Kade raised the M1911 and took aim.
The masked man knocked his arm up before he could fire. Gun went off anyway, bullet cracking into a brick wall two stories up, throwing sparks. Missed everything that mattered. But the sound did its job. Ten guys with machetes and bats stopped dead in their tracks. Guns have that effect on people.
"No killing!" the masked man shouted at him.
Kade looked at the masked man. Looked at the ten armed thugs. Back at the masked man.
He holstered the pistol. Took two steps back. Gave a little bow and a sweep of his hand.
"Well then. Please, begin your performance."
The masked man just stared at him.
The thugs didn't give him long to process it. They saw Kade put the gun away and did the math. The guy in the mask was the easier target. All ten rushed him at once.
And the guy could fight. Really, genuinely fight. Kade had trained alongside Tier One operators and this masked stranger would've held his own with any of them. He moved like he had eyes in the back of his skull. Two guys came at him from behind and he was already pivoting, catching a machete mid-swing and turning it on the other attackers. His punches put people down in one hit. Jaw shots, temple shots, the kind of clean knockout strikes you only get from years of dedicated training.
Ten on one is still ten on one, though. He took a machete slash on his forearm. A bat to the ribs. He was bleeding through his shirt in a couple of places, and it looked bad even if the wounds weren't deep.
Kade leaned against the alley wall and watched.
He wasn't being cruel about it. The masked man still had plenty left in the tank, for one thing. And for another, Kade's entire combat training was built around killing. That's what the SASR taught you. You didn't incapacitate. You didn't subdue. You ended threats. If he jumped in, somebody was going to die, and the masked man clearly had strong feelings about that.
Fine. Let the idealist have his fight.
Meanwhile, Kade had spotted something useful.
He slipped out of the alley while the masked man had everyone's attention. Parked on the curb: a row of Harleys. The gang's bikes. He checked for cameras, for bystanders. Nothing.
"That saves me some trouble."
He put both hands flat on the nearest Harley and pushed two hundred points of AllSpark energy into it.
The whole motorcycle melted. Not like wax melting, slow and droopy. It liquefied all at once into a silver stream that shot up Kade's arm and coated everything from his fingertips to his elbow. Mercury-fast. It found every crease of his skin, filled every contour, and hardened.
[Sensory Gauntlet: 200 AllSpark energy. Ferromagnetic metal base. Heat insulation, ballistic resistance, retractable blade, arm-strength enhancement.]
Silver-gray metal glove, paper-thin, covering his whole right forearm. He flexed his fingers. Made a fist. Opened it. Full range of motion, no stiffness at all.
"Only it weighs about five kilos. Where's this arm-strength enhancement supposed to be?"
Then blue lines lit up across the surface, tracing patterns through the metal, and the weight just... vanished. Gone. Like someone had flipped off the gravity.
"Magnetic levitation?"
That's what "Sensory" meant. The gauntlet read changes in the Earth's magnetic field and used pulse energy to generate an opposing force. Cancelled its own weight completely. And when he swung his arm, the field reversed and multiplied the force of the blow.
"Now that's something."
He flicked his wrist. A blade snapped out from under the wrist plate. Thirty centimeters of alloy, razor-sharp.
"Altair, eat your heart out."
When he retracted it, the whole gauntlet folded down into a bracelet. Just a slim metal band around his wrist. Cybertronian engineering at its finest. The thing could go from jewelry to weapon in under a second.
He burned through several hundred more energy and did the same to three more Harleys. Four bracelets total.
Back in the alley, the masked man was standing over the last thug, covered in blood, breathing hard. Half the blood was his. If he'd been willing to grab one of those machetes and use it, the fight would've taken half the time and cost him half the injuries. But principles aren't free.
"Here." Kade tossed two bracelets at him. "A thank-you."
The masked man caught them and almost ripped his arms out of their sockets. Five kilos each, dead weight, no warning. He staggered.
Kade held up his own wrist and let the bracelet unfold. Metal plates spreading out, locking together, the full gauntlet assembling itself in one smooth second.
"Magnetic field cancels the weight. Won't slow you down." He pointed at the cuts on the masked man's arms. "And at minimum, they'll stop a knife."
The masked man put them on. Blue lines flickered to life. He tested the fit, flexing his hands, rolling his wrists. Then just a short nod.
"Thanks."
"Don't mention it. Hell's Kitchen needs a hero and I'm not applying for the position. Keep the streets clean and you save me trouble." Kade let the smile drop. "But be thorough about it. Next time I run into guys like these, I don't know what holding back means."
"Who are you?" the masked man asked.
"Just a hero for fun." Kade was already walking. "Oh, and those things need charging."
He didn't look back.
The gunshot earlier must have sent a message, because nobody bothered Kade the rest of the way to the store.
The owner was wearing a bulletproof vest over a flannel shirt with a double-barreled shotgun on the counter next to the register. He rang up the baking soda and spent the entire transaction lecturing Kade about personal safety.
"You. This hour. Buying baking soda. In this neighborhood. You know how dangerous that is?"
Kade nodded his way through it, promised to be careful, and got out before the guy could loop back around for a second pass.
Outside, he laughed. "Hell's Kitchen people are built different. No wonder the Chitauri can't take this planet."
He pictured it. Regular New Yorkers on fire escapes, shooting down alien soldiers with Pulse Pistols. Kade Lawson brand, naturally. Accept no substitutes.
The whole detour cost him time. By the time he knocked on Mrs. Cardenas's door, dinner was already going.
"Sorry, took longer than expected." He handed over the baking soda.
Foggy waved him in. Mrs. Cardenas disappeared into the kitchen. And sitting at the table in a clean button-down and dark glasses was someone Kade hadn't met before.
A blind man.
He'd changed. Different clothes, wounds cleaned up and hidden under long sleeves. But Kade could smell it. Faint, under the soap, barely there. Blood. Fresh blood.
This blind man was the masked vigilante from the alley.
Foggy's colleague. The friend he'd mentioned.
Kade smiled.
Small world.
PLZ Throw Powerstones.