London breathed a restless kind of darkness. Rain glossed the pavements, scattering reflections of neon into broken puddles. Sirens whined in the distance—constant, overlapping, never fully gone. In the six months since Moonveil had taken to the rooftops, he had slashed open criminal networks, crippled dealers, and burned cash that fed gangs like kindling. And yet, the city's pulse still thrummed with crime. For every street silenced, two more whispered threats in the shadows.
Marc—hood drawn, cloak trailing—stood atop a derelict clock tower overlooking Hackney. From here the city stretched like a fractured puzzle: housing estates, glittering offices, clubs where life poured until dawn. He should have felt triumphant. Instead, the weight in his chest pressed like lead.
"Ugh," he muttered into the rain. "I wish London had more superheroes."
His voice was drowned out by the wind, but Tecciztecatl heard anyway, echoing within his skull like an ancient memory.
"You have been holding back, Champion," the god's voice resounded, calm yet edged with a subtle rebuke. "You are not using the full potential I have given you."
Marc flexed his gloved hands. The power was always there—a hum beneath his skin, a tide he could unleash—but he kept it reined in. A measured punch, not a killing blow. A strike meant to subdue, not to maim. "I don't want to kill," Marc whispered. "That's a line I won't cross. Not after everything I've seen."
Tecciztecatl's voice carried the patience of centuries. "You don't need to kill. But fear is a weapon, just as sharp as steel. Right now, you are a rumor. A shadow flickering on CCTV footage. But criminals are adapting. They know your patterns. They know when you come."
Marc frowned. He had noticed it too. Dealers scattered sooner than before. Gunmen fired faster. There was hesitation now—not out of terror, but out of studied expectation. "So you're saying I should… change how I appear?"
"Yes. Reinvent. To be unseen, unexpected. Justice wears many masks. Sometimes, Champion, the terror of the unknown is more powerful than brute force."
Marc chewed on the thought, watching a group of teenagers shuffle beneath an awning, passing what looked like a small bag between them. Once, he would have swooped immediately. Tonight he hesitated. Tecciztecatl's words wormed in. Fear. Could he be more than a symbol? Could he become a phantom that haunted the underworld?
Before Marc could answer himself, the god fell silent, fading into the quiet hum he often retreated to when Marc was troubled.
---
Across the world, oceans and time zones away, William Lex Webb strode through the glossy lobby of a foreign hotel. He had traded London's drizzle for the stifling heat of Southeast Asia, where the air smelled of spice and smoke. His frame—broad, soft, cumbersome—shifted uneasily in a suit that strained across his belly. He dabbed sweat from his forehead with an embroidered handkerchief, muttering curses under his breath.
But beneath his awkward exterior lay a man of calculation. Every step of his trip was staged, rehearsed. To the press, William was a jet-setting CEO, securing contracts for Y'Nkeos Technical Solutions, London's rising star in surveillance and defense technology. To the board, he was the visionary keeping their coffers full. But in truth, this trip was about far more than cameras.
In a private suite above the showroom floor, he sat across from three engineers—young, ambitious, and desperate for a client of his stature. On the table lay prototypes: cameras the size of coins, lenses thinner than a fingernail, micro-drones no bigger than a fly.
"Resolution beyond anything the West has," one of the engineers boasted. "Thermal integration, sound triangulation, even facial recognition powered by neural chips. These units can track an individual through a crowd of thousands."
William's lips stretched into a thin smile. "And live-feed capability? Cloud storage encrypted?"
"Of course," the engineer replied eagerly.
William leaned forward, shadow swallowing his pale blue eyes. "Good. Because I'm not interested in consumer toys. I want surveillance that can crawl into a man's life and choke it. I want to know where he eats, when he sleeps, who he speaks to. I want ghosts to be pinned under my gaze."
The engineers hesitated, uncertain of his intensity. William's laugh came low, oily, to soften the moment. "Don't look so grim, gentlemen. It's for security. The world is dangerous. London even more so. Terrorists, anarchists, these… masked freaks who think themselves above law. My company intends to help governments deal with them."
The truth he left unsaid—this wasn't about governments. This was about him. About Moonveil. About the hooded pest who had burned his money and stained his reputation.
For weeks William had studied the reports. The blurry figures on security feeds, the witness statements about a man who seemed untouchable. Now the rumors of London's vigilante had teeth, and William's spine crawled with fear. But fear in William twisted into something else—paranoia, obsession. If Tecciztecatl's chosen could not be shot or bought, then William would drown him in surveillance until no secret remained.
"Package these into bulk shipments," William told the engineers, signing contracts with a flourish that left ink blotting across the page. "Label them as medical diagnostic equipment. Ship them to London under our subsidiary. I'll see to customs."
As his assistants collected the papers, William's hand strayed to the pendant beneath his shirt—the talisman he used in ritual. He squeezed it, whispering under his breath so the engineers couldn't hear. "Oh lord Tzitzimimeh… guide me. Give me eyes everywhere. Show me how to cut the shadow from the night."
---
Back in London, Marc finally slipped into his flat as dawn cracked pale through the blinds. His body ached from another long patrol, another night where small-time criminals still spilled across alleyways like cockroaches. He tossed his hood aside, collapsed into a chair, and buried his face in his hands.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw victims—the kidnapped, the trafficked, the hollow-eyed addicts begging for Sangre de Luna. He saw women disappearing, their faces flashing on news bulletins. And through it all, he saw William's smug smile in boardroom photographs.
"I'm drowning in this city," Marc whispered, almost to himself. "One man against a sea of rot."
Tecciztecatl stirred faintly, like a moonbeam breaking cloud. "You are not one man. You are chosen. But to cleanse rot, you must strike deeper. Criminals adapt to bruises, Champion. They fear the monster in the dark more than the soldier in the light."
Marc leaned back, staring at the ceiling. The city was slipping. William was gone, but his influence lingered. And now, halfway across the globe, the man was preparing new weapons.
Something would have to change.
And Moonveil, though he feared it, knew change was coming—for him, for London, and for the war that stretched from the Yucatán jungles to the neon heart of the city.