ZFighter18

…are we out of cereal? The back of his palm slapped over his face as he realized the kitchen might be light on the most important meal of the day. We got eggs, right? A sigh slid out of his mouth, hand turning over as he rubbed at his forehead. …no, no, I ate all the eggs. It wasn’t even anything cr

Blood came off way easier when it was still fresh. More than that, cotton soaked up the red stuff way better than polyester. He’d learned that little bit about laundry, mostly because it was useful and right now — relevant. Especially as he twisted the fabric of the unconscious Yakuza’s shirt in his

“屌，打佢啦!” Zain never liked fish. His mom had always told him that his tastes would change when he ‘matured’ or whatever and he’d ‘grow’ to like it. As much as he missed her, he always felt like that was some BS. It didn’t make sense that you’d like new foods just because you got older, right? “快啲啦! H

Three weeks and change had gotten him used to the motion of the whole thing. Four or five days out of the week, he’d be breaking through walls and beating in heads the same way he had been since the start of September. He'd stopped counting the way you count things when you're keeping score. They al

“Hold up…” The scream was loud in his ear, loud and wet; no different than the sound of a branch under a heavy boot as the joint gave way. “…I said hold up.” Zain leaned back, grip still locked tight on the guy’s wrist as the man let go of his blue windbreaker. “I ain’t even put weight on it yet.” T

Being superpowered didn't make every part of you better. That was simple facts. Just ‘cause you got muscle like steel cables or legs that could get you three stories up in one jump, that don’t mean a damn thing for the rest of you. Unless you were Captain America, but man was just built like that ap

“Nggg-hhh…” Zain blinked his eyes slowly, then all at once; a switch flipping in his brain as all of last night rushed back into his thoughts. How mouth fell open as he realized everything he’d felt, every moment of pain and screaming, and lava was… Gone? He stared down at his bloody clothes and ski

Ugh... nngh… Sound ripped out of his throat, raw and wet, as the fighting raged on in front of him. He couldn’t even track any of it anymore, his head spinning and the whole world a smear of... concrete… concrete and rust. A'ight... okay... One hand went down, palm cut down to skin and blood; flesh

Getting hurt was something he had gotten used to these past eight months. He’d come to know all sorts of pain; falling, stabbing, punching, kicking, shooting, and everything in between had all left a little hidden mark inside him. The healing might have wiped it from his skin, but his soul kept the

Sweat ran down his forehead as he ran, a full sprint after rooftop runs already a lot. Concrete slapped loud under his sneakers, a heavy beat that was still too goddamn slow to outrun those words hammering inside his skull. Weapon. Expendable. Kid's not irreplaceable. The words just kept echoing, ch

Kid learned too fast. The thought sat cold in his gut, just another stone he couldn't shit out. Three weeks, barely that; less than three if he counted honest. He pushed, he prodded; hell, he damn near tortured, and the boy just... absorbed it. His body was stronger than it should be (too strong, ev

Huh? The second week started… weird. Zain blinked as he walked down the stairs from that little loft where he crashed, sneakers thudding on the metal steps. Everything down here; hell, the whole main area was just different from what he remembered last night, no empty floor space anymore. Heavy bags

Day three. Felt more like day thirty, no lie. Like God hit fast-forward on the pain train and kept that bitch chugging. Hours had blurred into hours and even those just blurred into more hours; the same concrete and rust smell and that tap-tap-tap echoing in his skull even when Stick wasn't there. O

Warehouses at midnight all breathed the same. It was all dead air with a metal-mouth taste to it; piss in the corners and the smell of old iron from rust flaking off any and everything in the place. With a grunt, Zain slid through the busted roll-up. Chain snug on his waist and sneakers whispering o

Metal grating dug into Zain's ass but whatever, at least they were up high enough that nobody could sneak up on them. More than anything, he definitely wasn't about to complain, not when Vince looked like his own body was kicking his ass. The fire escape a couple buildings away from El’s house creak

One AM at Mel's 24-Hour Diner in Astoria, Queens, and Zain was sitting alone in a back booth staring at a half-eaten burger like it had personally insulted him. The meat was cold, cheese congealed into this gross rubbery mess, but his appetite had jumped ship before he even took the first bite and h

(Yes, this is available for a lower tier. I usually post chapters that have more of a floating aspect in the timeline for lower tiers because if they don't need previous chapters to follow along, I might as well.) The fancy hotel suite in Midtown Manhattan was its own kind of ridiculous, full of fan

Three hours of hitting things and the only thing keeping him from climbing the walls was the steady rhythm of fist on heavy bag. Sweat poured off him like he'd been dunked in a pool, white t-shirt plastered to his back and chain coiled around his waist getting hot enough to burn if he let it sit wro

Hitting up the same grimy diner at the ass-end of Queens was a habit all three of the boys had gotten used to before and after late-night jobs. Carb-loading and protein-filling. It wasn’t because nowhere else stayed open past midnight because come the fuck on, this was New York City. No, not that. H

Huh. The handprint symbols looked harmless, shallow little groves tucked into the doorframe, almost dirty enough to go without being noticed unless you were looking for it. Yeah, they definitely looked harmless, but Zain knew enough about Marvel (well, mostly Ultimate Marvel and the movies) to know

The Queens rooftop somehow still kept the last bit of warmth from the summer sun, breathing heat onto Zain’s butt while the skyline blinked in a thousand colors in front of him. Three weeks since they started hanging out and this slab was already theirs, footprints in pigeon dust, a bunch of differe

Zain stomped out of Sensei Wing’s dojo with sweat cooling on his neck and a bruise blooming behind his right elbow. The bruise rolled sweet in his head, like a trophy he could push and feel and remember landing that spinning back fist on the older Japanese girl while she barked at him over and over,

It was said that there were certain things that man was not meant to know. HP Lovecraft said that, Zain was pretty sure. He was also pretty sure the guy had said some things about his cat, but that was neither here nor there. If there were things man was not meant to know, there were also definitely

Zain’s hands moved before his brain did as usual, fingers ghosting over the metal links of his chain like they knew something he didn’t. He’d gotten used to sleeping with it – wrapped around his wrist, looped across his chest, tucked between his fingers. The weapon never left his side anymore, not s

The penthouse spanned the entire crown of the Midtown high-rise. From the outside: steel, glass, modern silence, but the interior spoke a language centuries older. Hand-painted fusuma screens bisected the open-plan structure with deliberate geometry—mountains, battles, brushstrokes from another dyna

Zain woke like somebody snatched the plug on a nightmare—eyes flying open, lungs gasping too fast, body already jerking upright before his ribs screamed at him to not be fucking stupid. Whiteout. Pain made static flash in front of his eyes like a busted big-back tv and he crashed back down with a ha

His whole side felt like it got hit by a bus. Or maybe a whole damn Metro train. It was just a taxi, though. Just. Zain limped fast down the backstreets behind Canal like he could outwalk the stabbing under his ribs, hoodie stuck to his side with blood and sweat. Fabric clung where it tore—right sle

His arm was screaming, straight-up felt like someone was peeling muscle off the bone with a cheese grater. Zain dangled about thirty feet off the damn alley floor, chain wrapped around his wrist and slicing deeper every second. His whole body swung like a busted-ass wrecking ball, lazy arcs back and

“Fuck—” He didn’t even get the word all the way out before something in his hand snapped cold through his bones like a jolt, like getting tagged in the ribs with a live wire, and his whole body locked up, buzzed out. What the hell—? The chain was looped around his fingers now, coiled around his wris

Old heads were always pressed about something. Like—relax. It’s just mahjong. Okay, fine, maybe people in their thirties weren’t that old, but if you were hitting up the same buffet twice a week to slap plastic tiles around a table like it was life or death? You were cooked. Straight fossils. Which

The trap smelled like stale blunt smoke, sweat, and bad decisions. It wasn’t a big spot—just a run-down brownstone, sitting on the edge of the block like a missing tooth in a half-rotten smile. Boarded-up windows, eviction notices stuck to the door like faded tattoos, rats bold enough to run across

The first thing that hit was the weight. A sudden blur, a shift in air pressure—then the entire world tilted off its axis entirely. Andrew Airs barely even had a moment to register the impact before his back slams into brick. His teeth rattled in his skull, the breath jarred from his lungs. His brie

Zain kept his eyes locked on the man’s phone. The guy was too busy talking, one hand waving like he was in the middle of some deep conversation, the other twirling a fork through his food. His plate was still full. Barely touched. Good. First thing he learned about New York City today was that peopl

Brown eyes flickered open to nothing but dark, the only light at the end of the tunnel coming from directly above him; nothing but a rusty set of stairs and the opening he had basically jumped down to escape those criminals. Zain blinked, once, twice, slow, brain lagging behind his body as he pulled

He was falling. That fact should’ve hit faster, but his brain was stuck two steps behind, still catching up. One second, he was rolling out of bed, tangled in sheets. The next—nothing. No floor, no walls, just open air, cold wind tearing past his face, his stomach bottoming out like the world had ya