Punch-Girl Shorts

They gave him the name to humiliate him. He kept it to remind himself.   Angelo was the shortest kid in his grade when the nickname first landed. He was the same height when the whole school laughed. By the time he stopped caring what people thought, he had already started building something — and by the time he finished, SoDo was his.   The Deuce's Origins is a standalone short story set in t...

He moves through the world like a storm that hasn't broken yet.   The Minister has been watching. Following. Building a righteous fury one small injustice at a time. He has plans — grand, broad, seismic — but they require patience and the right conditions. He is not ready. The person he needs is not ready either.   Until the day they are.   The Minister's First Miracle is a standalone shor...

Everyone has a theory. Almost none of them are right.   On the VigilanteWatch forum, the regulars have opinions. SkywatcherSara has grainy footage. DeepState_Dan has a government conspiracy. TechAnalyst_2024 has a detailed breakdown of the PunchSuit's probable capabilities. And SavedByBlue has a story that cuts through all the noise — because he was actually there.   Urban Legends is a standal...

He has one thing on his schedule today. Everything else has other ideas.   Waylon Grimes has been preparing for his choir solo audition for months. He has a plan, a voice coach, and a song that finally sounds right in the church's acoustics. What he doesn't have is a car that starts, a dry cleaner that can locate his shirt, or a day that cooperates in any meaningful way.   Waylon's Day...

Nobody wants a Punch-Girl case. Stephanie Schmidt just drew one.   Court-appointed defense work is supposed to be straightforward — quick cases, clean wins, résumé padding. Then comes Marcus Kumar, a medical equipment distributor caught with counterfeit defibrillators, with evidence gathered by a vigilante who doesn't answer to anyone. Cases like this end careers.   Stephanie takes it anyway....

The numbers don't lie. Someone wishes they would.   Alec is good at his job. Exceptionally good. So when a routine review of a client's accounts reveals vendor payments that don't connect, shell companies that barely exist, and a money trail that leads somewhere no honest business should go — he can't let it go. That's not how his mind works.   What starts as professional due d...

She thought she knew what their partnership was. She's about to find out how much she didn't.   Punch-Girl is in the early days — no Punchcycle, no spare suit, and a growing frustration that her work isn't making a dent. Central is the voice in her ear, always calm, always one step ahead. But when he directs her to a location before anything has happened, the questions she should have...

Some nights, they just want dinner.   Alec and Jessica have a favorite restaurant. The name is absurdly long, the décor is charmingly mismatched, and the owner treats them like family. So when an elderly couple shows up on the wrong night expecting a 50th anniversary celebration, and the whole strip mall quietly conspires to give them one anyway, Alec finds himself coordinating aminor miracle — on...

He thinks she's distracted. He has no idea why.   Alec has been building up the nerve to ask Jessica out since a New Year's Eve party where things did not go particularly well. Tonight the restaurant is good, the conversation is better — and then her phone keeps buzzing, and she keeps almost excusing herself, and Alec starts to wonder if he's reading this completely wrong.   He isn&#39...

Every hero needs her armor. Someone had to build it.   When recently downsized materials engineer Sarah Chen accepts an anonymous commission — a garment that can withstand combat, move like a second skin, and house cutting-edge electronics — she tells herself it's just a technical challenge. The encrypted messages. The cryptocurrency payments. The client she'll never meet. Just details.  ...

The city never sleeps. Neither does she.   One night. One rooftop. A professional crew operating with military precision — and Punch-Girl is the only thing standing between them and a clean escape.   When the pursuit splits across two locations and her equipment takes damage at the worst possible moment, she's forced to improvise. And when the dust settles, one question lingers: someone has be...