The incandescent sphere of fire from the RPG explosion still billowed with superheated vapor and swirling soot. The blast wave had momentarily paralyzed both police and robbers with shock and awe, convinced the black-clad figure had been annihilated.
But through the thinning, heat-distorted air, the figure moved.
It was a spectral blur, a ripple in the very fabric of space. Zhou Yi utilized a controlled burst of his immense acceleration—a speed too great for the human eye to track, yet carefully restrained to avoid a concussive boom. The fire, moments ago a lethal prison, was cleanly bisected by his passage, the residual flames flickering out in his wake.
The Leader, still reeling and momentarily blinded by the flash, was caught instantly. Before his mind could register the sight, a vice-like grip clamped around the back of his neck. He was hauled backward through the shattered rear window of the bus, lifted several meters into the air, dangling beneath the silent, armored titan.
"Cease all resistance. Command your associates to disarm. Now." The voice, synthesized into an electronic baritone that felt less like a voice and more like a vibration in the bones, was utterly cold.
Defiance, born of professional desperation, was the Leader's only instinct. He thrashed, drawing a sidearm pistol from his thigh holster, and wildly emptied the magazine at Zhou Yi's crystallized visor.
The sight was horrific: the high-velocity rounds struck the mirror-like surface only to twist and flatten into useless slugs of lead and copper that fell like heavy rain. The crystal shield sustained only strange, temporary visual blemishes before the self-repair mechanisms smoothed the surface instantly.
Judging the man's continued existence a liability to the safety of the children, Zhou Yi exerted a calculated, localized kinetic force. He threw the Leader backward with enough power to render him non-lethally—but decisively—incapacitated.
The unfortunate man slammed into the mangled doorframe of a wrecked police cruiser with a sickening crunch, crumpled like discarded metal, and slid unconscious to the deck.
The spectacle was absolute psychological warfare. The police lowered their weapons further in bewildered awe. The remaining robbers, Barr and Andrew, broke entirely.
Barr scrambled into the driver's seat, jamming the bus into gear, desperate to move, to escape the silent, black monolith. Andrew, however, turned utterly vicious. He grabbed the nearest terrified child—a little girl named Lily—and savagely ripped open her small coat, revealing a primitive but viable explosive vest strapped to her torso.
"Stay back, you mechanical abomination!" Andrew screamed, backing toward the front door, his hand hovering over the detonator. He used the child as a shield and the bomb as a non-negotiable threat.
Zhou Yi descended back to the bridge deck, his feet landing silently, the metallic sheen of his armor reflecting the flashing blue and red emergency lights. He focused his energy.
"There is no safe escape. Disarm the child and cease motion."
"You think a bomb can't hurt you? Get away from me!" Andrew roared, pressing the child tighter against his chest.
The robber was right—a close-range explosion would still necessitate a lengthy repair for the Dawn Type-1, and more importantly, the extreme concussive force would almost certainly kill the child instantly, shield or no shield. Direct engagement was impossible.
Zhou Yi acted with surgical, horrifying precision. A pinprick-thin beam of brilliant white light shot from his visor, traversing the distance in an imperceptible blink. It did not hit the detonator button; it swept across Andrew's forearm, just above the wrist.
Andrew did not even register the heat. There was no sound of a cut, only a strange, metallic shimmer in the air. Then, his hand, still clutching the detonator, simply fell away, hitting the floor with a soft thud.
The wound was completely cauterized, a smooth, charred-black joint where the forearm had been. The extreme, focused thermal energy had sliced and sealed the tissue instantly, suppressing the pain signals before they could register, a clean, bloodless dismemberment designed solely to neutralize the threat and prevent immediate shock.
"My hand! Oh, my God, my hand!" Andrew screamed, staring at the stump. The reality of being faced with an enemy who could disable him with impossible precision was worse than any physical pain.
Zhou Yi did not hesitate. The out-of-control bus was now swaying wildly. Andrew, in a final, psychotic act of desperation, raised his good arm and hurled the little girl out of the front door and over the bridge railing.
"If I go down, we all go down!" he shrieked, pressing the gas pedal with his foot.
The little girl, Lily, tumbled through the cold air, her screams swallowed by the vast, roaring space between the bridge and the East River. At that height, the impact of the water would be indistinguishable from hitting concrete.
Zhou Yi was already in motion. His speed was now less a blur and more a teleportation. Before Andrew could process his action, the armored figure materialized in front of him.
A single, powerful strike—a kinetic burst into the chest—sent Andrew slamming backward into Barr. The two robbers, now a tangled mess of broken ribs and fractured limbs, were instantly knocked unconscious, slumped against the dashboard.
The bus, however, was still hurtling toward the edge.
Ignoring the vehicle, Zhou Yi launched himself over the railing, a black projectile aiming for the falling child. He did not fly straight down; he performed a controlled dive designed to match the girl's freefall trajectory.
Lily's terrified shrieks were cut short as she was gently—almost impossibly softly—scooped out of the sky. She felt a sudden deceleration, finding herself held securely in the massive, metallic arms of the 'monster.'
Zhou Yi, his helmet glowing with a faint, crystalline light, gently adjusted the little girl in his arms. He lifted a gauntleted hand and, carefully modulating the force through the nanometal's haptic sensitivity, gently pinched her pale, shocked cheek.
"Little one, you are safe now. Everything is finished," he spoke, his voice softened by Medusa to a reassuring electronic whisper.
The girl was speechless, her eyes wide with uncomprehending terror and residual shock. Zhou Yi knew his casual gesture was likely too rough—the result of a hand that had just crushed an RPG—but the attempt at simple human comfort felt necessary.
At that moment, a massive metallic groan—the sound of immense tonnage giving way—rang out above the roaring wind.
While Zhou Yi had secured the child, the now-driverless school bus had not stopped against the police barricade as the officers hoped. Instead, it had struck a strategically placed road spike strip, blowing out its front tires.
The friction, combined with the momentum and the unconscious Barr's foot still on the accelerator, sent the bus into a disastrous skid. It broke through the low barrier, the front wheels hanging in the air, and then plunged over the edge of the Brooklyn Bridge, a screaming, yellow coffin containing two dozen hostages.
The police line erupted in a unified cry of horror. Commissioner Stacy, witnessing the bus plummeting into the distant water, slammed his fist onto the hood of his car, his face contorted in a mask of professional failure and personal grief.
The media, already documenting the initial shootout, now had the shot of the century—the NYPD's failure, the death of children, a national tragedy unfolding live.
But the fall was abruptly and impossibly arrested.
Zhou Yi, holding the little girl securely to his chest with his left arm, had vaulted back toward the falling vehicle. The Dawn Type-1 armor engaged its internal stabilization systems, maximizing all stored kinetic energy.
He slammed his right shoulder and gauntlet into the descending bus's undercarriage, snapping the entire vehicle to a halt , just meters above the churning water of the East River.
He became a temporary column, an obsidian god supporting a world of yellow anxiety. He held the massive, swaying weight of the school bus and its screaming, hysterical occupants for several agonizing seconds, confirming its stability.
Then, with a slow, grinding exertion of power, he lifted the entire vehicle upward, away from the yawning void, and ascended toward the bridge deck.
Under the harsh glare of the midday sun, the figure in black armor, holding the entire bus in one hand and a terrified child in the other, gently lowered the vehicle back onto the bridge.
The moment the bus's tires touched the asphalt, the silent shock among the onlookers evaporated into a furious storm of activity. Police officers rushed toward the bus, now focused entirely on the children.
The true measure of the chaos, however, was the sight of parents—having heard the initial reports—tearing through the police barricades, sobbing and running toward the bus to reclaim their terrified children.
Zhou Yi gently handed the little girl to a young couple who rushed him, weeping tears of pure relief. The woman smothered the child with kisses while the man, his eyes red and his body trembling with emotion, grabbed Zhou Yi's gauntleted arm.
"Thank you, sir. Thank you. You saved our daughter," the father choked out, tears streaming down his face. "May God bless you."
"I do not require divine benediction," Zhou Yi replied, his tone softening slightly. He paused, gently patting the little girl's hair with his massive glove. "Your child is precious. Ensuring that creatures like her can grow up to enjoy the world is my sole duty. Enjoy your family."
He turned away from the emotional reunion and walked directly toward Commissioner Stacy, who was now being shielded from the advancing, frenzied media by a wall of uniformed officers.
"A beautiful sight, wouldn't you agree, Commissioner Stacy?" Zhou Yi stated, gesturing toward the relieved crowd.
Stacy, his composure barely intact, fixed Zhou Yi with a stare of intense, professional scrutiny.
"Your actions saved lives, I won't deny that. But they also created an unprecedented security and media incident. Who are you? Are you an independent operative, a rogue Stark or Osborn project, or simply a dark-clad alien testing Earth's defenses? I need to understand your purpose."
Zhou Yi shrugged, the movement fluid within the armor. "None of the above. As I stated previously, I am merely a man of chivalrous spirit, a gentle passerby. You may consider me the final echo of the night, and simultaneously, the inevitable herald of the coming dawn. My purpose, as you have witnessed, is peace. The immediate, decisive enforcement of it."
"I am an officer of the law, sworn to uphold order, not mythology," Stacy complained, hir voice tight with stress.
"An anonymous entity, operating without oversight, cannot claim to be a harbinger of order. That sounds more like a declaration of war on our established systems. If you truly want peace, you don't hide your identity. You cooperate."
"There will always be conflicts that your current system cannot resolve, Commissioner," Zhou Yi responded, stepping closer.
"And there will always be situations where anonymity is my most potent weapon. I will not compromise your operations or usurp your role. View me as a temporary, friendly enforcement partner. I will be the escalation your current structure permits, nothing more."
Stacy's resolve visibly wavered. The evidence of the bus and the defeated robbers spoke louder than any protocol. "Partners don't remain silent partners."
"That is merely a matter of semantics and branding, Commissioner," Zhou Yi countered, his helmet tilting slightly.
"You have my word: my involvement is purely prophylactic. Use your considerable creativity. A code name is all that is required to integrate this factor into the public narrative. Solve the problem, Commissioner."
With that final instruction, Zhou Yi activated his thrusters and launched himself vertically. He ascended swiftly, breaking through the high, scattered clouds with a violent sonic crack that rattled the bridge and left a ripple of ionized air in his wake, disappearing from sight above the horizon.
The moment he vanished, the dam broke. Reporters, a wild, ravenous throng, surged past the thin line of police, surrounding Commissioner Stacy, their microphones extended like weapons.
"Commissioner, what is your official relationship with this 'superhuman'?"
"Chief Stacy, is this figure military, an alien, or a corporate weapon? Did the police force deliberately wait for his intervention?"
"Sir, the police response was clearly inadequate, resulting in a school bus going over the bridge. Can we assume the NYPD is a massive waste of taxpayer resources now that this 'Mystery Man' is operational?"
Stacy took a deep, steadying breath, suppressing the urge to scream. He had to establish a narrative immediately—one that acknowledged the public's perception of the Mystery Man while protecting the integrity of her force.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Stacy said, pushing back the microphones patiently, his expression grave. "This rescue operation was a joint effort and a complete success. There is no question of police failure or misspent funds."
"A joint effort?" a reporter challenged. "But you were shooting at him minutes ago!"
"There is a cooperative understanding between the NYPD and this mysterious individual," Stacy stated firmly, manufacturing the relationship on the spot. "This cooperation is strictly limited to maintaining public order and addressing threats that exceed conventional police capacity."
"What is his name? Who is he? Will the details of this agreement be public?"
"The cooperation is between the NYPD and the individual; his true identity is a matter of personal privacy and will not be disclosed. The cooperation is restricted to high-threat scenarios only."
Stacy paused, letting the silence build, then delivered the final, calculated line—the name that would define this new era.
"You asked how we address our partner. He is a protector, a warrior who appeared at the darkest point of the crisis. He is the light that came at the final moment of despair. We will call him… The Dawn Knight."
The name hung in the air, instantly disseminated by every news channel and social media feed in New York City and beyond. The Dawn Knight had arrived. A new beginning for Zhou Yi's life as a public-facing force had begun.
What do you think The Dawn Knight's first official interaction with S.H.I.E.L.D. will look like? Will it be aggressive, diplomatic, or simply an evasion?