Chapter 40: End of Book One - Initiation

Markend’s Pier rolled into view like a rusted claw reaching out from the city’s underbelly. The Malufan groaned against the moorings as it docked, steel grinding steel, the sound almost masking the groan in my chest. This was the part that mattered… demanding my clean exit. No last-minute checkups. No loose threads.

While the rest of the crew prepared for disembarkation, I walked to the lower deck, found a spot near the stern where no one looked twice. Then I let my atoms slip. Bones melted through bulkhead. My breath caught as I phased through the steel wall. I fell into the seawater, the cold wrapping me in a full-body slap. I swam through the dark brine, invisible to the dock’s scanners, moving with the pull of the tide. A few minutes of steady strokes, and I surfaced near the far end of the pier where concrete gave way to sand. The beach here was empty and unsupervised… half-forgotten by tourists and favored by locals who liked their privacy.

My feet hit the wet shore as the tide lapped at my heels. I climbed higher up the beach, water dripping from my sleeves, then turned back briefly. The dock was out of sight now, the Malufan hidden by the curve of the bay. Good.

I’d left Blackout a message. Just a number… burner only, of course… and a favor asked. Simple request: give it to Pride’s people. To their second. To anyone still pretending to keep records and honor payouts. I didn’t expect a thank-you. Just the credits I was owed. Blackout wasn’t sentimental, but she understood the importance of clean business.

The markings were faint now, half-swept by wind and shifting sands, but I found them. A series of etched lines in the dry earth beneath the nearest tree. My cache spot. I knelt, peeled back a rock, and retrieved the plastic-wrapped bundle stashed in the hollow. Inside: a Hawaiian shirt, sun-bleached shorts, cheap sandals, and civilian nothingness.

“Perfect.”

I stripped off the costume beneath the cover of the tree’s drooping canopy. My suit jacket and pants still stank of the Malufan’s engine room. I wrapped it in the same plastic, phased one hand through the sand, and buried it deep beneath the roots.

Down there, it’d be safe. Forgotten.

I changed into the shirt and shorts, buttoning them slowly while the sun began its climb above the water. I tucked my burner into a pocket and pulled out the prepaid ticket. One civilian day. Bought it a few weeks ago. No names attached. Just a barcode, good for one admission.

I traced the beaten path away from the beach, cutting through a line of worn hedges and half-cracked concrete. Eventually, it met with the edge of a crowd… families, couples, day-trippers in bucket hats and loud shirts. No one looked at me twice. Just another guy dressed for leisure, maybe a tourist slumming it outside the curated zones.

I merged with them. Smiled when someone bumped into my shoulder. Faked a wince when a child shrieked about ice cream. I handed my ticket to the bored-looking teen manning the gate and walked into the aquarium park.

“And just like that, I have my alibi.”

I found a bench with a good view and waited for the show to start. The dolphins broke the surface in perfect arcs, their trainers raising arms in rhythm. The crowd cheered. Somewhere, someone’s phone played a pop song on low volume.

For the next hour, I sat there, still soaked under the shirt, watching dolphins leap through hoops like none of it mattered.

I could’ve laughed. Maybe I did. I don’t remember.

But in that moment, the city didn’t know my name, and I had no history anyone could trace. Just a man in cheap clothes, watching animals dance.

Exactly how I wanted it.

The dolphin show ended with the kind of applause that only comes from bored tourists and screaming children. I slipped out with the crowd before the trainers had finished their last bows, weaving through stroller traffic and popcorn spills until I reached the park exit. The day was already too long.

I was thinking about grabbing a cab or maybe just walking the boardwalk when I saw them.

Mindy and… Chad. Under the faded red awning of an ice cream truck, sharing a cone like a scene ripped straight out of a high school romcom. Her laugh was as musical as I remembered. His face was still as punchable.

I almost kept walking. Almost.

Then I saw the crutch. Aluminum. New. Chad was hobbling slightly, favoring one leg. His knee wrapped in something bulky under the shorts. I didn’t need three guesses to know what that meant.

A teenage cape flickered into memory… Speedster, aerokinetic, called himself Windbreaker of all things. Thought he could sprint through a gunfight. He couldn’t. I’d fired a slug into his leg and left him screaming.

Now here was Chad. With a limp. With Mindy.

Coincidence? Maybe.

I mean, I hated Chad’s smug, rich-kid guts since middle school. But I wasn’t the kind of person who built fantasies around the people I disliked. At least, not anymore. I wasn’t about to stitch together a story just to justify what I was about to do.

Because what I was about to do… wasn’t about justice.

It wasn’t even about revenge.

It was about power.

See, after everything I’ve done… after staring down guns, monsters, capes, and worse… I realized fear was just another leash. One that I’d spent too long wearing. And now, I wasn’t afraid of anyone or anything.

Especially not some high school prick with a busted leg and a girl I used to dream about.

I walked straight toward them.

Mindy noticed first. Her eyes lit up. “Nick?” she said, all sunshine and innocence. “Hey! It’s Nick! From the chess club!”

I raised a hand, giving her a lazy wave. Her smile was genuine. Of course it was. She didn’t know. She never really saw anyone outside her bubble.

Chad, on the other hand, shifted immediately. His jaw clenched. His posture tensed, even with the crutch. He glanced at Mindy, then at me. When her back turned just a bit, he mouthed the words:

“Fuck off.”

I laughed.

“Hey, Mindy,” I said, eyes still on Chad. “You know, I always liked you. Since seventh grade. Had a big, stupid crush on you.”

That caught her off guard. Her mouth opened like she wanted to say something meaningful but all that came out was: “This… this isn’t really the place…”

She turned to Chad, confused and maybe worried that I’d just uprooted something she didn’t want to admit. Her life wasn’t a storybook, and I had just ripped out a page.

Chad stepped forward, trying to assert himself.

“Hey, fucker,” he growled. “Know your—”

He didn’t finish.

I leaned in and kissed her. Fast. Sudden. Enhancer-2 reflexes didn’t give her a chance. It wasn’t romantic. It wasn’t even satisfying. It was a point being made, an old wound salted for effect. She pushed me off, her eyes wide, hand to her lips.

But by the time she reacted, I was already beside Chad.

One quick kick. His crutch snapped with a crack like gunfire. He flailed, stumbled, and nearly fell until Mindy caught him. Gasps. Whispers. The crowd began to gather, unsure whether to intervene or spectate.

Mindy looked at me like she didn’t recognize the face behind the name.

Chad looked ready to kill, but could barely stand.

“You think I’m a freak?” I said, voice low, just loud enough for the two of them.

I flipped him off.

“No,” I added. “You’re the freaks. Pretending you’re better. Pretending you’re safe in your own little bubble. One an ignorant girl who knows nothing of the world and the other a pretender who thinks he knows everything. That’s for every heartache I suffered, fuckers.”

I turned before they could answer. Before anyone in the crowd got brave enough to record. Walked away from the mess like it wasn’t mine. Maybe I crossed a line. Maybe I’d just redrawn it. Either way, I didn’t look back.

The thing was, the little stunt I pulled didn’t satisfy me. In the moment, sure, it had a sting, like tearing a bandage off just to watch someone wince. But that feeling faded fast, replaced by something hollower than anger. What I’d done wasn’t justice. It wasn’t even retribution. It was just spite, petty and loud, and it left me colder than I expected. In the end, I was just a jerk to them. Nothing more. Nothing meaningful. Just noise.

By the time I got back to my place, the sun had already begun to dip below the skyline. The shadows stretched long across the sidewalk, but the house itself was shorter by far. That was the first thing I noticed. Not the missing roof tiles or broken windows. The emptiness. I stood at the threshold of what used to be my front door and stared into the vacant shell. No furniture. No bed. Not even the cracked mirror in the hall that once refused to reflect anything straight. It was all gone.

Oddly, I didn’t feel rage. Not disappointment. Not even disbelief. I felt... calm. Too calm, like I had been expecting this without realizing it. I'd only been gone a week, maybe ten days at most. And yet someone had come in and picked the place clean, like they’d been waiting for an excuse. Like they’d always known I wouldn’t be back in time to stop them.

A voice broke the stillness. “If it isn’t Nicky,” it said, smooth as an old record and just as dusty.

I turned and saw Alfred standing up from the edge of the pavement. He looked the same as ever… creased clothes, a sharp smile, and eyes like tired knives. He didn’t bring backup. Didn’t look like he needed it.

“This might come as a shock to you,” he said, hands casually slipping into his pockets, “but the house is no longer yours.”

I didn’t answer right away. Didn’t need to. My silence was all the permission he needed to keep going.

“I lost my patience, kid,” Alfred continued, voice steady. “Decided to just be done with it. You’ve been gone, off playing whatever game it is you think you’re winning. But this?” He gestured at the street, at the house, at the broken life I’d left behind. “This wasn’t a home anymore. It was a liability.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You evicted me… on my own home.”

“I reclaimed what you stopped protecting,” he corrected, not missing a beat. “You were squatting in the idea of stability. But stability’s got a price, and you stopped paying it. Now, your mother is gone. Your father is gone. You should be gone too, don’t you think?”

This fucking try hard doesn’t know what he was saying, wasn’t he?

I almost laughed. Not because it was funny, but because it sounded like something he’d rehearsed. Alfred always liked his speeches. But what got to me wasn’t the legality or the betrayal. It was the way he framed it… as if he was doing me a favor. As if this was mercy.

“You don’t get to talk about my mother,” I said quietly when he started down that path. “Not after everything.”

He nodded once, almost respectfully. “She was SRC, Nick. You think that didn’t change things? You think the world didn’t shift the second they found out she was one of them?”

My jaw clenched, but I didn’t respond.

Alfred exhaled through his nose, the sound more tired than triumphant. “You’ve always been a flight risk. Maybe your mom died for noble reasons… of saving you from the suffering of being a son of a snitch. But that isn’t really how it works, correct?”

“Stop twisting the narrative whatever you like… My mom died in a car accident and that’s it.”

SRC Agent. That was the name they gave people like my mother… those who worked behind the curtain, not quite soldiers, not quite spies, and definitely not loved. They weren’t capes, but they didn’t exactly count as regular citizens either. To the public, SRC agents were cape sympathizers, lapdogs of powered freaks. A lot of them were doctors, teachers, police officers, or just civilians with special access. It wasn’t an official job in the sense that people applied for it. The government and the SRC chose them. Groomed them. Used them. They operated in silence, often in plain sight.

Despite the suspicion, the contradiction in public opinion always baffled me. People hated the SRC with a passion—blamed them for cover-ups, for the chaos, for making “deals with the devil.” But they adored their local superhero team. Loved watching interviews of costume-wearing capes saving kittens from burning trees. It was racism without the name for it. The line wasn’t drawn by color or class anymore. It was drawn by power. Powered and non-powered. That was the divide now.

Alfred, of course, had no trouble playing that divide to his advantage.

“Since you don’t have a home now,” he said, casual like he hadn’t just stolen everything I owned, “what do you think of working for me?”

I looked at him. Same tired face, same practiced calm. This wasn’t a sudden offer. He’d been working toward this for years, whittling me down one encounter at a time. This had always been the endgame.

“You’re almost of age,” he added. “We’ve got records, you know. Your father showed signs—small stuff, off the books, nothing flashy—but we think he had powers. Probably managed to hide it all his life thanks to your SRC mom. Which means…”

He gave me a smirk, like he was letting me in on a secret.

“There’s a chance you might Pull, too. And who knows? Maybe you’ll end up being the next big thing. Famous. Feared. The works.”

He said it like he was doing me a favor. Like he was offering me salvation.

I took a step closer to him. Calm. Relaxed.

“Are you alone?” I asked.

His brow twitched. Just for a second. That was enough. His eyes scanned the street, realizing maybe, just maybe, he hadn’t thought this through.

“No CCTV here,” I said quietly, like I was talking to myself. “Interesting choice for a meeting spot.”

His hand dipped into his coat, and he pulled out a gun. Pointed it right at my gut.

“Don’t try something stupid, kid,” he warned.

I didn’t flinch. Instead, I smiled. “You really think I’ve got a future as a cape?”

I laughed. He laughed too, a little confused, a little impressed. I reached out and gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder. His hand didn’t waver, but I could feel his posture relax just a little. He thought he had control.

“So what now?” he asked. “You want to work for me, kid? I’m a generous boss, believe me.”

I tilted my head. “Where’s the Flat Top guy? The one with the piercing? Or the big guy with the long hair?”

“Don’t worry, kid,” he said. “I came alone. I didn’t bring anyone. I figured it was time we settled things. One-on-one. Cut a deal.”

I stopped smiling.

“You shouldn’t have come alone,” I said.

In the same breath, I activated my external intangibility. Alfred’s body went intangible, his feet sank to the ground slowly first. His expression shifted from smug to horrified, and before he could move, his knees gave out. He collapsed into the earth like the ground had opened to swallow him whole. There was no scream. No struggle. Just silence as he sank beneath the surface… one final breath swallowed by the pavement. And then he was gone.

Just like that, Alfred died.

I stood there for a moment, breathing through my nose, trying to catch my balance. My stamina took a hit… that kind of phasing wasn’t cheap. But emotionally, I felt clear. Calm. Like something heavy had finally been peeled off my chest.

I took one more deep breath, then turned around and walked away, leaving no trace behind.

As for the house?

They could fucking have it.

Let the rats pick over the remains. Let the new landlord sell it, burn it, or rent it out to someone desperate enough to think four moldy walls and an empty fridge made a home. That place was never mine to begin with… not really. It was a graveyard, a museum for people who weren’t coming back. My mom. My dad. Me.

I was done holding onto ashes.

I’m a grown man now. Not in the legal sense. Not even in the eyes of a system that still saw me as another orphan on borrowed time. But I had bled enough, buried enough, and clawed my way far enough through hell to say it: I didn’t need that place anymore.

It was time for me to find a new home.

Somewhere I wouldn’t need to flinch at the sound of keys turning in the lock. Somewhere my past didn’t sit on the kitchen counter like a ticking bomb.

And for my future as a cape?

Well, I think I got it handled.