Symbol of Hope
Chapter 6 - Sucker Punch
The night was quieter now. The echoes of combat had rolled away toward the docks, leaving only the low hum of the restraints. Superboy knelt in the fractured street where Armsmaster had left him. The blue light from the cables painted the dust across his shoulders, his breath slow but deep, fog curling through the haze.
The air smelled of metal and ozone. The cables around his arms and chest vibrated faintly, small arcs of energy crawling over his skin. The field pressed down on him with steady, mechanical patience, each pulse a reminder that he wasn't free.
He stared at the cracked ground beneath him. The glow of the restraints blurred at the edge of his vision, and for a moment, it wasn't the street around him he saw but cold glass and blue frost.
The sound of the cables' hum matched the hiss of the pod.
He remembered.
The first thing was the voice. Not one voice, but many, muffled through layers of glass and water. The words had been dull shapes at first, sound without meaning. He hadn't understood them, but they had always been about him.Specimen stable. Growth sequence intact.
Then the light. Harsh, white, constant. He had floated weightless, eyes open but unfocused, the surface above him rippling whenever the pod's seals released a pulse of pressure. He had learned the rhythm: hum, hiss, silence. Repeat.
Every part of him had known it. It was both safety and prison.
When he had first opened his eyes properly, there had been faces on the other side of the glass. Men and women in white coats, clipboards in their hands. None of them had looked at him like a person. He hadn't known what that meant then, but he'd learned it later.
They had taught him words before they taught him freedom. Orders came first, commands embedded in sound.Obey. Protect. Serve.Each one was a signal fired into his brain through the liquid, syncing with electrical impulses that shaped reflex before thought. He'd repeated the phrases the way a machine would echo a tone. He hadn't understood what he was saying, only that silence brought the cold back.
He remembered the first time the pod had opened.
The seal cracked with a sound that filled the world. The blue liquid had drained away, leaving him kneeling, shivering against the cold air. His lungs burned. Everything around him was movement — scientists scrambling, alarms echoing, the sound of boots on tile. He'd tried to stand but had no balance. His body had been new then, all weight and strength and confusion.
After that, he was put in a new pod once again. One in which he had been left frozen, unaware of the passage of time or anything around him except the images that flashed through his mind. Information, pictures, knowledge.
The next time his pod had been released, the orders came, and when he opened his eyes, three figures greeted him. The sidekicks. Robin, Kid Flash, Aqualad. His targets. He'd overpowered them easily, thrown them aside because that's what he'd been built to do. Strength without restraint.
He would have been put back in the pod afterwards. He knew that. He'd heard the scientists shouting orders, the sound of the machinery spooling up, the pod refilling. But Aqualad had spoken before they could finish.
He could still hear the words, clear as the hum that filled the air around him now.
"Choice."
That was the first thing that had ever made him hesitate.
He hadn't let them put him back.
The memory faded, leaving the hum of the restraints behind. He was kneeling again, the cables around his chest, the blue light shining against the dust. The heat from the field pressed into his skin. The smell, that same mix of metal and current, brought it all back too vividly.
It was Cadmus again. The same feeling. Different chains, same purpose.
Containment.
The pressure inside his chest grew until it became hard to breathe. His fingers twitched once against the ground. The cables tightened in response, sensors registering resistance. They were designed to respond like that, to suppress movement.
He drew a breath. It came out shaky, low.
The cables hummed louder.
He shifted again, testing them. The blue glow flickered with strain. He could feel the energy pushing against his muscles; each movement met with growing resistance. The field adjusted automatically, compensating.
His jaw clenched.
He thought of the pod. The glass. The liquid pressing against his skin. The ice. The cold silence that followed every order he didn't understand.
The hum rose again, high and sharp.
He pulled harder. The cables stretched, metal groaning. Sparks scattered across his arms. His breath came faster, heavier. The sound of the restraints filled the street, a harsh vibration that matched the pounding in his skull.
The first anchor gave way. The ground cracked where it tore free. The sudden slack jolted through the system, unbalancing the feedback. The second followed, energy flaring bright white.
He growled low in his throat, the sound rough and guttural, not a shout, the kind of noise that came from effort, not rage. The next pull snapped the third cable outright, pieces of the alloy spiralling into the dark. The containment field stuttered, its hum breaking apart into fragmented static.
He braced his arms, muscles locking, and with one final surge of strength, the last restraint snapped. The energy discharge burst outward in a flash of blue light that rolled down the street like a wave. Dust billowed, the air shimmering from the release.
Then silence.
Superboy stayed where he was, breathing hard. The fragments of the cables hung from his wrists, sparking faintly before dying out. His pulse slowed by degrees, the world settling around him.
He looked down at the pieces of metal, then toward the direction the others had gone, the sound of battle still echoing faintly through the city. Every instinct in him pointed that way. The fight wasn't over.
He pushed to his feet slowly, the joints in his arms and shoulders stiff from the strain. Dust rolled off his back as he straightened. The cracked pavement glowed faintly from residual charge.
He drew one deep breath, let it steady him, then crouched.
The concrete split under his boots as he pushed off. The leap cracked through the air, sending a shockwave rolling through the empty street.
He rose above the rooftops, the lights of Brockton Bay spreading out beneath him — broken, scattered, alive. The night swallowed him as he arced toward the docks, the echo of the impact fading behind him.
-X-
Smoke still poured from the docks. Fires burned in distant stacks, throwing streaks of orange across the low clouds. Aegis hovered above the rooftops, visor tracking heat signatures and movement patterns. The street below was a sprawl of broken glass and overturned cars. The city was alive with noise, alarms, distant shouting, the heavy beat of rotors somewhere to the south, but he tuned it out, focusing on the voices coming through his comm.
"Gallant, how's your side?"
Gallant's voice came back, tight but controlled. "We've got two civilians trapped in a stairwell on Sixth. Vista's working on an exit, but the building's unstable."
Aegis angled down, catching a glimpse of the smaller girl's cape flashing between the smoke. Vista's power folded the street like paper, shifting concrete away from the doorway as Gallant guided the survivors out.
"Good. Clock, you're with the EMTs?"
"Yeah," Clockblocker said, his voice muffled under background noise. "And for the record, your 'keep it calm' talk didn't help. Half the block thinks Lung's back."
"Then make sure they don't panic," Aegis said. "No heroics. We're support until the big guns clear the docks."
He banked east, cutting through a plume of dust, and the sound of his flight pack drowned out the rest of their chatter. He could feel the heat from the fires even through his armour. Down below, streets were half-empty; whoever hadn't run was already being pulled out by rescue crews.
Then the line crackled with a new voice.
"Aegis, this is Director Piggot."
He straightened instinctively, the habit automatic. "Director, go ahead."
"New orders," she said, her voice clipped, metallic through the channel. "You're to divert to grid seven-four-two, sector west of Dock 9. That's the containment site where Armsmaster secured D-1. Report on status immediately."
"Yes, ma'am."
Piggot continued without pause. "Miss Militia and Armsmaster are engaging D-2. Glory Girl is assisting. You'll maintain coordination with the other Wards, Velocity and emergency services. Confirm understanding."
"Confirmed," Aegis said.
"Then move."
The line clicked dead.
He breathed out through his teeth, rolling his shoulders. D-1 and D-2. The designations still sounded strange in his head, neat little numbers for something that was tearing the city apart. He wasn't sure what D-1 even was. Piggot had said "unregistered trigger cape." Armsmaster's voice in the earlier broadcast hadn't offered much else except "contained."
He switched back to the team channel. "Alright, listen up. Command just rerouted me. I'm heading to grid seven-four-two."
Vista's voice came first, shaky but still trying for professionalism. "That's near the waterfront, right? Isn't that where they said Armsmaster—"
"Yeah," Aegis interrupted. "He left one of the new threats there. I'm checking the site. You three stay on evac duty until I give the all-clear."
Gallant cut in, the older tone of the group. "You sure you don't want backup?"
"Negative," Aegis said. "I just need eyes. Keep people moving out of the area and stay away from the docks. If you see D-2, you call it in. Do not engage."
Clockblocker's reply was dry. "Yeah, because I'm dying to get punched into orbit."
Aegis didn't respond. He levelled out and shot forward above the smoke. The city below rolled past in streaks of black and orange. His visor's map lit up with the new coordinates, a blinking red marker amid a field of static warnings.
He pushed faster.
The damage deepened the closer he got. Streets that had once been packed with cars were split open, asphalt torn apart in long trenches. Walls had been stripped to skeletal frames, windows punched out by shockwaves. Armsmaster's fight had gone through here; he could tell by the impact patterns, the sheer precision of destruction. Controlled chaos.
Aegis descended slightly, scanning for movement. Nothing. No civilians. No patrol units. Just the wind cutting between ruined buildings.
Then he saw it.
The containment site sat in what had once been an intersection. The ground was cratered, a wide circular depression surrounded by scorch marks and bent rebar. The remnants of Armsmaster's restraints lay scattered across the asphalt: lengths of broken cable, shattered anchors, and the faint smell of ozone. The air still hummed with static.
He landed near the edge, boots crunching over debris. His visor swept the area, mapping residual heat signatures. The cables were still warm, which meant whatever had broken them hadn't happened long ago.
He crouched, touching the metal. The edge was melted smooth, not cut, the kind of failure that came from raw physical strain overpowering tensile capacity. Whoever D-1 was, they'd done this with muscle alone.
The comm crackled faintly in his ear. Piggot again. "Aegis. Status report."
He looked around once more. The silence pressed in. He could feel the weight of it, that eerie stillness left after something impossible had already happened.
"Containment's broken," he said finally. "No sign of the target."
"Repeat that?"
Before he could, a sound cut through the night, a deep, concussiveboomin the distance. The shockwave rippled across the rooftops, bending the flames below. He looked up just in time to see the source: a blur of white and red arcing across the skyline, leaping from the ground with force that cracked the air.
D-1.
He recognised the description from the earlier feed, the red emblem, the shockwave of every movement. The figure sailed through the air, rising high before vanishing behind the smoke toward Dock 9.
Aegis blinked once, his HUD trying and failing to track the trajectory. The power output readings spiked before the sensors fuzzed out completely. He hadn't seen a leap like that outside of old All Might footage.
He exhaled, muttering under his breath, "You've got to be kidding me."
Then he toggled his comm. "Control, this is Aegis," he said, forcing his voice steady. "Confirm visual on D-1. Subject has broken containment. Currently airborne, heading northeast toward Dock 9."
Static filled the channel for a moment. Then Piggot's voice came back, sharp enough to cut through it. "Understood. Maintain distance. Do not engage. Continue civilian extraction."
"Copy," he said.
The line went dead again, leaving only the low crackle of flames.
Aegis stayed there for a second longer, staring toward the horizon where Superboy had disappeared into the clouds. He could still see the faint ripple of disturbed air, the echo of that impossible leap. Then he lifted off the ground and turned back toward his team.
The comm hissed softly in his ear as he rose above the wreckage, Piggot's last words echoing in his head.
Do not engage.
-X-
The docks burned in patches of orange and steel. Cranes stood like broken skeletons over the water, their cables swaying in the smoke. Shipping containers lay split open, their contents scattered across cracked concrete. The air stank of salt, oil, and burnt metal.
Blockbuster's roar rolled across the yard, low and guttural. The ground shook beneath him as he swung, tearing a path through stacked containers. He was bigger now—muscle swollen, veins thick beneath mottled grey skin. His eyes were blood-red in the firelight, a living wall of strength and fury.
But he was missing more than he was hitting.
Armsmaster pivoted around him, halberd flashing in controlled bursts of blue light. Each pulse that left the weapon detonated against Blockbuster's body like a thunderclap, forcing him to stumble just long enough for Miss Militia's gunfire to follow through. The air cracked with concussive rounds, driving the brute back step by step.
"Keep him off balance!" Armsmaster barked through comms. His tone was clipped, all function.
"I've got it," Miss Militia answered, shifting her weapon into a grenade launcher. The mechanism reformed in her hands with a metallic snap. She fired, the blast punching into Blockbuster's ribs and sending him crashing against a stack of containers.
Overhead, Glory Girl shot past like a blur of white and gold. Her aura shimmered faintly as she swooped low and struck Blockbuster across the jaw. The impact echoed like a gunshot. The creature spun, half-falling, half-catching himself on a collapsed beam.
For a second, the trio moved as one, perfect rhythm born of training. Miss Militia's fire drove him into Armsmaster's traps; Armsmaster's halberd flared to corral his movement; Glory Girl darted in and out, punishing any exposed opening. It was a rhythm that left Blockbuster reeling, off balance, never quite able to recover momentum.
"Pressure holding," Armsmaster muttered, adjusting his stance. "Keep distance. He's slowing."
Glory Girl grinned from above, her hair whipping in the wind. "Feels like we're finally getting somewhere!"
"Don't get cocky," Miss Militia warned. She reloaded with practised speed, the launcher folding into a long rifle. "He's not going down easy."
They were winning, but just barely.
Every strike that landed sent vibrations through the ground, shattering glass and knocking loose chunks of debris from the nearby cranes. Each time they dodged, Blockbuster's fists left dents in the earth wide enough to bury a car. Even slowed, even bleeding, he was a mountain that refused to fall.
Then Piggot's voice cut through the comms like a blade.
"All units at Dock Nine, be advised," she said. "Containment failure confirmed. D-1 has broken free. Current trajectory, directly toward your position."
The words hit harder than the explosions.
Miss Militia's breath caught for half a beat before she steadied it. "Director, confirm. D-1 is mobile?"
"Confirmed. High-speed approach. Estimated arrival, thirty seconds."
Armsmaster's visor flickered with new telemetry as the data streamed in. "Then we end this now," he said flatly. "We can't afford D-1 and D-2 in the same zone."
"Agreed," Miss Militia replied, her tone firm but low. She shifted position, climbing atop a half-collapsed truck to get a cleaner line of sight.
Glory Girl didn't answer. She just dove again, faster this time, trailing dust behind her as she slammed into Blockbuster's sternum. The impact sent him sprawling through the hull of an empty cargo container, metal screeching as it folded around him.
"Stay down!" She shouted, landing hard beside the wreckage.
Blockbuster rose through the smoke.
His breathing was heavy now, animal-deep, each exhale a growl that rattled the air. His arms hung low, fingers dragging through broken steel. Blood and dust streaked across his skin.
Armsmaster stepped forward, halberd drawn back. The weapon hummed as its charge built to capacity, heat rippling off the blade. "Miss Militia, sync on my mark. Glory Girl, flank from above."
"Copy."
"Ready."
He pivoted sharply, swinging the halberd in a downward arc. The pulse hit first, a burst of blue energy that slammed into Blockbuster's chest, detonating with a shockwave that threw dust across the yard. Miss Militia's rifle fired an instant later, bullets striking the same point. Glory Girl dove through the smoke, fists first, catching Blockbuster's chin and driving him back another ten meters.
He fell to one knee, shoulders hunched, breath rasping.
It looked, for the first time, like he might actually stay down.
Then the sound hit.
A deep, concussive crack from above, the kind that wasn't heard so much asfelt. Air folded inward, pressure shifting. The smoke along the yard stirred.
Miss Militia turned first, weapon raised. "Contact, northwest!"
Something dropped from the sky like a meteor. The impact split the ground, dust and debris flying outward in a rolling wave.
Superboy stood in the crater, his head tilted slightly down, his breathing steady but heavy. His suit was torn along one arm, the red emblem across his chest streaked with dirt. He looked older than he had minutes ago, older in the way storms are older than clouds.
Armsmaster's visor flashed with readings, recognition locking on. "D-1."
He levelled his halberd. Miss Militia raised her rifle. Glory Girl hovered above, frowning in confusion.
For a moment, no one moved. Even Blockbuster seemed to pause, staring from the haze.
Then Superboy shifted his footing. The dust rippled outward.
"Hold position," Armsmaster ordered quietly. "Let him engage D-2 first."
Glory Girl lowered slightly, squinting through the haze. "He's, he's looking at us, not him."
Miss Militia's finger tightened against the trigger guard. "Something's wrong."
The warning came too late.
Superboy blurred forward. One second, he was still; the next, the air exploded. The ground cracked under the force of his step, and before anyone could react, his fist connected square with Armsmaster's chest.
The sound was like a thunderclap.
Armsmaster's armour buckled inward, the impact shattering the stabilisers along his torso. The halberd flew from his hands as his body lifted off the ground, thrown backwards in a single violent arc. He crashed through a line of containers and vanished into a cloud of smoke and twisted metal.
"Armsmaster!" Miss Militia shouted, spinning toward the crater he'd left.
Glory Girl hovered mid-air, eyes wide, frozen by the sheer shock of what she'd just seen. "What the hell—"
But the sentence died as Blockbuster moved.
The brute lunged without hesitation, his massive hand closing around a chunk of broken concrete. He swung it like a club, striking Superboy across the torso before the boy could turn. The weapon shattered, and Superboy went flying, launched through the far wall of a warehouse in an explosion of dust and debris.
The entire dockyard went still again.
Miss Militia re-aimed instinctively, her rifle snapping back into pulse-cannon form. Glory Girl dropped to hover just above the ground, eyes locked on the spreading dust cloud. The echo of both impacts rolled away toward the water, leaving only the sound of crackling fires.
Static hissed through their comms. Piggot's voice broke through, clipped and sharp. "Report. What just happened?"
Neither answered at first. The dust was too thick, the silence too heavy.
Miss Militia swallowed, voice low but steady. "D-1 and D-2 just made contact. Both active."
There was a pause on the other end, short, but it said everything.
"Understood," Piggot said finally. "Maintain distance. Containment priority re-designated."
The line went dead.
Glory Girl exhaled hard, glancing sideways. "Containment? They're trying tocontainthat?"
Miss Militia didn't answer. Her eyes were fixed on the warehouse where Superboy had vanished, the haze trembling with movement.