Felicia Hardy POV (Flashback)
The world swayed.
Felicia's body felt weightless, drifting between flashes of light and muffled sound.
Bass. Footsteps.
Someone's arm under her knees, another at her back.
Warm. Steady. Solid.
She tried to open her eyes, but the light cut too bright against her skull.
The air smelled of smoke, leather, and metal — an odd mix of danger and safety.
Where am I…?
Every breath burned.
Every heartbeat sent a ripple of heat through her chest — right where it always did now.
The shard pulsed. Once. Twice.
With each beat, the sound around her shifted.
The rhythm of the club blurred, stretched, then dissolved into something deeper — thunder, rain, and the hollow echo of sirens.
Her mind slipped.
The present bled into memory.
She was back in October.
New York had been burning, sirens clawing at the night as the Tower split the sky in half.
From her rooftop, she'd watched the storm twist above the city — red lightning, black clouds, shadows that screamed.
The world had gone mad, and for once, Felicia Hardy wasn't sure she'd survive the chaos she hadn't caused.
She pressed a trembling hand to her chest, feeling the shard's faint warmth beneath her skin.
It had been there long before the Tower rose — stolen from a vault she shouldn't have been near, a broken piece of a blade that looked expensive.
She'd planned to sell it.
Instead, it became part of her.
Since that night, it had never stopped humming.
And now, as darkness folded over her again, she felt that hum aligning with the heartbeat of whoever carried her through the club's fading lights.
The city was quieter after the Tower fell.
Not peaceful — just stunned.
New York didn't sleep anymore; it twitched.
The sky still flickered sometimes, like the world hadn't quite healed.
Felicia Hardy had changed too.
She landed lightly on the ledge of a high-rise, black suit gleaming faintly red beneath the moon.
The wind off the river tugged at her hair.
Her pulse thudded steady against the shard embedded just beneath her collarbone.
It still glowed sometimes — soft, like a heartbeat under glass.
At first, she'd thought it was just adrenaline. A thief's rush. The high of getting away clean.
But over time, her reflection started lying to her.
Her eyes flashed red in the dark.
Her muscles didn't burn after a climb.
Her balance — impossible.
She leaned forward, toes on the ledge, body tilted at an angle that should've meant certain death.
The wind pushed. Gravity dared her.
She didn't move.
Felicia smiled. "Guess I've got my sea legs."
She leapt.
The gap between rooftops should've been too wide.
She landed in a crouch, silent, no sound except the whisper of her boots on steel.
Her fingers dug into the ledge and left faint claw marks.
When she looked down, her nails were different — sharper, faintly black at the tips, catching the light like obsidian.
The shard beneath her skin pulsed once, hot and pleased.
"What are you turning me into?" she whispered.
The wind didn't answer. But her instincts did.
Below, a patrol car turned down the block, lights sweeping.
Felicia moved before she could think, diving from the roof and twisting midair.
Her hands caught a streetlight; she spun once, then dropped perfectly into the alley shadows.
Every motion felt natural. Too natural.
She could feel the world's rhythm now — the hum of the city, the shifting air currents, the heartbeat of every moving thing around her.
And then came the voice.
"Hey! That bag looks a little too heavy to be yours!"
Felicia sighed, glancing over her shoulder.
A man in red and blue perched on a nearby billboard, lenses narrowing.
"Great. Another guy with a hero complex."
He tilted his head. "Spider-Man, actually. And you are…?"
"Late for an appointment."
She vaulted onto the next roof before he could move.
He fired a web — she twisted aside midair, dodging the shot like she'd seen it coming.
"Whoa," he muttered. "Okay, you've got moves."
She landed, spun, and kicked the duffel into her hand in one fluid motion. "You have no idea."
He fired another webline. It stuck. He swung — only for the lamppost he anchored to to snap clean in half.
Felicia blinked. "Didn't touch it."
Spider-Man barely caught himself on the side of a water tower. "Okay, what is with tonight?"
She grinned. "Maybe the city's just rooting for me."
Felicia leapt backward across the gap, landing on a narrow cable.
Her feet didn't even wobble.
She sprinted across it as if it were solid ground.
The shard pulsed again, stronger this time.
By the time she reached the next building, Spider-Man's web-shooters jammed, sparks flying.
He cursed under his breath. "What—how—?!"
Felicia paused just long enough to blow him a kiss. "Bad luck, hero."
Then she was gone — slipping into the night with a cat's grace, her laughter echoing between rooftops.
At first, Felicia thought her new luck was finally evening the score.
Security lasers glitched mid-heist.
Bullets always missed by inches.
For once in her life, the universe was cutting her a break.
But luck's a liar.
It always takes interest.
It started after the Tower fell.
The city was crawling with hunters — men and women scooping up anything that glowed, moved, or whispered "power."
Word on the street was that Wilson Fisk was behind it.
The Kingpin wasn't stupid.
After demons literally tore through Manhattan, he realized there was profit in chaos.
So he started collecting it.
Mutants. Gifted. Anyone who might sell or bleed power.
Felicia kept her head down.
She stole quietly, moved constantly, never stealing from the same place twice. Every whisper said Fisk's people were looking for a woman with silver hair.
She should've been caught.
She was supposed to be caught.
But luck intervened.
It had been three weeks since the Tower fell, and the city still hadn't caught its breath.
New York was still twitching from the aftershocks — power surges, riots, and whispers about people disappearing near the docks.
That night, she was meeting Clara Hayes — an old friend.
Same college. Same laugh. Same habit of trusting the wrong people.
Clara had called her in tears.
"Fee, I think someone's following me. Please… just meet me, okay?"
Felicia went, heart pounding, the shard burning hot against her chest.
She found Clara waiting near the docks — same build, same silver-dyed hair, wearing one of Felicia's old jackets.
Felicia almost laughed. "You shouldn't be out here dressed like me, sweetheart. You'll attract—"
That's when the van pulled up.
Four men.
Black suits. Fisk's crest on their cuffs.
Felicia's instincts screamed run.
But she hesitated — one heartbeat too long.
The shard pulsed.
The world tilted.
A crane overhead groaned.
Chains snapped.
A shipping container fell, blocking her from the men.
When the dust cleared, they were gone.
So was Clara.
Felicia searched for days.
Weeks.
Rumors spread — Fisk's people had taken "the silver-haired girl."
They said she was being transferred to a private lab uptown.
Felicia knew the truth.
The shard had saved her and taken Clara instead.
Every beat of her heart since that night had sounded like a debt she could never repay.
Now, months later, that debt was catching up.
Clara was still missing.
And the trail had led straight to Inferno — Fisk's new playground — where women and men came to lose themselves for a night and vanished by morning.
Felicia went there to find her friend, wearing the mask of a party girl her classmates knew too well. One of them even came with her — a smiling escort, all charm and easy lies. She never saw the moment he turned. Her own classmate drugged her drink, planning to sell her to Fisk before sunrise.
The shard pulsed once — again, as if calling for someone.
As if leading someone to save her.
The last thing she saw was the same man who had helped her in the alleyway — red coat, silver hair.
Without thinking, she blurted out the first words that came to mind.
"Hey there… handsome."