Project ROWDY 29A
“I WANT MOANA!!!!”
Brick Mojo (also known as Brickothy, Brickson, and Brickface, by his brothers depending on their mood) had taken missiles to the face and lasers to his unmentionables more times than most kids had gotten their shots.
“CAP’N ‘MERICA! CAP’N MEEEERICAAAA!!!”
That was something he was used to more than anything else and honestly, he didn’t think he’d be happy if a week went by without something like that going down…
He nodded slowly.
That, in and of itself, was a problem for future Brick to deal with.
“LETITGOOOO!LETIGOOOOO!!!!LETTITGOOOOOOO!!!!”
His left eye twitched. Yes, Brick was certain that despite how unhealthy it was for his mental and physical well-being, he’d rather be getting nuked right now than have to deal with another fifteen minutes of this place.
No matter what Boomer wanted.
No matter how much the mega-corporation marketed this as a place of dreams and magic, it only took a single vist to realize that the Disney Store in Times Square smelled like melted gummies and plastic promises, the whole place filled with the sounds of more screaming single-digit-age kids.
At the far end of the second floor, Brick kept his back braced against an Avengers stand because the cardboard heroes would at least stay where he put them. Parents drifted with that glazed mall-face, kids ricocheted between shelves like pinballs, and somewhere behind all the noise, the abominable voice of Michael Mouse kept looping the same cheery three-chord anthem that made Brick’s molars ache. He tracked the flow the way other kids watched YouTube, because standing still without counting felt wrong.
Two days since Tyker’s Island went pop in a breakout and a dozen metas went loose, he thought with shoulders clenched tight, some of them actually worthy of a real fight.
Worthy of a fight, yeah, but not smart enough to pull something off like this. Not even Neurox is smart outside of anything poison-related.
Which only made the situation worse, honestly.
He’d run the numbers three times and he didn’t like the output. Prison breaks didn’t happen in isolation, especially not with that many enhanced individuals at once. Somebody smart enough to break a prison was smart enough to time an encore. Math said an attack window opened today and shut in about— he checked a wrist that held no watch before rolling his eyes — soon.
“Yo, bro bro, can we bounce already?” Butch’s voice cut through Mickey’s chorus like a chainsaw through taffy. His psycho of a little brother sprawled himself out on a bench near the doors, bright green Brooklyn tank top and ripped jeans made the Green Rowdy look even more road-rash punk up against pastel décor. “This place is loud as hell and smells like sugar threw up.”
It was clear Butch didn’t want to be here, his foot tapping hard and fast enough to rattle gift-card racks. His green eyes had that glazed-over look that came before he started breaking things out of boredom. Another thirty seconds and he’d start denting something.
Brick didn’t answer.
Boomer pin-balled into frame, arms drowning in loot he hadn’t paid for—Mickey ears perched crooked on his cap, a plastic Cap shield slung like a purse, tiara catching every ruthless LED above them. “Star Wars aisle’s got the new black-series sabers, plus Frozen keychains that sparkle, and I think some Wall-E bots that move around if we’re lucky…”
“Don’t care if they got the actual Death Star,” Butch snapped back, foot tapping so hard against the tile that Brick could have sworn he was already spotting micro-fractures. “I’m going to throw a toddler into orbit if I hear one more scream.”
Brick’s shoulders stayed locked. The same instincts that nudged him out of blast ranges when he was six, those exact ones that kept them from splattering across Townsville intersections, were pacing inside his ribs. Something about bright stores and happy songs felt like bait.
Brick kept counting shoppers—twelve near registers, four security tags unarmed, one dad filming —but the numbers didn’t hush the warning buzzing behind his eyes.
Boomer grabbed another toy, some transformer bigger than his head. “After here we totally hit the M&M store, they printed superhero logos on peanut ones, you can eat a Super-Patriot and still feel patriotic—”
“Kill me,” Butch muttered, rolling eyes ceiling-ward as he let his head fall back against the bench, arm falling over his face. “Someone just kill me.”
A sharp triple-beep sliced the air. Brick’s hand hit his hoodie pocket before thought caught up, fingers tapping the comm bud hidden there before he popped it in his ear. Their GDA comm units were supposed to be undetectable, hidden in civilian clothes, but the sound might as well have been an air raid siren as Butch’s head snapped up anyway.
“Trinity.” Brick bit out one word into the mic.
“Boys.” Cecil’s voice bit through the upgraded comm in a tone that Brick meant move now, ask questions later. “We’ve got a Level 8 threat reported down by Central Park. The Nazi. Civilian casualties mounting.”
Brick nodded as every piece fell where his gut had arranged them.
“Move.” Brick pushed off the display so hard Captain America bobble-heads rattled.
Butch exploded off the bench like someone lit a fuse, boredom swapping for feral grin. “Finally.”
Boomer stared at the armload of merch. “Costumes?”
Brick looked at Boomer’s lightning-bolt tee, Butch’s ragged tank, his own black hoodie with one broken zipper tooth. Regular kids. Except not. He shrugged. “Old stuff works.”
Plastic clattered over tile as Boomer ditched everything, shoppers gasping when three preteens sprinted for daylight and then rushed out the door, wind thundering against storefront glass. The exit whooshed. The sidewalk flickered.
Then they were skybound.
Fourteen blocks uptown, Central Park stretched like a green rug someone had dragged through a war movie. Old oaks snapped, playground corkscrew-twisted, bronze statues punched into unrecognizable origami. Picnic cloths flapped over spilled mustard and worse, while at the center stood the decades-old cyborg villain known only as The Nazi.
All eight feet and some more of him stood tall and fierce; half flesh, half machine, red sensor eye sweeping for something else to ruin, swastika proud and ridiculous on his bare chest as his heavy metal boots left deep imprints in the park’s grass.
“Inferior specimens,” the cyborg’s speaker-box grated, German syllables sounding both robotic while perfectly enunciated for 1940s-era tech, even supertech. “The true cleansing of the filth begins again.”
A park bench was vaporized before he finished speaking as his eye cannon whirred and fired with a beam the width of a soda can.
A second later, a fountain lost its sculpted head, the very same instant Brick and his brothers dropped into a loose triangle in the park without talking.
“What’s with the cosplay, grandpa?” Butch called, cracking knuckles, grin stretching shark-wide.
That red-laser firing optic that also doubled as the cyborg’s other eye locked onto all three of them with the mechanical whirs, beeps and clicks that came standard with 20th century super-tech. “KINDER?” He roared, sounding half-robotic and half-human.
Again, something Brick found odd as the guy was supposed to be more skin and just enough organs to be classified as human stretched over a robotic shell than anything else, accroding to the GDA. “They send children to war against the master race?”
“We’re actually pretty tough for kids.” Boomer bounced on his toes, still covered in Disney Store dust and Pixe Stix powder.
The Nazi’s laugh came out as static-filled noise. “Aryan blood, fighting for the lessers. Then you will die like men!”
He charged.
Eight feet of cybernetic fury thundered across the park, ground trembling under mechanized stride. Each step cracked concrete, every movement leaving deep imprints in pathways not at all designed for supersoldiers built for a world war. His massive fist swung toward Boomer with servo whine audible over the chaos.
Boomer ducked.
Not the desperate scramble of a normal kid avoiding death, but the casual lean-away of someone who’d been dodging building-destroying punches since he was five. A blue afterimage flickered where he’d been standing, light trail hanging in air like neon graffiti.
“Was ist—?” The Nazi’s momentum carried him forward, confusion bleeding through mechanical voice modulation.
Then Boomer started moving.
The afterimages appeared first as blurs, blue streaks that multiplied with each pass around the confused villain. Each afterimage held a slightly different pose, frozen moments of motion creating a ring of blue-tinted Boomers around their target.
He’s been working on that technique for weeks. Despite his attempt to push it down, Brick couldn’t deny the pride that bubbled up in his chest.
“Show-off,” Butch grumbled, but even he couldn’t hide the smug approval in his own eyes. The afterimage trick had been his idea originally, “a Dragonball classic”. Hell, he was the only one to consider the fact that Boomer being the best of them when it came to speed, both in magnitude and control, made him perfect for it.
“Impossible! Stand still, coward!”
The Nazi’s frustration spiked into mechanical rage, optical sensor trying to track targets that only existed for less than a fraction of a second. Brick caught Butch’s eye, years of teamwork communicating in half a glance. They launched upward as the Nazi spun around in a failed attempt to backhand boomer.
BRA-KOOOOM!
Both their fists landed hard in synchronized uppercuts that connected with his chin like twin sledgehammers.
A shockwave tore through the park, a sonic boom as loud as any explosion, as The Nazi rocketed up into the air, eight feet of cybernetic mass suddenly airborne. A half-second later, the villain went crashing backward through a bronze memorial statue, landing with yet another explosive noise.
The Boys floated in the air, all their eyes narrowed.
“Kinder” The Nazi’s voice distorted as systems recalibrated, metal crumpling around his frame as the Nazi struggled upright, servo motors whining under strain. “Deploying countermeasures.”
His chest compartment slid open with hydraulic hiss, revealing a miniature missile array that looked like it belonged on a military aircraft, not a person. “Witness engineering only the Fatherland could produce!”
The barrage launched toward them, heat-seeking warheads adjusting course mid-flight with small jets of flame. They all scattered, each brother going their own way as they usually did, all the while explosions erupted across the park as missiles found targets. The heat washed over Brick’s face as he threaded between detonations, civilian clothes singed but intact.
“Pattern Omega.” His voice cut through the chaos over their tactical comm.
Butch cackled wordlessly, green energy already surging around his fists as he seemed to vibrate in mid-air.
“Shock therapy time!” Boomer giggled alongside, electricity bursting to life in bright blue bolts.
They moved like they’d been designed for this, Brick charging forward first and delivering surgical strikes to the villain’s chest panel, heat vision effectively and precisely targeting weak points. Each red beam did its best to disable without destroying carving through armor plating to reach vulnerable systems underneath.
Butch attacked the mechanical limbs with refined brutality, grabbing the Nazi’s cybernetic arm and twisting until servos screamed in mechanical protest. Metal joints snapped with sounds like breaking bones, except louder, sharper, more final.
Boomer short-circuited systems with controlled electrical discharges, blue lightning dancing across the Nazi’s frame. No longer the wild, unfocused electricity of their early fights—this was precision work, targeting specific power relays and circuit pathways with surgical accuracy.
“Nein! This cannot be!” The Nazi’s voice distorted as power fluctuated, warning lights flashing across cybernetic components. “I am perfection!”
He attempted one final desperate swing with his remaining functional arm, servo motors burning out under strain. Brick read the movement before it started, telegraphed by micro-adjustments in posture and weight distribution.
Now.
Butch grabbed the Nazi’s legs and hurled him upward, eight feet of cybernetic mass spinning through the air like a very dangerous football. The brothers met him at the apex of his trajectory, hands glowing with their respective energies.
Boomer’s hands crackled electric blue, lightning building between his palms like a miniature storm. Brick’s fists ignited with red-orange flame that turned the air around them into heat shimmer. Butch’s hands pulsed toxic green, energy beams building pressure behind his knuckles.
“Auf Wiedersehen,” Brick muttered.
Lightning, fire, and energy crashed into the Nazi simultaneously. The triple impact lit up the park like a small sun, sound echoing off apartment buildings in waves that set off car alarms for blocks around. The Nazi plummeted, systems shutting down with electronic death rattles, hitting the ground hard enough to crater concrete.
Silence fell over Memorial Park except for distant sirens and the settling debris from their battle.
One minute, twenty-seven seconds. Brick clicked his tongue. Not bad.
Then new boots hit dirt.
Brick recognized one of Cape Inc’s most famous heroes on payroll as Bolt dropped from the sky first, muscular frame in blue spandex and a bald head shiny enough to reflect the sun.
Commander Capitalism was next as the man executed a perfect superhero landing after a long-jump that probably carried him all the way from the outskirts of the park, American flag bodysuit and blue gloves making him look like a patriotic fever dream. Cheap Omni-Man knockoff, Brick thought to himself. Same haircut, same mustache, can’t even fly. Probably compensating.
Big Brain walked toward them normally across the park, small frame dominated by his disproportionately large head and sparse hair. Something felt off about his analytical gaze though as his beady eyes drifted from the Nazi’s body and back to them.
Bolt beamed. “Textbook work, kids.”
Commander Capitalism added a thumbs-up like a politician. “Contained that monster real good, didn’t ya?”
Big Brain sniffed. “Technique remains immature.”
Brick kept his expression neutral despite the flare of irritation in his chest. “The Nazi’s systems are disabled but self-repair protocols are active.
Big Brain’s eyebrows rose slightly. “Indeed. A surprisingly astute observation.”
Surprisingly astute for a twelve-year-old, Brick translated. Right. Noted.
“We’ve been practicing!” Boomer beamed at the recognition from adult heroes, motor oil from the Nazi’s damaged systems still streaked across his lightning bolt shirt.
“Could’ve used some backup, but whatever.” Butch’s civilian clothes had torn during the fight, Brooklyn tank top showing new holes that revealed skin underneath.
Commander Capitalism placed a heavy hand on Butch’s shoulder with that awkward way adults used when they were trying to connect with kids. “Teamwork makes the dream work, son.”
Butch rolled his eyes but didn’t shrug off the contact. “Yeah, then you shoulda been here to show some.”
“Well… you know… Manhattan traffic.” Commander Capitalism’s sheepish shrug was almost convincing. “Even with super-speed, these streets are murder.”
In almost no time, news vans zoomed in, parked dangerously close to the green and nearly cutting over ambulances and cop cars. Reporters ducked tape lines like laws and regulations didn’t apply to them or at least they didn’t think so and before Brick could think to melt it into slag, a microphone in a manicured hand shoved its way toward him. “Trinity, how does it feel partnering with some of New York’s finest?”
“…laaaaaaame,” Butch’s voice sounded out above everyone else like a foghorn.
Brick sighed, one eye shut. That’s gonna be a soundbite now.