The gang's leader squinted through the thick, acrid smoke that hung over the bridge like a funeral shroud. The air tasted of gunpowder and burning rubber, stinging his nostrils and making his eyes water. Through the haze, a nightmare was taking shape—a figure with two curved horns protruding from its helmet and massive, glowing purple compound eyes that seemed to see straight through to his soul.
The armored figure walked with unhurried confidence, each footstep ringing against the bridge's surface with the weight of inevitability. Bullets sparked and ricocheted off its purple and silver armor like fireflies, creating brief cascades of light that only served to highlight the futility of their resistance. The creature—for surely this was no human—didn't even slow down. If anything, the constant barrage seemed to bore it.
The leader's hands trembled as adrenaline and fear warred in his bloodstream. His mouth felt dry as cotton, and sweat trickled down his back despite the cool night air. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. They had military-grade weapons, superior numbers, the element of surprise. Yet here was something that treated their firepower like a minor inconvenience.
"What the hell," he snarled, his voice cracking slightly on the words. Desperation made him reach for their heaviest weapon—an RPG launcher that had been their insurance policy, their ace in the hole. "You damn bastard, try this!"
He hefted the rocket launcher onto his shoulder, the weapon's weight familiar and reassuring in his hands. The targeting sight was warm against his eye as he lined up the shot, his finger finding the trigger with practiced ease. This would end it. This had to end it.
With a loud FOOM that echoed off the bridge's suspension cables, the rocket shot out in a trail of fire and smoke. The projectile screamed through the night air, its warhead carrying enough explosive force to level a small building.
"Die!" The word tore from his throat with all the desperation of a man betting everything on a single hand.
John saw the rocket flying toward him, its exhaust trail painting a line of fire through the darkness. Time seemed to slow as his enhanced reflexes calculated trajectory, velocity, and optimal response. He could dodge—simple enough with his speed. He could deflect it—a risk, but manageable.
Instead, he chose the most direct approach.
He slowed his pace to a measured walk, raised his right hand with deliberate precision, pulled it back slightly, and clenched his fist. Energy began to gather around his gauntlet, crimson light bleeding through the gaps in his armor like liquid fire.
"ENERGY-DRIVEN—RIDER PUNCH!"
The surge of crimson light that enveloped his fist was visible even through the smoke, painting everything in shades of blood and flame. When he threw the punch, reality itself seemed to bend around the impact point. The rocket met his fist head-on in a collision that defied every law of physics the witnesses thought they understood.
The resulting explosion was immense—a rolling ball of fire and force that sent shockwaves across the bridge's entire span. The sound was beyond hearing, more felt than heard, a pressure wave that rattled windows in buildings half a mile away. Everyone present—police officers crouched behind their patrol cars, gangsters pressed against whatever cover they could find—instinctively shielded their faces from the blinding light that turned night into artificial day.
The heat washed over them in waves, carrying the smell of superheated metal and ozone. Debris rained down like deadly hail, chunks of concrete and twisted metal clattering against the bridge's surface.
Just as the gangsters were beginning to breathe sighs of relief, thinking that surely nothing could survive such an explosion, the flames began to clear. Through the dissipating smoke and fire, a figure became visible.
Standing calmly amidst the inferno, his right fist still raised in the exact position from which he'd thrown his punch, was the purple and silver armored figure. Completely unharmed. The flames licked around his form like they were afraid to touch him, creating an almost supernatural effect that made him appear to be wreathed in fire itself.
"How is that possible?!" The shocked exclamation echoed from both sides of the blockade, police and criminals alike struggling to process what they had just witnessed.
The figure looked up, and his purple compound eyes seemed to flicker in the firelight like jewels. Every single gangster felt a bone-chilling coldness creep down their spine, starting at the base of their necks and spreading through their bodies like ice water in their veins. This wasn't human. This couldn't be human.
When John started walking toward them again—the same unhurried, measured pace as before—fear finally shattered what remained of their discipline. They all opened fire in a desperate, panicked barrage that turned the night into a strobe light of muzzle flashes.
The sound was deafening—dozens of automatic weapons firing simultaneously, their combined roar drowning out even their own thoughts. Shell casings rained down like metallic hail, bouncing off the asphalt with tiny crystalline chimes. The air filled with the acrid smell of cordite and hot metal.
But the more they shot, the more their despair grew. Each bullet that sparked harmlessly off the approaching figure's armor was another nail in the coffin of their hope. A monster that wasn't even afraid of a rocket launcher... what good were their pathetic guns?
The psychological effect was devastating. These were hardened criminals, men who had faced down rival gangs and federal agents without flinching. But this was beyond their experience, beyond their understanding of what was possible.
Soon, the gunfire began to sputter out as panic overcame training. Signs of a complete rout appeared as men began looking over their shoulders, calculating escape routes, weighing the odds of survival versus the certainty of death.
They all started thinking about escape, about anywhere but here. As for the thing advancing toward them, anyone who was tired of living could stay and face it. The smart money was on running, running fast and far.
However, when the gangsters at the front of their formation turned to flee, they found the men behind them standing frozen in place, their faces pale with terror, shaking their heads in mute denial.
That rampaging mechanical beetle—the flying nightmare that had torn through their convoy like it was made of paper—was hovering in mid-air right behind them. Its compound eyes glowed with inner fire, and the sound of its wings created a harmonic drone that seemed to vibrate in their very bones.
They were trapped. Completely, utterly trapped.
For a moment that stretched like eternity, the gangsters didn't know what to do. They were caught between a wolf and a tiger, between two monsters that seemed to have stepped out of their worst nightmares. They aimed their guns at John but didn't dare fire, fearing that provoking him would only hasten their deaths.
A few of them, their nerves finally snapping under the pressure, made desperate dashes for the side of the bridge. Better to take their chances with the cold water of the East River far below than face certain death at the hands of these impossible creatures.
John's enhanced vision tracked their movement with predatory precision. Without breaking stride, he reached down to one of the overturned vans—a multi-ton vehicle that had been flipped like a toy. His gauntleted fingers found the load-bearing axle and tore it free from the chassis with a screech of rending metal.
The piece of mundane steel felt warm in his hand as he activated his particle manipulation ability. Light flowed around the metal like liquid mercury, restructuring its molecular bonds, reshaping its purpose. In seconds, the simple axle had become something magnificent—a massive double-edged sword that gleamed with purple and gold energy, its blade humming with barely contained power.
He swung the Titan Sword once—a casual, almost lazy motion.
An arc of golden energy shot out from the blade like a crescent moon made of light. It carved through the air with a sound like singing crystal, leaving a trail of sparkles in its wake before striking the bridge's surface directly in front of the fleeing men.
The asphalt exploded. A long, scorched gash appeared in the road, still glowing with residual energy. The escaping gangsters found their path blocked by a canyon of molten concrete and twisted rebar, the air above it shimmering with heat waves.
They looked at the destroyed pavement, at the smoldering debris that had been scattered like confetti, then slowly turned their terrified faces back to the armored figure. John gave the sword a casual wave—barely more than a flick of his wrist—and the men who had been about to jump over the bridge's railing obediently returned to the group.
The message was clear: There was nowhere to run.
The remaining gangsters looked at each other with the hollow eyes of men who had glimpsed their own mortality. They were trapped between two bulletproof monsters—one that had overturned their entire convoy with casual ease, and another that had just punched a rocket launcher and now wielded a sword that could carve through reality itself.
This was completely out of their league. This was beyond anything they had signed up for.
As John slowly walked toward them, his sword trailing wisps of golden energy, they took a step back for every step he took forward. His purple compound eyes flickered with something that might have been confusion.
What are you guys doing? Come on, fight me! he thought, genuinely frustrated by their complete capitulation. He had been preparing for a real battle, trying to calculate how much force to use without causing unnecessary casualties. Their utter surrender was making tactical planning impossible.
(Had he been able to hear their thoughts, the gangsters would have responded: Are you kidding me?!)
After a moment of consideration, he decided it was probably best to just let the police handle the cleanup. He had more important things to do—like getting back to the team, back to Gwen, back to the normal world where problems could be solved without energy swords and flying beetles.
He raised his sword with deliberate slowness, pointing its glowing tip at the crowd of trembling criminals. When he spoke, his voice was deep and resonant, filtered through the Titan Form's helmet into something that seemed to come from everywhere at once.
"Drop your weapons. Or die."
The words hung in the air like a death sentence. Several gangsters who had wanted to surrender from the very beginning immediately threw down their guns and raised their hands high above their heads. The clatter of weapons hitting asphalt was like music to Sergeant Marlene's ears.
The more stubborn ones, however, pretended to comply while keeping their eyes fixed on their leader. They bent down slowly, hands hovering near their weapons, waiting for some signal that would tell them whether to fight or flee.
The gang leader—a small-time player who had thought himself big until tonight—opened his mouth to shout one final act of defiance: "You—"
THWACK!
The sound of impact echoed across the bridge like a gunshot. In a blur of motion too fast for normal human eyes to follow, John was suddenly standing directly in front of the leader. A single punch—delivered with just enough force to incapacitate without killing—sent the man flying through the air to embed him in the door of an overturned van.
The metal crumpled around his body like aluminum foil, leaving him hanging there like a grotesque piece of modern art. He was unconscious but breathing—a mercy that wasn't lost on his subordinates.
His two closest cronies, seeing their boss transformed into wall decoration, charged forward with the desperate fury of men who had nothing left to lose. Loyalty, stupidity, or simple adrenaline overload drove them toward the armored figure.
BANG! BANG!
Two more dull thuds, and they joined their leader in unconsciousness, their bodies hitting the ground with the soft impact of sacks of grain.
John turned to look at the remaining gangsters, his purple compound eyes sweeping over them like searchlights. He didn't need to say anything. The message was perfectly clear.
With a collective clatter that sounded like rain on a metal roof, every remaining weapon hit the pavement as hands shot into the air. He walked through their ranks with measured steps, his enhanced senses scanning each man for hidden weapons, concealed threats, last-ditch surprises.
The gangsters didn't dare to breathe too loudly, their hearts pounding so hard they were sure he could hear them. Some of them were crying—grown men reduced to tears by the simple proximity of something so far beyond their understanding.
Meanwhile, the police officers had been watching the entire one-sided battle in a state of shock that bordered on religious awe.
"We have something like this on the force?" Officer Martinez whispered, his voice barely audible over the ringing in his ears from the explosion.
"Never heard of it," Jack replied, shaking his head in wonder.
"Just walking straight at them like that... isn't he afraid of getting blown up?" another officer asked, his voice carrying the kind of bewilderment that comes from watching the laws of physics get casually ignored.
"Stop staring! Use this time to help the wounded!" Sergeant Marlene barked, her training finally overriding her amazement. There were officers down, civilians to protect, a crime scene to secure.
"Oh my god, that is so cool!" Rookie Officer Hanson shouted, pointing at the armored figure standing amidst the flames like some kind of ancient war god. His eyes were bright with the kind of hero worship usually reserved for comic book characters.
"This is insane! Sarge, where did you find this guy?" Jack asked, looking at the armored man who had literally punched a rocket out of the air and lived to tell about it.
Marlene's radio was buzzing with inquiries from other units across the city. Word was spreading through the police network like wildfire—there was something new in New York, something that made their job a lot easier and a lot more complicated at the same time.
"This is external support Captain Stacy arranged," she explained, her voice carrying the authority of someone who had seen too much to be surprised by anything. "The specifics are above my pay grade, so asking me is useless."
On the bridge, John had herded the surviving gangsters into the middle of the road, where they knelt with their hands clasped behind their heads in perfect formation. He waved at the police officers—a simple gesture that somehow managed to convey both courtesy and command authority.
Sergeant Marlene understood the signal immediately and gave the order her officers had been waiting to hear.
"All units, leave a skeleton crew to tend to the wounded. The rest of you—riot squad formation, move in and take custody of these suspects."
As the officers rushed forward with their handcuffs and zip ties, they couldn't resist sneaking glances at the imposing armored figure. Even the most veteran cops were impressed—this was beyond cool, beyond powerful. This was something that belonged in legends.
"Thank you so much for coming so quickly," Sergeant Marlene said as she approached John, her voice carrying genuine gratitude mixed with professional respect.
"No problem," he replied, his electronically filtered voice somehow managing to sound both courteous and distant. "Give me the short version of the situation. I need to file a report for Captain Stacy. We need to have oversight to prevent my power from being abused."
The casual mention of accountability and oversight struck Marlene as both reassuring and slightly surreal. Here was someone who could punch rockets and command flying monsters, and he was worried about proper procedure and civilian oversight.
"Right," she said, consulting her notepad. "We came here to bust some car thieves based on a tip, but it looks like we stumbled onto a major drug transport operation. Military-grade weapons, organized resistance, the works—"
"Okay, I get the picture," John interrupted gently. "No need for the full details. I'll leave the rest to you."
Above them, Golem descended from the night sky like a falling star, its mechanical wings creating downdrafts that scattered loose papers and debris. The beetle hovered in front of them with impossible grace, its compound eyes glowing softly in the darkness.
John leaped onto its back with fluid motion, the armored plates of the creature adjusting automatically to accommodate him. For a moment, rider and mount were silhouetted against the city's lights—a image that would haunt the dreams and inspire the stories of everyone present for years to come.
"Farewell," he said, raising one gauntleted hand in a gesture that managed to be both casual and regal.
Then they were gone, disappearing into the night sky with a sound like distant thunder. Everyone present—police officers and handcuffed criminals alike—watched in silent awe until the last trace of light vanished among the stars.
The bridge fell quiet except for the soft sounds of police work—handcuffs clicking, radios crackling, the distant wail of approaching ambulances. But the memory of what they had witnessed would burn bright in their minds for the rest of their lives.
On the Queensboro Bridge, on a night that had started as routine police work, they had seen the impossible made real.
"Throw PowerStones For my Support. Person with #1#2#3 Will get a chance for extra chapters preview"
""Hey Guys I also Have my paetron p.atreon.com/Scoldey Jod
Where I will upload advance chapters 25+ chapters."