Chapter 639: Superhero Pose

The six figures standing opposite them were not the desperate, barely trained attackers they had met earlier in the vegetation.

These were something else entirely. Their power sat on a level that matched Benjamin's own, and they possessed it with the ease of people who had lived with it for a long time.

Benjamin glanced at her once more, already beginning to walk toward the six figures.

His steps were unhurried, his hands remained loose, and his eyes stayed forward.

"I just checked thoroughly. The Rat has big connections to the Lot district, but they are not here. There is going to be massive unrest one way or another as things stand. So use that opportunity to save those lab rats. Don't come to me except when I call you, okay?"

Erica looked from Benjamin to the six women and back again. Each of them felt tremendously powerful.

The decision cost her a visible moment of struggle — her hands flexed once at her sides, her weight shifted as though she still wanted to stay, her jaw tightened and then relaxed.

But she nodded once, sharp and final. "I will trust you, Benjamin!"

She turned and ran.

The katana swung at her waist with every stride, the scabbard catching the afternoon light in brief flashes as she disappeared down the nearest side street.

Benjamin watched her go until she vanished around the corner.

Only then did he turn fully back to the group that had come for him.

The smile remained on his face, quieter now, almost curious. He studied the bearded figure for a long moment then spoke.

"Before we start anything," he said, "why is that man wearing a cheerleader's costume with English alphabet on it? 'Apex'? Last time I checked, English isn't a thing in Elyndor."

The moment the word "man" left Benjamin's mouth in reference to the bearded figure, the entire group began to seep bloodlust.

The pressure of it rolled outward in a low, dangerous wave — thick and heavy, pressing against the walls of the street, making the air itself feel sharp.

The pressure came from all of them except from the individual who had been named.

That one remained still, expression unchanged, as though the accusation had no power to disturb whatever private thought currently occupied the mind.

The others stepped closer.

Their movement was not aggressive. It was the slow, deliberate advance of people who had already decided the shape of the next few minutes and were simply arranging themselves for it.

The crossdresser held the edge of the white crop top out so the written characters were clearly visible under the light. "Do you truly know what is written here?"

Benjamin looked at the fabric without hurry.

His eyes moved across the lettering and the symbols with the calm of someone reading a familiar page.

There was no hesitation in his gaze, no searching for meaning. He simply read.

"Hm? Yeah, it's 'Apex.' The other things are symbols at the front and back."

The bearded figure's mouth curved into a soft smile.

A smile that belonged to memory rather than the present moment.

The expression lingered for a breath, small and private, holding the burden of something remembered from a long distance.

"Thank you for telling me." The bearded figure said it quietly. The soft smile that had appeared earlier still lingered at the corners of the mouth, quieter now, touched with relief. "I've been searching for the meaning for centuries."

The relief of a person who had been carrying a question for a very long time and had finally, unexpectedly, heard an answer.

"Uhm... how old are you?" Benjamin broke out in a cold sweat.

The face in front of him looked young — too young for the gravity of that claim.

The skin was smooth and the features were clean and unlined. There was no visible sign of age anywhere on the broad, muscular frame or the calm, settled expression.

Benjamin wiped at nothing on his forehead with the back of one hand and then nodded too, as though trying to catch up with information that had already outpaced him.

"I see, I see." The sudden, repeated "I see" caught the entire group off guard.

Their postures shifted by small, almost invisible degrees; their eyes narrowed a fraction, and concern moved through them like a shared current.

Benjamin's gaze moved across them one by one.

What his senses and Sys together had already begun to unravel now settled into clear, spoken shapes.

"A half oni," he said, voice mild and conversational, as though he were listing the contents of a market stall. "A mid-level spirit using a human's body. A beastkin. And two arch humans—one of them specifically an elementalist."

His eyes lingered for a moment on the smallest figure, the one still wrapped in dark gothic fabric and silence. "The small girl is quite uptight, hiding her information from Sys."

The effect was immediate and collective. The group tensed as one.

Mental barriers that had been merely present a moment earlier clamped shut with deliberate, practiced force.

Accessibility that had been left open for observation was sealed in an instant, and whatever understanding they had held of Benjamin only seconds before was now being torn down and rebuilt under harder, more cautious light.

He had named them too accurately, too quickly, and the ease of it unsettled them more than any open threat could have done.

Benjamin stretched.

Both hands rose above his head; his back arched a little as the muscles along his spine lengthened and then released.

The movement was ordinary and visibly lazy, the kind of stretch a person might make after sitting too long.

When he straightened again he looked at them directly, his blue eyes steady.

"I don't know why you came to find me... but I'm really strong, you know. Just a heads-up."

***

Benjamin stood in the middle of the narrow Lot street, confronted by the group of women whose hostility had been clear from the moment they arrived.

He had used that hostility as the opening Erica needed. While she ran to begin the systematic destruction of the magic lairs scattered through the district, he remained behind with the six who had come for him.

Before she could finish decimating every hidden laboratory, he expected the business with his new "friends" would already be concluded one way or another.

"Well, well." The woman with the ponytail smiled at him. The expression carried both amusement and a fresh layer of calculation, as though she were revising an earlier assessment in real time. "It appears we underestimated you a little."

"Heh. A little?" Benjamin snickered softly, the sound low and private, almost to himself.

She continued without rising to the mild provocation, her tone remaining smooth and practiced. "Allow us to introduce ourselves. My name is Zanya."

The cat beastkin stepped forward half a pace. White fangs flashed in a bright, open grin that managed to look both friendly and predatory at the same time. "My name is Sekhmet, nice to meet you!"

The girl with the multicolored spiky hair spoke next. Her tone was flat and precise, each word measured as though it had already been weighed for accuracy.

"I am called Zuri, and I am an elementalist as you pointed out."

The tall, muscular figure folded both arms across the chest and squinted at Benjamin with clear, lingering displeasure.

The small beard at the chin shifted slightly with the motion of the jaw. "My name is Hawthorne, and it was certainly rude of you to call me a man so tactlessly."

[My problem with him is that he looks every bit the protagonist I wanted to be] Benjamin thought, [watching the broad shoulders and the clean lines of the face, but he's perverting everything in the end].

The blonde woman with the heterochromic red-and-pink eyes rested her fingers more deeply against the thin staff she held.

The wide circular top of the staff caught the afternoon light and held it for a moment. "You may know me as Saharit."

The smallest figure spoke last. The voice was barely more than a hush, as though volume itself were something to be rationed. "...Frigoris..."

Then, as though the introductions had been only the necessary prelude to a larger declaration, they spoke at once.

The timing was perfect, the unity practiced. "And together, we are the Apex Girls!"

Each of them struck a distinctive pose — some sharp and combat-ready, some theatrical and deliberate, all executed with the rehearsed unity of people who had done this many times before and expected the announcement to land with significance.

[So... I'm the only one being embarrassed by this turn of events?] Benjamin thought it.

The cold sweat that had appeared earlier returned, thin and unwelcome along the back of his neck, [Adult women playing magical girls, a crossdressing muscle-bound man, and superhero poses... If they're expecting something like that from me, I may as well start throwing hands already].

He felt the embarrassment settle deeper, an awkward heat that had nothing to do with the afternoon sun.

The cheerfulness of the announcement still hung in the air like something he was expected to applaud or at least acknowledge with matching energy.

"Uh... my name is Benjamin Mark," he said it, the words coming out a fraction slower than usual, still edged with residual discomfort, "It seems you lot already knew who I was... Can I ask how that happened?"

Zanya's smile did not fade. She drew her sword in one smooth motion.