Chapter Text
The press conference was already a circus by the time Marcus arrived in the black sedan the Director had sent for him. From behind the tinted glass of the passenger window, he watched the crowd clock the parked car, reporters elbowing each other for space at the velvet ropes they were to stand behind. Fans pressed in behind barricades as they waved their handmade signs, cameras and phones snapping their photos in bursts of bright white.
The Hero Authority Tower loomed behind them, all gleaming glass and structured steel, its mirrored spires catching the late-afternoon sun and making Marcus squint his eyes against the glare. It had always felt like a temple more than an office building, one of the tallest buildings in the city and utterly hollow to its core. Their business was superheroes, the masks more important than the human beings who wore them.
Marcus Lorne, known to the world as Beacon, sat back against the leather seat and nervously adjusted the cuff of his black suit jacket. The fabric was smooth, the material expensive, and it all felt so wrong. No shield. No cape. No protection. Just the bloody mask to keep his identity safe from the world and its people.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, head turning away from the sight to stare down at his hands resting on his knees. The knuckles still ached from his last mission five days ago, a warehouse fire down by the docks that had been arson that turned into an ambush. His knee had locked up halfway through the rescue of several civilians and hadn’t quite forgiven him since. Every step was a negotiation of pain and patience. He walked like a man who didn’t want to be caught limping. The mask hid his face twisting in a grimace as he put his full weight on it, at least.
“Good luck, Sir,” the young driver said, eyeing the crowd with a look of mild distaste.
Their eyes met in the rear view mirror, and Marcus offered a faint smile. “Thank you, I think I will need it.”
The car door was opened before the driver could reply and a young female PA motioned him forward. The world outside exploded in cheers and more camera flashes. Someone screamed his name, others whooped in glee. Another voice, maybe a child, called out, “Don’t go!”
He didn’t look. He couldn’t bring himself to.
He stepped out of the car, mindful of that knee, and made his way behind the PA inside the building. Crossing the great foyer to the right, they entered the largest room that the Director had set up for the press conference. He almost stumbled to a stop, the room was teeming with more journalists. Not one seat was empty that he could spot.
His eyes picked out some of the more well known journalists, Kenneth Stephens from The Herald, Julia Everard from the Guardian, and Stephen Galpin from the Evening Standard. They had all been there enjoying the highs of his success, and taking great pains to embellish the sordid details of his failures. It was only right that they would be here today, scribbling away everything that happened in the next hour.
Director Rivas met him at the foot of the stage with a tight, practised smile. She was a slim woman in her mid fifties, with dark red hair coiled up into a banana clip, a no nonsense light grey pant suit and towering heels that still only made her come up to his shoulder in height.
Marcus had never met a woman quite like her. She had nerves of steel and an ambitious streak a mile wide, having fought tooth and nail to be where she was amidst an arrogant boys club mentality of her peers in similar roles across the world. She had an uncanny knack for the spin that was needed for the superhero business, the kind of woman who knew how to kill an unsavoury story with a single quirk of her eyebrow.
Marcus had seen it done before, he knew how effective it could be.
“Looks like a good turnout,” she said without turning to face him, her voice dripping with satisfaction. “Not that I had any doubt, of course. You were always a fan favourite.”
Were. The past tense was like a sucker punch to the stomach upon hearing it. He cleared his throat, and shrugged his shoulders in a self conscious gesture that made the Director snort softly in response.
“Are you ready for this?” She asked as she finally turned towards him, those brown eyes studying his face and gauging his response.
Was he ready? No, absolutely not. He had spent the better part of his adult years giving everything of himself to the Hero Authority. Long days and sleepless nights, missing family's birthdays and Christmas’, prioritising training and missions over friends and the possibility of a meaningful intimate relationship with a significant other. Just a few meaningless trysts with men he would pick up in a bar or nightclub, people who wouldn’t ask questions of the abrasions they found on his body or why he would never commit to them fully. An empty apartment with basic furniture that looked like it had barely been lived in, a healthy bank account where he didn’t have the time or the inclination to spend anything.
“I’m ready,” he said, keeping all the thought and four letter profanities firmly behind his carefully closed lips.
The Director gave a firm nod. “Be gracious, Beacon. Try not to look like you're being sentenced to life behind bars.”
Marcus gave her a dry look. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
The cameras clicked louder as he stepped onstage and into the light, the room going quiet and expectant. The podium stood at the centre of a raised stage backed by banners bearing the Hero Authority’s insignia, a golden sunburst overlaid with his own sigil, the stylised wings of Beacon. The same symbol that had once burned bright across rooftops when the City needed him.
The same symbol now stamped on merchandise and morning cartoons, soon to be rewritten and reworked with another’s sigil. Bargain bins and yellow discount stickers, thought Marcus. And then after that, ignominy.
He stood there for a beat too long, the light too bright in his eyes and forcing him to blink rapidly, the silence heavy with impatience. He looked down at all those raised expectant faces and for the first time in his life, he wanted to run away in cowardice. But he couldn’t. It wasn’t in his nature to do so, in any superhero’s nature.
Suck it up, buttercup. Any longer and your knee will give out, spilling you to the floor in front of hundreds of cameras. What an end to an illustrious career…
And finally, he began. His training kicked in, his voice steady, practised. “Seventeen years ago, I took an oath to protect this city. To protect the citizens from those who sought to harm. Back then I was just a man in a prototype suit, scared out of my mind. But the city believed in me, you all believed in me. In what the Hero Authority was trying to achieve. And I did everything I could to be worthy of that belief.”
Polite applause rippled across the plaza. A flashbulb went off. Recorders clicked on, phones held up to film his every word. In the back of the plaza, someone checked their watch out of boredom.
He glanced down at the piece of paper he had written his speech on the night before. Hours of staring blankly at the wall, pacing his living room and willing the words to pour out of him for such a momentous occasion of his life. But nothing but the usual Hero Authority pomp and ceremony spilled on the paper.
Marcus watched the words blur and fade in his vision, his hands balling into fists on the podium and screwing the paper up beyond recognition.
“I won’t pretend this is easy,” he said, quieter now. “But nothing lasts forever. Not even this. Today, I step aside, not because I have to, but because it’s time. Time to make space for a new kind of hero.”
He turned slightly, eyes searching for someone in the crowd at the side of the stage. The cameras shifted with him, hungry for more.
When signalled, Aiden Vega ascended the steps to the stage like he’d been born for it. Tall, wide shouldered and golden-skinned. The perfect storm of youth and power and impeccable PR polish. He wore a mask of gold and blue, but Marcus could clearly see those deep green eyes as clear as day even from this distance. His aura shimmered faintly with solar energy, making the clean lines of his suit pop all the more.
Watching the young man walk towards him always did something low and uncomfortable to his stomach. He felt like he needed to avert his eyes in case he was caught staring too intently.
Amidst a round of enthusiastic applause, Aiden stepped forward and shook Marcus’ outstretched hand. Marcus took a step back, allowing the younger man to take the podium.
Aiden did so, bending his neck forward slightly to speak directly into the mic. A mic that was fixed for Marcus’ height rather than Aiden’s obscene six foot three stature. When he spoke, his voice was clear and confident.
“Beacon has been more than a hero to this city. He’s been a mentor. A guide. The person who taught me what it means to stand tall and fight for those weaker than us. And while I may be taking the spot that he is vacating, I will never replace him. I couldn’t. I can only hope to be just as worthy of this City.”
The applause was thunderous now, more flashes of their cameras and the shout of the journalists, more questions thrown at them for their articles and readers. The Authority staff looked relieved, another smooth transition for the Company and the revolving door of one battered hero out, another vigorous hero in. The Director herself smiled like she’d just watched a problem solve itself without needing her interference.
Marcus swallowed roughly, about to turn away and disappear into the crowd the way he had come. Maybe the driver was still parked outside, if he was lucky he could get a lift back to his home. He had a couple bottles of beer he had squirreled away in his fridge, something telling him he may need them for afterwards.
Then Aiden turned to him, eyes soft behind the mask, and extended a hand. Marcus took it without a moment’s thought. Their hands met and the moment held, longer than it probably should have. Aiden’s grip was firm, warm. Real.
“You okay?” he whispered, barely heard over the ruckus of the crowd.
Marcus got the feeling that he was going to be asked this exact question a multitude of times in the coming days. Now was the time to practice sincerity. “I’ll manage,” he said gruffly with a dip of his head.
Aiden’s smile slipped into a frown, those damnably green eyes sharpening on his face. Marcus suddenly felt entirely naked under that gaze and he hated it. “You don’t have to pretend with me, you know.”
Marcus didn’t answer that. It was too soon, too raw. He was sure he would say or do something that he would later regret. Instead, he gave the same press-ready smile he’d worn like armour for the past seventeen years when he was asked an uncomfortable question by the press, or the Director asked something of him he wasn’t sure he was ready for.
Those eyes narrowed at it, but Marcus didn’t have the energy to care. He let go of the hand he hadn’t wanted to release and stepped away.
The applause around him kept going. The cameras kept flashing.
And on the stage, beneath a sky that had once carried his signal, Marcus Lorne kept his head up and his shoulders straight as he left that plaza, never once looking back.
Besides, it would all be in his past very soon.
Eight Years ago
The Hero Authority Training Complex loomed like a monument to ambition - titanium glass, reinforced steel, clean lines like a blade cutting through the skyline. Inside, the hum of high-performance tech filled the air: retinal scans, biometric locks, the low static of energy suppressors built into the walls. The air smelled like ozone and chemical sterilisation.
Marcus moved through the upper corridor with silent purpose. His armour whispered with each step, gold-veined panels catching the overhead lights. He was a known figure here. Respected. Intimidating. The last of the second-wave champions still on active duty, walking legends in the flesh.
Two handlers trailed him, tablets in hand, briefing him with rapid-fire bullet points.
“We have the third-wave intake. Sixteen new candidates shortlisted for tier-one training. Majority are augmentation-types. Bio-reactive musculature, neural mods.” The woman with the swinging ponytail said, he thought her name was Molly.
“No real projectors?” Marcus asked without looking at them.
The young man answered this time. “One. Vega. Solar-based projection. Pure-source, no tech-assist.”
Marcus finally turned to them, brow arched. “Solar-based? That’s rare.”
Molly nodded, looking hesitant to give more detail. “He transferred from Hero Authority’s black-book initiative after his powers went volatile during a solar flare three years ago. He was eighteen at the time. Former corporate sponsors pulled out once the liability protocols kicked in. His parents signed over Authority placement rights soon after.”
Marcus’s gaze narrowed slightly. “How volatile are we talking about?”
“Unfiltered plasma output,” the man replied. “Nearly torched an entire suburban block. No fatalities, but damage was… extensive.”
“Controlled?” Marcus enquired.
The handler hesitated. “...Better than he used to be.”
That wasn’t a definitive yes.
They reached a wide set of blast doors. The observation deck overlooked a containment chamber, a sterile windowless cell framed in reinforced alloy, rigged with power dampeners and psychic stabilisation fields the Authority were so good at.
Marcus stepped inside cautiously. Below, a lone figure stood barefoot on the polished floor. Lean. Athletic. Sleeves rolled to the elbow, palms lifted. Gold shimmer danced between his fingers, flickering like liquid sunlight. The energy crackled, radiant, untamed, beautiful. And so very dangerous.
The young man wasn’t panicking. But he wasn’t calm either.
Marcus could see it in the way the light pulsed, too fast, too bright. A wild heartbeat of energy that thrummed under his skin. Despite the unstable power flow, the man was smiling to himself with his eyes closed.
That was the first red flag.
Marcus leaned toward the intercom panel and pressed the comm. “You know we can see you right now, right?”
The boy looked up instantly, as if he’d been waiting to hear Marcus’s voice. His eyes gleamed like molten bronze as a smirk tugged at his lips.
“Good,” he said, sounding satisfied. “I was starting to think I was invisible to you.”
Marcus studied him for a long moment. Not just the signature readings scrolling across the computer panel, but at his posture, his tone, and his eyes. The young man was cocky. Calm. But not entirely reckless. There was something intentional in the way he stood his ground, ready for a fight but patient enough to wait for the first punch rather than throwing it.
“The name’s Aiden Vega,” the boy continued, stepping closer to the glass. “I hear you’re the one I’m supposed to impress to get on the team.”
Marcus didn’t blink. “You think this is an audition?”
Aiden lifted his hands again. The energy flared between them, a golden helix twining like a small sun blooming in his grasp. Marcus watched it while quashing the feeling of awe welling inside of him. It was beautiful. Lethal. And entirely unfiltered.
He didn’t flinch from it.
Marcus’s voice went cool. “You’re not ready to be part of the team.”
Aiden tilted his head, smile fading slightly, but not his fire. “Then get me ready.” He said simply. Like it was that simple.
There was no sarcasm in it. No teenage bravado. Just pure belief in who he was and what he wanted to do. The kind Marcus hadn’t heard in years. It hit harder than it should have. Not because it was defiant, but because it was sincere.
Something caught behind Marcus’s ribs. A flicker. Recognition, maybe. He keyed the intercom again. “You screw up out there and someone dies.”
“I know.”
Marcus ground his teeth together. “You burn too hot, you take a whole team with you.”
His smile was blossoming again. “I won’t.”
Marcus shook his head. “You don’t get second chances.”
Aiden looked him in the eye, expression steady. “Neither did you.”
Marcus stared at him for a long, quiet moment. The energy between Aiden’s hands dimmed to a soft golden glow. Not gone, just waiting. Patient.
And Marcus, despite himself, felt something shift and he nodded. “Okay.”
The monitor in Marcus’s apartment blinked to life just past midnight.
He didn’t stir at first. The room was dim, lit only by the city’s glow filtering in through the tall windows, blurred by a light rain shower. Thunder muttered low in the distance, barely enough to register. The television had long since gone to sleep, the quiet hum of its idle screen adding to the hush.
Marcus was half-sprawled on the sofa, still in suit pants, but he had changed into a T-shirt, wrinkled and worn, the faded Beacon emblem at the chest peeling at the edges. It had once been gold. Now it was the colour of old copper.
The apartment around him was clean, save for the suit jacket and white shirt thrown carelessly over the back of the sofa. The rooms had sparse furniture in neutral tones. No clutter, no warmth. A place that felt more like a hotel than a home, except for the trophy case near the back wall, and the high-tech monitoring system that took up most of one side like a glowing shrine. News feeds, Authority reports, energy scans on all the monitors and printed paper scattered on the desk. Surveillance on the city he no longer protected.
He’d promised himself he wouldn’t check it tonight. He was still uptight from the press conference earlier that day, skin feeling too tight over his muscle and bone, unused energy making him restless and jittery. He knew he should turn it all off, get off of social media, off of anything that was technology based as the headlines and reactions to his retirement announcement rolled in.
But old habits die hard and he was becoming very aware of how empty his whole life was without being a superhero. The alert pulsed red in the corner of the screen and he reached out to tap it.
PSIONIC DISRUPTION DETECTED – SECTOR 7A
THREAT LEVEL: GREEN. LOW PRIORITY.
AGENT ASSIGNED: HALO
Marcus blinked awake the drowsy vestiges of sleep away slowly. He sat up from his slump, rubbing at the stiffness in his neck. His knee clicked again, angrily this time and he rubbed at his absently with his hand. He squinted at the screen.
Sector 7A.
That was the Industrial district, mostly warehouses and startup tech labs. It was the kind of place where rogue psionics sometimes holed up in abandoned research wings, playing with things that didn’t want to be played with.
Green-level. Nothing to be concerned about. It could be a minor psychic bleed, or maybe a bad charm set off in the wrong hands. It was the kind of thing the Hero Authority sent the rookies on to deal with. The kind of thing he used to send Aiden on in his early training..
He should let it go.
Marcus stared at the flashing alert longer than he would normally have, jaw tight as he fought with himself. His fingers hovered over the control pad, over the dismiss button, then dropped his hand to his side.
Instead, he turned.
The hallway stretched toward the back of the apartment, quiet as a mausoleum. At the end of the hallway, behind a biometric lock, stood the glass case. Tall. Silent. Waiting.
Marcus stepped toward it. The lights in the case flared on automatically as he approached, washing the hallway in a faint deep green glow. Inside, the suit stood like a guardian statue, sleek, dark armour etched with faint solar filaments. The original Beacon exoplate. Scarred. Beautiful. Obsolete.
And still all his, something he fought the Hero Authority over keeping it and won.
He placed his palm to the reader, the pad lighting up and reading his palm. A computer beep signalled success and the glass hissed as it slid open, cool air wafting out from the internal climate controls. The armour shifted subtly in its dock, waking up to his presence. Light traced along the seams in pulsing threads.
He reached for the chest plate first, feeling the familiar weight settle against his hands. He didn’t rush. Each piece fit the way it always had, wrapping around his body like a welcome memory. The spinal sheath sealed with a low hiss. The gauntlets clicked into place over weathered knuckles. The boots locked around his bad knee with an almost apologetic whirr. And when the final piece, his helm, lowered into place. The Heads Up Display blinked to life in soft, gold tones, syncing to his bodily vitals.
His heart rate steadied as his breathing became easier. He stood straight, feeling the familiar weight of the suit fitting like an old comfortable glove. He should perhaps be worried that the superhero suit felt more comfortable than regular clothes, but he wasn’t going to go there right now.
The suit hummed around him, alive with power, alive with history. A whisper of the past saying: You are still needed. You are still Beacon . In the mirror pane beside the door, he caught a glimpse of himself.
Older now, at thirty six years old. More lines around the eyes. Perhaps a grey hair or two at the temples. But beneath the helm, he looked almost the same.
One last time, he thought to himself.
It couldn’t hurt.
Sector 7A was one of the older districts of the city, old industrial bones rusting beneath neon skin. The rain had slowed to a mist, leaving the warehouse rooftops slick and glistening under sodium-orange light of the streetlamps below on the street. Marcus touched down with a grunt on the cracked tiles of an abandoned textile factory, his boots skidding slightly as he adjusted his balance. Pain flared in his left knee, reminding to be more careful. A small reminder as to why he shouldn't be doing this anymore. And as usual, he ignored his body’s warnings.
The Heads Up Display inside his visor focused on his surroundings, overlaying the darkness with a soft golden shimmer. Energy pulses wavered in and out like sonar blips, psionic waves peaking and collapsing erratically.
Something was wrong. This time of night, there should only be small consistent spikes of energy from the warehouses below, industrial machines in sleep until the next working day.
“Beacon to dispatch,” he murmured, voice low enough that the rain nearly swallowed the sound. “Responding to the 7A ping. Don’t log me as active. I’m just… keeping an eye on things.”
There was a pause. Then a static-crackled response from a female dispatcher: “Copy that. Good luck out there.”
They made no protest, no follow-up query. Just the silent agreement that this was clearly one of his quirks. A newly retired hero chasing ghosts. Marcus muted the channel.
He scanned the rooftop and the alleys beyond, sweeping his gaze past empty ventilation towers and rusted catwalks. As he was about to move on from his crouched position to the other side of the roof, he froze as he felt something. There - a sensation, not quite a sound. There was pressure behind his eyes, as subtle as the edge of a setting migraine. It felt like someone whispering directly into the folds of his consciousness.
Still trying to be relevant, old light?
It wasn’t Aiden.
It wasn’t anyone with Hero Authority clearance.
Marcus’s heart kicked against his ribs.
From the far side of the rooftop, a figure stepped forward into the light. He was tall and cloaked in torn gray fabric that fluttered even without any wind. Their face was obscured by a hood that cast deep shadows, but the eyes glowed with spectral silver, unblinking as they stared Marcus down. Too still to be human.
“Spectre,” Marcus said, breath fogging inside his helmet.
A name from the Authority’s redacted case files. A telepathic asset who had disappeared mid-mission six years ago. Rumours said he had gone rogue after an experiment fractured his mind, his powers amplified beyond anything stable, his identity splintered into something barely tethered to reality.
Marcus hadn’t seen him on any mission logs in years. Which meant this meeting wasn’t a mistake.
“I was hoping they'd send the boy,” Spectre said, the voice not spoken aloud but woven directly into Marcus’s thoughts - too close, too invasive to be comfortable. “But this is better. I've always wondered what would happen when the light started to flicker.”
Spectre hadn’t lost his flare for speaking dramatically in the six years that he had been gone, then.
Marcus didn’t wait. He surged forward, fist igniting with solar charge. The air cracked with kinetic heat as he swung at Spectre, aiming for his stomach-
And missed.
Spectre shimmered, his body wavered like a midday heat haze, and reappeared behind him. A mental blow crashed into Marcus’s skull with a sickening jolt. Sharp. Freezing cold that his whole body shuddered with it. It felt like claws scrabbling through his memories, digging into his brain.
Marcus staggered, vision ghosting with static. His Heads Up Display blinked with error codes, whatever pulse Spectre had used had damaged Marcus’s suit, overloading the circuits and putting it into overdrive.
Marcus twisted, landing hard on the rooftop, boots scraping against wet concrete, his knee screaming with the jarring movement. It was almost enough to make him buckle but it held at the last moment. He pivoted to regain sight lines of his enemy.
But he was too slow.
A blast of invisible force struck him from behind, blunt and that freezing cold again. It wasn’t like a physical blow; it hit his mind , an invasive thrust of thought shaped like a weapon. Images burst across his vision in a violent rush. They were old memories, twisted versions of past battles he had fought, familiar faces smeared with grief and blood.
He staggered back in his shock.
“Still holding on to those petty little victories?” Spectre’s voice echoed inside his skull, oily and grossly intimate. “Tell me, do they keep you warm when the spotlight’s now gone?”
Marcus snarled and flared his core charge. Heat rippled outward in a solar shock wave that disrupted the illusion around him, cracking the rooftop surface beneath his boots. Despite his visit going haywire with error codes, the static hum of psionic presence flared in its sight, then flickered again.
“Found you,” he growled.
He charged again.
Spectre didn’t dodge this time. He split . His body fractured into three shimmering copies, each one circling Marcus like wolves hunting an injured deer. Each one thinking in tandem, voices pressing in from all angles and making Marcus wince with the agony of it, the chaos of it..
The old hero. The burning light. So noble. So alone.
The first Spectre struck, an arm lashing out with a blade of compressed psychic energy. Marcus blocked it with an armoured forearm, sparks flying. The contact sent shock waves of pain jittering down his arm, the muscle and bone protesting loudly and forcing him to grit his teeth against the pain.
He whirled, swinging a knee into the second clone’s torso, dispersing it in a puff of psychic static. The third came in from above, slamming a mind-spear downward that would have cut him in half from the top of his head to his torso.
Marcus rolled sideways and retaliated, firing a focused burst of solar light from his palm. It connected, scattering two of the remaining projections.
The real Spectre stepped from the haze they had made and this time, his eyes were alight with cold unsuppressed fury.
“You can’t brute-force thought, Marcus,” he said, and hurled a psychic lance at him in a stunning display of speed.
Marcus threw up a kinetic barrier just in time to deflect. The lance slammed into it, sending arcs of gold and violet across the rooftop, the sound like a sonic boom that made the buildings shudder, but the barrier cracked like glass. Pain lanced through Marcus’s skull, white-hot and jagged like broken glass. His knees buckled. His visor blurred.
Then Spectre was inside his head.
It was like being submerged in black water. Thoughts bent and broke. Gravity turned inward. Marcus tried to pull back, to get away, but memories spilled from him like files being torn open: His first mission, blood on his hands. The night he held his dying partner, two years into the superhero game. The slow, aching march toward irrelevance.
Spectre fed on it all.
“You’re not afraid of dying,” Spectre whispered inside his mind. “You’re afraid of being forgotten.”
Marcus screwed his eyes shut and roared his pain.
He detonated the solar core embedded in his chest plate, just a pulse, but enough to light up the sky. The blast knocked Spectre back physically and psychically. The telepath staggered, nose bleeding now, his illusions unravelling in the heatwave.
It was enough to regain his autonomy, his senses and he pressed the advantage.
He lunged, suit overheating now, every server whining its discontent at the abuse. His punch connected this time, a clean and brutal uppercut to Spectre’s jaw that sent the rogue spinning backward. The rooftop cracked beneath the force as Spectre hit the ground hard.
Marcus stood over him, breathing ragged. His suit’s glow had dimmed to an ember. Sparks arced at his shoulder.
Spectre lay sprawled on the rooftop, staring up at the sky but laughing, blood in his teeth. “Is that it, Beacon? A flicker before the dark?”
Marcus raised his hand, charged for one last strike. To put an end to this fight -
But pain shot through his body. His knee finally gave out. He dropped to one side, teeth gritted in frustration. He couldn’t finish it. Not like this.
Spectre rose, bleeding but steady, his face a mask of grim determination.
He’s going to kill me, Marcus thought with a clarity that surprised him. Not because he was afraid—but because it was a truth he'd ignored too long. It was always going to end this way, retirement had never really been in the cards for him.
And then the rooftop went nova.
A meteor of light crashed down between them - Aiden - wrapped in golden fire. He hit like a warhead, kinetic force flattening the rooftop, sending Spectre flying in a ragged arc. The rogue screamed, thrown into the air, into the ether of his own mind.
Aiden stood in the wreckage, back lit by swirling light and steam, suited body glowing like a star. He turned toward Marcus, face full of fury and fear.
“ Marcus! ”
The older hero tried to rise to his feet but failed. God, he ached all over. “Still… on my feet. Sort of.”
Aiden was already there, catching him, steadying him with his large hands on Marcus’s shoulders.
“You nearly cooked yourself,” he muttered, cradling Marcus’s injured arm. “You’d have fried your nervous system with one more pulse of energy.”
“It was worth it,” Marcus said hoarsely, but he wasn’t sure if he really meant it as pain coursed through the entirety of his body like he was one big frayed nerve.
Behind them, Spectre staggered back into view, damaged but not completely done. He floated just above the rooftop, his expression twisted with his anger.
“Cute,” he rasped out. “But you can’t outrun entropy.”
Aiden’s eyebrow rose. “You what?”
Marcus tried to shrug but winced, his eyesight suddenly swimming. “This is Spectre, an old friend of mine. He’s always been a dramatic little bitch, just go with it.”
“If you say so.” Aiden stepped forward, power burning in his hand. Then he struck.
The impact was cataclysmic, blinding light sheared across the rooftop as Aiden’s blast hit Spectre dead centre. The scream that followed was part physical, part psychic, a fraying thread unravelling as Spectre disintegrated, pulled back into the ether like smoke in reverse.
The light faded and the rooftop fell quiet again. There was only the sound of the wind and the rain for a few moments.
Marcus tried to whistle but it was derailed by a coughing fit. “Remind me to never get on your bad side.”
Adam replied, probably with something just equally witty, but Marcus didn’t catch it. His whole world suddenly went sideways and he lost consciousness.
Marcus, slumped but alive.
Aiden, still holding on.