Chapter 195 Two.

Chapter 195: 195 Two.

One of the undeniable downsides of hiding your secret, supervillain headquarters inside a localized, magically warded pocket dimension was that it couldn’t physically broadcast telepathy to every cape on the eastern seaboard.

You were cut off from the world, which was great for avoiding federal raids, but terrible for real-time situational awareness.

So it wasn’t exactly a shock when Rhea’s police scanners began chattering in a frantic, overlapping chorus.

A massive coalition of heroes had requisitioned the Metropolis Police Department headquarters downtown for an ’urgent tactical deliberation.’

Naturally, the cops handed over the precinct without a single complaint. In Metropolis, the police force existed entirely to unroll yellow tape, block off traffic, and do whatever the capes told them to do.

It wasn’t their fault, either. In a world populated by flying bricks, literal deities, and people who could shoot plasma out of their eyeballs, a standard-issue badge and a 9mm Glock could easily be mistaken for a middle-school hall monitor and his write-up pad.

When the gods demanded the building, mortals gave them the keys and went home early.

I get it.

Psychics mind-control people. It’s their whole gimmick. It’s what they do, and it’s practically the entire foundation of their power base.

And I’ll be the first to admit, if I took a step back and looked at it objectively, I could genuinely admire Micheal’s current plot.

Mentally dominating every independent hero in the city to create a forced, perfectly synchronized monopoly? It was an inspired, A-list scheme.

Under any other circumstances, I’d be sitting back with a bucket of popcorn, applauding the sheer, megalomaniacal audacity of it.

But not only was Micheal being depressingly corporate and sterile in his end goals—effectively trying to establish a middle-management HR department for demigods—he was using Psyren to do it.

So, fuck that guy.

He wasn’t even trying to be a proper villain. He’d actually constructed a twisted, sociopathic reality for himself where he was the ultimate good guy, and human free will was just the acceptable cost of doing business.

By the time Glacia and I took our perch on the gargoyle-lined ledge of a skyscraper overlooking the MPD precinct, it was pretty fucking apparent that Micheal knew I was coming.

A pinkish haze crackled up and down the massive stone obelisks flanking the precinct doors.

The psychic energy was so dense it was practically viscous, buzzing statically above the courtyard’s dry fountain and arcing dangerously over the golden arches that framed the entrance.

He had already powered up the Override Array, turning the entire precinct into a localized fortress of telepathic dominance.

And worse, he had deployed his newly acquired meat-puppets to hold the front line.

I crouched near the edge of the roof, the freezing wind whipping at my jacket, and dialed the magnification on my visor up to maximum. I panned slowly across the barricaded precinct courtyard.

Mister Invincible was standing dead center before the reinforced glass doors. His arms were crossed over his massive, barrel-like chest.

I swept my gaze left. I spotted the Brute perched like a gargoyle on top of the left obelisk, his eight-foot frame of enchanted, bulging muscle coiled with kinetic tension.

Rubbernecker was stretching lazily around the entrance barricades in his mustard-yellow spandex, his neck elongated like a horrific serpent.

Above them all, Cloudfire hovered a few dozen feet in the freezing night air. The elemental’s eyes glowed a blinding, solid white as he actively scanned the dark skies for incoming threats.

Sprinkled around the heavy-hitters were at least two dozen minor heroes—speedsters, energy projectors, and low-tier brawlers. And right at the front of the pack, standing rigidly at attention near the concrete barricades, was Divina.

I lowered the visor slightly and nodded in grim satisfaction.

Excellent. The precinct employees, the administrative staff, and the surrounding civilian residents were completely gone. The streets were dead quiet, save for the hum of the Array.

That was the primary reason I’d had Rhea loudly and digitally announce my impending arrival. The heroes had predictably evacuated the entire city block to minimize collateral casualties, and Micheal was arrogant enough to rely solely on his mind-wiped Bureau heavy-hitters to put me down.

Even if I was actively blowing up my quiet, highly profitable reputation as a mercenary-for-hire by doing this, there was absolutely no reason to paste a bunch of innocent bystanders just to prove a point to a gray-suited bureaucrat.

I raised the binoculars again, doing a final sweep of the defensive perimeter. Breaching that line of capes was going to be an absolute nightmare. It was a suicide mission by any standard metric. But it was exactly what I’d asked for.

And tonight, I wasn’t wearing my armor.

I was in my mob suit. A perfectly tailored, charcoal-gray three-piece wool suit, complete with a silver silk tie and polished Italian leather oxfords. Because this wasn’t a paid show. There were no corporate sponsors, no PR reps, and no cameras. Polaris wasn’t here to do a job. Miles was here to settle a score.

"It appears your provocation was highly successful, sir," Glacia said smoothly, stepping up beside me and lowering her own pair of high-end tactical binoculars. "There is a rather formidable number of heroes waiting down there."

I looked over at her, trying very hard not to stare at the crudely fashioned, crinkled tin-foil hat sitting absurdly atop her aristocratic, perfectly braided white hair. She wore it with the solemn dignity of a queen wearing a crown of thorns, refusing to acknowledge how ridiculous it looked.

"I know," I grunted, rolling the deep tension out of my shoulders. The wool of my suit pulled tight against my back. I reached up and tapped the encrypted transceiver built into my collar. "Rhea? Status."

"Beautiful, Miles," Rhea purred into my ear. Her voice was layered over the frantic, high-speed clacking of a mechanical keyboard. "I’ve successfully triggered the deep-sea seismic alarms all across the bay area. Every independent hero in the city is currently hauling ass toward the docks, entirely convinced a Class-5 Kaiju is about to rise out of the harbor and stomp on the financial district. Nobody is going to interrupt your little party with the Bureau. Honestly, if you’d just given me a week, I could have built you an actual Kaiju!"

"We don’t have a week," I said grimly.

Rhea sighed, a tragic, dramatic sound of thwarted mad science. "No, no, I get it. Emergency services are entirely diverted to the coast, too. But that won’t last long once the explosions start downtown."

"I know. By the way, about the other thing..."

"Tracking it now, Miles. I’ve got at least six likely targets entering your optimal magnetic range."

"One will do. We don’t need too much collateral damage."

"Always the worrywart," she teased, a wicked smile clear in her voice. "The city has infrastructure insurance, Miles! That’s literally what it’s for!"

"No, Rhea."

"Fine, fine. Then I guess we’re all set on my end."

I nodded, tapping the collar to cut the comms. I turned away from the drop and glanced back at the ice manipulator.

"Ready?"

"Yes, sir," Glacia said softly.

She was practically vibrating with icy anticipation. A thin, crystalline layer of frost was actively spiderwebbing across the rooftop gravel beneath her boots, the air temperature plummeting around us as she summoned her power.

That made two of us.

I knew I shouldn’t be this eager to wage an open, one-man war against the BSA. It was a massive professional mistake. A complete career ender. Once I threw the first punch, I could never go back to being a comfortable, well-paid heel.

But deep down, buried beneath the pragmatic mercenary logic and the cynical self-preservation... there was a dark, undeniable thrill to the idea.

A heavy, euphoric adrenaline rush at the thought of finally taking off the kid gloves.

To cutting loose, abandoning the script, and seeing exactly how my raw, unrestrained power stacked up against the biggest, baddest hero group on the planet.

"Alright," I breathed.

I closed my eyes for a fraction of a second, feeling the deep, resonant magnetic fields of the entire city humming violently against my skin.

"Let’s do this."