"Everyone, please review your group assignments and responsibilities."
Sekingar stood at the front of the assembled force and let his gaze move across them — A-Class, B-Class, C-Class, the full breadth of professional heroism below the S-Class tier, gathered on the upper floor of Hero Association headquarters with varying degrees of readiness and alertness.
His right eye was mechanical. The rest of him was polished, composed, and thoroughly prepared.
"When we reach the battlefield," he said, "I need each of you to do your job. Nothing more, nothing less."
A few of the younger heroes shifted. The word battlefield had a way of reorganizing a room.
"That's enough." Sekingar's voice carried without effort. "Our responsibility is not to kill the enemy — it's to create the best possible combat environment for the S-Class tier. You play the right role, in the right place, and you will shine wherever you are."
He looked at them.
"My job is to make you shine. Can you do that?"
Something changed in the room. The heroes who'd arrived with polite professional indifference found that indifference replaced by something more concrete — not enthusiasm exactly, but purpose. Sekingar had the rare quality of a man whose resolve was genuinely infectious.
A satisfied smile crossed his face.
"Then let's move out." He gestured toward the tarmac, where the transport plane had been waiting for some time. "Let's go."
Z-City's no-man's-land hadn't gotten any livelier since the last time anyone had reason to walk its streets. The commercial district was exactly what it had always been — shuttered storefronts, lowered security grilles, empty intersections, the particular quiet of a place that had decided a long time ago that it didn't need people to function.
Adam, the A-Class hero whose physique could make the S-Class fitness contingent take a second look, glanced at an abandoned restaurant as they walked through. "So this is the legendary no-man's-land."
The observation landed without comment. Everyone already knew.
What arrived with comment was the sonic boom.
A swirl of displaced air and rising dust announced Number 7 a fraction of a second before he actually appeared — buzz-cut, sharkskin sprint suit, goggles, already moving at a pace that made the air visible around him. He decelerated smoothly, settling in beside the group with the casual ease of someone for whom Mach speeds were a resting state.
"Already met with the boss. Follow me."
Adam nodded and turned to the twenty-odd heroes behind him. "You heard him. Move."
This group had not come through the Hero Association's transport channels. They'd received inside information — Jordan's network ran efficiently that way — and had made their own way to Z-City from the cities they were stationed in, arriving ahead of the Association's formal mobilization.
The House of Evolution's superpowered legion, quietly inserted into the hero ranks at Jordan's direction.
Their arrival pushed the A-Class hero count at the assembly site past forty. The rest — operating at carefully managed output levels — were distributed among the B-Class and C-Class contingents, their true capabilities documented only in files that Jordan kept.
It had been several months now since the first batch subjects had taken up their positions. The gene enhancer program had gone through multiple iterations in that time; Dr. Genus's research moved quickly when properly resourced and properly motivated. The cumulative effect on the batch subjects had been substantial. Plant — Number 6, hero designation Thornman, the weakest of the seven in raw combat terms — had, through successive rounds of enhancement, developed low-end Wood Release to the point of functional deployment. His fire resistance, once a glaring liability, had improved to the point where it was simply a factor to manage rather than a fatal weakness. The gap between his starting point and his current capability was the kind of improvement that made the phrase "weakest of the seven" stop meaning what it used to mean.
Number 6, privately: Stop rubbing it in.
Led by Number 7 at a merciful ground-level pace, the group covered the no-man's-land quickly, arriving at the center zone where the assembled force had gathered. The training program graduates who'd spent last night celebrating at the Royal Manor Hotel — an occasion that had ended rather than concluded — stood alongside the heroes who'd just come in on the Association's planes, waiting for the operation to begin.
Super Alloy Darkshine stepped off the transport plane into morning air and immediately heard the sound of something very large moving toward him at high speed.
His S-Class reflexes did what S-Class reflexes do: processed the incoming trajectory, assessed mass and velocity, and raised both arms before conscious thought had fully caught up. His palms, dark skin gleaming with the improbable metallic sheen that had given his hero name its second half, came up and braced.
Contact.
A chest hit his hands with a sound that was less impact and more structural negotiation — a deep, bouncy resonance that suggested both parties involved were operating well above normal human material tolerances.
Puri-Puri Prisoner had crossed the entire tarmac in the time it had taken Darkshine's arms to clear his sides.
He stopped against the palms, eyes going slightly glassy with something that could only be described as deeply personal satisfaction.
"Oh~" The sound came from somewhere in his chest. "Little Darkshine. It's been so many days~"
Darkshine's arms held. His expression did not hold quite as well.
We're colleagues, he thought, with the controlled desperation of a man who has had this thought many times and found it only partially effective. Just colleagues. Professional distance is a concept that exists in the world.
Puri-Puri Prisoner's hand found his. Two red streaks appeared on the rugged, stubbled face — something that might have been a blush on a face with different architecture.
"I'll do my best to control myself," he said, with evident sincerity and no credible evidence that this would succeed. "But Darkshine—" the grip tightened— "these muscles. These perfect, impossible muscles. I feel like I'm losing the battle~"
Darkshine's lips moved. The words that came out were carefully measured.
"Mr. Prisoner." He maintained eye contact with the middle distance, somewhere safe. "Your enthusiasm is. Noted. I'm not accustomed to—"
"Please."
Several dozen professional heroes watched this exchange from across the lawn. Those who had received formal Hero Association training kept it together for approximately four seconds before the composure broke, laughter spreading through the assembled force with the helpless quality of something that had been held back too long.
Near the transport plane, Captain Mizuki had been staring at Super Alloy Darkshine with the particular intensity of someone who had finally located an idol in the wild. She had prepared this expression for this moment. The gleaming dark skin, the impossible physique, the whole magnificent aesthetic—
And then Puri-Puri Prisoner had charged.
Her expression had frozen mid-admiration and remained there, like a photograph taken at the exact wrong moment.
"Hm," she said, to no one in particular, the tone of someone revising a plan. "Maybe I should just set my sights on Super Cop again. At least his orientation is straightforward."
Beside her, Strong Voice had, for once, taken her music off at the exact right moment.
She stared at Mizuki.
An S-Class hero, she thought. It can't be the one I'm thinking of, right?
On the tarmac, Super Alloy Darkshine maintained his professional resistance with the focus of a man who had decided that the barbells were his relationship and intended to keep it that way.
Women only slow down training, he thought, somewhat desperately. This is fine. Everything is fine.
The morning had barely started.