The missing flyer had been taped to Kowalski's bodega window for six days before Adrian finally stopped to read it.
MISSING: DESTINY OKAFOR, AGE 16.
LAST SEEN NEAR THE CHECKPOINT ON 88TH, TUESDAY EVENING. IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION, PLEASE CALL.
A photograph below the bold text showed a girl with an easy smile, her arm slung around her mother's shoulders.
"She used to come in for candy after school," Kowalski said quietly, noticing Adrian's gaze. "Every day, almost. Sour gummies and a soda. Her mother's been in here every day since she vanished, asking if anyone's seen her."
Six days. Six days was an eternity for a missing teenager in a city this broken.
"Police involved?"
Kowalski's expression darkened. "Filed a report. Got told the precincts are on skeleton crews post-invasion. Said runaways spike after disasters and they'd 'look into it when resources allowed.'" He shook his head in disgust. "She's not a runaway. Her mother swore she'd never just leave. Not after everything they survived."
A familiar weight settled in Adrian's chest. A missing kid ignored by a collapsed system.
No cursed spirits. No violet energy traces. Just an ordinary human tragedy—and ordinary tragedies didn't come with a convenient Six Eyes shortcut.
He bought a bag of sour gummies anyway, memorized the girl's face, and left the bodega. Sophia would probably say this was a terrible use of his limited time.
He didn't care.
He hit the 88th Street checkpoint long after dark, picking a quiet shift change when the barricades were lightly manned.
Activating his Six Eyes, he swept the intersection. Blue-tinted spatial perception flooded his sight, mapping six days' worth of foot traffic—hundreds of overlapping footprints, tire treads, and fading physical imprints layer upon layer.
This wasn't like tracking cursed energy. There was no glowing aura pointing the way. Just plain, grinding forensics.
An hour in, he found the first real trace.
A faint scuff mark near the curb. A sneaker sole dragged sideways—the unmistakable footprint of someone fighting back against force. Inches away, half-buried under dirt near the streetlight, lay a small pink hair tie.
[SIX EYES ANALYSIS: PHYSICAL STRUGGLE DETECTED. FORCED MOVEMENT: SOUTHWEST, TOWARD HAZARD ZONE PERIMETER.]
Not a runaway. Someone grabbed her.
He locked onto the subtle trail. A crushed soda can matching Kowalski's store brand. Another scuffed heel print two blocks south. Piece by piece, his enhanced sensory processing reconstructed the scene like a high-speed scanner.
The trail went cold at the edge of the hazard zone.
Before him stood a block of condemned, boarded-up apartment buildings awaiting demolition. Damaged foundations, shattered windows, completely off the grid.
A perfect place to hide something in plain sight.
The next morning, Adrian laid a hand-drawn map across Detective Reyes's desk, detailing every scuff mark and timeline marker.
Reyes studied the layout, his brow furrowing. "Struggle at the checkpoint. Forced movement toward the hazard zone. Trail cuts off at the condemned sector." He looked up, eyes sharp. "That's not runaway behavior. That's an abduction."
"I need eyes on those buildings without alerting whoever's inside," Adrian said.
Reyes leaned back, rubbing his jaw. "There's been chatter lately. Low-level stuff, but bad. Human trafficking rings operating in the post-invasion blind spots. Exploiting displaced refugees, separated kids, shelter chaos. If anyone asks questions, they claim they're just 'relocating' lost minors."
His jaw tightened. "I filed it under general post-disaster crime and kept chasing you instead."
"You didn't know," Adrian replied evenly. "How big is this ring?"
"I don't know yet. But I'm going to find out." Reyes pulled a notepad closer. "Give me the coordinates. I'll set up a quiet perimeter with two agents I personally trust. No precinct leaks."
Two nights later, they moved.
Reyes had confirmed suspicious activity—generator hums during non-operational hours, blacked-out windows, and unmarked vans arriving past midnight.
Adrian breached the main building alone. Six Eyes swept the gloom, piercing through rotting drywall and boarded frames.
The air reeked of mildew and cheap disinfectant. Makeshift partitions and crude cots filled the floor plan. A temporary holding site—low-tech, illegal, and subterranean.
In a makeshift cell toward the back, he found them.
Four kids, huddled together on a bare mattress. All younger than Destiny's flyer suggested. Trembling.
No curses here. Just human filth preying on the weak.
When Adrian crouched down and pulled back his hood, Destiny looked up with wide, terrified eyes.
"I'm here to take you home," he said gently.
The sheer relief on her face was instant.
Two guards rounded the corner, armed with iron pipes and heavy handguns. Just bottom-feeder opportunists taking advantage of a broken city.
Adrian moved like a blur.
A sharp strike to the solar plexus, a swept leg, and two disarmed weapons clattering to the floor. Both men hit the concrete unconscious before they could even draw a breath to scream. Controlled, precise force.
A sharp chime echoed in his mind.
[NO EXP AWARDED. ACTION CLASSIFIED: NON-CURSED CONFLICT RESOLUTION.]
Adrian wiped his hands. Figures. But some wins don't need a numeric reward.
An hour later, Adrian watched from a dark alley across from the precinct as Destiny reunited with her mother in the parking lot.
Her mother dropped to her knees, sobbing, pulling her daughter into a crushing, desperate hug.
Adrian pulled his hood lower, watching quietly. Fighting high-grade curses was a necessity for survival, but this? Seeing a broken family made whole again touched something inside him that raw system stats never could.
Back at the apartment, Sophia wrapped her arms around him the moment he walked through the door.
"Four kids," she whispered into his chest. "You saved four kids using nothing but shoe scuffs and a hair tie."
"Reyes handled the perimeter," Adrian said, though he didn't pull away. "And your diner network gave us the lead."
Sophia pulled back, a genuine smile breaking across her face. "Take the credit, Hayes. You're becoming what this city actually needs. Not just a guy who smashes monsters, but someone who notices when a missing flyer sits on a window for too long."
Maybe that's the real goal, Adrian thought. Not just surviving the inevitable cosmic threats like Thanos or Ultron down the line. But staying human enough to care about the smaller battles.
"There are three more traffickers tied to that ring," Adrian added, his eyes darkening slightly. "Reyes confirmed the operation goes deeper."
Sophia's gaze stayed firm. "Then we keep hunting. One flyer at a time."
Outside, the scarred skyline flickered under the streetlamps—still broken, still healing, but tonight, four children were sleeping in their own beds.