Dawn broke over Westvale as a bruised, amber light, thin as smoke and just as brittle.
The air was still hot from the night's fires; ash spiraled with every restless breeze. Sirens keened in distant alleys, but the louder sound came from above—the insect-whine of news drones, dozens of them, their red record lights blinking like a constellation of artificial eyes.
They hovered in precise formations, each one streaming live to networks across the globe.
On every major feed around the world, the same tableau filled the frame: the shattered downtown square, ringed with fractured glass towers.
At its center the Juggernaut lumbered forward, a thirty-foot wall of black Luxium that caught the newborn sun like a dark mirror.
Around it, a second spectacle had captured the world's attention—figures in matching black suits streaked with individual colors of light, moving with uncanny coordination.
The Ampers.
They had never been seen like this. Until now they were whispers and grainy rumors, a name traded in the backrooms of forums and black-market newsfeeds. But in the drone lenses they appeared unified, almost ceremonial.
Each wore matte-black combat weave stamped with a minimalist emblem: two interlocking loops, one vertical, one horizontal. The color varied—Brakkon's white, Nullis's violet, Xylo's pale blue.
Far from the ruined streets, the world reacted in real time.
In America, the morning broadcast on USN froze mid-segment as a producer yelled for a live switch. Within seconds the lower third blared: NEW MASKS IN WESTVALE? Analysts scrambled to identify the emblem, their speculation a frantic counterpoint to the silent footage.
Tokyo's midnight talk shows erupted in excited debate, commentators leaning forward as the crimson lightning streaked across the feed. "Not Volts," one host said, the translator racing to keep up. "Different insignia. Different purpose."
Hashtags bloomed across the internet: #RogueAllies, #RedTempest.
Back on the ground, the Volts fought to maintain a perimeter, their own golden insignia stark against the soot. To the casual viewer, the two groups might have looked like rival squads from the same myth—polished state heroes versus a darker reflection.
Every frame the drones captured only deepened the question: who were these black-clad figures? Vigilantes? Rebels? Or a new league of sanctioned superheroes?
Somewhere beyond the barricades, a commentator's voice rose above the noise of millions watching worldwide:
"Are we witnessing the birth of a second hero age?"
The Juggernaut advanced like a continent in motion. Each step punched a crater into Westvale's avenues, the deep bass of hydraulics echoing through shattered high-rises.
Its dampener field rolled outward in pulsing rings, swallowing entire city blocks. Neon signs guttered and died.
Gifted signatures winked out, erased as though the night itself had turned predatory.
The Volts tried to rally.
Ignis lunged forward, her gauntlet blazing molten gold—then the Juggernaut's energy cannon erupted.
A white-hot beam of compressed plasma struck her arm and the street in the same instant. The gauntlet detonated in a burst of sparks, hurling her against a collapsed tramline.
Ampra staggered toward her, one knee buckling. A second tremor sent rubble cascading across the pavement, pinning three more Volts beneath fractured concrete
The polished heroes of the evening broadcast were gone; these were soldiers bleeding into the dawn, their practiced unity shattered by the machine's relentless advance. Of the seventeen who had arrived in fanfare, barely half still moved, each one dimmed by the dampener's crushing field.
The Ampers held the true line.
Xylo crouched behind a jagged ice wall that steamed and shrank under repeated cannon fire. Each blast carved fractures through the frozen barricade, showering him in shards.
He thrust both arms outward, coaxing another surge of permafrost—but the Juggernaut's heat coils flared again, reducing the wall to mist before it even set.
Cryon—a Volt—slipped beside him like living frost, her presence a sudden drop in temperature.
Crystalline plating caught the weak sunlight, glowing channels pulsing with a cold that hissed in the humid air.
Without a word she extended one palm and the world slowed. Time itself seemed to thicken around the Juggernaut's advancing arm; the cannon's next charge crawled forward in a syrup of light. Xylo seized the heartbeat she bought, lashing a second ice bastion into place.
But the machine adapted. The dampener flared, snapping the world back to full speed in a thunderous crack. The new wall shattered instantly. Cryon recoiled, breath misting, silent and unreadable.
Across the street Nullis flickered in and out of solidity, phasing through falling masonry to drag civilians toward a half-collapsed subway entrance. Each time she rematerialized, debris passed harmlessly through her form, leaving a ghostly afterimage that shimmered in the smoke.
Anna—Glyph—darted along the Juggernaut's flank, her fingers carving sigils of golden light across its armored plates. Each glowing rune pulsed with power, symbols meant to fracture even the hardest Luxium. But as the dampener field surged, the glyphs sputtered and dissolved.
High above, a crimson spark pulsed against the dawn.
Grant stood on the shadowed lip of a broken rooftop, the city's chaos reflected in the red arcs threading his suit.
The hum of his new suit was a living heartbeat, every pulse a reminder of Celestius's command: Do not intervene in threats that do not endanger the multiverse.
Below, the Ampers strained against inevitability. Each scream, each shudder of collapsing steel pressed against the edges of his resolve. Red lightning coiled tighter, craving release.
A news drone veered close, its camera lens catching the faint gleam of his aura before he stepped deeper into shadow.
Across the networks a flicker of crimson light rippled through the feeds, speculation detonating in comment scrolls: Red Tempest? New ally?
Grant exhaled, every breath a war between two truths—Protector of the Core—or of his city.
The Juggernaut halted mid-stride. Hydraulic joints hissed as its massive torso pivoted with predatory grace. From deep within its chest, a series of heavy locks clanged open—clack, clack, clack—and the front plates slid apart.
Inside, a lattice of crystalline conduits came alive. A swirling core of Aetherium plasma, luminous and unstable, its color a swirling violet shot with silver. The air around it rippled. The hum rose to a teeth-aching pitch, and a corona of static crawled across nearby buildings.
Anna stood in the open street, shoulders squared though her glyph-light sputtered against the Juggernaut's dampener field. The sigils along her arms flickered, a few golden sparks in the smoke. She lifted her chin, defiance etched across her soot-streaked face.
"Glyph!" Rook's voice cracked through the chaos.
He staggered from a tangle of broken steel, cloak torn, blood tracing a line down his temple. Every movement screamed exhaustion, but he pushed forward until he stood between her and the charging core.
He raised one arm, a flicker of shadow-tech shielding barely forming before the dampener smothered it.
The Volts lay strewn across the battlefield—Ignis limp against a crushed skytram rail, Ampra buried under twisted girders.
The Ampers crouched in battered knots, powers dimmed to embers. One more blast and the entire block—everyone they'd fought to protect—would be ash.
The Juggernaut's chest pulsed brighter, a violet-white radiance swelling.
Aetherium energy gathered in a perfect sphere, promising not merely heat or concussive force but erasure, a wave that would scour powers from flesh and leave only silence.
Grant's choice landed like a thunderclap in his chest.
He moved.
Crimson lightning exploded outward, a sudden dawn that carved through the smoke. In less than a breath he crossed the ruined avenue, a streak of red lightning tearing the air itself.
The Juggernaut fired.
A column of violet-white Aetherium leapt from the core, a beam meant to strip the Gifted of every spark they carried.
Grant met it head-on.
The impact detonated across the block, shockwaves shattering windows for a hundred yards. News drones overloaded and fell from the sky, their feeds cutting to static. Sensors everywhere went blind as a the Aetherium hit Grant.
When the aftershock faded, he still stood—unmoved, outlined in a blaze of crimson arcs that hissed against the cooling air.
His eyes, hidden behind the crawling red electricity, burned like a living storm.
Smoke drifted like torn banners through the broken avenue. The Juggernaut's great frame spasmed, plates screeching as internal systems glitched from the crimson surge.
Sparks cascaded down its black Luxium shell before the giant sagged to one knee, hydraulics coughing in metallic protest.
Grant stood at the epicenter of the ruin, red lightning still crawling across his new suit. The air around him hummed with the faint aftertaste of ozone, each breath a charged tremor.
Rook stumbled forward through the haze, shadow-tech cloak in tatters. He stopped when their eyes met.
A memory flashed—a man in black in front of a blast. The mysterious figure who had hurled him back through history.
"It was you," Rook whispered, voice raw. Only Grant could hear it over the crackle of dying fires.
Grant gave no answer, only a faint tilt of the head.
Above them, media drones hovered like patient carrion. Their lenses, momentarily blinded, refocused with eager precision. Global feeds lit up:
RED-LIT SAVIOR STOPS UNKNOWN WEAPON
NEW HERO OR NEW THREAT?
The battlefield froze in a strange equilibrium—Ampers and Volts alike staring. Xylo lowered a half-melted wall of ice; Ignis, gauntlet shattered, pushed unsteadily to her feet. Civilians crept from hiding, phones raised, faces luminous with awe and disbelief.
Headlines raced ahead of the moment: The Red Protector? The Red Tempest? The Crimson Menace?
A single drone dropped lower, broadcasting the unmistakable violet USN emblem. Vera Vox stepped into view beneath it.
Even coated in soot, she radiated quiet authority, eyes shimmering faintly as her Judgment Vision took hold.
She approached without hesitation, camera crews keeping a respectful distance. "The world just watched you stop a city-killer. Are you government? Volts? Something else entirely?"
Grant's lightning dimmed to a steady pulse. "I'm here to keep people alive."
"That's not an answer." Her eyes glowed brighter for an instant, reading the storm of intent and resolve inside him. "The feeds are already calling you the Red Tempest. The Crimson Menace. A savior. A threat. Which one are you?"
Silence stretched. Reporters craned forward; even the Juggernaut's dying hum seemed to wait.
Grant's lightning dimmed to a steady pulse, his voice even. "I'm not a headline. I'm not a label."
Grant let the question settle, the weight of Celestius's charge flickering in his mind. Protector of the Core, yes—but tonight, of this city first.
He lifted his chin. "My name is Quish."
The word cut clean through the smoke and static. On the streams, hashtags bloomed faster than anchors could keep up: #RedTempest, #Quish, #NewAge. Two names, one given by the world, one claimed by the man himself.
And in that fracture, something larger was born—a myth and a truth, colliding in real time.