Chapter 46
Snakes in a Snakepit
The portals winked out as Augustus released his hold on them. The last shimmer faded, leaving him and Annie standing in the lobby facing off against two superheroes and over a dozen guards.
Beside him, Annie cracked her neck as metal rippled up to replace the top half of her body.
Across from them, the guards’ rifles ripped free of their hands. Augustus didn’t even need to look to know it was Alexander. They spiraled upward, clatte...
2025-09-27 13:09:11 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 45
Start of a Rivalry
Alexander found his suite occupied by the rest of the team, seated around the holo while Talia flicked through building schematics of one facility after another. One section showed lines of scrolling text, detailing the intel they had along with force projections for each location.
“You’re late,” Talia said, voice even. “But we’ve narrowed the best option to a research facility in the city.”
Alexander joined them. “Walk me ...
2025-09-27 13:08:42 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 44
Villain with a Milkshake
Alexander took another sip of his milkshake and let the chocolate hit.
Thick and cold and exactly as rich and overindulgent as it needed to be. He sat with one arm draped across the back of a second chair, a light artificial breeze teasing at his hair. The cafe overlooked a set of stone steps that led down into a public park full of lush greenery imported from Earth and the artificial lighting that kept the plants alive.
It surpris...
2025-09-27 13:07:45 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 43
Every Villain Needs a Hobby
Annie spat blood onto the arena floor and grinned.
The crowd roared around her. Tiered seating packed shoulder to shoulder, shadows cut by spotlights, fans pressed against reinforced glass. The cage rose to the ceiling.
No escape. No mercy.
Just how I like it.
Her opponent sagged against the far wall, wheezing through broken ribs. A slab of mutant muscle with dino-hide skin and claws like machetes. He had ri...
2025-09-27 13:07:14 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 42
War Chest
They agreed on one thing first: accommodations and privacy before anything else.
A nearby hotel offered suites free of charge, courtesy of their new status and cards. Four rooms in total, paired with adjoining doors. Alexander and Augustus took one set. Talia and Annie the other. None of them expected to stay longer than a few days.
They gathered in Alexander’s suite. The open floor plan and high ceilings gave it space to breathe, thick carpet ...
2025-09-27 13:06:14 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 41
An Audience with Royalty
The double doors opened without a sound, revealing a broad reception area.
Marble tiles gleamed under warm golden light, broken only by the shadowed silhouettes of two more guards in lacquered crimson armor. They stood like carved statues on either side of the far doors, hands resting lightly on polearms that shimmered along their edges.
Alexander sent out a pulse of Technopathy, brushing the room with his senses.
The guards ...
2025-09-27 13:05:34 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 40
The Queen Awaits
The team gathered in the armory. Alexander had already geared up, triple-checking his new drones before commanding them to hover behind him like silent shadows. He wore his lightweight torso rig with reinforced chest panels, then slipped the shoulder holster over it, tonfa swaying at his sides. Finally, he pulled on the black off-world leather duster, letting the familiar weight settle across his shoulders.
“Everything fit in the closet?” he...
2025-09-27 13:05:06 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 39
Storage Closet
THREE DAYS LATER
Alexander leaned back from his workbench, eyeing his handiwork. Admiring it, but judging it just as critically. He’d taken apart the original drone as a template and managed to build two of his own in the limited time he had.
They were inferior. Armor was the main issue. He didn’t have access to the alloys used in the original, and even if he did, he lacked the machinery to shape them. His two handmade d...
2025-09-27 13:04:33 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 38
Barely Superhuman
The armory door clicked shut behind them, sealing them off from the rest of the world.
“We might be overdoing it with the paranoia,” Alexander said, dragging a hand through damp hair. “If someone tried to eavesdrop, I’d probably pick up on it.”
He and Augustus had just hit the threshold to ascend more of their stats. They’d taken the time to do it and to get cleaned up before the team’s show and tell.
“You might be r...
2025-09-27 13:03:55 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 37
We Are Grimnir
Alexander groaned as Annie rolled off him.
“Oh, shit,” Annie gasped. “Sorry, I didn’t know what else to do!”
His sternum had been aching ever since the empowered skeleton backhanded him at the museum, and Annie’s metal shoulder hadn’t helped. He wasn’t sure if the crack he’d heard was from the tackle or a fractured rib.
And he was still bleeding. He reactivated his Electrokinesis, tightening muscles and tendons to cla...
2025-09-27 13:02:30 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 36
A Will of Steel
Alexander smiled to himself. Things had been touch and go for a moment, but the team had pulled it off. One of the remaining drone feeds showed Augustus and Talia, both awkwardly trying to support each other as they limped up the stairs to level three.
“Don’t forget the loot,” Alexander subvocalized across the implant, watching them shuffle like wounded pack mules.
Augustus glanced up at the drone with a weary grin hidden behind his m...
2025-09-27 13:01:52 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 35
Realm of the Mind
Talia moved like a dancer.
The moment her pack hit the ground, she had twin half-staves in her hands, drawn from between the fuel tanks. Augustus hadn’t even realized she carried them. She spun and stepped, breaking down skeletons before they could fully rise. When one managed to get close, she cracked its skull, and it shattered like glass.
He didn’t have time to admire her skill. The Puppeteer was still standing.
Threads snapp...
2025-09-27 13:01:17 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 34
A Hint of Scales
Alexander recalled most of his drones with a flex of will. Two remained active, drifting quietly on Pandora’s floor and in the basement feeding him real-time intel.
The rest were for Ripper.
He forced the rusted rooftop door open with a grunt. Hinges groaned loud enough to betray him, but there was no helping it. He slipped inside, footsteps echoing softly as he descended three flights of stairs.
The hum of power grew stronger the ...
2025-09-27 13:00:31 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 33
Every Monster Has a Lair
Alexander couldn’t help but laugh at the chaos on the rooftop.
Stepping out of the portal, he’d expected at least a brief fight to subdue the remaining hero. Instead, he found Talia’s weapons, some bent at odd angles, scattered across the rooftop.
One section of the roof was scorched and shattered, while the rest was cracked from heavy impacts.
Talia leaned against the low wall at the roof’s edge, favoring her side, w...
2025-09-27 12:59:29 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 32
Curtain Close
Glass crunched beneath Alexander’s boots as he approached the florist. The building had caught fire before the armored hero crashed through the window. Black smoke billowed from within.
He glanced toward the base of the stairs leading up to the museum, gauging the battlefield.
Everything had been going well before the heroes arrived. Damn them.
Reaching for his belt, he released the mini-drones, scattering them across the bat...
2025-09-27 12:58:14 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 31
No Allies Here
Alexander was barely two steps from reaching his target. Mercy was healing, but even with her incredible power, she clearly couldn’t repair spinal and internal damage with a casual thought.
Auggy kept sending precise blasts of energy into the crowd, clearing the last few still standing in the way.
Alexander stood over Mercy, raised a crackling tonfa, and drove it toward her throat.
A skeletal hand caught it before it landed. He froze...
2025-09-27 12:57:16 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 30
Masks Against Monsters
They woke around eight.
It was a subdued morning. Auggy had laid out a breakfast spread by the time the others emerged: toast, eggs, bacon, sausages, and a full pot of soul-black coffee that steamed in the cool morning air.
Annie helped him, then helped herself to a heaped pile, muttering good mornings through a mouthful before wandering off to get dressed.
Half an hour later, they were all geared and ready.
Alexander buc...
2025-09-27 12:56:15 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 29
The Hunt Begins
By the time they finally moved out, the sun was high overhead. After everything the night before, they had agreed that real sleep mattered more than an early start.
Breakfast passed in near silence. Augustus had slipped out almost as soon as he woke, off to scout sewer access points around the district ring they had narrowed down the night before. Without him, the group moved through their routines, missing the familiar rhythm of his home-cooked ...
2025-09-27 12:55:16 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 28
The Die is Cast
Hours later, the team sat around a display of digitized notes and images projected across the holo.
Each had finished their assignments, passing intel to Talia, who swiftly collated it into what they saw now: videos, images, and notes, all connected by glowing lines.
To Alexander, it looked like a spider web.
“…and so, having concluded my analysis,” Talia said, her tone sharp, “I am certain of the following. First, there are f...
2025-09-27 12:54:29 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 27
Winning Is Better
Returning to Frank’s workshop felt almost nostalgic for Alexander, though it had only been a few months. Scars from the attack still marked the place. The doorframe around the showroom was blackened. The storage closet had been gutted entirely and roped off.
The biggest change were the laminated printouts taped around the room, each with the same words in bold: Surveillance. Press the button.
He spotted it immediately. A classi...
2025-09-27 12:53:58 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 26
Grim Beginnings
Augustus had been working on a secret project ever since they had arrived at his secluded home. Packages had been delivered over the months, each vanishing into the one room of the house marked as off-limits.
Alexander and Talia accepted his firm but polite refusal to explain, knowing he’d reveal it in his own time.
Annie, by contrast, begged with puppy-eyes and exaggerated whines whenever a new package arrived. Auggy smiled but ...
2025-09-27 12:52:12 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 25
No Heroes Coming
Alexander gathered the others in the living room.
The wording was grandiose, but the decision was simple.
---------------
[ Veritus Praxis Neuroadaptive Noetic Implant: Series 1 - Ascensus ]
Congratulations, Alexander. Your Perception is ready to ascend. Ascension is the means through which you shall abandon mundanity, walk amongst the Stars, bend reality to your Will, and Continue your Dream.<...
2025-09-27 12:50:58 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 24
End of the Tutorial
Alexander had come to accept the loud, absurd parts of his new reality.
Superheroes? Check. Aliens? Sure. Gaining stats like reality is a game? Why not? Go big or go home!
What he was still struggling with was the most boring part of it all.
Why the hell am I four or five years younger?
He’d been born in 2053. It was 2079 when he died and woke in this reality, wearing his own stolen body.
One of the...
2025-09-27 12:49:54 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 23
Lies Do A Villain Make
Luther Kincaid stumbled into an alley a couple blocks from the police station. He swiped angrily, and uselessly, at the fire suppression foam that coated him from head to toe.
I’m gonna murder that asshole when I see him again. Nobody messes with Luther Kincaid.
Benny followed close behind, shaking himself like a dog and flinging foam in every direction.
Luther spun on him, snarling. “The hell you mean it was the p...
2025-09-27 12:49:09 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 22
Masks and Prophecies
Alexander stood in Augustus’ living room, waiting for the big man to finish his spellwork. It was a fascinating nuance in what had so far been a fairly comprehensible system of powers. Once he’d gotten over the disbelief. Mostly.
He glanced at what he held in his hands: a demonic mask. Menacing and elegant, its obsidian-like finish seemed to absorb light, while regal golden accents picked out long, sharpened teeth and short, curved horns...
2025-09-27 12:48:08 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 21
Our First Injustice
The portal in Augustus’ apartment vanished with a faint whoosh of air.
Alexander leaned forward, hands braced on his knees, breathing through a nose that protested with every inhale. It wasn’t broken, but the sharp throb and wet sting said it had come close.
She nearly broke my nose.
Annie dropped into an armchair with a heavy thud, liquid metal arms rippling in agitation. Talia crouched near the door, her back and he...
2025-09-27 12:47:21 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 20
Nutcracker
Flashpoint was steaming. Literally. The heat rolling off him boiled the rain before it could touch him, bursting droplets into vapor. And inside, his emotions boiled much the same.
Finding the fugitives hadn’t been hard. He still had loyal fans in every corner of the city, and one had posted about seeing Sheridan exit a nearby subway. From there it was just a matter of looking for anything suspicious.
He hovered above The Hollowed Die, some cr...
2025-09-27 12:46:30 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 19
Perfection Meets Ambition and Heart
True to Augustus’ word, things at The Hollowed Die calmed down by 3 a.m.
They shared a light meal of B.L.T. sandwiches. Annie sat across from the holo, absorbed in the psychic corgi’s latest adventures, while Alexander pulled up the address and publicly available building blueprints for the police station holding Frank.
The blueprints were useful but incomplete. No sign of which level or room held the evidence. He re...
2025-09-27 12:45:46 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 18
The First Game Room
Alexander stepped off the hyperloop half an hour later, Annie trailing a half-step behind with her hoodie up, cowboy hat perched on top, and a katana strapped across her back.
He’d long since given up trying to make sense of her chaos. Nobody so much as gave her a second glance, regardless of style or her being armed with a lethal weapon.
Despite his longer stride, Annie kept pace. “So, this Auggy guy we’re going to see—”
<...
2025-09-27 12:45:12 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 17
Blackout
“You want me to drive?” Annie asked suspiciously.
Alexander glared at her, incredulous that she’d chosen now to argue.
“Yes, Annie! Get over here and take the wheel!”
She narrowed her eyes. “But you hate my driving…”
“This is not the time!” he growled.
Lights and sirens screamed behind them. Half a dozen police hovercars pursued their stolen Lux Aero. They had taken too long to shake Iron Nadya. She was capabl...
2025-09-27 12:44:34 +0000 UTC
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