(John Steele POV)

I had decided that New York really sucked. Not only did it have shit littered across the street but the people living there were terrible as well. Man did I want to go back to South Carolina. Missed just walking through the woods with no care in the world.

After my dad died 7 years ago due to an unfortunate accident, we had to move around a lot of thanks to my mother. She was a very nasty person who wanted nothing to do with me. Grade a bitch. Although getting CPS called on her was unacceptable so she gave me an allowance of 7000$ dollars a month and mandatory happy pictures for an appearance of a loving caring mother. Being a part of a rich family had some benefits after all.

I was pretty sure she wanted him dead because she would always send me to the worst schools in every district we moved to. Fights happened constantly and it was sometimes hard to get away from. It was a good thing I trained hard every day. I mastered some martial arts while I was at it. The fights were ridiculously easy to win.

In fact, I was just on my way home when they showed up. A gang of about five people walked up to me with grim expressions on their faces. "Hey white boy! I heard you beat some of our boys. Our boss doesn't take to kindly to any of that shit, you hear me." the gangly looking black kid in front said. "You had best come with us. We wouldn't want you to get hurt now, would we?" the burly looking one next to him questioned.

The white boy comment didn't really surprise me, I was indeed white. A respectable six foot one, green eyes that has been told to me to be able to pierce through their very soul and dirty blond spiked hair. "Oh yeah? How you gonna achieve that?" I replied in a carefree southern twang. Then out of the corner of my eye four more people appeared behind me. Well now what an ambush.

"Alright, alright show me the way then." I said dismissively. Gangly beckoned me in a way that almost looked entirely too smug. Geez, where was the PRT when you needed them? I swear the wards were supposed to be patrolling at this time of day? Whatever it was my fault they caught me with my proverbial pants down.

Walking along the back alleys of New York was not the sort of pastime I wanted to do during a day where I just wanted to train. It was entirely too cold here for its own good. I always wore extremely baggy clothes to hide my physique anyway. I almost had the urge to ask if we were there yet when we stopped. Took em long enough. The Beast was waking up.

The Beast has been with me since I was eight years old. So, for seven years the Beast has been talking and guiding me so I can be a better man. I wasn't sure if he was a parahuman power or not, he's been super tight lipped about information concerning himself. All I know is that he will get violent really quick and was smart enough to take collage level courses in some science areas, like biology and anatomy.

The building we stopped in front of looked like it had been abandoned for years now. Which could be true, cape fights were sometimes hard to rebuild from. Dilapidated and all around fucked up to look at. Iron bars with old wood for windows. What looked like dewy and moldy doors with rusty hinges. Was this their hideout? How embarrassing.

"Move it white boy!" Gangly exclaimed as he shoved me forward through the front door. The inside didn't look any better. Old televisions alongside old arcade machines. Dirty ass sinks with gunked up looking toilets. Walking until we get to an open warehouse area it looks like. And that's when I saw him. A cape.

This was Damarius Quan, a black twenty something year old bio tinker experiment. I recognized him from a PHO board. A brute that could punch through concrete walls and feel no pain. Six foot three with a receding hair line, tragic. A degenerate in every conceivable way from murder, rape and human trafficker. All around scum of the Earth. Somehow, I had gotten on his radar which wasn't good.

Well now this wasn't very good, not good at all. "So, what do you want?" Probably was a terrible idea to antagonize him, but I was so far from caring. He looked at me like he couldn't believe I had the audacity to speak to him like that. He motions with his hand towards me "Retribution." He states very clearly.

I snort "Like you actually give a shit about retribution, you don't fuckin care what happens to these people. You just care if their useful to you." I peek around carefully at the group of eight surrounding me. Looked like minimal training with a couple of knives here or there. I didn't notice any guns, but I wasn't gonna let my guard down. I've been shot at enough thank you very much.

"I'll give you boys to the count of three to back off or they're going to find you broken and sobbing." Everyone in the room tenses up almost immediately getting ready for the fight. "One, Two..." I sprang into action and folded Gangly with a high kick to the jaw. My twelve inch boot reverberated against his skull. Goon two came at me with a sloppy overextended punch. Dodging in a way to execute a spinning elbow to the back of his head, knocking him down instantly.

Goon three and four barreled toward me in a tackle. Side stepping goon three to upper palm strike him completely shattering his nose and performing a spinning hook kick to goon four, then laying him out with a devasting back kick. Five six and seven wizened up and took out their knives. They charged me all at once.

Trying my hardest to step back and dodge their strikes with extreme difficulty. They got a few licks on me and as I bled a little bit from my arms, number five got cocky. As he overextended his swing, I grabbed his arm and broke his wrist snatching the knife from his hand. As six charged at me for a thrust, I front kicked five into him while throwing the knife into seven's shoulder.

One stomp to six's head and a right hook to seven's head, all that was left was good old Burly. He almost looked a little frightened as he got into a stance that resembled kickboxing. He tests the waters with a good one two. Bobbing and weaving followed by more punching. Taking the initiative, I perform two sidekicks followed by a spinning roundhouse. He successfully blocked the first two, but I blew through his guard with the third. Rushing toward him I grabbed his right arm and the back of his collar and performed a sweeping hip throw.

While I had his back on the ground two swift stomps to the head was all she wrote for him. Looking up for a moment I noticed that Damarius had vanished. I cautiously took a couple of steps near a wall, when a fist struck me in the chest through the wall. He completely tore through the wall and hit me again through a stone pillar that was behind me. Getting up was tough, I'm pretty sure some of my ribs were broken. Feeling a little dazed, I get up while he throws another fist.

Thinking fast I performed a spinning elbow strike to his nose. Hearing it break was like music to my ears. Then I went for two liver blows and a swing from him took out the other pillar right next to me. Trying to block that was a mistake, should've dodged that because it really rocked my shit. Retaliating with a kidney blow and three more liver blows, I could tell that I was wearing on him. I was getting exhausted.

Just when I thought I was getting a little leeway, a punch from him broke the guard I had just put up with and struck me in the face. Blood flowed out my nose like a messed up faucet. I put a hand to my face and realized that it was broken. Just like that the Beast wanted to take control so he could handle the situation. Then John blacked out.

(Damarius POV)

Damn this little shit was actually pretty good for a normal person with no powers. This kid hit like a cinderblock going ninety miles an hour. Certainly helped that the brat could take a hit. Well, I don't have to worry about him anymore. He'll be dead in a minute anyway.

Just as I was about to go for another strike to end this, I froze. It was as if the person in front of him was different. His eyes were slanted like an animal on the prowl for a hunt. A chill ran down my back as he looked at me like that. And then he raised his hand as if to pause the fight.

He started to take his hoodie off... and holy shit. Wearing a tight black muscle shirt was a physique that people could only dream of. A muscled lean form that was covered in stab wounds, gunshot wounds and burn scars. Jesus, this kid looked like he only trained and nothing else. It was a body perfected by battle. He could respect the look. Then he pulled out his phone and started playing a song.

(Superbeast Rob Zombie)

Taking a stance and loosening up his back the kid started off stalking up to him. He threw two more body blows and dodged the punch I threw at him. He struck three more times to his back. He was starting to tire. I threw one more punch but miscalculated because he grabbed me and threw me over his shoulder with a thud to the floor. Still holding my arm, he dragged me back up and threw me headfirst to the wall.

I landed on the floor in a sprawl. Struggling to get up I noticed he charged at me and swept my legs out under me. Landing with my back on the floor again he takes my right leg and does a leglock. Shaking a bit to get him off, he snaps my ankle breaking it entirely. Screaming and yelling in frustration and uncomfortableness, he quickly gets off while I try to stand on one leg. "You son of bitch! I'll kill..." I couldn't finish what I was saying when a lightning fast kick to my left knee shatters it.

As I fall to my knees, I see him wrench a pipe free from the wall and wield it like a bat. Fear shoots through me. "Wait wait don't kill me..." Then he struck my head against the wall and then I knew no more.

(The Beast POV)

The Beast was excited. That was the first cape fight his son John had and performed adequately. Hopefully his son learned from this experience to control his opponent's momentum and use it against them. He explained to John the importance in the killing of certain people. While it wasn't his first time killing people in John's body, it was the first time The Beast had showed it to him.

He didn't want his son to be traumatized. The Beast had his fun, so he'll just hand the body back to John. "Man, I sure hope Scapegoat can fix this." John says as he looks down at his body.

Authors Note: Hope you guys like this first chapter. I haven't written anything in a while so hopefully I'm not too rusty.