stuff."

Cecil's voice didn't shift much even as his pen clicked multiple times, the normally still man's fingers occupied, but the tension in his muscles seemed to fade at least a little. "Common compound where you're from?"

Butch snorted. "Nah. But there's other junk. We got Kryptonians, speedsters, Atlanteans, witches, demigods—"

Brick cut in sharp. "Different origins. Same outcome. Supers. Everywhere."

Cecil leaned back, the leather creaking under him. Still calm. "Your Earth sounds crowded."

"You're adapting quick."

Cecil chuckled, slow and dry. "Son, after twenty years of this job, anything short of hunting down the psychic disembodied brain of Adolf Hitler hooked into a cyborg gorilla is pretty easy to get used to. You learn to stop betting on 'normal.'"

Brick blinked. What?

Boomer flipped slides and showed it off to Cecil and his brothers. All in all, it was a jagged sketch of three wide-eyed girls in tiny dresses slugging it out with muscular looking boy variants in the same color schemes and hair colors. "So anyway! We were made to fight the Powerpuff Girls—Blossom, Bubbles, Buttercup. They kept winning. Even after they exploded us with cooties."

"Exploding sucks," Butch muttered with a twitch, the Green Rowdyruff sticking out his tongue in a gag. "Cooties are even worse."

Cecil didn't react. "I see."

Brick crossed his arms. "We were resurrected. Brought back by HIM."

Cecil raised an eyebrow. "Him who?"

Brick exhaled through his nose. "...His Infernal Majesty. You'd probably call him the Devil."

There was a full ten seconds of silence where Cecil refused to blink as he looked down at Brick. Almost immediately after, he turned back to the drawing Boomer was still flipping through, like he was trying to figure out if the rainbow-colored fire in the corner was literal or just flair. "So these girls... they're your enemies?"

"For life," Butch answered first. "They're Paragons for life. We're Renegades til death and back again."

"Interesting."

"Why do you say that?" Brick asked.

Cecil didn't speak right away.

No, the man just sat there behind that desk like a granite statue in a wrinkled suit, one eye tracking them while the other… lingered. Not on their faces. On the twitch. The shift. The heat coming off them in waves that the AC wasn't touching. That half-smirk of his never fully formed but never left either, like he'd already done the math three steps ahead and just wanted to see if they could count.

Butch crossed his arms like he thought they were gonna fight. Shoulders rolled forward, chin up. Stared dead ahead. Boomer was chewing the inside of his cheek, eyes flicking between the edge of the desk and the hem of his own uniform sleeve like something might pop out.

All the while, Brick kept his center spot focused on Cecil.

"We were awesome!" Butch broke the silence again, too loud for the room. "We broke stuff, fought the Girls, didn't gotta follow any dumb rules!"

Brick didn't look at him. "We were weapons." As usual, his words were short and precise, spoken like he didn't need the rest. "We were supposed to wreck things."

Cecil's stare cooled a notch. "Yet here you are. Playing hero."

Brick met his eyes with no flinch, no blink, not even a twitch. "Adapting."

The room dimmed as the display shifted, Boomer's crudely stylus-scribbled interface pulling up a nest of files. Lines. Equations. Raw math mapped over a schematic built from memory and spite.

Cecil leaned closer. "These yours?"

Brick didn't answer right away. He didn't have to. The graphs pulsed like a heartbeat.

Cecil let out a low hum, the sound coming from deep in his throat "Advanced. Especially for your age."

Brick's voice was clipped. "I'm not just muscle."

Cecil pointed to a pulsing waveform in the corner. "You've been trying to recreate the breach."

"Yeah." Brick clicked his tongue. "When the three of us moved fast enough, close enough, the resonance from our Chemical X mutated fields—"

"You opened a hole."

"Exactly."

"And you think Flaxan tech might help?"

There wasn't much left for Brick to say but the truth. "It's not identical. But it's close."

Cecil's face flattened into something unreadable. "You planning to leave?"

Brick didn't answer. Just turned his head slightly. The others looked at him. Waited. Boomer's mouth opened, then shut. Butch just shrugged like it wasn't a big deal.

"We're thinking about it," Brick said finally.

"Appreciate the honesty, kid."

"You're not gonna kick us out, right?" Boomer's question came out a little quieter than expected.

That rare softness edged into Cecil's voice. "No, son. But I gotta know where your heads are at."

Brick's jaw tensed. "With each other. That's it."

Cecil studied him. Then nodded. "Fair enough."

Butch cocked his head. "Wait, so Brick's not in trouble for stealing the tech?"

Cecil's lips twitched. Almost a smile. "Hell, I'd be disappointed if he hadn't. Shows he's thinking ahead."

He stood. Stepped out from behind the desk with slow, deliberate movements. Not threatening. Not casual either.

"Here's what's gonna happen," he said. "Whatever you used to be, don't matter now. The Guardians are gone. Omni-Man's off the leash. I need you three in the gap."

Brick's eyes narrowed. "You want us on payroll."

"I want you doing what you've already been doing. Just with a little help. Equipment. Intel. Access."

Brick kept his arms crossed. "In exchange for?"

"In exchange." Cecil waved a hand at the hologram. "For transparency. You understand? You get labs, tech, scientists. You keep me looped in to anything you're up to that might punch a hole in the multiverse."

Boomer tilted his head. "So… wait… you're helping us try to go home?"

Cecil glanced at Brick again. "I don't think you're ready to go anywhere. And I think you know that."

Brick didn't react, his poker face locked in tight.

Cecil's voice softened—not by much. Just enough to chill the edges. "And because if I'm gonna trust you, I need you to trust me. That goes both ways."

Boomer exhaled like a balloon popping. "We're not grounded?!"

"No, Boomer," Cecil said, dry as dust. "You're not grounded."

Brick's voice cut in before Boomer could speak again. "What's the catch?"

Cecil met his stare. "I want everything you know. Chemical X, how it works, where it came from. Everything."

"Why?"

"Professional curiosity."

They stared at each other until Brick finally spoke. "My files stay private."

Cecil extended his hand. "Agreed."

Chapter Text

Sunlight sheared through the skylights like it had somewhere to be, adding even more light to the already fluorescently bright mall that was the Towne Center. Everything was shining; tile, clothes, and smiles too. A huge mall in Virginia only about a hundred miles from the Pentagon, it was the kind of place people came when they had nothing to do but waste time and money.

Case in point...

Butch strutted out of the Hype Haus store like he'd mugged a mannequin. A green bomber jacket that was more giant than oversized swallowed up his frame, zippers clinking like loose change, and the collar popped like he thought it came with a license to kill. The Green Rowdyruff struck a pose dead in the walkway—one heel forward, arms wide like a wrestler.

"Tell me the B-Dog doesn't look sick," he said, dead serious.

Brick, leaned into a steel support pillar across from the storefront, barely flicked his eyes up from the crowd. New red snapback pulled low, hoodie half-zipped over a shirt he didn't pick, he clicked his tonge as he gave Butch a once-over.

"The B-Dog?" He didn't even have it in him to critize the jacket. He knew that way would be the path of a fight he didn't feel like right now. Today was their required off-day. They got one a week and most of the time the Boys hadn't bothered to do anything with it, Boomer reading comics or shadowing Donald, Butch hitting the training room or going to the prison area to make fun of the villains in lockup, or Brick doing his usual thing; which was either science, videogames, or research.

Boomer darted out behind them in a rush, surprisingly at human speed this time and without being reminded, his new neon blue sneakers screaming against the tile. Despite his restraint, his feet hit the ground weird when he was this excited, almost like he didn't know how not to bounce and barely holding back his strength while doing so. Brick eaised an eyebrow slightly at the sight of a pair of blue headphones around his neck blasting what sounded like some kind of horrible indie pop music.

With them being elevated to the Global Defense Agency's first responders while the GDA was putting together a new Guardians of the Globe, Cecil had given them their first official paychecks in the form of black cards with a vertical strip in each of their colors. Every month, the things would get a stipend of two-hundred thousand dollars... which Brick was pretty sure was enough for stuf... right?

"Tax-free," Cecil had said, a smile on his face as if he was telling a joke. Not one that Brick understood. He was twelve, what did he know about taxes? Super-science was at least easier to get, why pay someone because you made money?

Brick pulled a face. AJR, Boomer? He barely held himself back from shaking his head at his little brother's lack of taste. Really?

"Yo! Watch this!" He pretty much broke out into a tap-dance, if one could call it that, shoes lighting up like a rave with the LED's inside them twinkling Boomer's favorite color. "They blink! Like—every step! They blink! That's crazy, right?"

Brick exhaled through his nose. "Those are for little kids."

Boomer froze, mouth open. He blinked, then tilted his head. "I mean… we're literally twelve?"

"Speak for yourself," Butch cut in, puffing his chest out and dragging his hand down his nonexistent beard. "I'm emotionally seventeen."

"You cried during that dog movie yesterday."

"Shut up. That was artistic trauma."

Brick raised both eyebrows this time. "Lemme guess, it had themes and such."

Boomer snorted, nearly tripping over himself trying to moonwalk. It didn't work on mall tile.

Butch grabbed the back of his collar and yanked him upright. "Tryna die in public?"

Boomer grinned. "Tryna dance, bro."

Brick tuned most of it out. He'd already clocked seven people staring, two whispering. One mom tugged her kid a little tighter by the wrist when Boomer spun past her too fast. It wasn't full recognition. Just that tickle behind the eyes. That almost.

One more month and the viral clips would start again. Then they'd have to start wearing wigs or whatever to avoid people coming up to them all day. Brick had seen what fame did to some of these heroes, like Fight Force or the Noble family. His brothers were already enough of a hassle, and he didn't need them turning into child stars too.

He adjusted his cap. "Arcade. Now."

Boomer blinked. "But we just got—"

Brick turned. "I said, Now."

The command snapped through the noise like a thrown punch. Butch fell in line first, bomber flaring behind him. Boomer hustled to catch up, lights on his sneakers still blinking, too fast and too loud and too much.

Somewhere behind them, a little girl asked her mom if those were superheroes.

The mom didn't answer.

Brick didn't look back. "Besides, you guys like video games."

The arcade reeked of spilled soda, melted plasticL, kid sweat; all of that and more mixed with the raw stench of low-grade chemical haze from claw machines and fried circuits, every machine in this place humming like it was about to explode. Flashing lights clawed at people's eyes for attention, LED and strobe both, and somehow went ignored in the chaos of everything else. Speakers coughed 8-bit shrieks that tangled themselves up with distant screaming—some of it game-based, some of it not.

As much as he liked video games, Brick hated it. The place was too loud and too bright, and not in the good way like in a real messy fight. There was a thing as too many twitchy hands, open mouths, sweaty little mortals buzzing past and bumping into him without paying attention like they weren't made of cotton candy.

He had no idea how the Girls had gotten through kindergarten without accidentally making their graduating class a bloodbath the first week in or something. Maybe adults are right, he thought, still frowning. Girls probably are more careful. In all fairness, the first thing the Boys did when they were born was beat up their dad, so it wasn't impossible that was true.

Butch was already deep in some button-mashing bloodbath, thumbs moving fast enough to blur, game screen throwing up seizure-grade strobe as some digital gladiator got his skull caved in again. "Sixty-four hit combo, bitch," Butch muttered, flexing like he was on stage. The teen next to him just stood there blinking like his brain had blue-screened.

"You can't do that," the guy stammered.

All Butch did was smirk back, all sharp teeth and twitchy confidence, with his tongue halfway out like it was a bunch of the time. "Then get gud."

Boomer was... somewhere else. Of course. The blond Rowdyruff did like to go off on adventures.

It only too a fraction of a second but Brick clocked him across the floor, already neck-deep in a skee-ball apocalypse. Ticket ribbons trailed behind him like entrails. An arcade worker hovered nearby, trying to pretend like he wasn't panicking.

"I just—kept rolling them right? That's how it's supposed to work, isn't it?" Boomer asked, eyes too wide, fingers twitching. He pointed right at the worker like both he and the machine were in a conspiracy against him. "They gave me balls, I threw balls." Blue eyes narrowed almost viciously for a split-second but it was enough to make the other man flinch anyway. "That's the game."

The clerk stared at the tower of perfect scores. "Yeah but… every shot?"

"'cus I got rhythm!" Boomer chirped, irritation and potential violence forgotten all of a sudden, which was just... classic Boomer. "And my depth perception's crazy good. Wanna see? Toss me the rock and I'll hit a mosquito at four hundred feet."

"No... no basketballs," Brick hissed to himself, none of his brothers focusing their hearing to pay attention.

Too little and definitely too late.

Butch had abandoned his console and was now swaggering over to the arcade hoops setup with a plan from the look on his face. One of those half-court deals with a rack of slightly-smaller basketballs perfect for kids and a ful lane. He picked up a ball, looked at it like it owed him money, and then crouched.

"Butch—" Brick shouted over the crowd.

"Gonna break the high score," Butch shouted back, without looking over.

"Do not—"

He jumped.

Not a kid-jump. Not a casual hop.

A Butch jump.

The kind that blew air from vents, rattled every token dispenser on the wall, and sent a teenager in a Pac-Man hoodie ducking like a bomb had gone off. He dunked with enough force to rattle the backboard out of its bracket. It cracked like thunder and, as Brick expected, the entire net assembly collapsed backward with a hollow clong, taking a chunk of the wall with it..

"Oops," He was still mid-air when the word left Butch's mouth, the Green Rowdyruff shrugging his shoulders at the same time, before he dropped to the ground in a classic superhero landing.

Brick closed his eyes. "You absolute—"

Someone screamed. Someone else clapped. A little girl shrieked in excitement. Three phones were already out.

Boomer wandered over, holding a fistful of tickets like a bouquet. "That backboard?" he asked, peering at the damage. "Yeah. That's gonna be a write-off."

A guy in khakis with a Playhouse Manager badge power-walked toward them. From the conflicted look on his face, he was half-angry and also half-praying Butch wouldn't vaporize him on accident.

"Here's what you're gonna do," Brick said, walking up and cutting the guy off before he could either make his way over to Butch or get a word in. Brick fished the GDA-issued business card out of his pocket, and handed it over like he had done this a hundred times before. "Just send the invoice to that address. And… sorry. My brother gets… competitive."

"You see why you gotta listen to me?" he muttered, not looking at either of them. His voice barely broke out of the crowd noise.

Butch walked like a guy who thought rules were optional, and for guys like them, they usually were. Arms behind his head, brand-new ugly-looking bomber jacket creaking with every shift of muscle and step he made, the Green Rowdyruff walked like he was untouchable. "Eeeeeehh," he said, stretching the word out like gum stuck to the bottom of his shoe, opening up his mouth in a lazy yawn at the same time. "We paid for the damage. What's the big deal?"

"We?" Brick raised an eyebrow. "... Yeah, I'm gonna have Cecil take it outta your allowance."

Butch stopped mid-stride, eyes going wide. "What? No. Bro, that's not fair."

Brick didn't answer. That was the answer.

Boomer was already veering off, eyes snagging on a splash of color like a cat chasing a laser pointer. Or in this case, a neon sign.

Brick's eyes rose higher, Boomer's eagerness suddenly making sense. Comic book store, he nodded. Of course.

His red eyes dropped back down to see Boomer dart in like the floor was lava behind him.

"Whoa," came the immediate gasp. "They got comics about actual heroes here."

Brick followed slower with Butch behind him, already scanning the layout and floor plan. Floor-to-ceiling racks. Displays arranged with just enough chaos to feel deliberate. Almost for the first time since they landed, he saw a place with colors that looked as bright as what felt like home.

"Science Dog?" Butch held up a cover with a furry muscular terrier in a t-shirt punching a robot. "He's got comics too? I thought he only had the show?"

The clerk—a mid-twenties guy in a worn hoodie, graphic tee, and that slightly nasal voice that tagged him as either a superfan or someone too underpaid to fake it—perked up. "Of course the greatest animal-human hybrid techno-detective is also in print and the screen. Seance Dog's his brother if you want the spookier stuff."

Butch blinked, like he wasn't sure if he was being punked. "Yeah... I heard of the Seance Dog comics. Not my thing."

Boomer was already sitting on the floor with a Seance Dog issue, laughing at something only he could see, his legs kicking as he read.

"Got any Guardians of the Globe?" Brick asked, eyes still tracking the shelves. "Any Unstoppable Omni-Man's?"

The clerk squinted. "Nah, little man. All those sold right out after the news of the Guardians dying and the Omni-Mans all flew off the shelves right after his speech at the funeral." He shook his head. "Collectors and scalpers are demons like that."

Brick recalibrated. "Too bad."

"If you don't mind not getting any of the real-life heroes," the clerk continued, still trying to make a sale. "You'd probably like Ironblood and Red Shift then. Team books. Or Cyber-Samurai Zero. Solo, real gritty."

Butch flipped through a copy of Atomic Rex, cover art all claws and muscles and radiation. "Yo. This dude fights aliens with laser breath?"

"Atomic Rex is fire," the clerk said. "Movie drops next summer."

Boomer half-yelled from the floor. "He has a jetpack tail!"

Brick gathered a few issues carefully, prioritizing covers with clean layouts, low numbering, recurring names. He didn't like messy continuity.

"You guys got good taste," the clerk said, and now he was watching them, really watching them. The tone shifted. "First-timers?"

"We're... new to the scene," Brick said.

Boomer's voice cut in too fast. "We're the Rowdy—"

"Mojo brothers," Brick said, over him, clean and flat.

"Huh..." the comic book guy nodded slowly. "I could have sworn I'd seen you before."

Butch didn't skip a beat. "People say we got one of those faces."

The clerk frowned, like he almost had it.

"Just moved here, actually. We move a lot." Brick said again, lighter now as he purposely dropped his shoulders. "Military brats, you know. Our dad's up at the Pentagon." Disarm. Deflect.

"Well hey, welcome to the neighborhood," the clerk said, nodding toward the counter. "Take your pick of the store. For everything on the other side of the desk, first comic's free."

Brick nodded. "Thanks," he said, a smile coming in a little more earnest than usual. "I... we appreciate it."

Without anything of his own to add other than sheer twitchy impatience, Butch just tossed Atomic Rex #1 onto the counter like he was running late for something that wasn't just loitering in the mall. "Ring me up, chief."