Project ROWDY 21

“I still don’t get how you got an A,” Butch muttered, boot bouncing off a soda can hard enough to launch it halfway into the stratosphere. “Literally. I don’t get it. You were doodling a buncha lightning bolts. Like, cartoony little lightning bolts on your paper, all over your paper.”

The sun was still high enough in the sky that they could almost pretend it was still summer as school had already let out, the Boys taking their sweet time back instead of flying straight home to the Pentagon. The air smelled thick, like mulch and sweat and half-dead leaves, the kind of stuff that Brick knew Libby secretly enjoyed, the older girl unable to remove the scent of pumpkin spice from her breath.

Boomer grinned like he’d just been knighted. “That was the diagram. I was showing the voltage flow! Miss Chen said that my diagram was the clearest and the most creative visual interpretation that she had ever seen. She said—wait, hold on—she said I might have an ‘intuitive visual vocabulary,’ which I think means my doodles are, like, genius or something?”

Butch rolled his eyes so hard his head tilted. “Yeah. That or she’s got a soft spot for electro-gremlins.”

Brick didn’t break stride as his brothers did their little back-and-forth on the clear upper-class Virginia street. The whole neighborhood was quiet, a lack of traffic and visitors something the people in this area paid millions for.

“Donald texted,” he said finally.

If he had to be completely honest, not that his brothers would ever even think to ask, Brick might have mentioned that the GDA deputy director had texted them roughly a quarter of an hour ago. All the way back when school had actually let out, really.

If he had to give the guy one compliment, it had to be that Donald’s timing was efficient down to the minute. Makes sense given he’s a cyborg, I guess.

Still, Brick saw no point in bringing it up when he knew they had time anyway and he wasn’t gonna take away their time to rush back to base off that. So, he waited to mention it until they walked to the end of the neighborhood, letting all of them take their sweet time. “They want us at the new training room at the base by five.”

Butch groaned like the cafeteria was out of tacos. “You gotta be fucking kidding me, man! I already broke the weighted bot last time—twice. What if I didn’t feel like punching anything today?”

That was just a lie but Brick wasn’t gonna call him on it. He was a nice enough big brother to let Butch have his moments of delusion. Besides, Boomer usually handled that for him.

Boomer’s grin didn’t fade. “Maybe they’re finally giving us power armor. Or like a team jet. Or a bunch of our own merch, finally.”

Butch just grinned, clear eagernesss on his face despite knowing damn well they didn’t need any of those things.

Brick tilted his head to the side.Well… maybe the merch. Was it egotistical to wanna wear stuff with his name on it? If so, he didn’t care.

Boomer stopped all of a sudden, the action catching both of his other brother’s attention.

Just—stopped. Not gradual. One second bouncing as he moved, the next second frozen, head cocked like someone had pressed pause on the nicest Rowdyruff.

Brick and Butch both looked him up and down, but it was Brick who spoke first.

“Boomer?”

His blue eyes were narrowed, body still in that wrong way. Not calm. Brick’s red eyes widened as they realized Boomer was listening to something, the blond having the best hearing out of all of them. And right now, his brother was focused so hard on listening that Brick was sure he wasn’t even moving a micrometer.

“Screaming.” Boomer was serious now, even down to his voice as he finally spoke.

Bad sign. Boomer being serious for no reason usually meant there was something going down, or about to be.

“Big crowd. DC. It’s loud.”

Butch was already cracking his neck. “What kind of loud?”

“Rock monster.”

No other words needed.

They were moving before they’d spoken—backpacks ditched behind a dumpster in a side alley they’d used twice before. Brick pulled the button-down clean over his head. Underneath: crimson, black, reinforced mesh. The Trinity suits didn’t chafe anymore.

Boomer struggled with a sock. “Why are these uniforms so—”

Butch shoved him sideways. “Move your legs, sparkplug.”

“I am moving!”

Brick yanked his gloves on, boots already half-laced from habit. “Keep to sub 50. We can’t afford to overshoot our target when we’re this close.”

“Got it!”/”Roger roger!” His brothers answered back, well aware they all had a problem controlling their speeds sometimes when they pushed in atmosphere.

He grinned at them as he slid on his other glove and clenched his fist. “Tr-!”

“Trinity, roll out,” Boomer said reflexively, cutting him off. Brick shot him a sharp look at that. “…sorry.”

Brick rolled his eyes. “Trinity! Roll out!”

Three streaks of color split the sky apart with sounds like high-pressure air cannons—blue, green, red. Supersonic wake rippling leaves off the trees as they launched.

“I can hear the thing now, the thing they were screaming about!” Butch yelled, wind-shear tearing past his teeth. “Whatever it is, sounds like something real big! Maybe kaiju size!”

The Boys crested the Potomac like a stormfront, air pressure buckling around them, and water turning to mist as they flew low and fast. Brick was already scanning the city grid while Butch whooped beside him like this was recess, and Boomer kept his speed tighter to match formation with his brothers. The Washington Monument stabbed upward through cloud-haze, a concrete needle pointing at the problem.

And there it was.

A walking quarry.

Eighty, maybe ninety feet tall, dragging half of West Potomac Park with it, the thing looked like a busted mountain got up and decided to try urban development. Brick clocked the fists first—slab-sized, each one the size of the Washington Monument’s base, jagged and coated in dirt and pavement scraps too. The rest of it looked like something out of a rejected kaiju lineup: amber eyes like massive gemstones glowing under a heavy granite brow like some kind of granite caveman, with a jawline cracked like tectonic drift and a mouth full of shattered limestone blocks pretending to be teeth.

“HUMONGOUS SMASH PUNY BUILDINGS!” it bellowed.

Oh, it’s name is Humongous, Brick rolled his eyes. Cute.

“Holy shitake mushrooms,” Boomer muttered, wide-eyed. “That thing’s, like… eight school buses stacked in a trenchcoat.”

“Focus,” Brick snapped. He was already forming strategy, finding fallback zones, checking for civilians in range: too many. Heroes already engaged: six.

Of those six, Brick recognized three.

Invulnerable had one hand clamped on the creature’s stone temple, other fist driving punches into its cheek with diminishing returns. “I can’t—hold him!” he shouted, costume shredded across one shoulder, mouth bloodied.

Brick shook his head. Guy can’t go one fight without getting his ass kicked.

Off to the left, a hugely over-muscled broad-shouldered green-skinned man with a fin jutting from his head – dressed in a blue t-shirt and pink Hawaiian shorts — was throwing elbows like wrecking balls into the thing’s knee.

“Yo, that’s my guy! My guy Savage Dragon!” Butch shouted over the wind. “Fin-head cop guy. Big chin. Always looks mad. He had a cartoon years back. It’s so cooool, Bro. Like imagine Science Dog with less talking and more punching and better one-liners.”

“Savage Dragon,” Brick confirmed, eyes flicking across the battlefield with focused red eyes. “Chicago division of the GDA. Strong-type tank build. Reinforced musculature with regenerative capability. Formerly used to work as a cop.”

Dragon ducked a falling tree limb and growled, “This son of a bitch hits like a freight train and smells like a gravel pit.”

He glanced up and saw the three of them and shouted their way with a voice like a pure steel mill: rough, tired, and built to yell through sirens. “Hey! Can we get some backup before I break my damn wrists on this guy?”

“On it!” Boomer peeled off before Brick could stop him, blue blur streaking downward.

Another voice cut across the battlefield like a megaphone with manners. “You! Giant rock thingy! Does your mother know you’re smashing national landmarks?”

A busty blonde woman who looked at most thirty, built like a CrossFit instructor in a white tank top and denim shorts, was driving a haymaker into the creature’s side. You could tell the thing felt it, not like that meant much at all.

Savage Dragon barked out a hard laugh, even as he drove a shoulder into the thing’s leg to no effect. “Baby, what makes you think a thing like this got anything close to a mother?”

“Smasher,” Brick muttered to himself again. “Real name, Jennifer Dragon. High Tier 5 strength. Chicago GDA. Also bakes.”

“I don’t care if he has a mother or not,” Smasher snapped, sidestepping a debris chunk the size of a Prius. “He still has to follow the rules!”

“LEAVE HUMONGOUS MOTHER OUT OF THIS, PUNY BLONDE!” the monster bellowed, voice like falling mountains.

On the far flank, a lanky orange-scaled teen banked hard midair, fire trailing from his mouth. “We’ve hit this guy with everything!” he barked, voice breaking slightly. “What is he, allergic to losing?!”

“Agent Rosenblatt, Codename: Firebreather,” Brick noted to himself, mentally recalling another file from nights of studying. “Half-human, half-kaiju, Western Elder Dragon breed. Pyrokinetic. Daddy issues. Do not engage emotionally.”

The teen dive-bombed again, spitting a jet of flame straight into the creature’s ear. It didn’t even flinch.

Below, a civilian in a beanie screamed as he tripped, sprawled directly in the monster’s path.

“ARNOLD!” someone yelled from a nearby bench, flailing uselessly.

Boomer dropped like a rock.

“I got you!” he yelled, arms locking around the guy’s chest and yanking him out of the killzone with inches to spare. The monster’s foot came down with the sound of a meteor strike, asphalt cracking in a spiderweb crater.

“Thanks, kid,” the man gasped, clinging to Boomer like a lifeline.

“No prob, bob,” Boomer said, landing hard, eyes already tracking for the next.

Done with his recon, Brick was already issuing orders as his brothers shot back towards him. “Civilians first. North’s yours, Butch. South’s Boomer. I’m East. Finish in ten seconds tops.”

“Copy,” Butch grunted.

“Roger Roger,” Boomer chimed.

They scattered like shrapnel. In nanoseconds, the street was a blur of wind shear, light bursts and disappearing people. Screams cut off mid-breath as civilians vanished from harm’s way and reappeared behind makeshift cover blocks away.

Brick counted steps, counted time, counted lives. Eight seconds later, they regrouped on a busted bus roof overlooking the massive crater rapidly forming in the heart of the park.

The battle hadn’t moved much in the last ten seconds.

“Nothing’s working!” the fire-breathing kid yelled, coughing smoke. “This guy’s like a walking mountain with a grudge!”

A man in a superhero suit made from red pajamas with a pair of blue boxer shorts over it shouted from his spot holding on to the kaiju’s leg. “I don’t care what you’re made of, buddy—it’s DEMOLITION TIME!”

He hit the monster’s leg with everything he had, blow striking with the force to bring down a building. It cracked. Slightly.

Smasher growled, wiping blood off her lip. “We need backup. Where the hell are Battle Tank and Mighty Man?”

“And Superpatriot,” Dragon muttered, already winding up another punch. “Would kill for a damn plasma minigun right about now.”

“You got us instead!” Butch roared, and his whole body followed—shoulder-first like a linebacker, fist cocked like a wrecking ball. The hit connected with the side of the kaiju’s craggy jaw and cracked—a real quake-crack, like concrete giving up mid-scream.

From below, Smasher blinked up through windblown blonde curls and dust haze. Her ponytail had come loose. “I’m sorry, who?”

“Oh no,” Invincible muttered from his current spot latched to the thing’s eyebrow ridge like a stubborn sticker. He adjusted his grip mid-slide. “Not these kids again.”

“Hey, Invisible!” Boomer whooped, orbiting once around the thing’s cranium just to annoy him.

“That’s—that’s not my name!” Invincible shouted, struggling to wedge himself deeper into the monster’s faceplate. “You know that’s not my name!”

The three of them were already moving. There wasn’t really a ‘joining’ motion. They just… cut in. Slotted between blows and screams and tactical gaps like they belonged there, like they’d always been there. Brick fired a blast of red heat and force from his eyes full-force into one of the thing’s underarms, superheated vapor peeling off in wisps as the rock that made up it’s body began to give way. “It’s igneous, almost a mix of granite and gneiss.” He followed it up with a punch with near mountain-cracking force into the same spot, forcing a scream from Humongous. “Cracks way easier when you get past the pressure joints. Aim for the trouble spots; knees, elbows, core.”

Boomer blurred in low and stuck—just below the right kneecap, hammering it like a jackhammer made of pure enthusiasm. “So is this, like, the same kind of rock as those magma people from a couple weeks back? ‘Cause they weren’t this hard to punch!”

“Less geology, more breakology!” Butch barked, already slinging another green-glow bomb into the thing’s gut. It hit with a thud like a truck crash. Shards sprayed wide.

“HUMONGOUS NOT UNDERSTAND!” the creature bellowed, voice heavy like a mountain full of gravel and raw with fury. “WHY SMALL PUNY ONES HURT HUMONGOUS? OTHERS NOT HURT LIKE THIS!”

“Maybe we’re just better,” Butch yelled back, dodging under a haymaker that carved a ditch in the lawn.

Duncan’s smoke-slick wings beat hard. Fire cut sideways from his throat and torched the thing in the eye. “We’re wearin’ him down! I think! Hopefully!”

Savage Dragon didn’t bother with commentary. No, the former cop just wound up and slammed a Chicago uppercut right into its rocky chin. The impact rang like someone slammed a wrecking ball into a bell tower. “GHHFF! Jesus! It’s like boxing Mount Rushmore.”

Smasher launched straight off a broken piece of fountain, tucked into a tight flip, and slammed both fists into its chest. “You’ve had your tantrum, mister! Time to nap!”

They kept pressing. A dozen blows in motion formed overlapping rhythms. Brick stopped calling orders out loud—just pointed and jerked his chin. Boomer adjusted instantly. Butch was already following.

“Core’s cracking!” Brick snapped, laser-eye cutting a trench through the center mass. “Everything’s shivering off that spinal line. Blow it now.”

The thing gave one last noise—deep, shuddering, from somewhere far below its feet. Then came the crack, the snap, the collapse.

“MOVE!” Dragon barked, grabbing pajama-guy by his blue towel cape and hauling ass.

Without any more warning, the monster blew.

Dust, boulders, and fragments of cratered rock spiraled outward in an ear-punching shockwave. Everyone on foot got flung. The flyers managed to stay aloft—barely.

When the wind finally died, it left the Mall blanketed in a haze of stone dust. Statues wrecked. Trees splintered. Footprints gouged deep into federal land.

The boys touched down last. Quiet. Their boots thumped light in the silence. Brick crouched near a fallen chunk, red eyes narrowing as he examined the heat lines running across the interior. Crystalline fractures. Lava residue.

“…Huh,” he muttered.

Savage Dragon groaned somewhere to the left, pushing off a piece of fallen column. “Goddamn.” He slapped dust from his Hawaiian-print shorts, snorted through broken cartilage. “Well. That’ll do.”

Before Brick could respond, there was a high-pitched yell from the edge of the rubble.

Two kids ran through the dust—one blonde, bob cut, around their age, and the other younger with skin a shade of green and a fin like Dragon’s, if a few shades darker.

“You did it!” the girl shrieked. “I knew you could! That was so awesome!”

Smasher caught both of them on instinct—arms around them like she’d done it a thousand times. Her face collapsed into something rawer. “Angel, Malcolm—I told you to stay behind the line!”

Boomer was there, like gravity didn’t work the same for him. “HI! I’m Boomer!” he beamed, voice climbing. “Did you see that explosion? There were, like, twenty pieces! Maybe more! I think I broke off the hip!”

The girl’s name was Angel. She was blonde, like her mom. Except where her mom had long curly hair that made her look like she belonged in the 90s, Angel’s was a blunt bob, her eyes blue and big as she stared at the blond boy grinning in front of her like she hadn’t figured out whether to be scared of Boomer or ask for an autograph.

“You’re, like, our age,” she said, which came out more like a question. “How can you fly and stuff?”

Boomer puffed up like a pufferfish full of pride, clearly happy to brag to anyone that was willing to listen, unlike Butch who just usually expected people to listen and made them if they didn’t. “I was born this way. I mean—kinda? It’s complicated. Chemical X. Also explosions.”

Angel was clearly locked in. “Cooooool.“

Malcolm, the smaller kid, green skin, familiar fin, whole face locked in an open-mouthed zoom-swoosh expression, threw his arms out. “You were like WHOOSH.”

Boomer laughed, not even trying to play it cool. “I know, right? That was like a solid triple-whoosh. I can do five when I’m warmed up.”

A few yards off, Invincible landed like he was trying not to trip over his own cape. Which he didn’t even have. His face was pink under the mask.

“Uh, sir? Mister Dragon, I mean—Savage Dragon, sir—it’s, um. It’s really cool to be working with you. Huge fan. Just—like, big.”

Savage Dragon raised one brow, voice like a cement truck idling. “And you are?”

“Invincible, uh, Mister Dragon… sir,” Invincible continued, still looking as awkward as ever. Somehow more than usual, if that was possible.

The handshake was accepted, at least. Dragon’s grip looked like it could turn wrists into chalk dust. “Sure. You did okay. Held back a little more than you should have, I could tell. But pretty good for a greenie.”

Then Butch crash-landed next to them like a missile that only halfway decided to be a boy today, green aura still fizzing off his shoulders.

“Yo, Invulnerable. Scoot.”

Invincible blinked. “It’s Invincib—”

“Hey, Dragon, Breakneck, big fan,” Butch said to Dragon, hand already out and rapidly shaking the green-skinned man’s. “That one with the sewer mutants and the robot gorilla from the future? Top tier television, man.”

Savage Dragon scratched at his neck like the compliment gave him a rash. “Jesus, how old is that old show? I didn’t know they were still making it.”

“Reruns,” Butch said, grinning. “It’s like vintage now.”

Brick ignored the noise and walked over to the half-dragon teen who’d been clocking Dragon like he was bracing for something. Orange scaled skin layered over itself, wide wings and eyes a bit too tired for sixteen.

“Agent Rosenblatt,” Brick said without blinking.

The teen flinched like someone’d hit a nerve with a toothpick. “Uh. What?”

“Codename Firebreather. Tactical registry tagged you as MEG-TAC force, west coast. That you, right?” Brick asked sarcastically.

Duncan’s voice cracked halfway into his reply. “Y-yeah. Sure. That’s me. Who’re you supposed to be?”

Brick nodded like they were swapping credentials at a press meet. “Agent Brick Mojo. GDA unit Trinity. Call sign Brimstone.”

Duncan squinted at him. “You twelve?”

“Twelve and a half.”

They shook. Duncan’s palm was callused, still a little scorched.

Brick tilted his chin toward the guy in the pajamas trying to salvage his dignity and what looked like a duct-taped cape. The guy stiffened.

“Friend of yours?”

Duncan snorted. “No clue. He showed up hanging on to the boulder and smashing at it, before we jumped in at least, and never stopped yelling.”

Said pajama guy looked up like a deer in high-beams. “…hi.”

Then he bolted.

He didn’t get far.

Brick blurred into place right in front of him, arms crossed. Cape guy skidded to a stop like Wile E. Coyote at the edge of a cliff. “Where you running to?”

“Home,” the guy blurted. “Fire. Stove. Probably.”

Brick didn’t blink. “There’s no GDA registry on you.”

“No GD—wait, is that like the tax people for supers? Because I swear I filed something. Somewhere.”

Brick tilted his head, aware that the guy had no idea what he was talking about at all “You’re operating high level metahuman-level power inside a high-risk zone without clearance.”

“Huh…?” The guy scratched his head.

“No active costumed supes in Washington, DC, unless legally registered with the government,” Brick clarified.

“Okay but like,” Towel Cape Guy said, raising a finger. “That’s only illegal if I got caught. Which I wasn’t. Until you. So—hi?”

He pointed behind Brick. “Oh my god, what is that!”

Brick didn’t move. “Try again.”

The guy sighed. “Worth a shot.”

“Brimstone!” Boomer’s voice, cutting through the smog and chaos like a sonar ping. “Your comm’s broken, I think! Cecil’s on mine! Philly’s got a robot attack going on. He needs us there.”

Brick didn’t look away. “This isn’t over.”

Pajama guy winced. “Didn’t think it was.”

The cape guy was already gone—just sneakers disappearing around the edge of a shattered memorial, arms pumping like he’d just remembered he left his microwave running. Brick didn’t call after him. No point.

Butch cocked a brow as Brick walked up, flicking his chin at the empty spot behind his brother. “Yo, that towel dude? What even was that guy?”

Brick glanced back, eyes narrowing. “No idea. But it’s not our job to find out, anyway. Not yet, at least,” he muttered the last bit, hoping he didn’t jinx it.

“Yeah, no shit. Dude had a towel. Like a real-ass bath towel.”

Boomer, still riding his post-fight high, nodded solemnly as he squinted toward the horizon like he could still catch a glimpse. “I thought it was a beach towel. Had little ducks on it. Or dinosaurs. Pretty sure they were ducks.”

Before Butch could shove him for saying something dumb, a shadow loomed over them like an eclipse made of muscle and hard opinions. Savage Dragon stopped beside them, arms crossed, jaw set. His cop-face had relaxed maybe ten percent, which meant he only looked semi-ready to throw a bus. Somehow, the guy looked even taller up close.

“You three with the government?” he asked, already straight to the point, each word leaving him with all the gravity of what years on the force probably gave you.

“GDA response team,” Brick responded back, voice measured. “Team Trinity.”

“AKA the Rowdyruff Boys,” Butch added, arms crossed like the name was a threat.

“AKA AKA,” Boomer chimed in, “the Masters of Disaster.”

Dragon gave a half-nod. Like approval, but scarred. “You hit hard. Good instincts. Clean work.”

“We’re awesome,” Butch said, half a grin curling his mouth. “It’s actually, like, in our DNA.”

Angel piped up again as she stomped closer, the blond girl still focused almost entirely on Boomer “Wait, are you really from another dimension?”

“Angel,” Smasher said, one brow raised in full Mom mode, a gentle warning folded into steel by a woman that could literally fold steel.

Brick raised an eyebrow for a moment, before he allowed the other girl a nod. “Yes. We arrived roughly four months ago, nearly five, due to a transdimensional event with an as-of-yet unknown cause.”

Malcolm looked between them, clutching a broken-off chunk of rock like a souvenir. “So, like… are you stuck here? Or just visiting?”

Brick didn’t answer. His comm clicked, whatever had messed up it’s functionality apparently over with.

Cecil’s voice crackled through with just one word. “Philly.”

Brick snorted. “Received.”

“Another mission?” Smasher asked, not really needing the answer.

“Giant robots this time,” Boomer said helpfully, already stretching his shoulders.

Dragon shook his head. “You kids get any rest?”

Butch cracked his knuckles. “Eh, not really our thing.”

“Well, shit,” Dragon muttered. Then softer, quieter, like a guy who didn’t say nice things unless someone was bleeding out. “Good work. Stay smart. You burn too hot, you don’t get to do it long.”

Brick inclined his head at that. “Let’s move.”

Boomer lit up blue, Butch cracked green. Brick exhaled and flared red.

A half-second later, three lines tore the sky open like slashes across canvas.

As they climbed over the skyline, Butch glanced over. “Yo, that dragon kid was pretty sick. You see that spin?”

“I wanna ask if he can light a campfire just by sneezing,” Boomer added, already turning the next joke in his head. “Or breathe fire underwater.

Brick didn’t answer, still thinking about that weird towel guy. He hadn’t acted like normal, normal being variable for people in costumes, but his diction and body language seemed… off. And that costume too…

One more anomaly. One more variable.

He shelved it.

Right now, they had hordes of giant robots to deal with.