Earth, July 2058

  “Hello, fellow Earthian youths!” Eron smiled down at the youths with their colorful motorcycle and bug-themed armor as he landed. “Don’t be afraid, I’m just a fellow customer for this fine butchery.” He gestured at the huge butcher shop while placing the walk-in freezer on the ground.

  “Ummm…” the young woman in the red and black said eloquently.

  “Kamen Riders? Fun! Transforming motorcycles yet?”

  “Uhhh…”

  “Well, keep at it! I think you have to at least hit Level 30 to get the chance for that. Now, excuse me. I have an order to pick up.”

  “Errr…”

  It looked like the team might’ve objected, but a young man came out of the warehouse-sized building waving frantically.

  Eron sniffed at the iron scents coming off the young man.

  The curse of superior senses.

  He smelled the blood, the sweat and the cow farts that hung above the massive ranch that stretched out in all direction for miles. Or kilometers according to his high-tech glasses.

  They still refused his monthly requests to give him the option to switch to the objectively superior unit of measurement.

  What a bunch of petty tyrants.

  “Hello, fellow young Earthian male!”

  The kamen riders parted like tiny little fishies partying for a huge shark as he strode through to shake the wide-eyed young butcher’s hands.

  The youth had washed them, but the faint scent of iron still clung to them.

  “I’m here to pick up my order.”

  The young butcher bowed.

  “Uh… please give us time to put everything together.”

  “Hmmm? I’m on a tight schedule.”

  “Apologies, preferred customer-san, but a very large order came in on short notice with higher priority.”

  “Emperor or JSDF?”

  “I don’t know, valued customer-san.”

  “Well, I can’t blame you guys for assholes playing petty power games. Can I?” he mused.

  The young butcher bowed again and again.

  “Very many apologies.”

  “Relax, I’m not mad. So, how long do you think it’ll take to get my order done?”

  “We’re rushing, customer-san. All breaks are canceled and everyone on their off days have been called in.”

  “That’s a lot of overtime. Ouch town type of OT. I remember those days. Sucked for sure, butcher-san.”

  Ironically, the amount of time he spent working in the pre-spires days was a fraction of the amount of time he spent working post-spires.

  Granted, he never really got physically tired and only really needed an hour or two sleep on a weekly basis to avoid psychological issues.

  Therefore, he didn’t miss out on much in regards to time with his wife, kid, other family and friends.

  The young butcher gulped down a huge lump of fear.

  “Four hours, customer-san.”

  “Well… that won’t work for me. But, I’m not a Karen.” He shrugged. “Is it a butchery issue?”

  “Apologies, but I don’t understand.”

  “Stop it, dude. Not your fault. Is it a processing carcasses issue?”

  “Ah! Yes!”

  “Perfect! I can help. At least get my order done. I’ll just need someone to give me directions and I won’t even complain about it or try to cop a discount! That’s right! You guys get to keep the entire fee!”

  “Er… let me ask my superior, customer-san. I’ll be right back.”

  The young butcher beat a hasty retreat as if the very hounds of the hell were on his heels.

  A few minutes chatting with the kamen riders youths tided him over until the owner master butcher emerged with the butcher youth in tow.

  Poor kid.

  Set up as a sacrificial lamb.

  Eron dropped him a few hundred Universal Points through the spires’ interface with a thought.

  He gave the kid a head nod and the universal shush gesture.

  “So, Wagyu Lord of Butchery. I take it my proposal is acceptable.”

  The old man bowed.

  “Apologies again, Cruces-san. Yes, it is acceptable.”

  Thus did the young butcher give him directions while he carved through several cattle carcasses with unerring speed and precision.

  A few other young men and women handled the vacuum sealing and packaging before carting them out to his freezer of holding.

  “Just stick them in. Don’t wiggle them around or anything like that. The magic will take care of everything.”

  He finished in fifteen minutes and still within his schedule.

  “Please, will you not allow me to make amends?” The old owner followed him outside.

  “We agreed on the price. Not your fault you can’t tell the Emperor or JSDF to wait. Besides, good quality beef is good quality beef. Until next time.”

  Eron grabbed the huge freezer by its special carrying cable and flew to Tokyo.

  …

  “Get on, loser!” He grinned at the young man blinking up at him like a young Japanese man with the ability to transform into a red oni with heat powers or a blue oni with cold powers.

  “I don’t have my things, Eron-sama,” Hiroki Ando said.

  Eron was early, which meant he caught Hiroki in a small park.

  The time of day meant that the park was filled with people.

  Lots of kids, their parents and JSDF protection.

  Spaces frequented by high numbers of people contained dedicated protective measures like the soldiers and emergency bunkers within quick running distance.

  He waved at the kids.

  “Nah, dude. You won’t need any of that stuff. You’re not going to have any time to read or play video games or whatever. When you aren’t lifting, you’re eating or sleeping.”

  “But… my clothes?” Hiroki tried.

  “That’s also taken care of. All training, all the time, baby!”

  “Where do I—” Hiroki eyed the huge freezer dangling at the end of the cable dubiously.

  “Anywhere. Just strap yourself to the harness and hang on to the handholds.”

  …

  Eron flew into Seoul with every defense they had locked on him despite having given them plenty of warning and having been granted permission.

  Usually, he’d just fly in too fast to track until the very last safe moment possible to avoid his sonic booms causing damage to their buildings and people.

  He couldn’t do that on account of carrying a passenger.

  Poor kid had to transform to deal with the wind speed and freezing temps of high-altitude flight.

  It was good practice.

  “Get on, loser.”

  He found his next pick up eating a huge plate of meat inside his high-rise condo.

  The teenager chewed mouth open, like a cow, for a few seconds as it took his conscious brain time to catch up to the sight hovering outside his window.

  “But, but, but… my food?”

  “Nah, dude. It’s handled. Your guys are going to take care of your place. You want to get stronger? Better shit or get off the shitter or someone else gets your spot.”

  The young man gave his plate one last look before opening his window and jumping onto the freezer next to Hiroki.

  “Oh and you’re going to have to give me your real name.” Eron already knew it, but such things needed to be handled with the proper politeness. “I’m not calling you The Mighty Tiger. You know who says The? Insufferable, insecure people that can’t stand on their own merits.”

  “I… don’t understand?”

  “Eh, no biggie. You’ll figure it out by the time we get there.”

  …

  There was the Atacama Desert in Chile, or what was once Chile, between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes Mountains.

  “Training arc begins!” Eron said with self-satisfied smugness as he took in all the work he put into the little circular compound with a five mile radius.

  Captain Patriot stared at him with the faint white glow behind her blindfold.

  “You promised that the security situation would be taken care of.”

  “And I delivered.”

  “Rotting monster carcasses isn’t a proper perimeter.”

  The point was reasonable from some perspectives.

  “They’ll scare other monsters away.”

  “Some monsters are attracted to the death miasma. Especially of powerful monsters. I saw a kraken out there and what I are demons… why the demons? They’re essentially radioactive.”

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “You’re right with your first point. That’s what the demons are for. Everything stays away from those.”

  “The magical corruption?”

  “We’re in the middle of the most arid desert on the planet. Barely any life to be corrupted. The closest people place is a port city to the north, like, eight hundred miles or something like that. You might get a few enterprising sorts wanting to do the encounter challenges or spawn zones around here every once in a while, but I put up warning signs.”

  He had also warned the locals to stay away for a month or two.

  The training arc was only set for two weeks, but it’d take longer for the demonic taint to recede to human safe levels after he punted the remains toward the Sun and had people come do the magic cleanup.

  Wytchraven’s witches were looking forward to getting their hands on some very diluted demon essence.

  Ms. Teacher had offered to handle all the clean up for free, which was suspicious of the mercenary immortal from another world.

  So, in the interest of fairness he had split the opportunity among several different individuals and groups.

  As for the monsters that weren’t demons or demon-melded?

  He was selling their parts to people like the magus of the however many eyes she was up to now once he was done with using them as deterrence.

  “And furthermore… isn’t security the reason you’ve invited yourself? Didn’t want to let your hybrids get dangerous ideas?” He waggled his brows.

  “My superiors may think that way. I just want to make sure they’re safe.”

  “Sure, sure. It’s just weird to me that you’d leave New York City to come all the way to South America. Aren’t you leaving your people defenseless? Doesn’t seem like the Captain Patriot I know. The one that cares about nothing else than keeping America on top. You guys still calling yourselves ‘America’, by the way?”

  “My reasons are here.”

  “Ah, the youths. They are our futures. Although, you aren’t looking much older than the first time we met. Do you remember?”

  “Yes.”

  “There we were trying to do good for a small town and for ‘reasons’ your soldiers didn’t like that. Tried to turn me into a slave, tried to rape my future wife and killed our friend.”

  “I can’t go back and change the past.”

  “Sure, you apologized, but that doesn’t bring him back, does it? Then you people threw in with fake gods instead of working with people from this planet. Genius that. Thou shalt not worship false gods. Thought that was in the Bible. Where did that lead?”

  His nephew dead.

  But he didn’t say it.

  “The death of what was America.” Captain Patriot sighed. “I’m not blind to those truths.”

  “Why still work for them then?”

  “I told you, my reasons are here.”

  “You know I was surprised to find out you guys were still making hybrids.”

  “Ethically. All are real volunteers and they are only created when the chances of failure are nearly zero.”

  “Nearly isn’t zero.”

  “We haven’t lost a single one.”

  “Yet.”

  “The people need protection.”

  “They can have it. All they need to do is move.”

  “Shouldn’t they have the freedom to decide?”

  “Oh? Don’t they? I’m pretty sure they do.”

  “Then what’s your problem?”

  “You.” He locked eyes to white glow. “You prop the whole thing up. You leave or even spend less time and people will see that their best interests are elsewhere. Instead of, in turn, propping up a handful of elites that somehow still cling to the remnants of their power like gross barnacles on rusting ship’s hull.”

  “I sense you’re frustration.”

  “Yeah? Good, cause I’m not trying to hide it.”

  “And yet you still bring us supplies.”

  “That’s something you and your leaders never understood about me. I’m not evil.”

  Captain Patriot laughed, which was new to him.

  Not that they were friends.

  Merely, vague acquaintances that had crossed paths several times over the decades.

  Only the first handful of fights when he had first crossed America on foot before he could truly fly had been close.

  “It’s ironic to me as a soldier that you’re upset about what my leadership has done when you could’ve stopped them at any time in the last thirty years. All the damage they did that you complain about? Could’ve put an end to that. It’s a shame, a shame you people waited so long. Cost so many lives.”

  “You have no idea what we cost ourselves.”

  “And you’re repeating the same mistakes, by your standards, allowing America to continue to exist.”

  “Nah, not falling for the bait. I step in and you’ll be complaining about tyranny and oppression. You should handle your own business.”

  “I’m a soldier. Not a leader.”

  “Problem with soldiers is they’ll follow the leader no matter how shit. The way I see it, you’re out of excuses. No more eidolons or demigods that you can’t just straight up fight. You can beat the crap out of everyone in your tiny city-state thing.”

  “Your words can’t change my mind.” Captain Patriot grunted. “So, how’d you make those weights so heavy and small?”

  “That was a terrible segue. Your exile has murdered your social skills. You really need to spend more time just straight up talking to normal people.” He chuckled. “Then again, I can probably say the same about myself. And to answer your question. My brother visited for a bit on break from running his underground mole empire. He squeezed the iron, upping the density. Made it ultradense or hyperdense. Whichever is bigger. I guess it’s not technically iron anymore. The bars are Threnium to handle the weight.”

  “You turned that into barbells?”

  “They’ll get plenty of use.” He shrugged. “The rest of the equipment I made out of cranes, train parts, ship anchor chains, giant stones and a little bit of hole digging.”

  She raised a brow in a way that suggested she wasn’t impressed.

  “I saw.”

  “Well, feel free to use the equipment when you’re not patrolling or whatever. Not like I’ve got specific duties in mind for you. Surprised you’re even here in the first place.”

  “Daddy!”

  A rush of wind, a shower of dirt and sand.

  His daughter appeared.

  “Er… dad…”

  “Yes, sweetie?”

  “We’re done setting up the food tent. We’re hungry. What container are the snacks in?”

  “S-4.”

  “I don’t know why you didn’t just paint ‘snacks’.” Lera rolled her eyes. “It’s not like there’s even four snack containers. Thanks, Dad. Uh, I guess we’re just waiting on you to do your lame welcome speech thing.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  With one last smile at her father and a scowl for Captain Patriot, she leapt into the sky.

  “Just needs to work on the landing,” he nodded. “Comes in too hot, you know how it is?”

  “I certainly don’t.”

  “Eh, well, kids grow up so fast these days. One day they’re calling you ‘daddy’ in public, the next it’s just ‘dad’ on account of the embarrassment.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  …

  Eron regarded the gathering of superhumanly strong youths.

  He had at least some level of familiarity with most of them.

  Some, he was a lot closer to than others.

  Like, his daughter, for example.

  Or Little Gryphy, who wasn’t so little anymore.

  The winged young man looked like he had grown a foot and a half since the last time Eron had seen him in person.

  How long ago was that?

  A year?

  Two?

  He made a mental note to drop in and visit Little Lily.

  Not that the Queen of London needed him minding her.

  She’d done good.

  It’d be more for the random lord, lady or parliament person that might’ve been getting coup-y thoughts.

  Queen Lily could handle her business.

  But, he had a soft spot for her going way back.

  You don’t change someone’s diapers a time or two without developing protective feelings.

  Then there was little Katyusha.

  He didn’t know the girl at all.

  Fifteen year’s old and almost as tall as him.

  He supposed she wasn’t that little.

  It was surprising that her mother had allowed her to join the training arc considering much of her superhuman strength came from being on literal Russian soil. Hence the containers of soil sent over with the girl. Oh, and the bodyguards pretending to be a lot weaker than they actually were.

  He winked at the grim-faced soldiers and warriors pretending to be royal maids and what not.

  There was Captain Patriot’s young hybrids and one girl with a very suspicious powerset. A red glare behind her eyes that enhanced her body to superhuman levels. He guessed it’d take some time before she could impart the glow to objects to make them unbreakable.

  Kelci and Olive from his brother’s team thing stood next to Lera.

  He was glad that they were around to keep each other safe from the boys.

  It took effort not to get instinctively angry at the appraising looks his daughter and the other girls got from boys that thought they were slick enough to get past his superior senses.

  He had to let it go.

  It wasn’t like he hadn’t done the same when he was their age.

  There was a handful of youths from the Phoenix Dynasty. Not part of the royal family, but betrothed to youths in the royal family.

  Weird shit, but as long as they were all going into it open-eyed and willingly it wasn’t his place to get involved.

  Unless they asked him for help to get out of it.

  He made another mental note to probe around and see if any of them weren’t happy in their current situations and wanted out.

  “Alright, kids. You all know the rules. That’s it. Two weeks. I’m going to yell loudly at you, but it’s nothing personal. We’re here to see if we can up your physical strength.”

  That wasn’t the entire truth.

  A big part of what he wanted to do was plant his example into their impressionable young minds.

  The strength to toss cars down the street needed to be tempered by restraint.

  Otherwise it became too easy to be an inveterate bully.

  The kind of shits that decided that they could do whatever they wanted to others because the others lacked the strength to object.

  He didn’t care what anyone else said or thought.

  Might didn’t make right.

  Let the indoctrination begin.

  …

  It was a good day of lifting weights and putting them down.

  The night was cold in the desert plateau.

  Near freezing, but the magical tents he had purchased from Ms. Teacher at great cost handled all environmental concerns.

  The point was gains and one didn’t get maximized gains in unpleasant conditions.

  One needed plenty of rest and one rested best when comfortable.

  Eron landed in front of a group of shadow-cloaked individuals trying to sneak into his ringed compound from downwind.

  “Ah, dreaded vampirus.”

  They stopped short.

  “You are vampirus, right? Bit pale, eye shine, the fangs. All indicators are coming up vampiru.”

  Vampires.

  “How did you get all the way here? I checked the closest city and no vampirus. Yet, here you skulk. Well, whatever, turn around and go away. I’m busy and not interested in dealing with nonsense intrigue stuff for the next couple of weeks.”

  Oddly enough, they turned.

  He supposed his radiating solar energy was something they picked up on.

  Sunlight didn’t necessarily instantly ash vampires, but it wasn’t pleasant even at best of times.

  “Wait a second.”

  He listened to their hearts.

  Contrary to conventional wisdom, vampires did still have organ function. They just worked very slowly.

  A resting heart rate of one beat a minute was about the standard when they weren’t pumping the blood to fuel their abilities.

  He counted about a dozen beats from each vampire.

  “What kind of vampirus are you? Ethical?”

  “What do you mean?” one hissed.

  “Well, how do you get your blood? Oh, I’m sorry, you like to call it ‘vitae’, right? So, do you get consent? Give something equally valuable in return for your literal ability to keep existing? Blood banks? Definitely no killing or supernatural mind control, right? Cause that’d be terribly unethical.”

  “I’m sorry, I wasn’t made aware that you made and enforced these arbitrary-sounding rules.”

  Their heartbeats spiked, thumping in their chests like jackhammers.

  He attacked before they did.

  Breaking bones inside the sonic booms generated by his movement.

  He called the nearest skyship.

  “I’ve got five vampiru— vampires. I can’t determine whether they murder people or not. You guys equipped to contain them? Great! Can you pick them up right now? Awesome! Thanks!”

  It was unfortunate that his brother was off world.

  Cal would’ve just read their minds and be done with it.

  He couldn’t do that and he didn’t want to mistake their fear response for villainous dishonesty.

  They were vampires, but they stayed dead when killed and he didn’t want unjust blood on his hands.

  Yes!

  It was the perfect plan to let his sister deal with them.

  It took fifteen minutes for the skyship to arrive and make the prisoner pick up.

  By that time the vampires ran out of blood to fuel their abilities on account of him breaking their bones every few minutes.