Chapter 1: First Light

"Here's the thing about heroism." Delsin spray painted through the holes of the cardboard cut out Eugene carried up for him. Eugene, a small pale kid that was sixteen, wore glasses and a grey hoodie that shadowed over the top half of his face. Delsin had on a red beanie hat with no mask, while Eugene wore a bandana to carry some resemblance of a standard cape. "All these PRT capes who do their best to be the 'beacon of hope', are normally just high class assholes who think they're better than the rest of us."

Delsin continued to spray paint with red dye. He grinned as he envisioned what was about to come out. "Before the Leviathan attack, these guys worked so hard for their PR bullshit to look nice in front of the camera. But fuck it, now that the city has gone to hell, we get to see the true faces of those high class heroes that have been used to sitting their asses on the sofa, and only pretending to be heroes for the fame and money."

"They saved people," Eugene mumbled. He didn't want to argue against the person he looked up to, but he wanted to at least give a another viewpoint.

"Yup," Delsin said happily. "And they do it for the glory. They do it for the fun. They do it for the money. And you know how I know this?"

Eugene shook his head. Delsin said, "because if they really did it for non-selfish reason, they'd let some of us homeless people crash at that nice air conditioned PRT base."

"It's more complicated than that." The girl who said that was Celia. She was the youngest girl in the group. African American, wearing a paper mache bunny mask that had ears extruding from its head. "People are paranoid, it wouldn't be easy to-"

"Whatever," Fetch said. Abigail, now going strictly by fetch, was a nineteen year old girl with blue eyes and purple dyed hair. She had bracelets reminiscent of her deceased brother, and used her powers to light a bright mark at the wall across from Delsin. "Like it matters. It's all bullshit, I don't care why. Everything's fucked, there's no point asking why."

"Amen to that," Delsin said. Delsin nodded for Eugene to pull down the cardboard box. Taking it away from the wall, they now had a complete spray paint stencil of a skeleton in a tuxedo with a broken television around his head. "Vuala," Delsin said with a smile. "True art."

"Meh," Fetch said. "Mine is better."

Fetch drew a giant, beaming archangel on her side of the wall. It's wings extended across the entire alleyway wall. It would stay bright for hours, and then disappear into a permanent mark of an angel outline.

"Why do you always do the opposite of what I make?" Delsin asked.

"Because," Celia said with a smile. "Ironies are the best."

A man encased in metal stepped into the opening of the alleyway. He stared across the four delinquents marking spots of his territory. "You're not welcomed here," Hookwolf said as a threat. "I have more pressing matters to attend to."

"Fortunately," Delsin said confidently, "we just finished marking out territory. So we're already on our ways home."

"Your territory?" Hookwolf scoffed as he walked closer to them. More metal extruded from his body, making his bodies clatter in metal. "This is E88 territory."

Celia said, "Last I checked, the E88 fell apart. You guys are a husk of what you all used to be. Which is exactly why unpowered people like me feel so safe in places like this." Hookwolf fell silent. Celia pointed to her own mask, "I wear this mask ironically."

Hookwolf looked over to Fetch. "We can offer you a spot in the E88. You can have power, allies, resources. Just abandon the nigger."

"Hey!" Eugene yelled clenching his fists, "don't-"

Celia placed a hand on Eugene's chest, warning him to not get mad on her behalf. Fetch waved her hand off, "oh how cute, Nazis trying to recruit junkies like me. And here you guys talk about supremacy bullshit and what-not."

Hookwolf's metal arms now extruded to giant scythes that were twice the size of his body. "Hey guys," Delsin said, "since I'm Native American, does the E88 hate me too?"

"I dunno," Celia said casually, "I'm guessing you're kind of neutral."

Rubbing salt to the wound, Eugene said, "knowing the E88, you'd probably be mistaken for another race they can stereotype."

"Woe is me," Delsin said smiling, "no clever stereotypes for me to joke about."

"Ironically, of course." Celia added.

"Enough!" Hookwolf yelled, "if the girl doesn't join, then she's an enemy of our the empire!"

"Sounds fine by me," Fetch lit up her arms. "I've been needing to stretch the legs, since I came to this city."

Her friends stepped back. No, they didn't step back, they ran away. They ran away as far as they could, because they knew Fetch loved to make a light show. Fetch's arms and eyes lit up the alleyway in an instance. Her first reaction was to shoot Hookwolf with all her might, but she wasn't going to play all her ticks all at once. Hookwolf wasn't blinded by the light, he already targeted the girl the moment he got close. He rolled towards Fetch, in a swiveling rotation of metal blades that would've cut Fetch into pieces.

For a small moment, Fetch thought she was going to die. And barely managed to shift into her neon-fazed state to dodge Hookwolf's deadly pounce. Fetch grabbed onto the fire escape latter with an arm, and began shooting a turret of light bolts into Hookwolf's body.

They bounced off his body. Like a mirror reflecting light. Shit fuck. Fetch thought to herself. "Hey, big, ass, and ugly. Hold still for a minute so I can shoot you!"

Hookwolf leaped into the air at the fire escape floor above her. He used fast extruding metal to catapult himself into the air, clammering into the metal railing with a loud clinging noise that screeched into Fetch's ears. Hookwolf collapsed his metallic body below him, and caused his body to destroy three floors of fire escape to collapse onto where Fetch was hanging.

Fetch shifted again. Okay, so this guy moves faster than the other capes I"ve fought. She landed on the ground in time to watch the fire escape crush into pieces. Hookwolf raised up from the metal, and charged at fetch as though he wasn't harmed. His metal body slammed into her. She flew across the floor and onto the city streets like a train had just hit her. "Fuck!" She yelled. The pain was crushing, like her entire body had destroyed from the inside. Hookwolf closed the distance between them. He looked down at Fetch laying and hurdled on the ground, and he whispered, "for a girl with power, you're an amateur on how to use them."

"Amateur?" Fetch said with the weak grin, "maybe, baby. But didn't you know the oldest trick in the book, is to never show your tricks until the last second?"

Fetch looked over at the Neon lights that were just barely flickering from the wrecked nighclub from across the street. She reached out her hand and pulled for the light source that the nighclub offered. It wasn't much. There was so little in this wrecked city. But it was enough to get her back on her feet. And enough to piss off Hookwolf at least once. She put all her energy into a single blast, and made sure to fire all her light into Hookwolf's face.

Hookwolf went flying. Not just flying, but flying to the building rooftop in front of them. Literally, twelve fucking floors. Fetch was impressed with herself. She quickly stepped back on her feet and ran off, knowing Hookwolf couldn't die that easily.

Brockton Bay, Fetch smiled to herself, lovely city, but not enough lights.