Trauma and Crisis

In the dim light of a rusted garage deep beneath the city, Knuckleduster stood with clenched fists. The old knuckle gear he'd once trusted lay shattered on the ground—useless, a reminder of failure. The news kept replaying the same headline: "New Government Hero Dispatcher Changes the Game." And Alex Thorne's face—calm, steady, accepted—flashed again and again.

A low voice echoed through the shadows. "Still carrying that chip on your shoulder?"

Knuckleduster didn't turn. "I want my power back."

Out of the darkness stepped a man in a coat lined with silver wire—one of the Boss's envoys. He set a black case on the table and opened it slowly. Inside: a new pair of knuckle gear, forged from experimental alloy, glowing faintly with red circuitry.

"The Boss doesn't care about your pride. He wants results. You want revenge. We can work with that."

Knuckleduster slid the gear over his hands. It fit perfectly. "I'll give him results. And Thorne? He's mine."

---

Alex sat at his desk, swirling a mug of coffee—today's flavor was espresso, sharp and energizing, a welcome surprise from his magical mug. Bliss napped by the monitor, shield humming faintly around her neck.

Agent Yurei stepped in without knocking, arms crossed and datapad in hand. Her expression was unreadable, but her eyes were sharp.

"We need to talk about your summoning pattern."

Alex blinked. "Pattern?"

She tossed the datapad onto the desk. It displayed a grid of his summoned heroes.

"Vault. Zipline. Healer. Magician. Fixer. Bliss. That's six support or rescue types. No offense, Thorne, but you're running a triage team, not a defense unit."

Alex stiffened. He wanted to argue, but she wasn't wrong.

"Zipline and Vault are excellent for pulling people out of wreckage. Healer and Bliss stabilize trauma victims. Fixer patches infrastructure. Even Magician plays crowd control, not front line. You haven't summoned a single offensive or shielding hero yet."

He exhaled through his nose. "I… I guess I go with what feels right in the moment."

Yurei tilted her head. "Or maybe what feels safe."

Her voice softened.

"You almost died in that hospital fire, didn't you? Before any of this started. You cried for help, and someone answered. Four heroes, right? They came to you when you were on the edge. And ever since then, you've been trying to recreate that moment… saving others the way you wished someone had saved you."

Alex didn't respond. He didn't have to.

Yurei tapped the pad. "But you need balance. You want to be a real dispatcher? That means sometimes… summoning a shield instead of a healer. A wall instead of a bandage."

She stepped back. "The next threat won't care how kind your heroes are."

Before Alex could respond, an alert pinged across his console. An emergency dispatch—robbery in progress.

A reinforced money truck was under attack near Midtown. Two suspects: a brute-type with extreme muscle density who was tearing through armored plating with his bare hands, and a tech-savvy partner equipped with lockpicking power-gloves and small drones disabling external cameras.

Alex sprang into action. "Dispatching Vault."

Vault materialized mid-sprint and hit the scene at full tilt. The tech-savvy thief had just cracked the truck's final seal when Vault crashed into him, kicking him squarely in the chest and sending him rolling across the asphalt. The drones scattered like marbles, short-circuited by a precise jolt from Vault's baton.

"One down," Vault said, binding the crook's wrists with zip-cuffs.

The brute roared and charged with a delivery truck door gripped like a shield. Vault dodged, pole-vaulting over the villain and delivering a strike to his back.

The shock baton crackled—but the brute barely flinched.

"Alex! He's not reacting to the current!"

"His tolerance is too high," Alex muttered, analyzing the feed. "Make him move. Wear him down. Force him to expose an opening."

Vault darted left, then right, using tight alleyways and debris to box the brute in. Trash bins flew, concrete cracked, and sirens wailed in the distance.

The brute chased him relentlessly, swinging with earthshaking force—but Vault stayed two steps ahead, baiting him into slamming into parked vehicles and barriers.

Then Alex's voice rang again in his earpiece. "Now. Pole. Streetlight junction. Channel the grid."

Vault vaulted onto a power box, driving the tip of his pole into a live wire. The weapon surged, glowing white-hot.

With one fluid motion, Vault flipped off the box and brought the electrified pole crashing down across the brute's collarbone.

The brute convulsed violently, sparks arcing from his body as he collapsed onto the pavement, unconscious.

Smoke curled from the wound. Vault landed hard and exhaled.

"Target neutralized," he confirmed.

Alex leaned back in his chair, letting the adrenaline fade. "Perfect takedown."

Then came the next alert—Zone 13. Something far worse was coming.

---

In a subterranean complex pulsing with red lights, the Boss moved through rows of containment tanks. Inside: mutated animals, enhanced humans, and twitching failures. Scientists in gray coats monitored data feeds, sweat glistening on their foreheads.

Suddenly, alarms blared across the lab floor. Scientists dropped their clipboards, spinning toward the central console where red lights pulsed like a heartbeat.

A containment cylinder hissed violently, pressure valves rattling. Inside, the hybrid—a twisted fusion of reptilian DNA and biomechanical limbs—snapped awake, its eyes glowing bright yellow.

"Something's wrong!" one scientist shouted. "The neural dampeners are failing!"

Another scrambled to override the breach, but the hybrid smashed against the glass. Cracks spiderwebbed outward.

A final shriek echoed, followed by an explosion of reinforced glass.

The creature tore itself free from the tank, slamming a researcher against the far wall and bursting down the corridor.

One of the scientists stammered to the Boss, who was watching in fury from a balcony. "We don't know what went wrong, sir. Power surged and the failsafe disengaged... it shouldn't have.""

The Boss didn't raise his voice, but his glare silenced the entire room. Furious beneath his calm exterior, he turned to a screen showing Alex's face.

"No point wasting it now. Let's see what your dispatcher can do. Consider this an... evaluation."

---

Later after the fight, Alex stepped out with Bliss by his side, dispatched to a local children's park where a sports event was underway. The cheerful buzz was disrupted by earlier damage: cracked pavement, shattered poles—left behind from Vault's pursuit of the brute-type villain.

He summoned Fixer, whose tool-equipped limbs clanked softly as he got to work stabilizing the area. Kids watched in awe while parents murmured thanks.

Alex exhaled, grateful for the calm—at least for now.

But the moment didn't last.

A tremor rumbled beneath the park. Bliss's ears shot up, and Fixer paused mid-repair.

From the far edge of the event grounds, screams erupted.

The hybrid creature—serpent-bodied with claws of fused bone and metal—burst from a broken storm grate. It hissed and lunged toward the crowd.

Children fled. Parents scrambled. Vault turned instinctively to defend, but Alex could see it—Vault was still recovering, and this monster was beyond his classification.

He reached for his orb, dizzy from the day's strain.

"I need someone who can hold the line…"

The orb pulsed. A flash erupted, splitting the air.

A figure landed between the fleeing civilians and the hybrid—tall, armored in runic steel. In one hand, a round shield that absorbed the brute's charge with a thunderous clang; in the other, a spear that whistled through the air.

She was calm, poised, unyielding.

Shield Maiden.

With practiced movement, she stepped forward into the path of the lunging hybrid. It swiped at her with a clawed arm, but her shield absorbed the full brunt of the blow, the force rippling through the runes etched into its surface. She didn't budge.

She thrust her spear low, piercing one of the beast's legs. It shrieked, recoiling—but it wasn't done.

The hybrid twisted, its serpentine tail whipping toward a group of nearby civilians. Shield Maiden intercepted, pivoting her entire body to shield them with her back. The tail struck her shield, splintering the ground beneath her but leaving the people untouched.

She turned with precision, throwing her spear into the creature's chest with the strength of a catapult. The weapon pierced through hide and bone, pinning it momentarily against a metal fence.

It roared and broke free, staggering forward with wild, final rage.

Shield Maiden summoned her shield into both hands, rushed forward, and slammed the beast backward with a deafening crash. With a calm breath, she retrieved her spear and plunged it once more—this time through the skull.

The beast collapsed, unmoving.

Blood and silence filled the space.

The crowd stared in awe. Even Alex, drained but upright, couldn't help but whisper: "Now that's a hero."

---

Elsewhere, Knuckleduster crushed a concrete wall with one punch.

"That dispatcher thinks he's special. Let's see him summon his way out of me".