"Daddy?"

  I looked around, but the world had bee bd empty. It was an inky, cold darkhat stretched for eternity in every dire.

  But the voice was unmistakable. A young, female voice.

  "...Daddy?"

  Scrapper Scuttler was a man whose sins had built up over the years, weighing down his sce. He was a man who had killed many, and who had lost many in turn. But there was one memory, a regret that was the stro.

  A little girl, with the same dark brown eyes as the merary.

  And there was a memory. A memory that Scrapper had locked away.

  It was the memory of his little girl.

  I felt it. The pain a, and it hit me in the chest like a punch, knog me backwards and sending me falling through the endless bck. The man in the suit had taken off his mask. His face ale, and he was covered in blood.

  I saw a memory, and the merary's perspective.

  It was his daughter's birthday. The cake had a pink frosting, with the number "5" in a dle.

  A little girl was seated in front of the table. Her brown eyes were sparkling, and her brown hair ulled up in two braided ponytails that reached down her back.

  She had on a blue dress with white polka dots, and her little feet were bare. She wore white socks, and she had little brown sandals.

  She had a big, beautiful smile on her face.

  "Make a wish, dearie!" a voice called. A young woman with dark brown eyes, and brown hair that ulled into a ponytail, sat at the table.

  The little girl smiled and blew out the dle.

  A young engineer with a bright future and a beautiful daughter. Scrapper's daughter looked just like her father, and she had the same bright eyes.

  But money was an issue. The family was barely scraping by, and the man's pany had just cut his hours and his pay. He had bills to pay, and his daughter needed a new pair of shoes. She had a birthday party ing up, and he had no idea what he could afford for it. She was growing up so quickly, and she o go to school, and the bills kept piling up.

  The man had been a brilliant engineer, a genius. He could have made it big, could have bee a CEO or a billionaire. Instead, he worked in the Research & Developmement of a major corporation. And they had fallen on hard times and just sshed his pay, and his bes were ent. He had a family to provide for, and his wife had a part-time job, but it wasn't enough. They needed ine.

  So he took a risk, and started moonlighting for some local crime lords, doing favors and jobs that no one else wanted. And he had a gift for it, an innate ability that allowed him to take on any task. He ioneer, of course. One whose exceptional talent had been honed over the course of years.

  It started with cybersecurity work. Hag a few systems, stealing information from his employers, but it quickly turned into physical security, intimidation, and worse. He was young, but he had wrestled on schorship for the best uy iate, and had studied engineering, programming, and robotics for years.

  He had a bright mind, a gift for violence, and he was in a desperate position.

  But he didn't know how to say no. How to refuse.

  He didn't know that the men who he was helpihe worst of the worst.

  But the money was too good to pass up.

  His wife didn't ask questions when his bank at suddenly grew and grew, when she saw him ing home with a briefcase full of cash.

  But the jobs kept getting darker and darker.

  And soon, Mortifera Nox invaded Greater Texas.

  He had been in Dals, at his pany, w on a project that he thought would ge the world. And it would, but not in the way he expected. A sudden fsh of light, a burst of heat, a bst of energy that blew out the windows. And he was left standing, surrounded by rubble, in a city that had suddenly been overrun by demonic beasts and the dead risen.

  It had been a disaster, and the survivors had baogether, trying to stay alive in the ruined city.

  His pany's R&D department had survived the initial bst, and the survivors had gathered in a building. He had been there, in the rubble, his co-workers and friends dead.

  And he had seen the opportunity.

  With a bit of tinkering, he was able to jury rig a set of experimental power armor, using his powers to augment the armor's systems and onry.

  The survivors were scattered, and they needed prote.

  The man was a fighter, and a survivor, and he had a gun. He had the armor. He was able to protect his co-workers, the other survivors, the families.

  And the supervilins.

  The local syndicates had survived, too. They had taken advantage of the chaos, looting, stealing, and killing. The man had been hired to do some dirty work, and the pay had been good. He had been desperate.

  He had been desperate for the moo keep his family safe.

  So he had done what he had to.

  He had bee a monster.

  A mohat had sughtered the risen that threateo destroy Dals.

  He was the only one iy with any kind of real firepower. The demons and risen, the cultists, and the other criminals were a threat. But he was the oh the armor. The Knights had been killed to the st man, woman, and child by Mortifera Nox, so they were of no help.

  And the criminals? Well, the man had always had a bit of a sadistic streak. And he was getting paid.

  So he had sughtered the monsters.

  And he had sughtered the criminals.

  He had killed everyone.

  His armor had been painted with the blood of his victims.

  And when it was all over, and the city had been rebuilt, the man was hailed a hero,

  But he was not a hero.

  And he was not a good man. He was not a hero. When Mortifera Nox had appointed an underboss to be her right hand in Dals, the people had turo him.

  And he spit in their faces.

  The people wanted a hero, someone who could save them, and he was the only ohat fit that description. So he had agreed to lead the city. To rebuild the broken infrastructure. But it was a farce. It was a lie.

  He betrayed them.

  The city's criminal anizations were united under one banner, under one name: Scrapper Scuttler.

  They had been his enemies, but they were now his allies.

  And the ohing that truly mattered in the end was the ohing he lost. His daughter, his precious little girl, the one he had loved above all else.

  "Daddy?" her little voice had called out, eg in the void of my mind. A void that stretched for eternity. A void filled with the screams of those who had been killed.

  The man was a monster.

  A monster.

  A monster.

  "Make it stop!" Scrapper Scuttler cried, clutg his helmeted head in the void.

  Nightingale's Lament. The most powerful ability of my mother's that I could emute, the culmination of her career as a Rogue. It didn't care how powerful its victim was or even how much of an aura or mana pool they had.

  I'd read enough about it to know just what was happening.

  "Daddy? Is that you!?"

  It was the merary's worst nightmare, the one memory that had pgued him more than any other,

  A monster.

  He had been a monster, but he had been a moo protect his family. He had sughtered the criminals that threatehem, he had killed the demons and uhat had threateo kill his family, he had saved the people who were important to him. He was the man that the city of Dals had o survive.

  But the man had bee a mooo many enemies. Unnecessary enemies.

  "Daddy?" a voice cried, "Dad! e back to us, please!"

  Scrapper Scuttler clutched his helmeted head as a distorted scream echoed across the void. The scream was that of a young woman. It was the scream of a daughter, of a sister, of a mother, of a friend. It was the scream of someone who had loved, who had lived, who had cared for someone. Who had wao see a loved one again.

  It was a scream of a monster. Of a man.

  Of a father.

  "Please! e back to us!"

  It was the scream of a little girl.

  The scream of a little girl that Scrapper Scuttler loved.

  "Mommy?"

  The scream of a little girl who had just wao be happy, who just wao be safe.

  Gunsh out all around us.

  The scream of a little girl that Scrapper Scuttler might as well have killed with his own hands.

  The merary screamed.

  And the world came rushing bae.