Running From Himself 2-7 (Patreon)

The sharp professional graphics of WNY1 News illuminated the studio as an Asian woman with her dark hair in a tight bob adjusted her earpiece, a blue chyron showing the name CHLOE MIKITA right below her.

Over her shoulder, the glowing hashtag #BLUSHIFT was suspended in electric blue letters that pulse with each syllable.

"#Blushift,” Chloe began, the woman launching into her newsread with expert professionalism and trained cadence. “That's the name, the hashtag, and the mystery speedy supe that has captivated the streets of New York over the last week, making headlines across all five boroughs. Sightings are, as expected, incredibly brief, often lasting less than a second, but the results... the results are anything but expected."

Footage from a smartphone held vertically stuttered across the screen, the video quality making it clear it was probably an Android (and probably one a few years out of date) as the footage of the studio wiped, showing what shaky hands had captured just outside Brooklyn. 

A little boy, maybe five years old if he was anything, chased after a puppy into open traffic while his mother's scream cut through the street noise. A car horn blared loud and panicked as a dozen tons of metal and steel surged forward, too fast to stop and too close to even try.

A black and blue blur streaked across the frame, barely a single frame showing a shape and then the boy materialized on the sidewalk, puppy clutched to his chest right next to his crying and confused mother.

@BreezeCastillo YOOOO did anyone else see this?? Kid was literally about to die and then BOOM safe?? #GHOSTOFBROOKLYN is REAL 

47.2K retweets, 284K likes

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Traffic camera footage came up on the evening broadcast of WNY4, a light-skinned black man without a single speck of hair on his incredibly shiny head stood right in front of a massive screen. “David White here on #GhostWatch,” he opened, as he gestured to the massive screen displaying distorted heat-haze effects around a black and blue streak. 

Numbers froze in digital precision, blue graphics unnecessarily added to the screen pointing out so many unimportant things, but all David pointed to were the big blue numbers attached to a line leading away from the bottom half of the screen: 455 MPH.

"Sources from the Department of Transportation have confirmed this speed camera on the FDR Drive clocked the entity at over four hundred and fifty miles per hour.” David clasped his hands together, fixing the camera with a very newsworthy look. “While Vought has yet to issue an official comment, speculation is rampant that this is the return of former member of the Seven, Reginald Jesse Franklin, formerly known as the A-Train."

@NYCFireWire BREAKING: Mysterious speedster extracts family from 4th floor fire. Same entity spotted at Brooklyn traffic incident. #BluShift confirmed multiple locations same night 12.8K retweets, 89K likes

@SupeSpotter guys this isn't A-Train. Look at the color scheme. This is someone NEW!!! 

3.2K retweets, 47K likes

State trooper dashcam footage time-stamped 14:37:22 as a drunk driver weaved across I-95, the beat-up jet-black mud-splattered muscle car carving dangerous paths as it weaved through afternoon traffic. Motion flickered near the rear wheels, a blur of blue, as both rear tires deflated instantly and the front two tires went flying free.

Rubber shredded and metal grinded against the asphalt as the car slid to a slow stop. 

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@ThickBlueDicc this has to be edited right? nobody that good with their speed

@NYCStreetNews my cousin works NYPD, always near the front office, says they got TWENTY-SEVEN incidents this week. Same MO every time

@TruthSeekerKim Vought's covering this up. Why no official statement? What are they hiding?

Gas station security footage flickered in grainy black and white, timestamp 23:47:16 showing the mugger's gun trained on the terrified clerk. A blur entered from the right, and disappeared to the left as gun components scattered across the floor in a messy sprawl—trigger, barrel, grip, spring—all of them more torn apart than disassembled. The mugger stared at his empty hands, tried to run, and tripped on shoelaces now tied together.

Breaking: @VoughtIntl stock down 0.2% in after-hours trading following #BluShift speculation

@ToddTheBodd Whoever this copycat thinks he is, he better remember who the REAL heroes are. The Seven protects America. Not some wannabe in a tracksuit. 

89.4K retweets, 203K likes, 67.8K replies

Reply: @QueenMaeveFan F@@@er sounds scared of the new blood. My Queen ain’t got anything to be worried about

Reply: @BluShiftSupporter least he actually saves people instead of posing for cameras

Reply: @A-TrainForever DELETE THIS NEPHEW

#BluShift #NotATrain #IndependentHero #VoughtCoverUp #RealHeroesWearBlack

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The screen shifted again as a blond woman stood there in a blue dress a touch too tight for morning news but Michelle Broderick clearly didn’t mind when both her body and breaking news meant great ratings and job security. Behind her, the graphic on the screen spun through clips and images, clearly put together by a media director too lazy or rushed to really put in the work to make it shine.

"But Blushift's heroics certainly haven’t stopped there,” the newscaster continued, with a bright white smile. “The past three days have seen the enigmatic new supe spotted engaging a new, terrifying threat that has overtaken our fair city: the so-called 'street supes' that have..."

Helicopter footage replaced the studio feed, that distinctive shake and zoom of aerial journalism capturing downtown from five hundred feet up. Police cars formed a tactical perimeter around First National, as the front of the bank looked eerily quiet, windows dark, and everyone waiting for shit to go sideways in the most collosal way.

The officer standing guard stiffened, eyes going wide and glassy as his muscles twitched… again… a third time. 

The radio in his hand lifted to his mouth, motion jerky as his lips twisted, puckered and opened up. "A-all clear! False alarm! Stand down! Repeat, stand d-down!"

The camera zoomed tight, catching movement through reinforced glass. A Hispanic man with a barrel chest spoke into his walkie-talkie, throat vibrating as he perfectly mimicked the officer's voice with disturbing accuracy. Turning aside, he nodded to a woman wearing ski goggles, ice-blue eyes visible through the tinted lenses as she pressed both palms against the massive steel vault door. Metal groaned and shrieked, frost spreading across the surface.

Before the vault could give way, a black and blue blur shattered the front entrance, glass exploding inward in a crystalline cascade that caught the afternoon light. Barrel-chest took a deep breath, low hum filling the air before a shock of sound boomed out, a wave of raw force that pulverized marble columns where the speedy supe had been standing microseconds earlier. 

Blue-eyes raised her goggles and a beam as bright as her eyes lanced out, flash-freezing a section of floor into a skating rink.

The fight ramped up; bodies flying with furniture as everything devolved into a chaotic dance of sound, ice, and speed, too fast for the news chopper to capture anything other than blurs and the backsplash of property damage.

WBAL's evening broadcast picked up the thread, A Caucasian man in a dark suit with close-cropped hair projecting the kind of no-nonsense authority that Baltimore viewers expected from their local news. Behind him, a rough sketch showed a man whose arms looked like road maps of pulsing veins.

"This was the scene in Baltimore just last night, where a group of armored car guards were brutally assaulted on the Key Bridge. Eyewitnesses describe a man who could create explosions with each punch, and another with the power to control the asphalt."

Shaky phone footage replaced the polished studio production, filmed through a car window by someone whose hands weren't quite steady enough for professional cinematography. The bridge stretched ahead, but the asphalt was wrong, swirling in a protective vortex around a figure in the center while police bullets ricocheted harmlessly off the improvised shield. 

Another man, arms covered in those same pulsing veins from the sketch but far more gruesome in person, stomped the ground hard enough to send cars bouncing on their suspension. His fist connected with an armored car's door, explosive impact tearing metal off its hinges with a concussive boom that probably registered on seismographs.

Blushift arrived as a streak of motion, weaving between flying chunks of asphalt with an efficiency that suggested he'd done this dance before. Blue lightning crackled around his feet, more visible than in previous footage, power building with each intervention. In a blur of motion, the speedster ran in quick tight circles, a literal whirlwind forming to disrupt the debris shield and expose the man controlling it. Explosive-punch threw a haymaker that could have wrecked a car, but Blushift was already redirecting the blow into the bridge itself, a chunk of concrete exploding outward into the river below.

WNY1 News returned, Chloe Mikita there again, this time standing rather than sitting. Graphics behind her showed a map of incidents marked in blue dots,  spreading across the tri-state area like a fresh case of chickenpox. "In almost every instance, the outcome is the same. The criminals are neutralized, non-lethally, and their target is saved. But the hero... the hero is gone b—"