Project ROWDY 2
Impact.
Water.
Cold.
Brick hit the ocean first, hard enough to crater the surface, and for a second, there was only black.
Then light.
Then air—a frantic gasp as his head broke the surface, lungs dragging in breath like he’d been drowning for hours. Salt burned his throat, his nose, the corners of his eyes. His bomber jacket felt like it weighed a million pounds all of a sudden, the embroidered bird patch on the left side sagging from the waterlogged fabric.
White noise pounded against his ears. The crash of waves. The sputtering and coughing of his brothers, surfacing just a few feet away. Boomer’s blond hair plastered against his forehead, his blue striped shirt clinging to his skinny frame. Butch thrashing in the water like it had personally offended him, green shirt ripped even worse than before.
“What the—” Brick started before another wave slapped him in the face.
His vision blurred, then sharpened—skyline. Not the pristine look of Townsville, South Carolina. Definitely not.
Not the polluted mess of Citiesville. Not the spiraling sprawling metropolis that was Megaville. Not anywhere he recognized from their raids across the eastern seaboard.
Somewhere else.
His brain struggled to process, sputtering like an engine that wouldn’t quite catch. The edges of buildings looked wrong—too sharp, too clean. The arrangement all wrong. Colors different shades than they should be. Like someone had taken a city and twisted it just a few degrees off from reality.
“I can’t swim good!” Boomer wailed, limbs flailing in panic despite the fact that they could all literally fly. His blue-and-black sneakers kicked frantically below the surface, splashing water into Butch’s face. “Help! I’m drowning!”
Butch spat seawater directly into Boomer’s open mouth. “Shut up, moron! Just float!”
“I don’t know how!”
“You’re DOING it right now!”
Brick wasn’t answering. He was already moving, flipping up into the air, scanning the city from above. The wind whipped through his soaked clothes, making him shiver despite the sun beating down. His red and black high-tops left droplets falling to the water below. Tall buildings, glassy, sleek. Highways twisting into a skyline that wasn’t theirs. Cars too weirdly shaped, advertisements for products he’d never heard of. People staring up, pointing.
“Hey! Look at those kids!”
“Are they flying?”
“Is this some Guardians thing?”
Guardians? What the hell were Guardians? The word rattled around Brick’s head, unable to find any context to latch onto. A superhero team? Had to be, right?
Only thing that made sense at all.
He dropped back down, feet skimming just above the water’s surface, hands clasped behind his back. “We need to get to land.”
“No shit,” Butch growled, already striking out toward the shore with powerful strokes, his fingerless gloves making wet slapping sounds against the water.
“I still think I’m drowning,” Boomer whined, doggy-paddling despite literally flying a good foot and a half above the water’s surface. The blue pouch attached to his belt had torn loose, now drifting away on the current.
“You’re flying, dumbass!” Butch shouted back.
Brick’s blue-eyed brother glanced down. “Oh yeah.”
They landed on the shore, wet clothes sticking to their skin, sand pressing cold against their boots. No one spoke. Beachgoers stared, some taking out phones, some backing away. A woman in sunglasses grabbed her children and pulled them behind her. A teenage boy with acne and a backwards cap mouthed “holy shit” to his friends.
Boomer’s eyes darted back and forth, like if he squinted hard enough, the world would make sense again. His lips moved silently, forming words that never quite made it out. The black stripes on his blue shirt seemed to sag lower than they had before.
Butch was tense, hands curled into fists, energy thrumming beneath his skin. His green high-top boots sank slightly into the wet sand, water pooling around them. His black cargo shorts dripped steadily. The muscle in his jaw pulsed.
Brick? Brick was busy processing.
Processing literally everything because none of it made sense. This isn’t right. None of this is right. The sun felt too bright, the world washed out somehow. The air smelled wrong—more pollution for one, different colors for another. Little details that only someone with enhanced senses would notice. Everything was just slightly off.
People were staring. A woman on her phone had stopped mid-call. A kid pointed, eyes wide.
“Mommy, are they heroes?”
“Shh, get back.”
Boomer’s gaze snapped to a store window—a TV behind the glass. The electronics shop had a row of televisions displayed in the window, all showing the same news channel. Some kind of disaster coverage. Smoke, flames, a collapsed building. A bearded guy in a white, blue and gold bodysuit tearing rubble off survivors, holding up a collapsing building like it was nothing.
The words “THE IMMORTAL SAVES DOZENS” ran across the screen.
“Who the hell is that?” Butch muttered, squinting at the screens. “Never seen that hero before. You think he’s new?”
“He’s not new,” Brick said slowly, watching as the footage continued. The way the crowd reacted to the hero. The casual way emergency services coordinated with him. This wasn’t someone’s first rodeo.
“How do you know?” Boomer asked, still dripping.
Goddamnit, Boomer. Brick held back a sigh. “Just look at him. That’s not a rookie.”
Boomer squinted harder at the screen. “He looks kinda old.”
“That’s not—” Brick started, then stopped. Not their world. Not their rules. The realization sank into his gut like a stone.
“We should find the Girls,” Boomer said suddenly. “They probably got sucked in too, right? They gotta be here somewhere.”
“Screw the Girls,” Butch snapped, shaking himself like a dog, water flying everywhere. A nearby woman squealed as she got splashed. “Let’s just figure out where we are so we can get back and rob that bank like we were supposed to.”
“I don’t think that’s gonna work,” Brick said, his voice flat.
Boomer looked at him, blue eyes wide. “What do you mean?”
Brick exhaled, low and steady, jaw tight. “Not Townsville. Not Citiesville. Not anywhere we’ve been.” His fingers flexed. The cold bite of reality. “We’re in another dimension.”
Boomer flinched. “So… how do we get back?”
Brick didn’t answer.
Didn’t want to.
“Ain’t no other dimension,” Butch spat, voice all gravel and broken glass. His hands kept balling into fists then stretching out, over and over, like he was getting ready to punch reality itself back into making sense. “That’s stupid nerd shit from Boomer’s comics. We just got blown somewhere weird. Tokyo or some crap.”
What country has superheroes we’ve never seen before? Brick wanted to say, but he knew approaching Butch with an actual argument would get him nowhere. He let out a sigh as his teeth hurt from grinding them. His skin itched everywhere the saltwater touched, drying into a crust that pulled at his pores. Felt like being covered in glue that was halfway set. “Tokyo doesn’t have white people, dumbass.”
“Well then…” Butch’s face twisted up, nose wrinkling, forehead creasing. He looked constipated when he tried thinking too hard. “What about Canada?”
“Canada doesn’t have superheroes, ya big dum dum.” Boomer wringhed out the edges of his blue shirt, a ton of water and a couple flapping fish splashing between his feet. His hair was alrady drying in these weird spikes that made him look like he’d been electrocuted. “Nobody lives up in Canada except polar bears and eskimos and those guys with the funny hats.”
“Whaddya know about Canada?” Butch leaned in, getting too close like he always did when he was losing an argument. The green in his eyes looked brighter somehow, that dangerous glow that meant something was about to get broken. “You been?”
“No, but—”
“Then how do you know what they got there?” Spit flew from Butch’s mouth, landing on Boomer’s cheek. “You don’t! So shut your stupid face!”
“You shut YOUR face!” Boomer wiped his cheek with his sleeve, leaving a smear of wet sand across his skin as he glared back at his green-eyed brother.
“Shut up!”
“You shut up!”
“BOTH OF YOU JUST SHUT IT!” Brick felt his eye twitch as he roared, voice coming out raw in a way he tried to avoid doing. He didn’t like getting angry, or at least getting loud about it like his idiot brothers. He had to be the responsible one and that came with acting like he was in control.
Which he clearly wasn’t right now.
Which he hated.
The people who’d been staring backed up fast, grabbing phones and kids and whatever else. Seagulls scattered. “LOOK AROUND YOU! The buildings are wrong! The cars are wrong! Even the PEOPLE look wrong!”
His brothers finally shut up long enough to actually look around. Boomer’s face went slack, that same stupid expression he’d had when they found out Santa was real but Krampus also was too. That had been a weird fight.
Butch’s right eye started twitching double-time, that weird spasm that always showed up right before he threw something through a wall. Brick watched it hit them both at once. That same cold flood that had washed through him the moment they broke the water’s surface. This place wasn’t just different. It was wrong.
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
Somewhere in a government facility, hundreds of miles away, at least a mile beneath the Pentagon and full of scientists with more tax dollars than common sense, alarms shrieked through fluorescent-lit hallways. People in suits tapped frantically at keyboards while others barked orders into headsets. The kind of chaos that always happens when something doesn’t fit into the boxes they’d made for the universe.
Some analyst jabbed at a keyboard, and the footage rewound. Three streaks of light bursting through what looked like a tear in reality itself. The water cratering when they hit, waves big enough to swamp boats half a mile out. Then three soggy kids dragging themselves onto the beach, looking dazed but completely unharmed.
“Children?” Cecil’s forehead creased. The lines there were deeper than they had been ten years ago, when he’d started this job.The analyst zoomed in, enhancing the image to show their faces clearly.
“Children?” Cecil frowned. “That much raw power, and they’re just children?”
The analyst pulled up more data, windows crowding the screen. “They hit at just over Mach 900, sir. The kinetic energy should have—”
“I know what happens at those speeds.” Cecil’s fingers drummed on the desk. One-two-three-four. One-two-three-four. “What does that tell you about our visitors?”
“They’re not human.” The analyst hesitated. “Or at least, not normal humans.”
On the screen, the boys had started arguing. The one in red gesturing sharply, jabbing a finger at the air like he was trying to stab it. The green one looking ready to tear someone’s arms off just for something to do. The blue one fidgeting, constantly glancing around, looking lost in a way that made him seem younger than the others.
Cecil made the call. “Find out what these kids can do. What they want. Where they came from. I want everything.”
“Sir, should I alert the Guardians? They might—”
“Not yet.” Cecil’s eyes never left the screen. “Let’s see what we’re dealing with first.”
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
Back on the beach, reality was still sinking in for the Boys.
“We gotta bail,” Brick said, eyeing the growing crowd. People with phones out, filming. A kid pointing. A cop car pulling up at the edge of the parking lot. “Too many eyes on us.”
“Where are we supposed to go?” Boomer’s voice came out small, almost lost in the sound of waves behind them. His hands kept moving, touching his face, his hair, his clothes, like he was making sure he was still all there. “We don’t have anywhere. No hideout. No Mojo’s place. Nothing.”
Brick realized he hadn’t thought that far ahead. One problem at a time. “Just away from here first. Figure out the rest after.”
“I say we take what we want.” Butch cracked his knuckles one after another, little pops that sounded like firecrackers. Green energy sizzled between his fingers, burning the water away in little wisps of steam. “No one here knows what we can do. No one’s ready for us.”
Brick felt something cold settle in his stomach. “We don’t know what these heroes can do either. That Immortal guy on TV looked like he could bench-press a building.”
“So fucking what?” Butch scoffed, eyes too wide, too bright. “We can handle some lame-ass wannabe Superman.”
“We don’t know that.”
“You turning chickenshit on us?” Butch leaned in close enough that Brick could smell the salt and seaweed on his breath. His pupils were too big, that weird manic gleam taking over as his grin stretched way past where it belonged. The same look he got right before he tried to set fire to that pet store last summer because they wouldn’t let him get a pet snake without a parent being present.
“Chickenshit? I’m not chickenshit. You’re smart enough to know that, make those braincells work, Butch.” Brick shoved him back hard enough to make Butch stumble, almost fall on his ass in the wet sand. “I’m just not a fucking moron who runs headfirst into an Nth metal mace cus he wants to steal it.”
“Guys, guys!” Boomer yanked on Brick’s soggy jacket sleeve, voice cracking. “Black cars. Guys in suits. Look!”
Brick followed where Boomer pointed. A convoy of identical black SUVs skidded to a stop at the edge of the sand, tires churning up plumes of grit. Men with identical haircuts and dark sunglasses poured out like ants from a kicked hill. One of them pressed his finger to his ear, lips moving fast as he stared directly at them.
“We’re out.” Brick didn’t ask for votes.
They hit the sky like tri-color bullets from the world’s biggest railgun, leaving nothing but wet sand and confused yelps in their wake, authoritative shouts from the men in suits. Below them, phones tracked their ascent, cameras too slow and weak to capture them even before they got anywhere close to punchinjg through the cloud layer. Words floated up—”unauthorized,” “detain,” “cooperation”—bureaucrat garbage that meant the same thing in any universe: trouble.
“What if we’re stuck here forever?” Boomer’s voice had that wobble, like he was about to start crying but trying to swallow it back. His fingers kept plucking at his shirt, stretching the fabric out of shape. “What about all our stuff? What about Mojo? What about—”
“Can it,” Brick said, but without the usual edge. His brain kept misfiring, too many thoughts colliding into each other. “We’ll deal.”
“Man, I bet this place has way better shit to wreck,” Butch said, scanning the city sprawled below them like a buffet. He had that glint in his eye, the one that always came before something expensive got broken. “Fancy buildings. Bet they got cars worth more than that whole block we torched last month.”
“We need to know what we’re up against first,” Brick insisted. “No blindsiding.”
“Only pussies need intel,” Butch muttered under his breath.
“Intel keeps us from getting our asses kicked, dumbfuck.”
Butch wasn’t listening anymore. His face had split into that manic grin, the one that made him look unhinged. Teeth showing too much, eyes fever-bright. “Fresh superheroes to fight. No one knows what we can do. No one ready for us.” His voice came out hungry, like he was talking about food after starving for days. “I wanna see how hard these losers go down.”
“They could be tough,” Boomer said. “That Immortal guy looked strong.”
“Only one way to find out.” Butch was almost vibrating with excitement.
Brick’s brain kept churning, running scenarios. They needed a place to crash. Food. Information. Maybe a way back.
But he also knew his brothers wouldn’t last five minutes with a careful plan. Especially not Butch, who looked ready to murder the next person who told him to be patient.
“Fine,” Brick said, taking point, angling toward the heart of the city. “Let’s have some fun.”
They cut through the sky like colored blades, leaving contrails that made people below stop and point. Brick saw a woman nearly crash her car staring up at them.
“Holy crap, look at that building!” Boomer pointed toward a glass skyscraper that corkscrewed up into the clouds like someone had grabbed it and twisted. “It’s all twisty and weird and stuff. We don’t have anything like that back home.”
“Who fuckin’ cares?” Butch snorted, but his eyes stayed locked on it way too long. Brick could practically see him calculating how many punches it would take to bring it down. “Bet it falls down just the same as regular buildings.”
“No destroying anything,” Brick ordered. “We need to stay under the radar until we know what’s what.”
“Under the radar? We’re three kids with fucking superpowers flying over downtown whateverthefuck-ville,” Butch shot back. “How exactly are we supposed to blend in? Should I put on a hat or something?”
Brick had nothing for that one.
They passed a wall covered all over with graffiti, most of it really well done to be honest. Some muscled guy with a mustache, white costume, red cape flying behind him covered up most of the wall. Clearly he was pretty famous, as the drawing was not only good, but clearly someone who people had seen all the time. Whoever he was, he was popular. People wore his face on shirts, carried mugs with his symbol.
“Another Superman ripoff,” Brick muttered, barely giving it a second look. “Probably a pushover.”
“I could take him easy,” Butch flexed, energy crackling around his fists.
“Bet he’d stomp you flat,” Boomer said.
“Say that again and I’ll throw you through a billboard!”
“I said he’d stomp you fl—AHHHHH!” Boomer’s words cut off as Butch grabbed his ankle mid-flight, spinning him like a rag doll. Boomer’s arms pinwheeled wildly, face distorted from the G-force.
“KNOCK IT OFF!” Brick seized both of them, yanking them apart with enough force to make them all stop dead in the air. “This isn’t the time for your bullshit!”
“He started it,” Butch grumbled, letting go of Boomer’s foot with obvious reluctance.
“Did not.” Boomer tugged his shirt back down, trying to smooth out the wrinkles like that was the biggest problem right now.
Brick ignored them both. “Eyes open,” he warned, not taking his gaze off the strange horizon of this odd version of the United States. “No telling what’s out there.”
The world stretched out ahead of them, vast, unchallenged.
And it had no idea the kind of trouble they could bring.