"You've got to be kidding me," Alex muttered, sighing as dust settled around him. "You again?"
"You're dead, motherfucker!" Glory Girl shrieked, launching herself like a human missile.
Alex didn't flinch. He calmly packed extra biomass into his arm, reinforcing the tendons and muscle fibers until they mimicked dense alloy. Her fist slammed into his palm with all the fury of a wrecking ball, the force traveling down his arm like a shockwave. It would have knocked anyone else flat. But he didn't budge.
Instead, the second he felt her skin connect, he twisted and jabbed her side with precision—open fingers striking just hard enough to bruise an organ and send her crumpling to the ground, choking on pain.
He stood over her with a quiet, disappointed sigh.
"I've already figured you out," he said coolly. "I know how to hurt you. What made you think round two would end any differently than the first?"
"Because of THIS!" she screamed, her next punch like a piledriver aimed straight for his chest.
But he was already moving.
The countless martial artists and hand-to-hand specialists housed in his neural hive had already predicted her strike pattern. She didn't know how to throw a punch. Not really. Not like the mortals she claimed to protect—people who had to fight to survive, who couldn't afford to throw telegraphed haymakers.
Her form was clumsy, arrogant, slow.
By the time her fist finally made impact, Alex had already braced. His torso was reinforced, feet anchored into the cracked pavement. Her punch still hit like a freight train, driving halfway into his chest—but his defenses held.
And when her aura faltered for that split second, his biomass surged like a bear trap.
Her knuckles shattered.
She screamed, stumbling back—only for Alex to slap her across the face. Once to disorient. Again to hurt. Then he yanked her forward and rammed her forehead into his rising knee with a sickening crack.
Blood sprayed in an arc. Her body crumpled to the ground, twitching. She vomited violently across the alley floor.
He groaned.
"Ugh. Gross." Wiping his hand on her costume, he bent down to rifle through her pockets. He figured she had a phone. Most people like her did.
He was right.
His hive of hacker minds cracked the screen lock in seconds. He opened her contacts and selected the first name—Amy—and typed a simple message.
"Come get your sister."
Then he snapped the phone in half, tossed it onto her twitching body, and vaulted over the nearest rooftop, disappearing into the city.
Maybe this time she'd finally learn not to pick a fight with him.
Dana was already waiting by the apartment door when Alex got back.
Arms crossed. Brow furrowed. That look.
The kind that made grown men regret their life choices.
Alex didn't flinch, but he did look away, rubbing the back of his neck. "Uh, yeah... About that Tech Mart job," he said awkwardly. "Didn't exactly work out."
"No shit it didn't," she snapped, spinning on her heel and returning to her laptop.
She opened a browser tab and read aloud, mockingly: "Saw an uber badass today at Tech Mart. Triple-E threat tried to intimidate him. Dude kicked his ass and threw him out. Sucks that he got fired for not letting the freaks and assholes kick him around. We need more folks like Don."
She glanced up with a raised brow. "You got fired?"
He didn't even blink. "Drisk figured out my ID was fake. Had to... silence him. But he already filed the paperwork. Nothing leads back to us."
He reached into his jacket—more accurately, his biomass—and pulled out several thick wads of cash, tossing them on the kitchen table.
Dana blinked, then picked one up and flipped through the bills. Mostly twenties and fifties.
"Found another revenue stream," Alex added. "That Triple-E asshole and his friends tried to jump me. I figured they owed me some restitution."
"And Glory Girl?" Dana asked, voice low.
That got a reaction.
Alex blinked, startled. A small, very human tic—rare for him.
"You already heard about that?"
"Everyone heard," she said, deadpan. "You turned one of the city's top teen heroes into a cautionary tale. Word is her sister, Amy, had to call for help to carry her home."
He shrugged. "She started it. Wanted revenge. Wasn't thinking straight."
Dana snorted. "Pot, meet kettle."
She sighed and leaned back, counting the cash again. Enough for another week or two of food and rent.
But her frustration didn't fade.
"Alex, this isn't working."
He looked at her, puzzled. "What isn't?"
"You. Working. We keep pretending like this is going to go somewhere, but let's face it—you're not human. You're a walking murder machine with a hair-trigger temper. Someone pisses you off, and your first instinct is to kill them. Brutally. That doesn't fly in retail."
She tapped the cash. "We need something more stable than 'a scumbag gets eaten, and you find a cash stash in his shoe.'"
His expression darkened. "Are you trying to convince me to become a supervillain again?"
Dana hesitated.
Was she?
Yeah. Maybe. It was kinda thrilling—having an actual supervillain for a brother.
But he was trying. Really trying. To change. To blend in. To be something else.
And dragging him back into that world just because she wanted a front-row seat to mayhem? That wasn't fair. To either of them.
"I... I just think retail's not your thing," she said finally. "Maybe something late-night. Manual labor. Janitorial work. Stocking shelves. Stuff that doesn't involve people. You know—less risk of decapitating a customer."
She stood up and stretched. "I'm gonna take a nap. When I wake up, I'll look for something else. In the meantime—just... try not to kill anyone who doesn't absolutely deserve it, okay?"
She disappeared into her room, closing the door softly behind her.
Alex sat in silence.
She was right. Of course she was. He kept trying to shove himself into a box he didn't fit. He didn't have customer service skills—he had customer liquefaction skills. Which were fantastic for street brawls, but not so great when someone complained about a five-dollar overcharge.
Maybe a night shift. Something quiet. Stocking warehouses. Cleaning blood out of meat lockers. Carving livestock with his claws.
That could work.
But then there was that other feeling.
The thrill.
A primal part of him loved that fight with Glory Girl. Not just because he won, but because she was strong. She could hit hard. Could take a beating. The challenge excited him in ways nothing else had.
He needed more of that.
Legal work wouldn't get him another fight like that anytime soon.
He looked out the window, eyes drifting toward the fancier neighborhoods of Brockton Bay.
The ones that had real money.
Real security.
Real risk.
A slow smile crept across his face.
Maybe it was time to stop playing the role of Don the cashier—and start thinking like Alex the apex predator.
Maybe it was time for a career change.