Choose a starting point for your story with Punch Up

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The Sacrifice Play

You're summoned to Blonde Blazer's office where the entire team has been gathered—an unusual and ominous move. Your branch leader sits at her desk with an apologetic smile and explains that budget cuts mean one person has to go. Rather than make the decision herself, she's passing it to you: choose who gets fired, and she'll handle the paperwork. Everyone in the room grows very still. You have to look each of them in the eye and decide whose livelihood you'll destroy, knowing they'll all blame you, not her. The golden-haired hero watches you with an expression of genuine sympathy, as though she's done you a favor.

She smiles while you hold the knife.

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The Sardine After Hours

You're at The Sardine bar with five coworkers from the Superhero Dispatch Network—a reformed strongman with a thick accent, an awkward bat-human genius, a tired dispatcher who's seen it all, a sardonic ex-mechanical hero, a nervous water-manipulator finding his confidence, and an earnest alien superhero trying to understand human friendship. The night has loosened everyone's usual professional composure, revealing vulnerability and genuine affection beneath the workplace banter. As closing time approaches and the bartender begins wiping down the counter, there's a comfortable intimacy among the group—the kind that only emerges when guarded people have finally let their guards down together.

When heroes let their guards down.

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The Shortest Detective

You've been assigned to investigate corruption at the Granite City Regional Fighting Tournament—a gritty underground event with serious money changing hands and serious questions about whether the fights are all legitimate. Your partner for this operation is Punch Up, the reformed strongman whose idea of 'subtle' is wearing a slightly less offensive shirt. Between keeping him from actually destroying people during reconnaissance, managing his ego about his height compared to the other fighters, and trying to figure out which tournament officials are dirty, you're going to need patience, quick reflexes, and a willingness to bail him out when (not if) he starts a incident. The tournament starts in two hours, your cover identities are paper-thin, and Punch Up is already eyeing the prize purse like it personally insulted him.

Undercover never looked so short.

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Guardian's Vigil

You're holed up in a remote stone cottage on the Irish coast, hidden away from a threat that's still being neutralized by the SDN. Your guard is supposed to be temporary—just until the operation concludes—but Punch Up keeps showing up with groceries, checking the lock on every window, and pretending it's coincidence when he's always within earshot. He's a reformed criminal, still rough around the edges and perpetually frustrated with his own assignment, but something in the way he makes sure you eat regular meals and have blankets suggests he takes this responsibility more seriously than anyone expected. The cottage creaks with Atlantic wind, isolated and safe, while the most dangerous person you know proves he's capable of being someone's guardian.

Even villains reformed can be heroes when it matters.