The city bled neon as dusk gave way to darkness, its glow reflecting in puddles and glass towers like a heartbeat under skin. Eli crouched at the edge of a rooftop, a silhouette against the dying light. His breath was even. Calm. Focused. Below him, New York pulsed with noise and motion, a beast that never slept.
The black suit clung to his frame like a second skin, matte and seamless. Lightweight. Streamlined. His mask bore the bullseye insignia and it was subtle, but undeniable. Not just a symbol. A promise.
This was the first night he hunted.
He moved.
A sudden sprint, silent over gravel and tar. Vaulting across a narrow alley, flipping mid-air, landing with cat-like grace. Pipes, vents, crumbling brick and he navigated it all with fluid, practiced precision. He wasn't just moving through the city. He was claiming it.
Then screams.
Not the dull background noise of sirens or nightlife. Sharp. Close. Real.
He pivoted mid-run, dropped to a fire escape, gripped a rusted railing, and launched himself down three stories. Boots hit pavement. A splash echoed. He ran.
The scream came again, cut short but choked and trembling.
He rounded the corner, boots sliding on wet asphalt, and stopped atop a low wall. Below him: seven men. Crowding a woman against a graffiti-tagged alley wall. She looked petrified, her back pressed to cold brick, fists clenched.
One of the men chuckled. The kind of laugh that curdled blood.
Eli moved.
He dropped from above like a specter, landing in a crouch between the woman and the predators. A faint puff of dust rose around his boots. The thugs recoiled, momentarily stunned by the sudden arrival.
His posture was relaxed. Hands open. Casual.
But his eyes? Steel. Focused. Cold.
"You guys look like a Craigslist ad for erectile dysfunction," he said, voice low and laced with scorn. "Let me guess. High school dropouts, deep mommy issues, and absolutely no concept of consent?"
Buzzcut stepped forward and he was built like a refrigerator with fists. Scarred knuckles, crooked nose. He snarled. "Who the hell are you supposed to be?"
Eli's lips curled into a smirk beneath the mask. "Your last mistake."
Buzzcut lunged. Eli shifted.
The knife came fast and it was sloppy, angry. Eli ducked, pivoted, and caught the attacker's wrist mid-swing. He twisted. Bones cracked. The man screamed, and Eli drove his elbow into his gut, folding him. One motion. Clean.
A flick of Eli's hand and a blade slipped from his sleeve, slicing through air before embedding in the man's shoulder. He collapsed, howling.
The others hesitated. One swung a bat. Eli stepped into it, caught the handle under his arm, and snapped the thug's wrist like a twig. The man shrieked. Eli delivered a side-kick to the sternum, sending him flying into a dumpster with a metallic crash.
The alley erupted.
They rushed him.
Eli blurred. Two knives in hand, he flowed through the chaos with one blade slashing across a thigh, another spinning through the air to pierce a calf. One man lunged and Eli ducked and swept his legs, planting a palm to the ground as he pivoted and flipped backward, boot connecting with another thug's jaw. Teeth scattered like dice.
A gun clicked.
Eli turned.
The barrel lined up on him but he was faster. Pop pop. Two rounds into kneecaps dropped the shooter mid-step. The pistol clattered across the concrete.
Only one left.
He stumbled back, shaking. "W-who are you…?"
Eli walked forward slowly, shadows dancing across his face. He drew a knife and it was sleek, obsidian-black. Its edge kissed the light.
He crouched.
"I'm the reminder," he whispered. "That people like you don't get to do this anymore."
He grabbed the man's trembling hand and etched a crude bullseye into his palm and it was slow, deliberate. The man screamed, sobbing.
"Tell your friends," Eli said, voice low. "Next time, I aim for the throat."
Sirens howled in the distance.
Eli stood.
By the time red and blue lights washed into the alley, he was gone melted into the shadows, like a nightmare fading at dawn.
Detectives Yuri Watanabe and George Stacy ducked under the yellow tape. The alley reeked of blood, garbage, and the electric tang of fear.
"What the hell…?" George muttered, surveying the scene and there was bodies moaning, weapons scattered, a faint smear of blood trailing toward the wall.
"This wasn't self-defense," Yuri said, her tone sharp. "This was a message."
CSI Peter Parker knelt beside a thug, holding a gloved hand steady as he examined the wound. The blade embedded in the shoulder was sleek, matte-black, the hilt engraved.
Peter squinted. "Custom-made. Military-style balance. This guy wasn't improvising. He knew what he was doing."
Yuri approached one of the conscious attackers. Blood streaked his cheek. His eyes rolled as she grabbed his chin.
"Talk."
He lifted a shaking hand. The palm was carved crudely, painfully with a bullseye.
"B… Bullseye," he rasped, before passing out.
Yuri and George exchanged a look.
Peter stood, gaze drifting up to the rooftop.
"Looks like the city just got a new vigilante," he said. "And he doesn't play nice."
The television flickered to life, cutting to Channel 8's sharp-eyed anchor: Mary Jane Watson-Parker. Her voice was calm, but urgent.
"Reports continue to come in about the masked vigilante known only as Bullseye and he is a figure operating in the shadows, whose brutal methods are both feared and praised."
Grainy footage played Bullseye leaping between rooftops, his silhouette vanishing into the fog.
"In just two weeks, Bullseye has disrupted drug deals, dismantled armed robberies, and intercepted a human trafficking ring in Chinatown. Police have yet to catch him or even identify him."
The screen changed. Surveillance footage: a Midtown bank.
Gunmen burst out, bags in hand. One hostage lay motionless. Civilians screamed.
Then thunk. A blade struck a tire. Another. The getaway car sagged.
From above there was motion.
Bullseye dropped like a meteor, slamming into a robber with bone-snapping force. The second reached for his weapon but he was too slow. A knife pierced his hand.
The third fled.
Bullseye chased.
He vaulted a taxi, rolled beneath a sign, and caught the man just outside a subway entrance. A flash of movement. A kick. Done.
MJ's voice returned. "Fast. Precise. Non-lethal. And always gone before the sirens arrive."
Next: grainy video from a warehouse. Guns. Crates. Deals made in hushed tones.
Then there was chaos.
Smoke. Screams. Knives whistling through air. Bullseye erupted from the shadows like a specter, cutting through the crew with terrifying grace. One tried to run but Bullseye nailed him in the back of the leg with a thrown baton. He hit the ground, howling.
In the end, only silence and broken men remained.
"Some call him a hero. Others, a menace," MJ said, fading to a collage of interviews.
A deli owner: "He saved a girl outside my store. Fast. Clean. I say let him work."
A mother clutching her son: "He's scary. But he's scaring the right people."
A city councilman: "He's a criminal. Vigilantism is still illegal, no matter the target."
A student: "He's Batman if Batman was having a really bad week."
Brooklyn. Dawn.
The light seeped through grimy blinds like an apology. Eli woke on a mattress thin as regret. His bones creaked as he sat up, muscles screaming from the night before.
The room was bare because there was no decorations. Just a mirror, a sink, and a broken clock ticking out of sync.
He stood and faced the mirror.
The scars met him.
Dozens. Some deep. Some faint. Slashes. Burns. Bullet grazes. A map of pain written on flesh. The worst was a serrated line down his left side. A reminder.
He touched it. Remembered the man who gave it to him.
And how he ended things.
He popped two painkillers, dry, and let the bitterness settle in his throat.
"You're still breathing," he muttered. "That'll have to do."
Later.
He moved through the city like smoke with his hood up, shoulders low. Just another face.
He stopped outside an electronics shop. The crowd stared through the glass at a TV set.
"Justice League Repels Alien Invasion"
Superman caught a warship mid-crash. Flash zipped across continents. Wonder Woman decapitated a war-beast. Shazam laughed. The world cheered.
Eli watched. Unmoved.
"They show up when the sky's falling," he muttered. "But not when someone's dying in an alley."
He turned. "That's fine. I'm here."
The grocery store was cramped, warm, quiet.
Eli moved through the aisles. Grabbed what he needed. Noodles. Protein bars. Cheap fruit.
Then there was chaos.
"Everyone down!" A gunman burst in, wild-eyed, pistol shaking.
Screams. Shoppers dropped.
Eli crouched near the cereal aisle, hand on an apple. He eyed the gunman. Calculated. One shot.
He threw.
The apple ricocheted off a freezer, struck the floor, then smashed into the robber's head with a thunk. He dropped.
Silence.
Eli stepped over the body, dropped cash on the counter. "Might want to call that in."
Back on the sidewalk, he kept walking and he was just a man in a hoodie with groceries.
Then bump.
A woman. Apples spilled across the concrete.
Eli bent down. "Sorry, I—"
He froze.
She looked up.
His breath caught.
"Jen…"
Her eyes widened. She whispered, "Eli?"
Time stopped.
The crowd faded. The street dimmed.
And in that one fragile second… Eli felt human again.