RWD - NO_ROLLBACK: 6.07 

NO_ROLLBACK: 6.07 

(Glory Girl)

The air atop the skyscraper was thick with a tension that felt heavier than the storm-choked clouds overhead. Below, the city had become a theatre of chaos, a sprawling stage for the brutal ballet between man and monster. From this height, the sounds of battle were a muted roar, a constant, grinding percussion that vibrated through the soles of Victoria’s boots. She stood a careful distance from the edge, her arms crossed, watching the man who called himself Hollowpoint. He was a study in stillness, a stark contrast to the maelstrom unfolding in the streets and on the ice-choked bay.

He hadn’t moved in minutes, his tall, lean frame silhouetted against the bruised purple of the sky. His rifle, a monstrous piece of hardware that looked like it belonged on a vehicle mount, not in a man’s hands, rested against the ledge. He stared down its scope, calm and unblinking, at the frozen form of Leviathan. The Endbringer was a statue of green-scaled fury, temporarily encased in a shimmering field of warped time courtesy of one of Hibana’s stasis bombs. It wouldn’t last.

Victoria’s own family was down there. Laserdream, Lady Photon, Shielder. The thought of any one of them suffering a similar fate to Exalt sent a familiar spike of cold dread through her. She forced it down. They were heroes; this was the job. But the unease remained, a knot in her stomach that had been tightening for a few days now.

Victoria had volunteered for this. When the request came through that the Peacekeepers needed a neutral flier to assist Hollowpoint, the PRT had recommended Laserdream. Laserdream, in typical form, flat-out refused. "I'm not working with terrorists," she'd said, despite being the best choice given her superior flight speed. Mom had backed her up, of course. Brandish also wanted nothing to do with the group.

But Victoria had seen the opportunity for what it was. She’d volunteered before she could overthink it. It wasn’t just morbid curiosity. There was something about the man—about what he’d done. He’d killed Gallant’s killer, killed Hookwolf, dismantled E88 when everyone else just wrung their hands and talked about due process. He’d done it all without the body count spiralling the way the news warned it would. A monster or a necessary evil? She needed to know.

 Her mother had been furious, of course. Brandish had argued, threatened, and cited every regulation she could think of, but the feds, desperate for this alliance to hold, had applied pressure. They needed this to work. They needed Hollowpoint to be the silver bullet he claimed to be.

Now here she was, standing ten feet from him in the middle of an Endbringer fight, and she still couldn't figure him out.

He was tall - maybe six-two, six-three. His body armour made it hard to judge his exact build, but he moved with the kind of efficiency that came from perfect physical conditioning. No wasted motion, no nervous energy. Even now, with Leviathan temporarily frozen below them, he radiated a calm that seemed almost supernatural.

"Can you really do it?" The words were out before she could stop them. They sounded small against the wind and the distant din of battle. "Kill him, I mean."

For a long moment, Hollowpoint didn’t respond. He remained fixed on his target and just let the question hang, cold and heavy. Then, with a slow, deliberate motion, he straightened up, setting the butt of his rifle on the ground so that it leaned against the ledge. He turned to face her, his expression unreadable behind the balaclava.

He reached for a velcro pouch on his plate carrier, his movements economical and precise. From it, he pulled a bullet. It was the size of a small bottle, its brass casing gleaming dully in the storm light. “Tinkertech,” he said, his voice a low, calm baritone, slightly distorted by his mask’s comms. “A shaped charge. When it detonates, it produces a hyper-velocity jet of material imbued with a state of quantum superposition.”

Victoria stared at the round in his gloved hand, trying to wrap her head around the jargon.

“The round is designed to produce a stream of materials that ignore the fundamental laws of physics that govern matter interaction,” he continued, as if sensing her confusion. “Theoretically, it should pass through any defence, any material, as if it weren’t there.”

He paused, his gaze shifting back to the frozen Endbringer. “Theoretically,” he repeated, a note of caution in his tone. “ Chevalier's blade managed to penetrate significantly before shattering, apparently after making contact with the core. Armsmaster's nanothorns failed at depth. The Endbringer's dimensional folding may interact unpredictably with the superposition effect." He turned the bullet in his fingers, studying it like a chess player considering a move. "We'll know soon enough."

Her eyes were drawn to the pouch on his vest. She could see three more of the massive rounds nestled inside. Four shots. Four chances to end a nightmare.

Hollowpoint began to load the bullets into the rifle’s internal magazine, the metallic clicks loud in the relative quiet of the rooftop. “Even if these can punch through its layers, there’s still the problem of pinpointing the core. The stream from the charge only bores a hole about an inch in diameter. Leviathan’s core, due to the asymmetrical arrangement of its internal layers, could be anywhere vertically within a space seven to five inches in length. There’s a significant margin for error.”

He closed the magazine, the sound final. “However, my thinkers and I have been observing the battle. The damage and regeneration process from the last few minutes has been mapped, and we think we’ve narrowed it down to three possible locations.”

“So you have three chances,” Victoria said, a flicker of hope igniting within her.

He corrected her without turning. “No. I have a maximum of two. More likely, one. The moment Leviathan perceives a genuine threat to its core, its behaviour will become unpredictable. It could focus its entire attention on killing me. It could use the surrounding buildings as cover. It could simply retreat into the ocean. The first shot is the only one I can be certain of.”

The hope guttered out, replaced by the familiar, bitter taste of despair that always accompanied an Endbringer fight. The sheer, insurmountable odds of it all.

A low chuckle came from Hollowpoint. “Don’t look so grim, Glory Girl. I have a backup plan to drive it off if this fails.” 

She waited. He didn’t elaborate.

“Which is…?”

He only looked at her for a moment, long enough that she felt herself flush. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Their attention returned to the battlefield. The stasis field around Leviathan was beginning to flicker, reality reasserting itself around the edges.

“How much longer?” she asked.

“About two minutes.” He turned to her, his gaze direct. “You’ll be relocating Ambrosia. As soon as the shot’s fired, this building could become a target. She’s too fragile and valuable to be anywhere near an Endbringer, so I need you to get her as far from here as possible.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll manage.”

Another stretch of silence, filled only by the wind. Then, almost as an afterthought, he spoke again, his voice casual. “The Peacekeepers will be enlisting new capes once our negotiations with the PRT and the government are finalised. I’m offering you a place on the team, should you be interested.”

Victoria blinked, taken aback. “Is this really the time or place for a recruitment pitch?” she asked, a weak attempt at a joke. Internally, though, a part of her was already considering it. If the Peacekeepers could truly normalize relations, they could be a more effective force for good than the Protectorate, unburdened by the bureaucracy and political games that so often hamstrung the heroes. They got things done. That was more than she could say for the PRT most days.

“It’s time.” Hollowpoint’s voice cut through her thoughts. He was pressing a button on the side of a radio strapped to his vest. A moment later, a small, floating orb rose from the street below, hovering silently beside him. “Feed integrity?” he said again into the radio. A pause, then he nodded. Victoria realised then that the orb was some sort of tinkertech drone.

He turned his attention to Ambrosia, who had been standing silently behind them, trying to make herself less obvious. He offered her his hand. “Invincibility, please.”

The former Neo-Nazi cape hesitantly touched his hand. A faint shimmer of power enveloped him for a second, then vanished. He started to turn back towards the ledge, then paused. He stood completely still for a long second, then slowly turned back to face Ambrosia. With a sigh that spoke of a deep, weary disappointment, he pulled a combat knife from a sheath on his belt, pushed up his sleeve, and drew the blade lightly across his wrist. 

A thin line of red welled up, bright against his skin.

“What did you give me?” he asked, his voice dangerously calm.

Ambrosia flinched. When she finally spoke, her voice was a trembling whisper. “Super strength.”

 “And what did I ask for?”

“Invincibility.”

Hollowpoint shook his head slowly. “Even now. With so many lives at stake, you still play these foolish games.” His voice was soft, but it carried a chilling weight. “I hope you understand that there will be consequences for this treachery.”

The dread radiating from Ambrosia was palpable. Before Victoria could process the quiet, terrifying exchange, Hollowpoint turned to her. “Take her and go. Now.”

Not wanting to involve herself with whatever had just transpired, Victoria simply nodded. “Good luck,” she said. She grabbed the other girl’s arm, the fabric of her costume slick with nervous sweat, and launched herself into the sky, away from the monster, away from the battle, and away from the man who was about to try and kill an Endbringer.