An invisible ripple shimmered across the rooftop's central space—silent, weightless, yet unmistakable.
Then, from that distortion, a colossal creature emerged.
It was a dog.
Not just large—a behemoth the size of a sedan, its maw lined with jagged teeth, its head crowned by twin antennae shaped like tuning forks that hummed faintly in the damp air.
Perched atop its back sat a woman.
Long orange hair streamed behind her like flame. She wore a sleek black-and-yellow bodysuit that clung to her frame, elegant even in motion. There was an undeniable nobility in her posture—an air of command that clashed violently with the grime-streaked concrete and rusted vents of Hell's Kitchen.
Joren frowned.
Oh dear…
Always. Just when things are about to wrap up—new trouble walks in.
"Please… please wait a moment!"
The woman leapt down with practiced grace and hurried toward him, anxiety tightening every line of her face. Her eyes flickered to the writhing mass on the ground: a human-shaped puddle of flesh, bones seemingly dissolved or rearranged beyond recognition, twitching like discarded meat.
A flash of pity crossed her features—but beneath it burned something sharper: urgency. Mission-driven desperation.
"Please," she implored, voice trembling but resolute. "Let him go. I beg you—hand him over to us."
Joren slid his hands back into his pockets. "Reason?"
The question struck her like a slap.
She'd rehearsed this moment. Prepared speeches about royal dignity, ancestral duty, the sacred secrecy of her people…
But those grand words crumbled under two syllables, spoken flat and cold.
Who was she?
Christalia Amaquilin—princess of the Inhuman royal family.
And who was he?
Just a human. An Earthling. Someone who should've bowed at the honor of her request.
Yet here he stood, unimpressed, almost accusatory.
Before she could gather herself, Platinum Star slipped her arm into Joren's pocket—out of sight, out of mind—and unlocked his phone with a practiced thumb-swipe. The screen glowed faintly as recording began.
Can't hurt to have proof.
"My name is Christalia Amaquilin," the woman said, forcing sincerity into her voice. "You may call me Crystal."
She gestured to the dying figure at her feet. "This is Locktooth—our partner. And he…" Her gaze dropped to the boneless horror squirming on the rooftop. "…is one of our lost kin. A newborn Inhuman. His genes awakened recently, and his powers spiraled out of control."
"Inhumans?" Joren arched a brow. "Never heard of you."
He finally turned his full attention from Muse to Crystal.
"He killed at least a dozen people," he said, voice low. "Turned their skeletons into grotesque 'art installations'."
He paused, letting the image settle.
"And just because he's your 'kin'—I'm supposed to hand him over? Let you vanish with him into the night?"
"No! No, absolutely not!" Crystal's reply came faster now, urgent. "We're not protecting him! We'll take him to Attilan—our city. The Inhuman Council will try him for his crimes. He will be held accountable. And we'll help him—reform him, stabilize his abilities before they consume him completely."
"Trial?" Joren echoed. "Reform?"
His tone wasn't mocking—but it wasn't trusting, either.
Joren repeated those two words—"internal processing"—as if he'd just heard the punchline to a sick joke.
"Where was your 'trial' when he was drawing on hospital walls… in other people's blood?"
"Where were you doing your 'modifications' when he snapped a ballerina's bones apart to sculpt that thing you call the Broken-Winged Angel?"
"Where was your committee when he slaughtered five people and drained them dry just to paint a Daredevil mural on a rooftop?"
He took a step forward.
The Locktooth Dog flinched. A low whimper escaped its throat as its fur bristled and the tuning fork embedded in its skull trembled like a struck chime. It had never sensed a threat like this—not even from its own masters.
"Now that I've stopped him," Joren said, voice quiet but edged like shattered glass, "you show up."
"I did all the work. And you come running in, talking about taking his 'remains' back like they're some kind of heirloom."
"That's impossible," he continued before she could speak. "His crimes happened here. On this soil. The victims were people who lived here—breathed here, bled here."
"If there's going to be a trial, it belongs to a human court. Not some off-world tribunal I can't see, can't question, can't hold accountable."
"How do I know your 'reform' isn't just shipping him off to finish his 'art' somewhere else?"
"How do I know your 'trial' won't end with him fed, rested, and released—because to you, Earthlings are expendable, but he's one of your precious clan?"
Crystal opened her mouth—then closed it. Words failed her.
She'd never met anyone like him. No bluster, no posturing. Just cold, unyielding logic wrapped in righteous fury.
Crime happened here. Punishment should happen here.
That wasn't philosophy. It was justice.
"We…" She forced herself upright, chin lifting, summoning the dignity of Attilan's royal blood. "We have our laws. Our methods. This concerns the survival of our entire race!"
"He's a runaway newborn," she insisted, voice trembling not with fear, but urgency. "If humans uncover what he is—if they learn we exist—it won't just be war. It'll be annihilation. For centuries, we've hidden. We've protected humanity from us—and us from them!"
"Therefore," she declared, "we take him back. That is our duty. Our law. And no outsider—no matter how clever or cruel—has the right to interfere."
Joren didn't blink.
"That's your problem," he said flatly. "Not mine."
He pointed to the mud at his feet—streaked with ash, blood, and rain.
"You have two choices."
"One: take your dog and vanish. Now."
"Two…" His eyes darkened. "Stay—and become the second piece of trash I clean up tonight."
Silence fell like a guillotine.
Crystal's chest rose and fell in sharp, furious breaths. Princess of the Inhumans. Mistress of the Four Elements. Heir to the throne of Attilan.
No one had ever spoken to her like this.
No one had ever dared.
"You're arrogant," she hissed, voice cracking with rage. "Do you truly believe beating a deranged newborn gives you the right to defy the royal house of Attilan?"
Before the last word left her lips, the air turned lethal.
Frost erupted across the rooftop, racing from her boots in jagged veins of white. Moisture crystalliz
ed midair into a storm of needle-thin ice shards, orbiting her in a humming vortex—beautiful, deadly, and unmistakably a warning.
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