226 Griffin’s Resolve [Amelia]
226 Griffin’s Resolve [Amelia]
The Global Defense Force or GDF for short had been my answer to a broken system.
An attempt to unify heroes across the world. To discard the old era of individualistic capes, city-state loyalties, and fragmented authority that had let disasters slip through the cracks. It hadn’t been easy. There were logistical nightmares, ideological resistance, and egos too large to coexist under a single banner.
But with enough grit, enough funding, and a willingness to get my hands dirty, I made it work.
There were lines I would never cross. I repeated that to myself often. Yet real life had taught me something brutal: if you wanted things done, there were moments you had to look away. The SRC had built its system on that principle.
If I did the same to dismantle them… how different did that make me?
Every morning, I reminded myself of the sacrifices it had taken to reach this position. The compromises. The bloodless victories that still carried weight. Eclipse had been the hand that moved me forward in the beginning. Even now, he remained the blade in the dark, carving away opposition before it ever reached the light.
“So,” Nick said beside me, swirling the drink in his glass, “seeing anyone lately?”
He wasn’t wearing his mask tonight.
It was almost ironic. His face was infamous now, yet his psychic camouflage had grown so refined that even people with iron wills struggled to hold their attention on him. Their eyes slid away without realizing why.
I wore a modest red gown. Conservative cut, minimal skin. Red might’ve been a mistake, since it was too provocative, but it felt appropriate for the occassion.
“No time for romance,” I replied. “How’s the wife?”
He took a sip.
I suppressed a laugh. “Pffft… you’ve been avoiding her?”
He didn’t meet my gaze.
This man…
“So,” Nick said quickly, “what’s the party for?”
A clean deflection.
The ballroom buzzed around us. It was a carefully curated mix of corporate titans and capes. Nearly half the attendees were heroes, which said a lot considering how radioactive the name Eclipse had become. I couldn’t blame them.
Among superhumans, we stood at the apex.
I carried the Chimera source Dr. Time had transplanted into me, an anomaly that made ratings feel irrelevant. My strength had been growing at an unreasonable pace lately. I felt it every day, a steady escalation that refused to plateau.
And Nick…
His ratings were already the highest on record. His recent feats had only cemented that reality. We were busy people. There was only one reason he would show up here, unmasked, at a GDF dinner.
“I came to apologize,” Nick said.
I sighed.
“You mean the Box.”
The aftermath still echoed through the world. Heroes stretched thin, GDF deployments accelerating, and public trust shifting. The escapees had kept us busy, but paradoxically, the crisis had strengthened our position. The population leaned into the GDF harder than ever.
The real damage had landed elsewhere. The SRC. Local governments. Old power structures that could no longer pretend they were in control.
Nick took down the Box because he wanted its people.
The prisoners, the forgotten, and the capes buried so deep the world had pretended they didn’t exist anymore. I didn’t know how many he managed to recruit in the end, but I could feel the sudden gaps in our tracking systems and the quiet disappearance of names that should have been lighting up our radar.
I ordered my subordinates to stop searching for them.
Not because I approved, but because the GDF was still too young and fragile. A direct clash with the Company now would fracture everything I’d built before it could properly stand.
Unlike the GDF, the Company could expand exponentially, since they were not limited in there methods.
“My personal feelings for you are different from the whole hero-versus-villain thing,” I told him quietly. “I trust your character, Nick. You’ve done nothing but help me from behind the scenes. But at some point… it has to stop. Promise me you’ll quit once the Entity situation is dealt with.”
I didn’t say the rest out loud that the GDF and the Company were inevitable enemies. That we embodied opposite poles of the same broken system. Responsibility and freedom. Order and chaos. Griffin and Eclipse.
I continued before he could interrupt.
“I didn’t think it would lead to this. That one day I’d have enough power to truly matter. To make a difference.” I stared into my glass, watching the light fracture through it. “I thought I understood that the world isn’t black and white. But I was pretending. Hearing something and knowing it… they’re not the same. Now I know.”
Nick was quiet for a long moment.
“I’ll stay true to my word,” he said finally. “I’ll turn myself in—”
“No.”
He blinked. “Excuse me?”
“I changed my mind.”
The words came easier than I expected.
“I want you to live a whole life,” I said, voice steady, “and watch me make the world better. A world where young girls like me aren’t forced to master their powers just to please their parents. Where they don’t have to become heroes to earn love. And where young boys like you don’t lose everything so early that the only way left to survive is to embrace cruelty.”
I met his eyes.
“While you’re a villain to the world… to me, you’re my hero, Nick. Not Eclipse. Never Eclipse. You. Nick.”
And I would save him too.
I refused to carry out Dr. Time’s request. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t accept that my feelings had been engineered, or that the time I’d spent with him had been some elaborate manipulation.
Nick stared at me, emotion finally breaking through the dull, guarded look he wore like armor.
“Thank you, Amelia,” he said quietly, tears suddenly flowing. “Really…”
I huffed, nudging him with my shoulder. “Come on. Don’t be a crybaby.”
He wiped his eyes, embarrassed. “Sorry. I don’t know where that came from.”
I did.
It came from his core, Nick.
My smartwatch pinged. I glanced down at it, and my brows knit together almost immediately.
“Work?” Eclipse asked, already knowing the answer.
“Yeah. Suspected rated-14,” I said, rolling my wrist to bring up the data stream.
“Do you need help?”
I shot him a look. “I can handle this. It’s not the first time I’ve fought someone this powerful. And just so you know, I wasn’t partying around while building the GDF. I’ve racked up quite the record myself, so don’t get ahead of yourself.”
He raised his hands in mock surrender. “Yeah, yeah. Be on your way.”
Because of the GDF and the Company, hidden powers across the world were beginning to surface. Since Light, I’d always suspected there were capes far stronger than what the public registry claimed, outliers buried by circumstance, fear, or opportunity. But when Light rampaged, no one stepped forward to stop him. That meant either they couldn’t… or they chose not to.
I was different.
Ratings meant nothing in front of me.
I took a spoon and clinked it against my glass, the sound ringing clearly through the hall. Conversations faded as attention turned my way.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I said, smiling, “thank you for gathering tonight to celebrate the GDF’s efforts against superpowered crime. The fight ahead of us is still long and arduous. But I believe—no, I know!—we can make a difference.”
I raised my glass. “To a brighter future. Cheers.”
After a single gulp of wine, I set the glass down and turned toward the elevator.
Waiting there was Eclipse, fully suited, porcelain mask and fedora in place. He held out a briefcase. I took it without ceremony, snapped it open, and felt the familiar sensation as the body armor unfolded and bonded to me. It was grown partially from my own cells, responding instantly, reshaping itself along my limbs and torso.
“What floor?” he asked.
“Roof.”
He tapped the highest button. The elevator hummed, then stalled slightly.
“It’s taking a while,” he remarked.
“I’m already done,” I said. The red-and-white armor gleamed faintly under the lights. No helm. No mask. I’d stopped hiding my face a long time ago.
“Care for a shortcut?” Eclipse asked, extending a gloved hand.
I took it.
My wings unfurled in a burst of crimson feathers, and we rocketed upward, phasing through steel and concrete as if they weren’t there. The night air hit us as we emerged onto the rooftop. I let go, landing lightly, while he touched down beside me.
I checked my smartwatch again.
“Want George?” Eclipse asked. “He’d be more efficient than your team.”
Tempting. Very tempting. But lines mattered.
“I told you,” I said calmly. “I can handle this.”
The interface finally finished loading, highlighting a direction across the city. The ping had come from Leverage, her signal compromised mid-operation.
“I’m going,” I said.
“You’ve got this,” Eclipse replied. “I believe in you.”
I paused for half a second, remembering my own words from earlier. A small smile tugged at my lips.
“I’m touched.”
I spread my wings, beat them once, and vanished into the night in a blur of red and white.
My speed rivaled that of dedicated speedsters, even though I didn’t possess a “speedster” rating. There was a science behind it or rather, a pseudo-science, one that researchers rarely spoke about openly: the soul.
That was why powers were categorized into primary, secondary, and tertiary. An individual was meant to have only one true primary, barring rare hybrid cases… and, more recently, source mutations like mine.
My original primary had been shapeshifting.
That power no longer existed in its original form.
It had evolved and mutated into something greater. Researchers now called it Beastification, a power that didn’t climb the rating system but stepped outside it entirely. Instead of pursuing raw potency or variation, it demanded something far more dangerous: mastery and assimilation.
The Chimera inside me was overwhelming. If I failed to control it, it wouldn’t just kill me.
It would kill everyone around me.
Powers this strong always came with a cost. Most capes learned to mitigate that cost with clever techniques, expanded versatility, or refined output. For me, there was only one solution.
I had to fight.
The Chimera needed it.
I could smell powers in the air and I knew I was close. I had already crossed six cities in minutes. I folded my wings, scales rippling across my skin as talons grew along my right arm, and slammed into a rooftop like a meteor.
An old man with unsettling purple eyes barely had time to react.
I punched him.
The impact sent him crashing into the adjacent building, the structure collapsing inward with a roar of concrete and steel. The area had already been evacuated. Good. That made things simpler.
Leverage lay nearby, blood running down her temple. The right side of her costume was torn open, cracked plating exposing bruised skin beneath. She was breathing, ragged, but alive.
Rated eleven. Flyer. Gravitykinetic.
A recent breakthrough, earned through obsession and pain.
The death of Promise. The crippling of Garuda.
She’d been pushing herself ever since.
I hated that.
“Brief me,” I demanded.
She swallowed, forcing herself upright. “I evacuated the rest of the taskforce. Lost a few… Someone fed us bad intel. This bastard’s stronger than he looked. He’s got gravitykinesis too… probably more refined than mine.”
“Retreat,” I said immediately. “Leave this to me.”
“I can still fight—”
“No,” I snapped. “You can’t.”
She hesitated, torn between pride and instinct.
“There’s a time and place for everything, Leverage,” I said more quietly. “This isn’t it. Go.”
She clenched her fists, then nodded. “It’s your call. Stay safe, Amy. Don’t lose.”
She took off, vanishing into the clouds.
The air shifted.
The old man rose from the rubble, hovering effortlessly, robes fluttering as if gravity itself obeyed him. Those purple eyes locked onto me, sharp and amused.
“The younger generation really is promising,” he said mildly. “But I’ll be disappointed if that’s all you have to offer.”
I smiled, teeth sharpening as the Chimera stirred.
“Does the old man have a name?” I asked, letting the Chimera rise fully to the surface.
Bloodlust answered first. It was hot and eager, sharpening my senses until the world felt thin and fragile around me.
“In my heyday,” the man said, voice ringing with authority, “they called me the Hammer of Justice—”
He gestured downward.
The air collapsed.
An invisible force smashed from above, compressing space itself. I reacted on instinct. My red wings tore free from my back, bone and sinew unfolding in a blur as I kicked off the building and slipped sideways through the pressure, reappearing behind him in a burst of displaced air.
“I remember you,” I said. “Gavel.”
I slashed.
My claws ripped through empty air as he shot upward, narrowly avoiding me. The name settled into place with bitter clarity. Former lawyer. Turned hero. Then vigilante. Then villain.
A story so common it barely registered anymore.
“That’s right!” he shouted, spinning midair. “I’m Gavel! And I’m here to administer vigilante justice for your crimes, Griffin!”
Invisible hammers slammed toward me, distortions in gravity, dense and lethal, but I weaved through them effortlessly. I could smell his power now, a sharp metallic tang threaded with obsession. More than that, thanks to the Chimera, I could see his power warping vectors, and stress lines in space where gravity bent unnaturally.
He was strong.
But he was predictable.
I needed to end this fast. Every second we fought here was another building at risk, another civilian zone threatened. If I couldn’t finish him quickly, I’d have to remove him from the area entirely.
Gavel swept his arm downward.
The world inverted.
Gravity flipped violently, and my wings stuttered as the sky became a crushing pull beneath my feet. He clenched his fists, and the force locked around me like a vice.
“You’re underestimating me,” he said coldly.
I snarled and broke free.
Muscle screamed as I forced my way through the pressure, raw strength tearing open the gravitational lock. I launched my feathers, each one hardened and sharpened to a monomolecular edge.
Gavel countered instantly, slamming gravity downward. My feathers were crushed from the air, driven into the ground like meteors.
He reinforced the pull, forcing me toward the city below.
He was trying to run.
I folded my wings tighter, leaned into the crushing force, and dived.
Gravity howled around us as I accelerated faster than he expected. Opportunity flashed. It was brief, but I took it.
I grabbed his face and drove him into the ground.
The impact carved craters outward in concentric rings, concrete pulverizing beneath us. Gavel coughed, blood spraying from his mouth as the gravity field around him flickered and began to unravel.
“I… I know you’re in cahoots with Eclipse…” he rasped.
For a split second, killing him felt easy. Natural. The Chimera urged me forward, whispering how fragile he was now.
I pushed it down.
I was better than that.
If I could subdue someone without killing them, then prison was the only right answer.
So this was what a rated-fourteen looked like to me now.
“I don’t know where you got your source,” I said evenly, pressing him down, “but I’m doing this for myself… and for my dream. I’m the kind of hero you won’t see in your generation, Gavel.”
I leaned closer.
“The kind that actually gets shit done.”
I extended my index finger. A stinger formed seamlessly, piercing his skin as I injected a tailored compound, chemicals synthesized directly from my altered blood. Paralytic. Non-lethal. Precise.
One of my newest developments.
He went limp.
“Now,” I said quietly, “go to sleep.”
I straightened just as Leverage landed nearby. She looked worse than before, not physically, but emotionally. A satin wrap covered her injuries, but the look of betrayal in her eyes couldn’t be mistaken.
Leverage heard everything.
“Is that true?” she asked.
I didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
Her face crumpled. “I believed in you, Amy… Why?” Her voice broke. “No, forget it. This is too much. I can’t—”
She shook her head, stepping back.
“I quit.”
The words hit harder than any gravity hammer ever could.