Project ROWDY 10

“Nobody who matters,” Brick interrupted, flat like a blade, the syllables clipped on the way out.

The air still stank of scorched circuitry and melted glass. Everything had that greasy, ion-burned edge to it—static crawling over his skin like nerves trying to peel away. The smoke alarms lower down howled behind concrete and steel, too far away to be useful, too close to ignore. It all just grated.

So did the guy in front of him.

Blue and yellow spandex, the thing too good to be store-bought or even normally tailored. Nothing normal or standard about it, Brick could see that with no X-Ray or micro-vision. Not even bootleg GDA. Professionally made, meta-materials too. Brick’s eyes darted all around him, spotting weaknesses and tells. The guy was green as grass, that much was obvious. He was a bit too jittery, too twitchy, still unsteady even when he hovered, in the way that fresh flyers always were.

Not even that, but just his body language made it clear this guy was weak, in the mind if not the body. Stance too open. Hands wrong. That kind of nervous where the bones knew something the brain hadn’t caught up to yet.

Brick didn’t blink. Didn’t bother hiding the evaluation.

“This was a gpvernment-op,” he said, arms crossing slow and tight. “Sanctioned. Team Trinity-led. Which means you being here? Interference.”

The guy opened his mouth, then closed it. Then tried again. “I wasn’t—I mean—I was just helping, alright? The building was—was coming down and I saw people, and I didn’t know anyone was—”

A sonic pop cracked through the air behind them—Boomer’s reentry, sudden and too close. Blue streak moving with little to no spatial awareness, per usual.

“Yo! Civvies are good, and Butch’s—whoa, hey.” Boomer’s whole trajectory halted mid-sentence as his eyes caught on the spandex. He tilted his head, wide-eyed. “Who’s that?”

The stranger latched onto the moment like it was oxygen. “I was saying, I just—”

Boom. Drywall exploded out from behind them, chunks spitting into the air as the new kid flinched. Brick didn’t so much as move a single muscle. He’d been waiting for Butch’s dynamic entry soon anyway.

The Greenest Rowdyruff stormed through the debris like he’d been born from it, dust in his hair, boots grinding cement to powder, and ash in his face, grinning all the while with perfectly white teeth. “North side’s good. No collapse.”

His gaze found the stranger and locked on. He tilted his head, eyes narrowing at the possibility of a potential tussle. All followed by a slow, almost lazy curl of his lip.

“Who’s this clown?”

Brick exhaled, jaw tight as he clicked his tongue a moment after. “Still figuring that out, Breakneck.”

He turned back to the older kid in the spandex, who had stopped trying to explain and was now shifting his weight between both feet like his shoes were on fire. Brick clocked the way his fists kept twitching.

“Got a name, new guy, or are you just trying to win a Darwin Award?”

The guy in front of the three of them straightened up his spine, and looked down at them, clearly trying his very best to mimic someone that actually had authority. It cracked around the edges, it being his voice. “Look, I was handling it. The guy was frying cars and buildings and—look, nobody else was there yet, so I… I stepped in.”

Brick flicked a finger toward Killcannon’s body.

“He’s Class D. Energy projection, plasma-based, wide-radius splash damage. He can liquefy concrete and max hit is 100 tons of force exploding in your face. You being alive means you got lucky.” Brick tilted his head. “Can you tank that hit, new guy?”

The kid’s jaw moved like he wanted to argue. “I handled it.”

Butch barked a laugh, full of mocking, malicious humor. “Sure. Is that why the place looks like it got sat on by a mech?”

“That was him! Not me!” The kid’s voice cracked hard on the last word, high and defensive. “And who do you guys even think you are?”

Butch snorted. “We’re the Beastie fucking Boys, what does it look like?”

Boomer grinned and stuck out his tongue. “We’re Team Rocket. The Green ones our Meowth. Ignore him.”

“Hey!”

Brick ignored them both and floated forward, still at eye level with the new guy “We’re Trinity. When the government needs someone to do to break shit, they send us. Guess what we do?”

The guy flinched. “B-break shit.”

“Smart. Now, you see, new guy, this here little dust-up was our op. Our playtime.” Brick paused to point at Killcannon again. “Our toy. You messed that up. That’s kinda rude.”

Boomer hovered a foot or two closer, curiosity entirely unbothered and uncontained by Brick’s attempt to start a fight to blow off some steam. “Hey, that suit’s actually kinda cool.” He put a finger on his chin as if thinking. “Your mom make that for you?”

The kid flinched like he’d been smacked. “What? No! I mean… no, m-my dad’s friend made it for me?”

“Aw, that’s sweet,” Boomer said, completely genuine even as the other guy’s scowl deepened.

Butch circled right, moving like the natural predator he was. No tactic, just instinct. “What’s the ‘I’ stand for?” He grinned a sharp-toothed smile. “Idiot?”

Brick said nothing, just watched as the teenager flushed hard beneath the mask, visible ears reddening.

“I’m—look, this isn’t important! We should be focusing on—”

“No,” Brick cut in. “You don’t get to steer the conversation. You show up our op, screw the containment, and knock out a hostile without any intel or backup. You don’t get to act like you’ve got authority.”

The teenager’s fists were clenched now, voice thinner and trembling. “You don’t even know who I am.”

Brick met his eyes, steady and sharp. “I don’t have to. Seen enough.”

The new guy floated a foot forward, clearly angry.

“Look, all that matters,” Brick said, flat and low, voice honed down to the steel edge he kept hidden most days. “You’re a nobody screwing with our job. Probably popped powers two weeks ago and thought, hey, lemme go save the world.”

The hit landed. Brick saw it—small flinch, barely a twitch at the corner of the kid’s mouth. Good. He pressed harder.

“Go home before you die doing something stupid.”

The guy’s fists curled like he wanted to argue but couldn’t line the words up in time. “You don’t know anything about me.”

Brick didn’t blink. “Don’t need to. Seen enough.”

That’s when the kid tried to flip it. Tried to take the ground back. “You’re just—just kids. You shouldn’t even be out here, this is insane. Shouldn’t you be, I dunno, in school? Where the hell are your parents?”

Brick’s blood iced. Not like a dramatic freeze, not like shock. Just—stopped. Like it locked up inside his chest. A shutdown.

Boomer didn’t breathe.

Butch stopped moving.

Brick tilted his head. “What did you say?”

The idiot kept going, flapping his mouth like he hadn’t noticed the floor dropping out from under him. “You’re what—ten? Eleven? I saw you guys on TV, but you shouldn’t be—”

“We’re twelve,” Brick said. Not loud. Just sharp. Like something snapping loose in a locked room. “You think we need supervision? You think this is a game?”

Something flickered in the guy’s expression.

Butch’s voice cut through, rough and eager. “What’s your name, man? You got a name or you just rolling with ‘Mom’s Favorite Boy’?”

The older kid hesitated, then straightened like that would help. “I’m… I’m Invincible.”

Silence landed like a punch.

Then Butch laughed. The kind of laugh that could carve someone open. “You’re what?”

“Invincible,” the kid repeated, more force behind it now. Like saying it louder made it more true.

Boomer cracked up instantly, doubled over mid-air. “That’s—it’s the dumbest name I’ve ever heard. And I live with Butch.”

“Hey, screw you,” Butch muttered, still grinning.

Brick’s mouth tugged at the corner. Not a smile. Not quite. “Invincible? Let me guess. Immortal fanboy?”

The kid’s face went red under the mask. “So what if I am? He’s literally the greatest—”

“Oh my god,” Boomer wheezed, doing laps in slow circles now. “He is! Look at him! It’s the same color scheme! That big dumb ‘I’? He totally ripped it!”

“I bet he’s got Immortal pajamas,” Butch added. “With lil’ booties.”

“I don’t—” the kid started, voice cracking mid-denial. “I don’t, okay?”

Brick floated up, a few inches. Just enough to be level with the guy’s eyes. “Gotta say, Vince. That’s bold. You walk into a mission we were handling, slap your name on it, and expect us to clap?”

“Don’t call me that.”

Brick leaned forward, just enough to make the distance feel like a threat. “Why not, Vincey? Doesn’t fit anymore?”

That fist came up fast.

Stopped just short.

Not a punch. A warning. A line drawn by someone who hadn’t learned how to control what came next.

Butch’s teeth flashed, his own fists raised. “You wanna fight?”

Boomer chimed in without missing a beat. “You really, really should. We’d love to see it. We’re, like, totally invincible too.”

Brick locked eyes with him. “You hit Killcannon hard, but he’s not even A-tier. Let’s see what you do when it’s someone your own size.”

The mask twitched. Not a flinch—something else. Uncertainty clear on his expression from the way his scowl fell. “I—wait, no. No, I’m not doing this. I almost threw hands with a bunch of babies.”

The word dropped.

Babies.

Brick’s eye twitched. Boomer stiffened like he’d been electrocuted. Butch’s whole frame tensed.

“What,” Brick said. Talking about parents was one thing, but the B-word… that was just uncalled for.

Butch leaned forward, all his motion compressed into one muscle flex. “Say that again.”

A blur of blue cracked across the room. “WHO ARE YOU CALLING A BABY?!” Boomer hit him center mass, knuckles burying into Invincible’s gut with a crack that echoed like thunder.

The older boy’s body folded. Air punched out of him as he crashed backward through what was left of the windows, glass shearing off his shoulders as his body vanished into open sky.

Brick stood there, pulse thundering in his ears.

There went the mission.

Eh… Brick shrugged. Screw it.

“After him.”

The glass hadn’t finished falling before Brick was gone, red streak carving through smoke and sirens. He didn’t look back to check if they were following—he didn’t need to. Butch’s laugh cracked like thunder off the steel frame as he surged out behind him, and Boomer shot after them both with his jaw clenched and eyes locked ahead, the usual bounce in his flight ironed out by something tighter.

Yeahhhh, Boomer really didn’t like being called a baby.

Invincible—if that was still his name after this—was already flailing through the skyline, arms out like balance was a new concept. His trajectory spiraled, messy. Brick waited a second, maybe two, then angled down like a dive bomb and slammed both fists into his shoulders.

The crack rang out across a couple dozen rooftops.

Invincible buckled under it, yelped, spun, tried to throw a punch that actually connected— and snapped Brick’s head sideways with more power than expected. Enough to sting. Enough to draw blood.

Okay. So he had some weight.

But Butch had more.

He roared in from below and brought his whole arm under Invincible’s ribs, launching him into the sky like a skipping stone. Boomer was already moving, blue blur catching the timing just right to corkscrew through Invincible’s path mid-spiral, heel-first.

It was clean. Too clean.

“BOYS, STAND THE HELL DO-.”

Cecil’s voice didn’t crackle. It roared, tinny and furious through their comms. Brick reached up and yanked his out mid-sentence, pocketing it without even thinking. The others followed suit without needing the order.

This wasn’t a mission anymore.

Not for Cecil. Not for the GDA. Not for the neat little boxes they were meant to fit into.

This was them.

Invincible tore back into view, ripped free of the water tower with steam clinging to the edges of his suit like it didn’t want to let go. Torn sleeves. Blood on his lip. His flight steadier now—like rage was holding him up better than control ever did.

Good.

Brick hovered high above the blocks, locking coordinates and momentum in his head like variables. Boomer looped low, Butch rising just enough to trap altitude. Once again, they were in their riangle pattern. Familiar.

Back in Townsville, this net held up long enough to almost catch the Girls. Almost. But almost didn’t matter. Now it was just one guy.

He made for the clouds.

Obvious. Predictable, even.

Brick surged after him, didn’t even need full throttle to catch up. Grabbed his ankle and yanked him sideways like trash off a ledge.

Invincible spun, off-balance again, just in time for Butch to wrap arms around him like a vice.

“You bouncin’ already, Vincey?”

The other guy bucked, muscles tightening. He actually got some movement. Butch’s arms slipped an inch.

Brick narrowed his eyes. Interesting.

“He’s kinda strong,” Butch grunted, adjusting his grip.

“Then break him.”

Butch did. One arm free, fist to kidney. A sound like thunder snapped through the air, a shockwave surrounding the blow.

Invincible wheezed like a balloon losing air. Butch spun, let him go mid-pivot, chucked him downward.

He almost cratered.

Instead, Invincible pulled up just before impact, skimmed the road, carved a groove in the asphalt so deep a sedan bottomed out behind him. Horns screamed. Brakes locked.

They kept pace without blinking.

Boomer zipped along the sidewalk, plucking loose bricks and tossing them ahead like he was paving the way for chaos. Butch punched through a traffic light and didn’t notice. Brick dove low, closing angles.

The older kid tried. With a hard grunt, he spun in a blur, landing a spinning heel into Boomer’s gut that knocked him into a Metro bus. The metal crunched around him like foil. Boomer bounced back with a grin anyway.

Butch took a hit next—clean to the nose, blood spraying before it sealed. He looked pissed about it. Not hurt.

They swarmed him.

Brick caught a wrist mid-swing, twisted hard. Heard cartilage move.

Butch drove a punch straight into his solar plexus. The guy folded.

Boomer rebounded off a parked SUV, spun in, both feet to the back. Solid impact.

“You still feelin’ invincible, bud?” Brick asked, breath steady. His hands twisted again, tighter. Elbow grinding.

Invincible’s glare narrowed through his broken goggles, the pain behind his teeth sharpening into something steadier. “You asked for it.”

The headbutt came fast. Clean. No telegraph.

Their skulls cracked together with a noise that echoed off every wall for a quarter of a mile.

Brick saw red. Not metaphor.

Just stars.

And blood.

The teenager didn’t stop. Invincible spun, fist leading, and cracked Brick’s little brother square in the chest. Boom. 

The hit sent Butch flying into a truck parked across the street, metal crunching like an empty soda can as the vehicle caved around him, a spurt roaring up the side of the cab. Something popped—fuel line or tire, Brick doesn’t bother to clock it—and Butch vanished in a fireball that lit up half the street, heat rolling out and biting at the concrete.

Brick doesn’t flinch.

He tracked a blur instead, blue and crackling, a snarl of static behind Boomer’s teeth as he came flying in from the blindside.

Boomer came from the side, electricity arcing down his arms, face tight in a way Brick wasn’t used to seeing. Invincible saw him coming. The older kid twisted at the last second, and slipped under him—barely any wasted motion this time—and grabbed Boomer by the wrist mid-swing. Somehow using that same over-eager momentum, the same stupid open angle, Invincible spun him up and around in one dizzying arc.

Then let go.

Boomer shot off, immediately breaking the sound barrier.

He heard the glass shatter before he saw Boomer’s landing spot. A whole storefront gave out like tissue paper, mannequins exploding out of the building like they were evacuating for their lvies.

Brick breathed out through his nose and wiped at the blood running down his temple. His hand came away red. The taste of copper hit his tongue, and he let it sit there a second. He was… impressed. Not that he wanted to say it, but the guy was adjusting. Getting better, Brick realized. Fast.

“Not bad,” Brick called across the ruined street, voice even. Loud enough to carry, soft enough to bait. “For a rookie.”

He launched.

The world blurred sideways, red streak tearing across the air with a sound like cloth ripping off steel. Invincible braced wrong—too stiff, too slow—and Brick twisted midair, curving into a hard left as he rotated around the kid’s shoulders and drilled his elbow into the back of his head. The hit landed with a wet crack as the teenager slammed skull-first into the hood of a taxi, crumpling the entire engine block on impact. Glass starbursts and metal screams as the whole thing gave way like tinfoil.

Then Butch came roaring out of the flames.

The Green Rowdyruff lookedlike a demon, soot-streaked, half his sleeve still smoldering, grin stretched too wide to be anything but real. Boomer climbed out of a broken display case with a mannequin arm somehow halfway down his shirt. He ripped it free, flicked it over his shoulder, and flew up next to Brick like nothing happened.

Invincible pulled himself out of the wrecked car slowly. Lip split, mask cracked. One lens gone. He spat blood to the side and stood up straighter than Brick expected.

“Three on one,” the kid said, rough. He was breathing hard, but he stayed up. “Real brave.”

“Cry harder,” Butch answers, cracking his neck.

“We’re just getting started,” Boomer added, sparks dancing down his arms. “You gonna keep up, or you need to call your mom?”

Invincible’s body shook, fists curling so tight Brick could see bone shift under skin, clenching like they were holding something back. Something behind his eyes had changed—panic gone, fury bleeding in behind it.

And then—

“THAT’S IT!”

His shout cracked as he surged up, shaking loose from the damage like it hadn’t happened. He hovered for a breath, then snapped forward with a boom loud enough to rattle windows two blocks down.

Brick moved to intercept, already calculating. Distance. Trajectory. Timing. He pulled back a fist, ready to meet him dead on.

They collided.

Brick’s punch landed flush, but instead of folding, Invincible met it. A wall of resistance. The impact snapped up Brick’s arm like lightning. Pain shot all the way to his shoulder. He reeled back with a hiss—and that’s when he saw the wall of white.

Red and white.

Big. Bigger than the kid. Bigger than any of them.

Cape. Broad chest. Red O.

The man floated between them like gravity bent for him. Wide shoulders. Thicker chest. Mustache that felt like a threat.

He registered the mustache half a second before the voice hit.

“That’s enough,” the man said. Calm. Dead calm. But something under it made the hair on Brick’s arms try to lift through his suit. Something old. Something final.

Omni-Man.

Brick doesn’t argue. He jerked back, body coiled, shoulder burning as he dropped altitude fast, rejoining the formation before Butch could pick another fight. Boomer hovered just off his shoulder, eyes round, lips parting like he wanted to ask something and was too smart to.

The man didn’t move, perfectly still and unmoving in the air in a way that Brick was still struggling to master after seven years..

The teen wobbled in midair behind him, bent at the waist, arms shaking. “D-dad?”

Brick’s eyes narrowed.

“You okay?” Omni-Man turned, his attention shifting to the boy behind him. Invincible. Still upright, barely. Blood smeared his jaw. Suit wrecked. One eye visible through a shattered lens, blinking hard.

“I… I don’t know.” The kid wheezed. “I think… I think I broke a rib.”

“You’ll walk it off. Go home.”

The teen glanced back once, blood still pouring down his chin from his broken nose, one tooth missing, suit torn to hell. There’s anger in his eyes still—but also that thing Brick recognized. Fear. Real fear.

Brick drank it in.

Then Invincible left. One boom that rattled street signs and set off four alarms, and he was a streak of color, vanishing into the sky.

And then it’s just the three of them and the mountain.

The three of them hovered tight. Butch looked ready to spit fire, and Boomer had gone quiet, oddly serious. They all flinched when Omni-Man turned to look at them. That stare landed like pressure.

“Cecil needs to keep you three on a leash.”

Then he was gone. No wind-up. Just one snap of movement and he tore through the skyline, several sonic booms in his wake.

No one spoke for a second. Brick’s breathing came out steady but shallow as he flexed his hand. The pain was deep now, dull and humming.

He pulls out the comm. Slotted it back in. Static.

Then Cecil’s voice explodes into his ear.

“—reckless, off-book, public fallout—DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA—”

Brick exhalesd slow, not really listening.

“Cecil,” he said eventually, voice low, throat dry. “You’ve got Omni-Man rated as an A1.”

Static cuts off. Silence.

“…I do.”

Brick glanced down at his hand. Already swelling.

“Yeah. You might wanna bump that up a little.”