Project ROWDY 8

Brick clocked the cameras first. Sixteen easy ones—two in every corner, a couple tucked in vent slits, ceiling panel seams. X-ray vision wasn’t required to feel the rest watching. The whole place buzzed with the kind of sterilized tension that tried to pretend it wasn’t afraid of them. Like covering a bomb in white tile made it safe.

It wasn’t. Not with them in it.

He kept one eye on the mirrored glass at the far end of the room. Cecil behind it, obviously; once again, X-ray vision wasn’t even necessary, though it helped. Probably arms crossed like always, face smooth in that fake-calm the old man did when he thought he was being clever. Like the three of them hadn’t torn holes in smarter plans.

The room looked like it was built to survive a meteor strike or three of them, maybe.

Reinforced floor, blast doors at both exits, enough steel in the walls to make a battleship blush, like that would matter. Brick could already see how it’d fall apart. One misstep. One punch.

Boomer was spinning again, his brother doing just enough to annoy but not enough to be worth Brick’s attention yet as he hovered a few inches up and swayed like he was about to burst into song about how he was a little teapot. His fingers twitched like he was playing piano on his own thighs. Tap-tap—pause—tap. The front of his suit still had that stupid shiny “II” like a cheap toy.

Somehow still intact.

Brick figured the moment they walked out, he’d catch it on a door handle and cry about it for a week.

Butch skipped the whole pretending part. He was using all that energy to pace hard, slow lap after slow lap, every step like he was trying not to break the floor. His eyes stuck to every guard, every camera blink, every noise. He looked ready to punch someone just to see if they bled differently in here. His sleeve was burnt through the left side again, something Brick was not at all surprised to see.

“This place sucks,” Butch muttered without looking. “Can we go already? I ain’t waitin’ around just to shake hands with some hero losers.”

Brick exhaled through his nose. “Because Cecil said so.”

He made no attempt at hiding the tone. They’d had this exact exchange. Ten times. Maybe twelve. Butch always acted like every rule was a personal attack. Like the world owed him a fight he hadn’t gotten yet.

Up behind the glass, Donald hovered near Cecil like a bad second thought, tablet gripped like he was hoping it might deflect lasers. His lips moved. Brick could barely hear him through the reinforced wall, but with a little focus—

“Are we sure about this?”

Brick tilted his head just slightly to catch Cecil’s answer. His voice stayed firm. “We’re introducing allies, not starting a war.”

Donald said something else. Cecil kept his head still. “Double the structural reinforcement.”

Brick almost laughed.

It took a week.

A week of dragging through training drills and “mission debriefs” and rooms full of adults trying not to flinch when Butch stretched. Brick read everything Cecil sent. The others could care less. He read it twice. He still didn’t get what the point was. Make them heroes, maybe.

Or just tame them.

When it finally happened, it came with escorts. Five GDA agents, black suits tight across shoulders, sidearms strapped high like it would matter. They walked too carefully. Eyes darted too much. Brick clocked which ones were sweating.

Boomer vibrated beside him, floating without thinking. He had a grin half-loaded on his face like he wanted someone to ask him a question just so he could talk. His hair stuck up in the wrong direction again.

“This place is wild,” Boomer said, doing a quick spin in place. “You think they built it just for us?”

“Built it for something worse,” Brick muttered. “We just happen to be what showed up.”

The walls were thicker here. The floor changed texture halfway through the hall, some kind of non-slip alloy, probably heat-resistant. He kinda hated that he noticed that. He also hated the fact that it made sense.

Butch moved just behind him, one hand on the wall as he passed, dragging his knuckles along the seam of the panels like he wanted to peel them back. His shoulder bumped into a guard. The guy flinched and kept his mouth shut.

Brick watched it and filed it away with barely a thought.

The room opened up real wide at the end, almost massive. Even still, it wasn’t flashy. This clearly wasn’t a stage, no, just space. Big enough to hold a fight.

Clean enough to pretend that wasn’t the plan.

Boomer hovered higher, voice rising with him. “So are the Guardian guys, like, actually important? Like, for real?”

Brick simply rolled his eyes when Cecil teleported in a crackle of electricity at his side—shifted his weight a fraction to the left, the way you do when something cold brushes too close to your neck. The guy just did that all the time, always popping up. Like he’d never left. Like he’d been watching the whole time, which—of course—he had.

“They’re the world’s premier superhero team,” Cecil said, his voice calm and flat, like it wasn’t obvious he was waiting for someone to break something.

Boomer blinked up at him, head cocked like a dog that hadn’t figured out what trick it was supposed to do yet. “Yeah, but like… how premier?”

He was winding up already. Brick could hear it in Boomer’s voice. That stupid excitement creeping into his voice like it was about to explode into something that would make them all look like morons by association.

“Back home the Girls got, like, three—”

There it is.

Butch’s fist hit the wall. Metal groaned. Not loud, but loud enough. Just a dent, shallow, controlled. For him, anyway. Brick saw the twitch in his shoulder—he’d been thinking about it, probably hadn’t even meant to actually punch the wall. That was the scary part with Butch, all body, little brain.

No one moved. Cecil’s eyes remained blank and unbothered as he looked at the dent like it was a coffee stain on his couch, before turning to look back at Brick, not a single word said.

Brick made a sound in his throat. “Right. Be polite. Smile. Don’t melt anyone’s face off. We remember.”

He was already floating a few inches higher, involuntary. Not because he wanted to. Just because Butch was close to slipping and Boomer was close to spiraling and someone had to look like they had a grip on the room.

Then the doors hissed open.

The Immortal walked through like he belonged to gravity. Like it owed him.

Tall, broad and anncient without looking old, the Immortal was America’s greatest superhero since the end of World War II back when he used to wear a cape. Brick had studied the file three times—had the stats memorized. None of that mattered. What mattered was the way the guy carried himself like time hadn’t killed him yet but had definitely tried.

He didn’t even stop moving when War Woman came in behind him. She was taller than Brick expected. Everything about her looked carved, deliberate, solid as the round mallet-thing riding her back. Her eyes scanned the room like a queen evaluating the worth of a province she hadn’t decided whether to conquer or spare.

Red Rush flickered into existence and out of it again, just long enough for Brick to lose him twice. Third time, he stuck the landing beside Immortal. Toned, twitchy, red and impatient all over. His eyes tracked faster than his body, which Brick had no idea was possible till right now.

Darkwing moved behind them like he wasn’t there. Cape didn’t flap. Boots didn’t tap. Just… appeared, silent as a thought Brick hadn’t finished yet.

And then the rest came. Martian Man, unreadable as a dead signal, eyes like a no-trespassing sign. Green Ghost hovered just above the floor, twitchy glow giving her a shape that felt nervous to look at. And Aquarus looking like… well, a giant fish man.

The Guardians.

They looked at them like someone’d handed them a bomb made out of middle schoolers and told them it might start talking.

Cecil had no need for intros. Just gestured like he was unveiling something, like the three of them weren’t already on the news. “You already know who they are. Guardians—this is Trinity. I, II, and III. Brimstone, Blitzkrieg, Breakneck. You’ve seen the files.”

The Immortal’s eyes settled on them. Heavy. Still. Like he was memorizing a threat vector, not a name.

“These are the children from Baltimore,” he said. Not a greeting. Not even a question. Just confirmation that the puzzle piece fit the slot labeled problem.

Brick’s jaw clenched before he knew it. His body rose half an inch. Not enough to show off. Just enough to respond.

War Woman didn’t even look at them when she spoke. “Cecil. The Teen Team was already reckless. These are infants.”

That one hit hard.

Butch mouthed infants, slow like he was tasting it as his hand flexed. Brick could feel the moment he decided not to deck her in the face .

Cecil was smart enough not to take the bait. “Capability is the measure that matters. Not age. I believe you’ve said that before, War Woman.”

She gave him a look like she was weighing whether to argue or just record the insult and kill him later.

The silence after sat wrong. Too heavy. Like everyone forgot what air was supposed to taste like.

Cecil sighed, and all of a sudden, it felt like he dropped ten pounds of civility. “Let’s get this over with.”

A blur. Red Rush reappeared two inches from Boomer’s personal bubble. Brick saw his brother flinch before he recovered, feet touching down with a soft tap.

The Russian squatted to his level, eyes bright behind the mask, grin crooked and friendly. “So! You kids move at supersonic? That is good. Fast ones are hard to find. Most people? Statues. You say ‘hello,’ they take five minutes to blink. Drives me crazy, yes?”

Boomer lit up like someone plugged him in. “It’s not that hard. We been flyin’ since we were five.”

Brick flinched. Just a fraction. But it counted.

Green Ghost blinked from across the room, drifting closer like her shoes never touched the floor, aura humming soft. “Wait, five? Like five years old?”

“That’s when we were made!” Boomer said, voice too loud, too cheerful, nodding like he was proud of it, like he hadn’t just tossed a grenade into the middle of the room. Hair bounced. Smile big.

The air snapped tight. Silence turned glassy.

Even Cecil looked up.

Brick’s stomach dropped like an elevator cable just got cut.

Darkwing’s head tilted, subtle. “Made,” he echoed, voice low, like grave. Not just a question, from the look in the hero’s eyes.

“Made…our suits,” Brick cut in, stepping forward. Not too fast. Just enough to nudge Boomer back with a shoulder. “Boomer meant we made the suits ourselves.”

No one answered. No one needed to. It was a terrible save. It sat there, wet and obvious.

War Woman’s eyes sharpened, the corners of her mouth tilting just enough to say I see you.

Cecil’s brow twitched. Not raised. Just a twitch. Brick had learned that twitch meant you’ve stepped in it.

Aquarus floated forward, palms splayed like he was tasting them through the air. “Sssuch power, ssso small… curiouuus.”

Boomer blinked at him, head tilting. “He’s like… fishy Aquaman.”

Boomer.

Aquarus blinked once. “Aqua…who?”

Butch groaned, half-laughing. “Oh c’mon. You know. Justice League? Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, Aquaman?”

Shut up.

Brick didn’t say it. The crackle in his jaw probably said enough.

Butch barreled on. “You guys are, like, the knockoff versions. Old guy’s bootleg Superman, Ninja Batguy’s the dollar store Bats—”

“Red Rush is Costco Flash!” Boomer chirped.

They were spiraling. Fast. Brick watched it happen in real time, helpless to steer.

Martian Man’s head rotated a few degrees, slow. “I do not recognize these entities.”

Cecil stayed quiet, unmoving. Just watched. Eyes tracking. That was worse than yelling.

Brick took a breath, then another, as he tried not to snap. “They’re comic book characters,” he said, flat. “From stories. Fictional. Not real.”

The Immortal’s expression stayed the same, but his gaze pinned them like insects. “Fascinating fiction.”

Then the quiet stretched too long. Until The Immortal stepped forward.

“I witnessed your handling of Vault. It was… sufficient.”

Brick stiffened, floated a half-inch higher. “He was nothing. We didn’t even go full-out.”

A flicker in the old man’s eyes.“Then perhaps you will indulge us,” Immortal said, voice like a mountain deciding to speak. “A demonstration.”

Cecil looked over. “What are you proposing?”

Immortal motioned toward the reinforced arena to their left. Quiet, calm. “A simple match. Observation only.”

Brick didn’t wait and definitely didn’t ask. “You’re on, old man.”

War Woman moved, hand up. “Immortal, I must object. These boys—”

“Will be fine.”

That shut her down. Almost.

Cecil ran a hand down his jaw, clearly thinking about it. “Fine. No lethal contact.”

Technicians scattered like they’d been waiting for the cue. The floor cleared in seconds. White tiles and reinforced everything waited for them, as all the cameras repositioned.

Boomer floated back, eyes wide. Butch cracked his knuckles like he was jealous.

Brick touched down in the middle. The red on his suit looked too loud under the lights.

The Immortal stepped in opposite him. Arms at his sides

For a breath, no one moved.

Then Brick exploded forward, floor cracking behind him, air splitting loud. Fist chambered, aimed center-mass.

One fist extended, aiming directly for The Immortal’s chest.

The Immortal’s arm met Brick’s fist with a sound that cracked the air apart. The floor jolted under them, reinforced plating flexing like wet paper before settling with a groan. The windows above rattled. Two techs went sprawling from the impact wave, and no one said anything about it.

The Immortal didn’t stumble. But he registered it. There was a flicker—eyes narrowing just slightly, chin lifting—not pain, not shock, not quite admiration. Recognition. And something that might’ve been doubt. Brick didn’t give it room to grow.

He vanished left, pivoted hard, broke through his own airwake and came in low. Faked a hook to draw the block. Slipped under a return blow with the quickness of a bullet and and hammered a kick into the ribs hard enough to turn a spine to literal dust.

It barely moved him.

Again. Left jab. Feint. Elbow. Brick was running math mid-motion, adjusting per fraction of a second. Distance too tight? Angle too clean? He clipped under the guard anyway. Crossed up. Dug into the soft under the arm. Hit, recoil, vanish. Keep pressure up. Find the tells. The Immortal was slow. Compared to him, anyway.

Every block was faster than it should’ve been.

Not fast enough.

He caught the next strike to the ribs, drove it in and heard the hiss of air, forced or drawn, didn’t matter. The follow-up cracked against the shoulder, twisted the man on his axis, turned his stance wide.

For two full seconds, Brick had the advantage.

He didn’t press it. He tested it.

The young government agent let it ride long enough to watch the recovery. Every return strike was deliberate and controlled. The kind of precision you couldn’t fake,. Even if the old man wasn’t as strong, tough or fast as he was, he was still good.

Butch hit way harder. Boomer was definitely faster. But neither of them fought like this.

Monitors blinked in rows above the observation deck. Flashing glyphs, pulse lines. Somewhere in Brick’s periphery, he knew the numbers were spiking. Cecil didn’t say a word. Not yet.

Laser heat bloomed behind his eyes. The Immortal dodged left, cloak scorched on the trailing edge. Brick exhaled, inhaled deeper—let the pressure build under his ribs. Fire spilled out in a wide cone.

The Immortal braced, hands forward and let it wash all over him.

When the smoke cleared, he was still standing. Blackened suit. Not burning. Brick hovered, high enough to stay out of reach, heat still radiating from his chest.

“Not bad, young man,” the Immortal said, voice granite-thick and clipped clean, each word like it’d been dragged out of a furnace and cooled slow.

Brick smirked. “I’m just warming up.”

They met again mid-air. The next collision rocked the floor plates, rattled the entire far wall. Strikes came faster. Block, duck, return. Push. Counter. Heat building under skin as bone jarring hits that didn’t leave bruises as they landed but registered all the same.

Brick could feel it—that edge-of-breaking point where he could’ve surged. He could’ve made it hurt. But Cecil hadn’t called for full power.

Yet.

“Enough,” Cecil’s voice echoed through the system, flat and final, like it’d been held behind his teeth the whole time. “That’s sufficient.”

Brick pulled back. Breath sharp. Shoulders tense. He didn’t feel done. Didn’t want to feel done. He lowered slowly, touchpoint landing, boots humming.

The Immortal dipped his chin. “Formidable.” No smile, just fact. Brick felt the pride like a cold burn behind his ribs, even as he fought against it. You’re no Superman.

Red Rush zipped in next, kinetic buzz trailing behind him. “My turn!” He pointed, already sliding across the floor toward Boomer. “Blue one. We race, yes?”

Boomer nearly tripped over his own feet trying to get there. “Heck yeah! Let’s go!”

Cecil didn’t even try to stop them. They were gone before he could.

Red and blue streaks looped the room, whipping past the walls so fast the air warped behind them. Brick could track them, because he’d trained his eyes for it and made his brothers do so too even while standing still, their reflexes usually tied to how fast they were moving. But he could feel the difference. Boomer was putting some work in. Red Rush wasn’t sweating.

He clenched his jaw.

Their laughter spiraled around the room in distorted echoes, doppler-warped. Boomer’s was louder.

Red Rush skidded to a stop with a slide that barely disturbed his hair. “Finally! Someone who moves at speed I do not want to murder! Usually I wait for people to breathe before they finish sentence.”

Boomer landed beside him, cheeks flushed, beaming. “That was awesome! You’re, like, not slow for an old guy!”

Red Rush laughed, bright and real. “Old! I am thirty-six!”

Boomer blinked. “That’s ancient.”

The speedster cracked up harder, clapped Boomer on the back like they were already teammates.

Brick remained unmoving, face the same way. “Show them the arc trick.”

Boomer turned, brightening more—if that was even possible—and raised both hands. Static flickered instantly, blue-white veins threading the air between his fingertips. Then between his palms. Then spiraling outward as he wove the energy like it was string and he didn’t know how to untangle it fully.

Lights overhead flickered twice as Brick’s eyes cut to the nearest technician, his tablet flashing red.

Cecil didn’t react. But his face tightened.

Boomer grinned, hands still pulsing. “Oh! Also, I can read every language too! And animals—kinda. They don’t, like, talk back, but they get the gist.” Boomer’s grin kept flickering at the edges, like it wasn’t sure if it wanted to stay or break into something bigger. “Also, any language… I think. Kinda automatic. It just sorta happens in my head, I guess.”

Green Ghost drifted closer, and Brick clocked the twitch in her fingers before she spoke—nervous habit, probably. “Any? Like… any-any? I mean, that’s, wow, that’s a lot. Right? That has to be—okay, no, yeah, that’s just—really?”

Donald slid in from stage right with the practiced glide of someone whose job it was to stay invisible until something needed solving. He held up a tablet already loaded with columns of scripts that Brick couldn’t recognize—his fingers tightened instinctively when he saw it. “Let’s test it.”

Boomer barely glanced at the screen before he started reading. Not slow. Not stumbling. One after another: Arabic, Mandarin, Russian. No hesitation. No stutter. Brick didn’t even know how his brother knew what to emphasize in those languages but then again Boomer’s language thing wasn’t something they ever questioned.

“Incredible,” Green Ghost breathed. Her voice had smoothed out, less filler, more awe. That warm-breathy tone like she wanted to hug a puppy.

“I can also scream real loud too.”

Brick couldn’t see her eyes but he could tell Green Ghost widened them right before Boomer pivoted on his feet and opened his mouth wide.

The sound that followed was loud the way Geese were sorta jerks. Glass spiderwebbed on the far wall, then shattered, raining down in chunks big enough to impale. Red Rush flinched back with a muffled swear, hands over his ears, face scrunched in a wince that looked too genuine for someone who ran faster than sound.

“Ow, okay! No more opera!” Red Rush muttered, shaking out his hands like that’d fix his skull.

Boomer didn’t stop. Not really. Shifted seamlessly into another show-off cycle—X-ray, thermal, motion tracking. Brick saw it in the way his eyes narrowed, the way he pointed out a weak structural seam beneath the paneling, how the lights above flickered in tandem with whatever current he was pulling. One tech flinched when a nearby monitor sparked. Good.

Boomer beamed like they were clapping.

Butch had checked out six seconds in, the middle Rowdyruff pacing, flexing, generally ready to do something fun. His knuckles were already white as he tightened them and glanced over at the heroes.

He caught War Woman’s eye mid-pace and immediately locked in.

“Wanna go?”

Her expression tightened. One breath—then the start of a ‘no,’ polite and clearly meant to end it.

“You scared?”

Brick didn’t even roll his eyes. He just sighed. Loud enough.

War Woman’s back straightened by degrees. Her voice came out low and deliberate, metal in every syllable. “A brief exchange, then.”

That was all Butch needed. He launched himself before she even stepped forward.

The collision of his fist and her hammer rang out like a cathedral bell snapping in half. The reverb slammed through the floor, up the walls. Brick felt it in his teeth.

She stopped underestimating him after the third exchange.

Butch had no desire to fight fair, because fair was stupid. He fought like a kid who learned by winning. Concrete split under his boots. Equipment folded under stray punches. A severed training bot leg skidded past Brick’s foot and he barely even blinked. Green laser vision arced wild. A beam cracked the corner of the ceiling.

“I can see your heartbeat,” Butch grinned between blows, eyes glowing faintly green. “It’s picking up.”

War Woman wasn’t bothering with words at this point. Her war club came down hard, slammed him into the wall hard enough to crater. Plaster peeled. Metal groaned. Brick watched the shift in her stance when Butch laughed.

She adjusted immediately as her movements snapped tighter, hammer blows swinging faster.

And Butch—idiot that he was—matched her.

There was strategy in the chaos. Hidden in the shoulder tilts, the way he absorbed hits without flinching so he could get in closer, the way he knew when to fall back and when to surge.

Not a lot. But enough.

Cecil’s voice sliced through the madness, perfectly timed like always. “That’ll do.”

Red warning banners flickered on a dozen monitors.

The Guardians regrouped, most of them quiet. War Woman exhaled through her nose and cracked her neck. Martian Man didn’t blink once.

Immortal crossed his arms and gave a nod, slow and heavy. “Their capabilities are… considerable.”

Red Rush zipped a short circle, practically vibrating. “Did you see that? Feel that? The blue one’s brain might actually work fast enough to carry a conversation! Finally!”

“He read half that tablet in under two seconds,” Green Ghost added, voice still recovering from the sonic boom. “Like, flawlessly. That’s—seriously, that’s not normal.”

“Neither is fighting like a feral dog,” Darkwing cut in, calm as ever, but the edge under it was razor-sharp. “They’re weapons. Just haven’t picked a direction yet.”

Martian Man’s gaze hadn’t moved from Butch. “Their emissions are anomalous. Power fluctuations display patterns unlike any registered classification. Cross-dimensional resonance is possible.”

Cecil’s hands folded behind his back. “That’s why they need oversight. Structured development. Guidance.”

The Immortal remained unmoving, the man older than most statues, as he just stared Cecil’s way, voice low and absolute as the old hero focused his eyes on the older-looking man. “You want us to train them.”

“I thought joint exercises might be beneficial,” Cecil said, tone even, neutral in that way that meant it wasn’t. Brick had no need to see his face to know his jaw was tight.

War Woman folded her arms slowly. “They are children, Cecil. These ones are too young to be thrown into battle, no matter their power.”

Brick hovered a few inches higher without realizing. Heat in his throat as he bit back the urge to drown the old demi-god in fire. We’re not—

“We’re not children,” he snapped, voice louder than it needed to be.

Boomer tilted his head, shrugging a little.

Butch snorted and floated up beside him, still glowing a little from the brawl. “And we can hear you, y’know.”

That froze the air. Every head turned. Brick clocked the shift in Darkwing’s shoulders, how Red Rush stopped pacing, how even Martian Man blinked. The Immortal stayed still, but his eyes fixed—like the beam of a lighthouse clicking onto one ship in a storm.

“No,” the old man said, slow, the word dragging centuries behind it. “Not quite children. But certainly not adults, either.”

Brick held his stare, bright red eyes doing what they did best. “We can handle ourselves.”

“You’ve demonstrated that quite clearly,” The Immortal added. “The question is not whether you can fight. It is whether you should.”

Brick opened his mouth, but nothing made it past his teeth. He wasn’t ready for philosophy. He was ready for another round.

Cecil stepped in like he’d been waiting. “We’ll revisit this after debrief. Everyone’s learned something today. Let’s let that settle.”

The Guardians began to turn. Brick caught bits as they passed—

 “Cecil has truly outdone himself this time,” War Woman muttered to herself.

Darkwing, dry, to Immortal: “The red one could give you a proper fight.”

Martian Man, unblinking: “The electrical manipulation alone warrants sustained observation.”

They were gone by the time Brick looked up again. Cecil was still there, unreadable as ever.

“Well,” he said. “That went about as expected.”

Which told Brick nothing. Which meant it was bad.

Something was changing. Again. He could feel it in the air like pressure before a storm.

And if history meant anything, it was probably going to suck.

Given their track record, Brick wasn’t optimistic.