Two Years Earlier

The sky over Sector Nine was a bruised expanse of orange and violet, choked by a blood-red haze. With the sun hovering high, the atmosphere had curdled into a sweltering, acrid cloud that clung to the skeleton edge of the reclamation zone. Nothing but the ruined remains of hulking industrial pipes and rusted girders marking the edge of the Unified's restoration efforts that many civilians still had to call home. 

The cloying scent of ash and wet iron dominated everything. Progress, or so it was called. It was a smell defined by President Solen’s Civic Restoration Act. The kind of state order where the systematic displacement of families was the goal and gentrification was the kinder, more palatable way to put it. 

Toric Draeven stood on the back of a rusted supply truck at the edge of the crowded plaza, waving his red, patterned shemagh that hung around his neck to allow for a small breeze of air to cut through the stagnant, heated smog. It was an especially hot day with the red sun blazing above like a bloody omen.

Above him, hung in the sky were the city’s eyes; hundreds of silent drones the size of dinner plates. Each blinking red lens tracked the movement of the crowd, their gleaming apertures narrowing in like the multisighted eyes of an insect. Higher still, hung giant billboard screens bolted to the building facades that spat out the same stagnant message over and over again. Security Is Freedom. Trust Your Leaders. 

Not that Toric believed that.

Hell, nobody believed that anymore. Not since the old democracy had rotted away like a carcass left for scavengers to pluck at the bones. Toric had had a front row stage to watch the collapse as it decayed from the inside, back when he was just a senator’s son destined to become another drone in kevlar armor marching in lines for the Unified militia in the marble-and-glass world of Omnistad. Reality had actually been worse, as he’d found himself a young recruit in the frontlines of the Unified Army since the day he turned 16. His civic duty. Or, as his father so plainly put it, a privilege and an honor to serve the great Republic. 

His father had been a senator for twenty-eight years. Still was. He was one of the faces that fronted the slow, quiet gutting of democracy and Toric had been at his heel to witness it. Toric had watched him shake hands with slimy, loathsome corporate donors, and had sat through dinner parties where billionaires joked about curfew raids like they were weather reports. All the Capital kids went to private academies behind gleaming white walls. They didn’t see the street protests, the drone sweeps, or the ration lines where working class people were made to kneel in the dirt like beggars.

But Toric had always been a nosey, wayward soul. He was possessed by a restlessness that no locked door could tame. Short of bolting him into his own bedroom like some tragic, far away princess, there was no keeping his fire at bay.

He was only twelve the first time he crept out of the District with his friends, looking for something realer than the sterile gold and white walls of their gilded cage. What he found were streets patrolled by armored trucks, and checkpoints where he’d witnessed civilians get executed like rabid dogs for “non compliance.” It was a sobering glimpse into the true version of the hell they were living in. 

By the time he had the mobility to truly break free, he was eighteen, and in a single day he’d severed all ties of his old life and walked away from his father’s world entirely; marching his way straight into the underground group of terrorists called: The Bloodsparrows. With their bloody crest and outstretched crimson wings, it felt good to be a part of a cause hunting for liberation and true freedom. They offered the brand of salvation that could endure and the kind of brotherhood that was built on loyalty and not blind faith. Amidst the flickering lights of the underground base, Toric wasn't just hiding; he was home.

Toric scanned the square below and saw the block swollen with bodies. The Sector Nine civilians cried out in unison, holding up their homemade banners scrawled with angry red markers. Red. The color of the Bloodsparrows. Bodies swayed in mass. Hundreds of gaunt faces twisted in exhaustion and anger, their shoulders sharp under threadbare shirts. As run ragged as they were, they came because dying for something was better than dying for nothing. That was the kind of fervor the Sparrows needed to break through the government's gilded walls to take back their freedom. The only problem was, for once, Bloodsparrows weren’t the only name people were uttering in the streets. Another name seemed to filter through. One that made Toric’s blood curdle with a simmering kind of bitterness. Vox.

The rumors had spread out like a fever. The stories spoke of a man who intervened when soldiers turned rifles on unarmed crowds, or when patrols raided markets for dissentors. Heroics weren’t what bothered Toric; if anything, the Sparrows could use another ally. No, it was the way the man spoke of himself. He didn't use the mealy platitudes of the Capital politicians. The language he used made people feel like they’d been waiting their whole life for someone to put their anger into words. And framed the entire message with him as the sole answer. 

Toric had witnessed one of the meta’s hacked feeds himself. And it had left him unsettled to the core; something ugly clawing under the surface. “You are not free,” the silky voice had purred. “Solen’s government feeds you lies until you are too tired to choke them back…But I am not tired. And I am not here to ask permission.” Toric had left the command tent shaken, unable to express what truly felt wrong about the sermon. Someone with that much unadulterated power could be an asset to their coalition.The only problem was, when something seemed too good to be true, it probably was. 

To a world drowning in desperation, Vox wasn't just a man; he was a promise that the old order could be broken. That kind of hope in a single man was more dangerous than any weapon.

Toric adjusted his earpiece snugly and the bright voice in his ear grounded himself in the reality of the heat and the grit of their fight. 

Just another metahuman playing God. Toric thought. Any man that had the power to bend the world to his will, was just a tyrant with a better publicist. Toric didn't trust any man who thought he alone was the answer. 

“Places set, Tor.” Crackled the voice in his ear. 

“Front lines holding?” Toric asked.

“Solid,” Kael replied in his earpiece. “The crowd’s even louder than we thought. We might actually push through today.”

By twenty-four, Toric had risen through the unofficial ranks of the Sparrows and had been appointed as one of the many rebel Commanders. He held the kind of military precision in his spine that suited the role. His expression was war-hardened and sharp-edged, and he was outfitted in a reclaimed muddy brown-black Unified soldier’s coat with the rebel red crest stitched over the remains of the Unified insignia. His dark wavy hair slipped into his eyes in waves, messy and rugged, a silent middle finger to the polished conformity of the Unified Government.

He dropped from the truck bed, landing lightly on the pavement with a soft grunt.

He thought back to the recording he’d heard, unable to fully shake his own wariness of it. He’d lived enough years in the underground to know that the devil you knew was usually safer than the devil you didn’t. And right now, that devil was a holy saint dressed in white. The older devil was the Unified Government and their obsession with metahumans. Which, momentarily, was still the bigger threat.

The first cases of metahumans had cropped up about a century ago. They were called evolutionary anomalies, yet no one fully agreed on the true catalyst. Every time Toric thought of metas, he found his mind drifting to the flickers of old reruns of one particular cartoon, where the main character was a young boy who, through the accidental exposure of radiation, transformed into a hulking beast of muscle with superpowers. Though, the truth was far less neon; these metahumans didn't glow like the radioactive beasts of a forgotten era.

Some meta abilities manifested as harmless party tricks. And others were catastrophic, capable of shaping reality with their minds or leveling an entire block. When Solen realized he couldn’t stop them from being born, he moved to own them instead. That was when he passed a new decree that would come to be known as The Metahuman Registration Act. Once enacted, the law labeled them not as humans, but as weapons. The high-tier cases disappeared into white cells never to be seen again. 

Although, ghosts had a bad habit of coming back to haunt. As some threats reappeared out of the ether to position themselves as new looming threats on the board. 

“That’s the idea,” Toric finally said, snapping out of his own thoughts. He kept his hazel eyes fixed on S9’s Capitol Spire, a massive structure of polished glass piercing the smog. 

Currently, expansion and recruitment were the primary victories on the Bloodsparrow agenda. Today’s raid was about the fundamentals, but the overarching goal remained the same: nationwide liberation. Still, if they managed to sever the head of the beast in Sector Nine, it would be the perfect cherry on top.

Beneath him, the crowd was becoming restless, like a kettle ready to blow. The heat rising off their bodies was like steam off asphalt. The haze in the air waved over them like a flag. 

Rebel fighters stationed themselves through the alleyways, some crouched behind broken windows, with a few hidden snipers flat against rooftops with their gleaming scopes trained on the Spire’s upper deck. 

This raid was the move to take Sector Nine’s central ward and hold it; for good this time. The Sparrows needed the infrastructure to solidify their national push. 

Toric went over the mission plan again in his mind, one final refresher. Breach the Capitol Spire, kill the Castellan, or the regime’s bloated name for a Governor, and replace him with someone who answered to the Sparrows instead, not to the corrupt mandates of the Unified Government.

This victory wasn’t about optics, it was a key stronghold they needed to win. The nexus of Sector Nine controlled the trade routes, fuel distribution, and food manufacturing. To take it was to place a hand directly over the throat of the government’s supply chain.

“The Castellan’s still locked inside the Spire,” Kael said. “But he’s not getting evac’d. They must think all of this is just noise. They haven’t even started to sweat yet. ”

“Good.”

Toric moved, pushing a path through tightly packed bodies. A few of the protesters flinched at his touch, recoiling from the sudden movement, but others met his gaze with a nod of desperate reverence. There was no cheering; in this world, silence was the only safe tribute. People didn’t dare celebrate when they saw a rebel. At least, not out loud. Being seen within arm's reach of a Bloodsparrow was enough to mark a civilian for death. 

That was one thing the regime had made crystal fucking clear. Any visible loyalty to the Bloodsparrows could mean execution. Publicly. Worse, if you were known to be feeding or supplying them, the government didn’t just arrest you, they eradicated your entire family. Women, children, it didn’t matter. They would turn housing blocks into rubble for the crime of—in their state-mandated words—supporting a terrorist organization.

Toric didn’t blame people for wanting to keep their heads down. But today, he wasn’t offering them that luxury. Either you’re with us, or you’re waiting your turn in the dirt. He thought. There was no polite middle ground left to stand on. Death could come either way: through slow hunger or a bullet, but at least you could choose it. You could die with your soul still intact.

He pushed through the edge of the crowd toward the perimeter, where shipping crates and broken fencing had been stacked into makeshift barricades. He could see the Spire on the horizon. It loomed at the end of the boulevard, tall and polished, ambivalent to the dying city around it. 

There was a line of Riot police guarding the entrance to the steps. Two armored transports idled nearby, with their engines purring like beasts waiting to be unleashed. Toric’s gaze swept the scene, mentally cataloging every strategic nuance of their formation and every potential fracture in their defense.

The chanting of the crowd rose in uneven waves, hundreds of voices rasped raw with heat and a desperate hope. They didn’t chant like protestors anymore,  they chanted like survivors. 

This goes loud in ten,” he said into his earpiece, his voice low but firm. “Tell our people on the south flank to move in when the sirens go off. When the crowd surges forward, we open fire on the upper balconies. The Castellan dies today.”

Just as those words left his mouth, something moved in the corner of his eye and broke his attention away from the scene. Just a flash of white. Some faraway blur of movement that didn’t match the rhythm of the square. 

Toric wasn’t the only one who’d noticed it. A ripple of acknowledgement passed through the bodies closest to the eastern barricade, and the air went tense. Bodies shifted like the kind of frantic stillness animals fall into before a storm cracks over the sky.

Voices began to drop off, one by one, as if pulled under by an invisible tide. Instinctively, Toric’s hand drifted toward his side arm as he scanned the line of riot police, but their formation remained still. The pressure in his chest climbed, an icy hand climbing up his sternum.

Kael’s voice crackled through his earpiece. “Tor...you seeing that?”

Toric turned his head toward the east, and his movement was mirrored by a thousand other bodies. The light in the air seemed to warp and shimmer with an unnatural edge. Then, a voice cut through the quiet, shrill with disbelief “It’s the man from Sector Eight—!”

The confirmation sliced through the tension in the air like the snapping of a taut wire. Toric heard a swell of murmurs rising from every side. Their desperate words passed from mouth to mouth with a kind of frantic exaltation. Then, that name began to echo again; uttered like a secret.

“It’s Vox.”