Patrolling the streets on another lonely night had become easier with each passing day. Building to building across Brownsville, Brooklyn, he moved like a shadow between shadows. The black-drenched armor clung to him like a second skin, built to protect him, built to terrify. With the mask of night over his face, he had become the perfect weapon for fear, and the blades and guns at his disposal existed only to carry out his will.

At first, the streets seemed quiet. Too quiet. For a moment, disappointment stirred in him. Then he saw them. A man and a woman in an alley. Something was wrong.

The hooded man had olive skin, a knife in one hand, and a fistful of the woman’s hair clenched in the other. He dragged her against an overturned garbage bin, pinning her there with the ease of someone who had done this before. Another sickness. Another infection in the city’s bloodstream. Another thing he hated.

“Let go of me, please,” the woman screamed, tears streaking down her brown face.

“Come on, babe. Let me make you feel good,” the man snarled, forcing her harder against the metal. She twisted and fought beneath him, but he only tightened his grip as he began undoing his belt.

“Please, I have a family,” she pleaded.

Her words ended in a cry when he slammed her head against the bin.

“You’ll get back to your family when we’re done,” he said with a grin, letting his pants fall around his ankles.

“Say hello to my friend,” he added, dragging the knife across the back of her dress as she screamed again.

From above, the watcher had seen enough. He dropped from the rooftop and hit the alley floor with a hard metallic thud. The man with the knife turned.

“What do you want?”

The armored figure stepped forward, and the scanners built into his mask glowed red. He saw the tremor in the attacker’s hands, the involuntary twitch in his shoulders. Fear had already begun its work.

“You,” The masked figure said calmly.

The woman, dazed and trembling, looked between them with desperate, unfocused eyes. The man tightened his grip around her throat, though less out of control now and more out of panic.

“Step away,” the armored man said, his voice low and cold, “I might not kill you.”

“Listen, man, stay away,” the attacker snapped.

His long black hair shifted in the wind as he clung tighter to the woman’s neck, trying to use her as both shield and prize.

“If you want a piece of her,” he said with a sick grin, tearing part of her dress free and tossing it aside.

The armored man’s fists clenched, then he told him this. “You’d better stop now.”

“Or what?” the man laughed. “You going to call the cops? Maybe I'll deal with you first, then get back to her.”

The woman hit the pavement a second later, thrown aside and unconscious. The armored figure extended four steel claws from his gloves with a sharp metallic hiss.

“Alright,” he said, and laughed a dark, joyless sound that made the attacker stumble back into the wall. “Have it your way.”

The attacker tried to steady himself, but fear had already hollowed out his bravado. “Listen, man, you think you scare me?”

“Yes,” the figure answered, his crimson lenses burning brighter. “I do. That’s why you’re shaking.”

The attacker threw his knife and reached for a gun. The armored man lunged. The scream that followed tore through the alley. Yet a blade slashed at the attacker, slicing him across the arm. The attacker staggered, collapsing against the brick as blood poured onto the pavement. He shrieked, clutching himself, his bravado shattered all at once.

The armored man grabbed him by the throat.

The attacker begged then. His voice changed. Men like him always change when pain finally reaches them in the eyes of the armored vigilante.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. Please. Someone help me.”

The woman lay half-conscious nearby, blood and tears mixing on the pavement. Around them, the city had begun to gather. Faces emerged at the mouth of the alley. Onlookers, witnesses. Cameras appearing. The attacker’s panic deepened when he saw them. He pleaded louder.

“Please don’t kill me. I have a daughter.”

The armored man dragged him forward, forcing him into the street where the crowd could see him clearly.

“Well,” he said, loud enough for all of them to hear, “you should have thought about your daughter before hunting women in alleys.” The crowd murmured. Some recoiled, but all stared. “Did you think of her,” he continued, “when you decided your pleasure mattered more than someone's life?”

The attacker wept openly now, all his power gone, reduced to desperation and blood and fear. “Take me to a hospital, it hurts,” he begged.

“Did they beg too?” the armored man asked. “Did they sound like this woman?”

The attacker had no answer left. He only sobbed. The armored man let him fall hard onto the pavement.

The crowd flinched.

He addressed them briefly, then, turning slightly toward the cameras.

“Watch closely,” he said. “This is what justice looks like when the law hesitates.”

The woman stirred in the alley, disoriented and trembling. Her hand touched the blood on the ground. Her breath caught. Then she saw the man, saw the figure above him, saw what had become of the night. The armored man looked at her, calm and unreadable behind red-lit eyes on a skull-like mask.

“Run,” said the armored man. What followed ended the alley in horror. By the time it was over, the crowd had broken into chaos. All had fled. The woman  ran with the crowd, as a head rolled down the road. Then came the sirens.

A patrol car screeched to a halt beside the chaos. Officers rushed out, weapons drawn.

“Freeze, vigilante!” one shouted, a brown-haired and rigid man in fear.

Beside him, his lieutenant stared harder than the rest. She knew what she was looking at. Recognition struck her before certainty did, but once it came, it rooted itself deep.

“Surrender,” the officer ordered. “Hands up.”

The armored man raised his hands without resistance, almost casually. In another life, the gesture would have looked ordinary, but the lieutenant had already begun to sweat. She drew her weapon more slowly than her partner did, her eyes fixed on the man in a black suit.

“Shoot him,” she said.

Her partner turned to her, stunned. “What? There are cameras. We can’t just…”

She fired anyway. The armored man moved the instant the shot broke.

Bullets tore through the air where he had been standing moments before. He vaulted backward, then upward, ricocheting between alley walls as more shots followed.

“Officer, what are you doing?” her partner shouted. “We have to take him in!”

“You don’t understand!” she yelled, firing again.

“Understand what?” he replied

The armored figure climbed higher, moving like something inhuman. Her answer came sharp and breathless.

“That man isn’t just a criminal.” Her partner looked up, eyes wide.“He’s a former hero.”

At the rooftop’s edge, the armored man stopped and turned. The city lights caught against the black of his armor, and his crimson eyes stared at the abyss.

“His name is Sorrow,” she said, her voice carrying over sirens, fear, and the chaos below.