(A/N: Welcome to the first of many chapters where we explore what's going on elsewhere as stuff and things happen. Thankfully, I've already had this one planned out. Oh, and I bet y'all have been wondering what TLD's been up to…)

In a corner office of the Brockton Bay Police Department, a haggard figure looked over a large corkboard with string connecting many photos and pieces of evidence. The grizzled detective paced with a hand on his stubbled chin, trying to piece together the evidence. While everything was there, Senior Detective Niels Hansen just couldn't fit in the final piece of the puzzle. He paused, looking over the board one more time before looking away and giving a long, breathy sigh and rubbing the tiredness from his thick-set features.

Just one lead. Just one connection, and I've got it… he thought, trying his best to piece together this murderous puzzle before the trail went cold. He pulled a lighter and cigar from his coat pocket, the old family heirloom from his grandfather in Norway, a souvenir of his fight against the Germans. A knock at the door broke the detective's concentration, whipping about to lash out against the interruption.

Niels' anger died with the sight of his boss, Chief Kennedy, giving him an even stare.

"I told you to go home, Hansen," he stated, crossing his arms in the door of the office.

"Apologies sir, just working this case. I'm this close to getting our guy, I just-"

"Go home, detective. I'll not have men in grieving work themselves to death. Come back again tomorrow and I'll put you on PTO for two weeks," the chief threatened, his grizzled features staring daggers into Niels. When the Chief gave an order, you followed it.

"Yes, sir," Niels said tiredly, bidding Kennedy farewell as he packed his case notes and hoisted his bag over his shoulder.

"And I'll be sending Woods and Nicholson over for a house call tonight. No need to have my best man drink himself to death," Kennedy added, less of an edge in the statement.

With a nod, Niels finished up as the Chief left, the door locking shut with a soft click, leaving the dark room behind. He received many farewells of 'have a good day' and 'sorry for your loss' on the way out, yet Niels didn't really hear any of them. His mind was blank, not really focusing on any one thing around him.

Despite the rather large contingent of police in the Bay, they still lacked the funding to upgrade the department's cramped carpool, and its larger infrastructure. Civilian and squad vehicles lined the lot, his Father's old tan Pontiac easy to pick out amongst the more mundane cars nearby. Niels unlocked his car and got in slowly, his cramped muscles sore from stress. He set his bag in the passenger's seat and laid his seat back, running his hands over his face as he contemplated his life.

Things had been going well. His son was about to graduate high school, his wife was due a promotion, and Niels himself had been flying through cases as fast as they could be placed on his desk. Hell, the head of investigations was about to open up when Sergeant Meyers retired in about six months. Everything had been looking up for their family, all up until two days ago.

It was a Saturday, and Niels had been working late on his current case, chasing down a lead before it could go cold. He'd been so close to catching a key witness in the Empire 88's unpowered operations, one of the few places left where the police still held jurisdiction outside of first response calls. Then came that dreaded phone call, informing him his son had been caught up in a fight between Lung and Squealer. He almost didn't believe Sam when he told him that Tyler had died saving a little girl from Lung's fire.

The revelation had shocked Niels, causing him to unintentionally drop his phone. Thankfully, first responders were afforded durable work phones for operations as one of the few funding concessions they were given. His wife had just sat there, silently, when he told her later that night. The next morning, Niels didn't even hear her get ready in the morning as she left early to get to work. It was typical for her to get up early as an EMS worker, but this was atypical even for her. Niels had barely seen the woman since, throwing herself into her work like never before. Niels couldn't disagree with her without calling himself a hypocrite, of course.

Still, he needed to go home before he lost the will to even drive home tonight. He started the heirloom, the beast bought in the 80s by his father as part of a yard sale. The blood, sweat, and tears put into making it run again was something he'd never forget, and something he wished he could've shared with Tyler. The thrum of the engine was soothing in its own right, the power held within restrained by a lawman's steady foot. Driving in Brockton was considered to be one of the most dangerous civilian pastimes, what with superheroes and villains wrecking half the city on a weekly basis. And yet, life went on.

Construction crews fixed damage to the streets almost overnight if it was minor enough, pedestrians walking along as if it were any other day. An explosion occurred in the distance, his radio asking for first responders to an Uber and Leet livestream event. Niels shook his head and kept on driving, twisting through the city center toward the more suburban downtown. He paused at an intersection as all the lights flashed to red, Armsmaster and Miss Militia zipping past, followed by several PRT vans.

Life in the Bay was chaotic, and Detective Hansen wouldn't trade it for anything. He sat back and put his car in park as a small flotilla of response vehicles passed through the intersection, the metropolitan center of Brockton Bay held hostage by capes yet again. Idly, he wondered if Joana was in any of them. As he sat there, waiting for his drive to normalize, his phone began to ring. Puzzled, Niels pulled his personal phone from his pocket, not expecting any calls. While he would normally be making and receiving regular calls as his job required, his recent dismissal left the detective perplexed.

The display read out an unknown number, from the Brockton Bay area code. Niels almost didn't answer, and yet something compelled him to. While he wasn't supposed to be working, any distraction from the pain would be welcome. With a press of a button, Niels held the phone to his ear as the light before him finally turned green.

"Detective Hansen speaking," he answered, waiting for a response. The line was silent, almost as if it were a misdial. "Hello?" Niels asked, hoping for a response before hanging up. Right as he was about to take the phone away from his ear, a voice cracked on the other end, nearly causing Niels to swerve into a car to his right.

"...Hey Dad. It's me," came the voice of his son, impossible as it was. For a moment, Niels almost believed it was him.

"Do you think this is a joke?" Niels denied, anger filling him as whatever thing was calling him impersonated his son.

"What?" the voice asked, confusion in its tone.

"Who are you? How do you sound like my son? Are you a Tinker? Who the hell are you?!" he shouted, nearly ready to hang up anyway. Niels quickly pulled into a parking space along the street, in front of an old apothecary shop near the transition into the suburbs.

"No, Dad, it's me, really. I'm alive," the speaker tried again, further increasing Niels' denial.

"My son is dead, I saw the ashes myself. If you don't tell me who you ae this instant I swear-"
"Do you remember the Harrelson case? It was seven years ago when I was still using kiddie crutches. I was too stubborn to be put on wheels yet, when the pain wasn't as bad," the voice interrupted, the memory halting the detective's rising fury.

"What would you know-"

"I hobbled into your office at home, back when you still had that big corkboard. There were photos, sticky notes, and red yarn connecting all the different bits of evidence. Yet, you were still missing one key piece of evidence to piece everything together. If you didn't find it, the perp would go free after the next court date. Do you remember what I said when I walked in?" the voice continued, a hope against hope building in Niels's chest. Of course he remembered, but how this thing on the other end would know he couldn't guess. Not unless…

"Did you look under the rug?"

"Did you look under the rug?"

The detective and the voice said it in sync, emotion building in Niels' chest as he began to believe, against all reason and logic, that maybe, just maybe, this could be true.

"It was such an outlandish, childlike statement that you just laughed and sent me away. A day later, you went back to the murderer's house as a last resort, already searched from top to bottom. On a whim, you moved the living room table and looked under that awful Persian rug he owned. Lo and behold, was a trapdoor leading to a small two-by-two crawl space, with the murder weapon inside. The accolades you earned after that put you on the Chief's radar. Ever since, you called me your 'little second opinion,'" the voice, his son, finished. As he continued speaking, the doubt and anger clouding Niels' mind melted into relief, raw and pure. Silent tears streamed down his face as his son, somehow alive, recalled one of their fondest moments together. He covered his mouth with one hand and leaned back, taking a long breath as he tried to recover.

"How? Why? Why now?" Niels asked, his voice cracking with emotion as he recovered. He sniffed, wiping his nose as resolve replaced his relief and turned his analytical mind toward the possibilities before him now.

"I don't know how or why, but I'm here. Although, I'm not exactly…myself," Tyler paused, striking worry into Niels' heart.

"What's wrong? Are you still hurt?" the detective prodded, panic-starting his car to get moving.

"No! No, not like that. It's just uh…" he paused the phone shuffling as he said something away from the receiver. "Two days? Huh, ok…sorry about that, had to ask something. Whatever happened between now and the fight two days ago…changed me. The good news is, I can walk now," Tyler finished. Niels was curious who the female voice on the other end was, but he cared more for his son at the moment. As long as he was safe, it was better to ask different questions.

"The good news? Then what's the bad news?" Niels asked, concern entering his very confused psyche.

"Are you familiar with Case 53s?" Tyler asked, the familiar term ringing several bells in the detective's mind.

"The monster capes? You're saying you became one?" Niels wondered. It was such an odd thing to think, considering his own research on the matter. Normally such a cape wouldn't have any memory of who they were, yet here his son was talking to him. Either something went wrong, or more interestingly, something went right.

"Yes, sort of. I'm still me, but I don't have any kind of power. Not that I know of, anyway," Tyler replied.

"Enough talk, where are you? I'll come to pick you up," Niels demanded, finally pulling his car out of the park and ripping onto the street. Several cars around him honked their horns at the reckless driving, but he didn't care right now. He had a son to find.

"This is bullshit!" Sam shouted, slamming the contract papers onto the orderly desk of the PRT official in front of him. To his credit, the representative kept his cool despite Sam's outburst. He wore a suit and tie, adjusting the spectacles framing his narrow face.

"I understand your frustration Mr. Alvarez, but there is no other option for you moving forward. I'm sure you know the statistics for lone rogues who try to strike out on their own," he cooly said, placing his fingers together on his desk.

"I don't give a fuck about any numbers! You've ruined my career! I had scholarships with Purdue, Duke, hell even Cornell! Now you tell me I'm barred from the one career path I've been training for, oh I don't know, my entire fucking life!?" Sam raged. Even as just a linebacker, he'd been lined up to go to several colleges on a full ride. He would've picked Cornell, of course, but the amount of choices were staggering. Now, this pendejo of a lawyer is telling him he can't ever play football because of a little bit of superspeed?

"Yes," was all the rep said, awaiting a response.

"Fuck this, and fuck all of you!" the former football player shouted, turning around and slamming the door shut. He ignored the judging stares from the clerks in their cubicles, passing the elevator for the stairwell. With the door clacking shut behind him, Sam rested his arms on the railing, looking down to the ground floor.

Everything had happened so fast, with Tyler's death happening not even two days ago and the PRT trying to shove bureaucracy into his life. Simply because he'd triggered with a power, Sam's football career was as good as over.

'Sorry, but NEPEA-5 prohibits the active use of parahuman powers to provide an unfair advantage in a civilian market,' the rep had told him, those words spelling doom. What's worse, is he could somewhat understand where the man had been coming from. Even if Sam wasn't intentionally using his powers, the fact that he could would be present in everyone's minds and affecting the play. He'd be scorned by his peers and constantly scrutinized by his superiors for any use of his powers. It was a tightrope no athlete wanted to walk.

Adding to the whole mess on the floor was the little girl Tyler had died saving was none other than Vista, who'd been in her civilian identity that day with her dad. Shortly after Tyler had thrown her out of the way, she'd been forced to use her powers to save herself and Sam from another barrage of gunfire from Squealer's tank. Thankfully, he was the only one to witness the incident of Vista breaking her cover as she moved them away from the gunfire. Even still, the realization that she would have been fine anyway, that Tyler's sacrifice was pointless…

The fight practically ended once the surrounding parahumans had been incapacitated from the shared trigger vision, as I'd learned. Lung had disappeared shortly afterward, Squealer taking off in the opposite direction. Life had returned to a sense of normalcy within hours, the paramedics on scene clearing me to go, the various minor cuts and scrapes souvenirs from the trip. The worst tragedy, though, was that no one even remembered Tyler was there, except in the official reports as a 'fatality.'

It was all so fucked up, and Sam couldn't wait to just go home and forget about it all for a few hours. Explaining all this to his parents wouldn't be fun either, considering they didn't even know what was going on. Sure, they knew about Tyler and Sam's little adventure to the Boardwalk, but everything after was kept hidden by the PRT per Sam's request. He'd rather broach the issue to his parents himself than some government mook trying to lawyer him and his family around.

Thankfully, a buzz in Sam's pocket gave him the distraction he needed to take his mind off of everything happening. Pulling out his phone, Sam saw a text from an unknown number.

I have a proposition.

Edge of the Boardwalk pier, 7pm next Sunday.

Come alone.

The message was more confusing than anything else, as Sam wasn't expecting anyone to contact him, let alone ask for a meetup. The whole thing seemed fishy, especially since whoever sent the message asked for him to come alone. Electing to ignore it, he'd almost slid the device back into his pocket before it began to ring. Sam barely missed answering the call, about to hang up thinking it the strange messenger.

"Mr. Hansen, I wasn't expecting-" Sam began, interrupted by Tyler's father who sounded oddly cheerful.

"You're never going to believe this Sam," he said. Before Sam could respond, the shuffling of the being passed to another could be heard. When the voice spoke, it took all of Sam's willpower to keep from dropping the phone down the stairwell.

"Hey Ben, it's your Reed Richards."

Elsewhere…

Upon a hill overlooking a bayside city of glass, steel, and brick, a man woke. He carefully stood up, shielding his Nord features and taking in the unfamiliar surroundings. His eyes adjusted, the man waved his hand, a leather cord forming itself from his personal plane of Oblivion. The man deftly tied his hair into a wolftail, keeping his golden locks out of his senses. With another look at the bay, his ice blue eyes observed the coastal city and its sprawling expanse from his perch. Noticing a sign above him, he felt confused, as holly trees were nowhere present. Still, he couldn't ruminate on this place for long.

With another wave of his hands, a set of dragonplate armor, replete with a long greatsword and similarly dragonbone hand-axe taking their places on his back and side. Next, he summoned Arvak, the spectral steed welcoming the bright sunlight of the setting sun. With the steed's spectral reigns in one hand and a clairvoyance spell in the other, the Last Dragonborn set off to the East, where his final task lay.

(A/N: For the none of you wondering, the Gordon Ramsay meme (you know the one) is what gave me the tonal architecture inspiration for this chapter)