The restaurant laid strewn across the ground in a thousand pieces. It wasn't the only building to get hit by the fight, but it was one of the few that had no hope of being rebuilt because of just how thorough the destruction of it was.

It had taken a month for Greg to finally get that job. Being so young, having no experience, and just living in Brockton Bay had made it a nightmare for Greg to get the dishwashing job there. But after enduring scathing comments from his father, he got the job.

Only for the building to get destroyed a week later.

He stood in shock, staring at the wreckage silently as he thought about what he was going to do. He didn't have any experience working anywhere else, which led to him having difficulty in finding a job in the first place. His time at the now ruined restaurant was not even worth mentioning. It would be another few months before he could get another job. And who is to say that won't get destroyed too?

Sometimes Greg thought he just had the worst luck.

"Hey," A gruff voice behind him suddenly said. Greg turned to see a man grinning at him smugly. Instinctively, Greg looked to see if he was a gang member. He didn't see the signs of Empire and the man wasn't mugging him yet so he probably wasn't a Merchant.

"Darn shame what happened to your place there," the guy said. He had a Boston accent with a touch of Irish. His easy grin that fit with the way he was standing, hands stuffed in the pockets of a partially unzipped leather jacket with a dark grey hood attached to the collar. He had dark green eyes and loose curly hair from his Irish American descent.

"Name's Stan, by the way." he held out his hand and Greg took it tentatively. Stan's smile widened.

"What do you want?" Greg asked.

"Why, to help another guy out of course," Stan answered easily. "Ya see, I'm with a group that happens to be sympathetic to those who lose their jobs and homes because of reckless cape fights."

Greg furrowed his eyebrows. "I don't understand."

"I don't blame ya kid," Stan said. Greg felt a pang of annoyance at being called a kid despite only being a few years younger than Stan seemed. Maybe in his earily twenties if you really stretched it. "But hey, capes wrecked your place of business and now you gonna need a job. That's where I come in.

"Ya see, we are in need of young, able-bodied workers to help us out. Nothing illegal," Stan said, holding his arms up in defense when Greg shot him a look. "If you got a license we'll have you drive'n supplies around town. If not, we'll have you load up the trucks. Like I said, ya won't be doin' nothin' illegal. But you'll get paid well."

"This sounds like a gang," Greg said slowly.

"Kid, we're so much more than a gang. Besides, easy pay, legal work, what's more to want?" Stan paused a moment and considered him. "That is unless, you want to get back into da job market?"

Greg swallowed and turned his head to look back at the crushed restaurant. He considered the offer in his head. After several minutes of silence, Greg looked back at Stan and said,

"I'll do it," Greg said with a nod. Stan's grin spread wide.

"That's good ta hear!" Stand slapped his hand into Greg's cheerfully.

"Um, do I have to sign anything or…" Greg trailed off awkwardly. Stan shook his head with a laugh.

"Oh no, nothin' like that. Paper trails make thing far too easy for a Thinker to figure out what's really going on. Everythin's done by word of mouth. You'll learn how it goes- um, what was your name kid?"

"Greg," he responded automatically. "Greg Veder."

"Ah, glad ta have ya Greg. Welcome to The Workers."

---

Months of lifting heavy boxes full of Kindle Gas and Brute Nets had done Greg good. He lost the roundness that had been the cause of many insults in school. He built up plenty of leg and arm muscles from all the lifting he had done. He cleaned up rather well, surprisingly. Stan convinced him to get rid of his terrible bowl cut about two weeks in. He shaved the sides and grew the top long, combing it over to the right. After a few days of grumbling, he eventually agreed the look suited him in a strange way.

Now he looked like a different person, no pudge, lots of muscles, and a stylish haircut. He almost looked like the jocks that any girl would pass him up for. But of course, he was still Greg in the end, and despite these changes he was avoided like he had the plague in school. But for the first time, that was fine with him.

Between the long nights and homework Greg had little time to play video games anymore. He still played them when he had the time, but for the most part he was busy. He drifted away from the few friends he had because he couldn't talk games with them anymore. He didn't spend as much time ogling over capes, and not just because they were a disliked group among The Workers.

"Greg?"

He looked up from the bowl of cereal he had been eating as he waited for his dad to drive him to school. His mom was standing in front of him with her arms crossed and a sour look on her face. She was a short plump woman and somehow that made her more intense when she got angry.

"Yes, Mom?" Greg asked calmly.

"You want to explain this?" Mom held out his white and gold bandana along with an armband. Weeks ago, Greg would have been nervous or even a little scared of his mother finding those things. But right now, he was a little angry she went into his room and touched his stuff. The thought was enough to make Greg pause and wonder if his job had made him more serious than he used to be.

"You went through my stuff?" Greg asked.

"My house, I'll go through your stuff if I please. Now explain this." She threw the cloth on the table and crossed her arms impatiently.

"It's a bandana and an armband," Greg answered honestly.

"They're gang colours." His mom stated angrily. "Is this what you have been doing every night?" When she said it Greg felt a pang of guilt go through him. He spent almost every night at warehouses The Worker's owned around town, secretly or otherwise. They had needed him more since they went public a few days ago. He told his mom he was at work most night, but normal places wouldn't need him that much. The other nights he lied and said he was going over to a friend's place, which was technically true. Stan was a good friend.

His mother hadn't liked it at first but his father actively encouraged it. Greg made the lie specifically for his father, he was the kind of guy that was happy to see his son going out every night working and going out with friends. It reminded his father of his younger days and to him, was much better than having a son that hid in their room and played video games. Even more, it made him proud when he started shaping up, especially when he said it was because he and his friends played sports. His father was easy to predict like that.

"It isn't a gang," Greg answered her. 'It's more than that,' Stan's words echoed in his mind.

"Don't lie to me Greg!" She snapped. "You're part of those Workers aren't you?"

"Mom, no," Greg said. He wanted her to stop, to not push him any more on the topic. But she didn't listen.

"Greg, what is this?" This time, she pulled out the wad of bills Greg had hidden in a sock and threw it on the table. Greg looked down at it and frowned. The Worker's paid well, but they paid too much for a minimum wage job. He had to hide most of his money, that roll just being in his sock drawer. He had a few hundred more in various places around his room.

"Mom, stop." Greg said glumly, rising from his seat in the table.

"No, Greg!" She shouted. "This is unacceptable! It's dangerous to get involved in gangs! And to find out you've been lying to me about going to your friends house? No more! When you come home from school tonight you and I are going to sit down at the table and have a long discussion. Now, go get ready for school, this isn't over."

She looked like she wanted to say more, but Greg's father was standing in the corner shaking his keys impatiently. Greg couldn't tell what exactly the look on his father's face was, but it didn't look good.

"Fine," Greg said in defeat. "I'll just grab my stuff from my room." He pushed past his mother and felt the glare on his back as he walked to his bedroom.

Soon as he closed the door behind him he allowed himself to panic. They were going to make him leave The Workers. The place where he was appreciated, where he was needed. Where he wasn't just the weird nerdy kid in class. He couldn't do it.

Running around his room and grabbing all the cash he had on hand. He grabbed the butterfly knife Stan had given to him a few weeks ago and the box cutter he had used a number of times at work. He overturned his backpack on his bed and startedshoved some clothes and snacks he kept nearby inside of it. When it couldn't hold anymore he took one last look around his room and decided to lock his door for good measure before slipping out the window.

---

"Greg!" Stan greeted him as Greg walked into the warehouse, his bag dangling from one shoulder. "Thought ya went to school today?"

"I decided to skip," Greg answered with a shrug. The response caused Stan to break out with a grin.

"Ah, good ta see ya comin' to your senses. Ain't nothing you can learn in school that I can't teach ya. Listen though, I'm glad you're here. We just got a job from the boys upstairs and they need a couple of heavy lifters to do it. They're paying a thousand bucks. You down?"

Greg shrugged uncomfortably. "Uh, what exactly is the job?" Stan paused and looked around to make sure no one was listening. There was a very restricted information chain that even Stan upheld.

"Simple, so simple in fact you've done this before, once," Stan told him in a hushed tone. "We're loading up a van and taking it to that mall on the other side of town. We park out in the loadin' depot and wait for Industry to come take it off our hands."

"We've been getting awfully close to the other gangs," Greg observed. Stan shrugged.

"Guys upstairs made a truce with 'em or somethin', I don't know. You in or what?"

"I don't know," Greg said uncertainly.

"Ah, come on Greg," Stan said cheerfully and punched him in the shoulder. "Like I said, you've done this once before, don't sweat it."

"We weren't a gang when we started," Greg answered sourly. Stan's cheerful expression dropped and he got serious for a moment.

"You know we ain't no gang," Stan said. "We're more than that."

"That's not what the people think."

"Bah, let the people think what they want," Stan said dismissively. "Now come on, the van is ready ta go." Stan turned and started taking large strides towards their ride.

"I didn't agree to anything yet," Greg muttered as he shouldered his bag and went to follow after him.

---

Greg paced back and forth nervously while Stan sat on top of the boxes they were supposed to hand off to Industry. They were late.

"Yo, Greg," Stan said after about half an hour of him pacing like that. "Ya think you can chill a minute, you're wearin' a hole in the ground."

"Sorry," Greg apologized quickly, bringing himself to a halt. "I'm anxious. Shouldn't they be here by now?"

"Hey, hey, chill. They probably just held up by a cape fight somewhere. You know how it is." Stan slid off the box and turned to look at the two guys that had come with them. "Ey, you two. Stand around and wait for these guys will ya? Greg and I will bring you back a chilly dog." When he finished speakin he turned back to face Greg and grinned. "Come on, let's head inside."

Stan walked through a set of doors the lead outside of the supply depot and into the mall. Greg fell into step behind him, pulling the strap on his backpack closer to him as he did. Stan led him through several long dark hallways with a massive amount of offshoots and turns. However, Stan seemed to know his way through the place as he took Greg through the passages. He was a little surprised they didn't run into anyone on their way through.

They stopped at a pair of elevators which they took up to the main floor. When the elevator doors opened again it was to a very busy shopping centre with hundreds of people milling about. Greg was already feeling claustrophobic.

"Come on kid," Stan said. "Food court's this way."

Once again Stan led them forward, pushing them forward through the crowd and across the mall, then up an escalator onto a second floor before finishing their journey in the wide half-circle of interlocked stores that made up the food court.

Stan strode over to the Fugly Bob's, the only restaurant window in the food court that wasn't part of a massive international fast-food chain. As he started placing a massive order that would inevitably lead to an argument over a miscommunication with his accent. Greg rolled his eyes before it even had a chance to get started and turned his back to his friend.

Instead, he watched the crowd. He wasn't looking for anything in particular, just watching the people mill back and forth as they went about their business. Hundreds of people, each with a different destination, different goal, a different path, all crossing in the same location. It looked like chaos, but in reality each person was performing their function exactly like they mean to. It was something for him to think about.

He was distracted by one person who seemed to be heading directly for him.

"Greg?" Madison said with a raised eyebrow. She popped out a hip and placed her hand on it in her cutesy style. Two more girls came up behind her and smiled knowingly. Greg recognized one as Julia. He didn't know the third one though.

"Madison," Greg answered stiffly. He would have been more guarded, but after the events of today he honestly just didn't care. "Shouldn't you be at school?"

"Shopping day," Madison answered wistfully. "What about you loser? Shouldn't morons like you get as much school time as they can get." The other two girls behind her giggled a little before the one Greg didn't recognize added,

"He probably forgot it was a school day."

"Or too busy playing video games," Julia suggested. Greg rolled his eyes and sighed.

"Do you really miss Taylor that badly?" Greg asked uncaringly. Madison pulled back in disgust at the suggestion.

"The hell do you mean, fatty?" She asked acidly, eliciting another sigh from Greg.

"I mean Taylor hasn't been at school for a couple weeks. And without the community punching bag, you've been throwing all your shade at me. It's like you can't help but pick on the people you like the most."

"I think this guy is a mistake," Julia suggested. Madison gave a cute smirk and followed up with,

"Yeah, he honestly thinks he is worth the effort? As if."

"Well, you did pick me out of the crowd and approached me," Greg answered dryly. Madison was about to throw a bitter retort when Stan came back up with a massive tray of food.

"Alright Greg I got us some-" Stan paused when he saw the three girls and a smug grin spread across his face. "Hey, Greg! You didn't tell me ya had a connection with the ladies! Been hold out on me kid."

Madison's face twisted in disgust and was about to say 'as if' when the mall exploded.

---

"Fuck fuck fuckity fuck fuck!"

Greg's eyes flew open at the sound of Stan swearing repeatedly. Lying flat on his back Greg could see the ceiling high above him. Too high. The windows were too large, the ceiling was too far away, the supports were creaking like some massive weight was recently put on them.

Greg stumbled to his feet and noted he was bleeding a little above his eye and definitely had some bruises. He chose to ignore that and focus on what was going around him.

Julia and the other girl that had come with them were dead. A massive glass shard had decapitated Julia and the other had been crushed by a large hunk of metal. It was hard to tell exactly what the metal was, but to Greg it looked eerily similar to an escalator step. A human-sized escalator step.

But what got Greg was just how far they were. They had been standing right next to each other before whatever it was went off. Now they were several dozen feet apart. Madison was groaning on the ground, a large piece of glass in her shoulder. However, she looked more traumatized than anything. She stared at her dead friends and got to her hands and knees. Unsure of what to do, Greg watched her as she hugged her knees to her chest and started rocking back and forth.

Stan swore again causing Greg to turn and look at him. He was pinned under a massive steel beam. Above him the roof had collapsed inward, causing the metal support to fall directly onto Stan's left arm.

Stan swore and slammed his right hand against the steel beam. Greg took a step forward to help but stopped when the whole beam moved.

Stan went quiet for a moment while the beam continued to shift. For several seconds the air was filled with the sound of groaning metal as if shifted. And then it began to fall sideways.

Stan scrambled out from underneath it as soon as he was able and ran up to Greg while holding his previously trapped arm close to him. Greg saw the distinct signs of a compound fracture.

It teetered on its side, as if the wall was suddenly the floor and gravity was pulling it sideways. After a moment it finally fell over and punched through the wall as if it was made of glass. On instinct, Stan reached out and waved his hand down. Gravity suddenly corrected its hold on the beam and it did a full flip from the forces now acting on it before landing outside with a massive crash. Its two-floor decent, plus the strange growth effect, making it seem particularly brutal.

"Goddamn it," Stan said quietly. "Goddamn it. Goddamn it!"

"Stan!" Greg yelled. "Calm down!"

"Damn it, Greg, I'm one of them now," Stan said bitterly holding his good arm in front of him to display his hand. "A fucking parahuman."

"I know, I just saw you launch a massive steel beam out of this weird pseudo mall," Greg respond angrily. "But that won't fucking change our situation. We need to get the hell out of here."

"And where the hell is here?" Stan countered. "This ain't the mall I walked into."

Greg nodded seriously as he looked around. He had suspected it at first, but this seemed to prove it. The mall was bigger. They were still in the food court, with tables and chairs upturned and broken with scattered rubble. Only the tables were taller than Greg was.

Whatever happened, it had made the mall bigger. The ceiling was higher, the glass was massive, the steel beams were incredible in size, and the escalator steps were now larger than they were. The tables were a few feet above their head. The tops of chairs were out of arms reach. And now that he was looking for it, he found the tray of food partially crushed by rubble. The food had grown massively.

"Some sort of Tinker bomb," Greg guessed. "Made the whole mall four or five times its size. That or a space warping power."

"Oh, we are fucked," Stan complained. Greg didn't answer. As he scanned their surroundings, his eyes fell on Madison. Still hugging her knees to her chest and the glass shard still in her shoulder.

Greg whipped out his butterfly knife and unslung his backpack from his shoulder. He opened the top and spent a few seconds searching for something. When he found it, he pulled it out and zipped the backpack closed again. It was an old shirt that was too large for him since he lost weight.

Using the butterfly knife, he half cut, half tore the shirt into pieces. With the shreds of it in his hand, he walked over to Madison and knelt down by her side.

"I'm going to pull the glass out now," he told her, not bothering to be gentle or comforting about it. "It's going to hurt but don't move. If a piece breaks off we'll have to open the wound up and pull it out."

Madison bit her lip and nodded slowly. She raised up a bit to give him a better look at her shoulder. The glass was unnaturally thick, courtesy of the Tinker bomb Greg had guessed it to be. But that made it easier to pull out without breaking it.

Madison let out a hiss as the shard was removed, but Greg didn't give her a moment to react because as soon as it was out he was tightly wrapping the shreds of his old shirt around it with uncomfortable tightness.

"Fuck," she swore. "Do you have to tie it so tightly?"

"Yes," Greg answered simply. Madison laughed at his answer.

"When did you grow a pair?"

"A while back, now we need to find a way out of this mall"

"And you know," Stan said sourly, "Maybe fix my goddamn arm."

"Either way," Greg stated firmly. "We need to get moving."