“OC3002116?” Azure reread the code for the third time. It felt familiar.

  “Yes, sir,” the lab tech nodded. “That’s the only match we’ve got, even on partials. Whoever they are, they haven’t been very active.”

  Azure looked down at the results. A lot of graphs that meant nothing to him, a couple formulas, and that one number in bold. With just the essence to go off of and no concrete results on the spell itself, this was the only clue anyone had to the mystery killer’s identity. It had at least produced a match in their database, but only for a case number, not an ID. That didn’t bode well to be honest, but it was something.

  “Alright, any details on the case?” he asked.

  The lab tech, a younger man who looked ragged, held up his hands, “Sorry, you wanted this quick and everyone with clearance for the hero-net files is busy. You’re going to have to look it up yourself. Did you want me to send off the essence for further study? We’re probably not going to get much more out of it here, since analysis is coming back pretty basic.”

  The Scarlet Sorcerer had said his best bet was to look at the shared databases, but it was worth a shot.

  “Sure, send it over to the Sanctum and the…”

  It took him a moment, “And to the Library.”

  The lab tech looked up at him, “Wouldn’t it be easier to have Secret Keeper do that?”

  “They’re not in at the moment,” Azure told the man. “Could you forward the details to the Main Branch?”

  The tech nodded and went about getting copies of their data set up for forwarding. Not the easiest job since the Sanctum definitely wasn’t connected to any intranet so someone would have to mail that out and the Library’s only online connection to the Main Branch routed through Tian. Azure felt bad for saddling more work onto the tech, especially since if Scarlet was right then this wouldn’t give much more answers. Still, anything either of them might have would help.

  In the meantime, he excused himself to head to the archive rooms, a large study area on the fortieth floor that resembled a traditional library, and had several terminals up for use. Along the way, he picked at the case number in his head.

  OC3002116… OC3002116… OC3002116…

  The first part of the code was probably the location. Orion City, Orliea Coast, Okawi Central, etc. As for the rest, something about the numbers tickled his memories.

  Lost in his thoughts as he made his way down the hallways to the elevators, he didn’t notice Ice Hawk until he’d bumped into the hero.

  “Sorry!” he quickly apologized.

  “No problem,” the other hero waved his concern away.

  Azure examined the man, making sure he hadn’t done any damage, as well as trying to read his facial expression. Thankfully, it seemed to be just a small jostle between the two of them, and any traces of the hostility like he’d seen in the penthouse were gone. That was good, but Azure wasn’t sure he wanted to push his luck today of all days and upset the other hero.

  “Sorry, I’m on my way to the archives, didn’t mean to bump into you,” he made to move past him.

  “Oh, uh,” Ice Hawk’s wings moved in front of Azure for a moment blocking him from slipping past before he withdrew them. “I was just headed that way myself.”

  Azure’s eyes moved down the hallway. Ice Hawk had come down from that direction, away from the elevators he’d need to take to get there. He couldn’t help but feel suspicious.

  “Alright then,” he told the winged hero, keeping that edge out of his voice in favor of something closer to how he thought Mr. Wonder might sound. “We can go there together.”

  When in doubt go for the classic hero voice.

  Ice Hawk seemed satisfied as the two of them made their way to the elevator. The silence dragged between them the whole time, something unspoken hanging in the air. As they finally arrived at the elevators, the winged hero rushed forward to hit the call button. Azure noted the numbers above the doors. One close to the penthouse, almost 40 floors up, and the other on the ground floor.

  This was going to be a long wait in this uncomfortable a silence.

  Finally he hazarded something, “Is your team recovering alright?”

  Ice Hawk seemed to perk up at that, “Oh, yeah! Yeah, they’re doing fine actually. I just saw them earlier today. Fire Tiger and Ground Hog are basically back on their feet, just with some mandatory R&R, and the rest of them pretty much have some casts they’ll need to wear for a week but should be back in business soon enough.”

  He seemed genuine in that reaction, so whatever had been bugging him probably wasn’t about his team like Azure had expected. Was Azure reading this all wrong? He couldn’t shake that look he’d seen on Ice Hawk’s face though.

  The silence rushed back in to fill the emptiness, Azure was close to just asking outright what Ice Hawk wanted but thankfully he got his answer unprompted.

  “Have you gotten anywhere with the Maniacal killer?” Hawk finally just asked, eyeing the files in Azure’s hands.

  The New Aurora Champion narrowed his eyes, but otherwise left his expression blank, “I’m following up on something right now. I’ll make an announcement soon about it.”

  “You were at the lab though, right?” Ice Hawk nodded down the hallway. “You got the test results back?”

  Azure’s face was stone, “Like I said. I’ll make an announcement soon.”

  The other blue clad hero looked like he wanted to say more, but seemed to think better of it, “Actually, I’ve got something else I need to check out. I’ll talk with you later.”

  Azure watched him go. He couldn’t shake how odd that whole thing felt. Not to mention Ice Hawk’s eyes were all over the files. Azure adjusted them, wondering if he’d seen anything.

  Why would that matter? he wondered. Ice Hawk might not be Azure’s go-to hero, but it wasn’t like he had any problem with him. That he knew of.

  I think I’m letting my issues with Secret Keeper bleed over, Azure thought as the elevator arrived.

  The ride to the archives wasn’t that long, and thankfully there seemed to be plenty of free spots at the terminals. Azure logged in and quickly brought up the portal for looking up shared case files and plugged in the number.

  “OC3002116, let’s see…”

  There were a couple of items in the result. Obviously there was the case file itself, along with a couple of dossiers and one note that was marked to be read by anyone accessing the file. Naturally he clicked on it.

  A familiar message popped up. This is why he remembered the case file! He’d been hanging out at the Aurora Champions’ hideout the day this had came in. Gulping, he opened the rest of the case file and took in the details.

  “Oh.”

  It was all he could say. This was way bigger than he’d expected. Probably bigger than anyone expected.

  Azure closed down everything and stood up immediately. He needed to send some messages off.

  ---------------------------------

  Ned was relaxing at home, having opted to take the night off for once, when the vambrace chimed. His hand shot forward and webbing leapt outwards to seize his mask and vambrace. Hey, the city might not want him swinging around and getting this stuck on windows, but he was free to do whatever he wanted in his own home as long as he didn’t flush the stuff.

  Instantly he ran through the alerts and saw his “tip line” ping.

  Alright, Azure had logged something. A quick note about running a lab analysis of magical essence, probably extracted from the crime scene. Ned had expected that, since even if the spell sounded like a dead end there was a chance you get a “fingerprint”. It wasn’t easy to do, but Ned had gotten some suspicions that might be what the Champion had been planning based off some hints. Still, knowing that a lab analysis was done shouldn’t have caused a ping. Naturally there was more. Let’s see… Sending the lab data off to the Sanctum and the Library, obviously. But also a file search from the archives with an actual code to go along with it.

  OC3002116. It took him a moment to place it.

  Oh, ffffffudge. It just had to be that one.

  ---------------------------------

  Over Seer hunched over her various screens, scrolls, and tablets (both electronic and clay).

  If yesterday had been awful, today was a brand new word that humanity had yet to come up with to describe how truly atrocious things could get. Several of her spy networks had fallen through because of what the council had wanted from her and of course that was her fault, not theirs! And still no news on Maniacal’s killer when all they wanted to do was post a bounty.

  They didn’t even want to kill whoever did it themselves! That would take away too much time from yelling at one another because apparently gods forbid that Thunderer getting a win actually was something to celebrate rather than a reason for all of the rest of them to throw their own little fits.

  Maybe it was time to try to plan to poison them all.

  A ding interrupted the beginning of her scheme on how to kill her bosses. A sweet, beautiful, blessed ding from the phone she most wanted to hear from at the moment. She didn’t even bother with a complex spell, just pulled at it with a tug of her power to send it catapulting towards her hand. Slamming it down, she threw the connector into the slot at the bottom of the phone and raced to open the messenger on her laptop, her fingers dancing through the security features.

  The most beautiful words ever written scrolled onto her screen.

  blue: i know who killed maniacal

  The relief washed over her, tingling through her limbs down her fingertips. She released a breath she didn’t know she was holding and prepared to send back a message.

  Then the most disgusting, filthy, rotten, and repugnant words filled the next line.

  blue: well actually i dont really know who they are

  She immediately brought up several of her assets in the area, and ordered them on standby with a kill order queued up in the terminal.

  SeeredSteaks: Give me a reason not to kill you right now

  blue: cause i know what they did n i have a trail 4 u 2 follow

  Her hand hovered over the button, wanting nothing but blood. Oh gods, she understood her bosses. Ugh…

  “Explain,” she ordered, the letters transcribing themselves on the chatlog.

  blue: no prob

  blue: the heroes got the magic essence from the scene

  Alright. She could work with that. Intercept it as they sent it over to the Sanctum or the Library and figure it out before they could.

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  blue: they got it tested n it showed a match in their system

  “You were supposed to get this information to me before anyone else got it,” she growled, finger still hanging over the button to authorize the death of this little pissant.

  blue: things were complicated

  blue: n e ways

  blue: ur killer has a record. not their first run in w/ heroes

  Seered Steaks: Get to the point. I’m moments away from ordering a hit on you.

  blue: fine. ive got a case num for u.

  blue: btw ur probably not gonna need to put up a bounty

  blue: u will see y

  blue: OC3002116

  That was… familiar. Over Seer hardly bothered to learn any of the case numbers in the heroes records, but she knew this one. Somehow.

  Wait. No. No way.

  In a single motion Over Seer swept everything crowding her desk out of the way to grab at her main keyboard, sending it all plummeting towards the ground. Some inert spell circles on the floor activated and saved everything from smashing upon impact, the debris of her haste hovering above the floor as she quickly tapped out commands to bring up a search program. Punching the code in, her program scoured the stolen records from the heroes’ archives. Sure enough, the exact case report she thought of popped up, an odd mystery no one had managed to solve.

  The chat program dinged and she looked back to it.

  blue: told u that i had something

  blue: but the heroes know

  blue: if you want them id try to get to them soon

  Over Seer swallowed and slammed the laptop closed. Glancing over at a corner of the candlelit room, she eyed a button she’d had installed there long ago. Pressing it would immediately alert the council if she had pressing information that needed to be shared immediately. Did this qualify?

  She glanced back at the main screen, teeth clenched as she turned over her options. Reluctantly, she leapt from her floating chair and floated over to the button. Steeling herself, she slammed her hand into it, knowing full well how angry they’d be to have her summon them back to the meeting chambers again. Still, this needed to be acted on fast and it needed all of them to know.

  She waved an arm at the door, causing it to open. Taking a deep breath, she muttered a spell to enhance her speed as she began to fly at top speed towards the meeting chambers herself. Her servants in the hall had moments to scatter before her as she zipped along the hallways, a black streak there one second and gone the next.

  Time was of the essence if the council wanted to act on this and the beleaguered spymaster wasn’t about to let them blame her for missing the chance to act.

  ---------------------------------

  Night was settling over Orion City, and Quasar Sage’s shift was close to ending.

  Despite being one of the many star themed heroes in this city, he enjoyed having the nights off from hero work. Or at least as “off” as one of the leading heroes in this city could have it. He did not envy Maximillion for being the one running this whole show. It felt like every three days you had some new villain rising up to try to take over the City of Legends and make a name for themselves. Sage already lost enough sleep just acting as support to this whole show.

  Which is why it was good to have the help. Sage was part of the council that supported Max and the rest of the Protectors, running interference on a lot of other teams and occasionally helping out around the dispatch offices in Central Towers, the hub of superhero activity in Orion. While Orion was a big city, it was still somehow incredibly easy to step on each others’ toes if someone didn’t help manage everyone, which is where the dispatchers’ offices came in. Sure other cities had their own way to handle heroes, but Central Dispatch was the place where heroes of all stripes were organized throughout the City of Legends, reacting at a moment’s notice to the almost numberless threats and villains that seemed eager to test their own skills against the guardians of the city.

  Sage being here had the bonus effect of letting the council get a better picture of the heroes they were representing and managing, as well as the support staff keeping everyone afloat. He had just finished making his rounds through the offices, seeing familiar faces as a few were punching out for the night like him as well as their replacements who were getting set up. He even stopped to help out a newcomer he recognized who had been struggling to figure out directions.

  I feel like a camp counselor more than a hero during some of these check ups, he let himself think, not actually that upset about it. There were plenty of others on the council who would really rather be out there knocking heads around, but Sage was more than content to help everyone else find their way in this sprawl.

  Orion was practically triple the size of most any other city in the Amera Union regardless of which part of the continent you were on. As such it needed a lot more help. Something veterans like him were perfectly equipped to give.

  “Um, Mr. Sage,” the newcomer he’d been helping called out to him, a fresh faced young woman who was fresh out of school and had landed an internship here almost immediately.

  Well, duty called.

  “Yes?”

  “I just got a message from Victory City for a specific hero that they want me to pass along. They said it’s urgent, but they’re not on my board…” the frazzled operator told him.

  He rolled his eyes, “Yes, that should’ve been sent to hero coordination, not you, but Victory probably didn’t know that. Here.”

  He leaned over and pointed at where she needed to click to forward the message along.

  “I’m headed up there anyways to finish off my rounds, I’ll make sure that it gets received.”

  The newcomer thanked him in that way that only those fresh to a new job and in completely in over their heads could. He couldn’t help smiling, remembering when he’d first been exposed to the quasar device that gave him his power and couldn’t figure out how to stop flying. Running smack into Mr. Wonder’s back while trying to catch up with him remained one of his most embarrassing memories until he was old enough for it to be funny instead.

  Deciding he might as well make good on his word, he bid everyone in the office farewell and headed on up to make sure the message was received.

  He couldn’t blame whoever had sent it over from Victory for their confusion, as from what he could tell, they only really had one hero center and their dispatch offices would probably be able to contact anyone in the city. Still, it almost meant that whatever this important news was would’ve been lost if no one had been there to help out or if it had gone to the wrong operator who cleared the request for not being authorized appropriately. Sage couldn’t blame an operator that would do that either, as with so much on their plate, they had no time to try and pass along private messages to heroes on channels meant for other purposes.

  Arriving at the hero coordination offices, he looked out the windows and let himself take in the sight of the “docks” as some heroes called it, an arrival and departure platform for those blessed with the gift of flight, as well as some authorized flying vehicles. With the sun’s light almost completely gone from the sky, the well lit platform between the three buildings making up Central Towers was seeing the end of its “busy traffic” with only a few groups flying in or out, several passing through these offices to reach the elevators that led to the various other parts of the towers.

  He turned from the sight of so many flying heroes to look for the desks nearby. A set of coordinators were hard at work, categorizing incoming messages and contacting heroes who needed to hear them. Along with this, there were a couple of them set up at the front desk facing towards the docks, meant to process incoming heroes passing through who had messages waiting for them on their arrival. It was rare for the office to try to flag anyone down on their way out of Central Towers, but it had been known to happen when someone forgot to pass along news during a meeting or they didn’t want to clog the lines once the hero was out in the field.

  Sage was immediately recognized on his approach by one of those at the front, “Ah, Sage! About to head out?”

  “In a moment,” he admitted. “Just wanted to make sure a message that got lost over at dispatch makes its way to the right person.”

  The desk worker looked down at her console and smiled, “Yep, it’s right here. Marked high priority too. Let’s see… Oh good luck, the hero in question should be returning momentarily!”

  They stood up and scanned the scattered crowd of fliers descending to the platform.

  “Ah! There she is!” the coordinator sank back to her desk and pressed a few keys.

  An automated voice called out to the platform beyond, asking for the hero to come over to the coordinator desk. Meanwhile they began to print out the message. From this side of the glass, Sage couldn’t quite make out what the broadcast had said, so he looked out trying to catch a glimpse of whoever it was, curious about who he was salvaging this misdelivery for.

  He watched as the hero he thought the coordinator had pointed out seemed to be boisterously celebrating with a few of the people they’d flown in with, taking their time to make their way over, but still inching closer and closer to the coordination area. Sage couldn’t blame her enthusiasm, as he’d caught himself on multiple occasions celebrating on that platform with a team he’d joined for a seemingly ordinary patrol that had turned into quite the adventure. He smiled at the memories.

  The smile faded as he saw who approached.

  It was not as though Thana Alsdottir, Shield of the Defenseless, Stormdaughter, and Valkirborn, wasn’t a friend or that he had any reason to hate her presence (although her volume sometimes was a little higher than he preferred), but there was something off about her being here at this moment that he couldn’t place.

  Granted, she was always intimidating, even when you’d worked alongside her for years. At a little over six and a half feet tall, the daughter of god of war of the Nurthen Pantheon stood proud as a figure of righteous violence incarnate. Blood red hair spilled down from her head, ending in scorched black tips past her shoulders, strands floating in the air like wisps of clouds. She wore hardened leathers inlaid with ancient iron and brass plates that seemed to bolt it all together, the leather bleached white and always barely winning a war against dirt and stains. The end result made the leather armor look less like it had been stitched or worked like a mortal might make jackets, boots, or bracers, and more as though it had been smithed in a forge, those ancient plates looking like nails hammered through it to bring the rebellious material into shape as armor.

  Bright blue tattoos ran across the left side of her body, forming elaborate knots that were bordered with runes of power, visible on the parts of her arms and legs she left bare. These exposed patches of godly flesh were muscled and unscarred, despite the many blades, guns, lasers and worse that had tested themselves against her over the centuries. A fur-lined cloak loosely hung across her shoulders, seeming only to stay on due to being trapped beneath a single metal pauldron in the shape of a wolf’s head with bared teeth.

  She’d look like a Vikor raider if she didn’t brandish a large insignia of a lightning bolt at the center of her chest and a matching one stitched into the center of her cloak, which made the outfit look similar to her peers in some respects. Actually, given her age, this probably was what she wore when Vikors raided northern Uropa and worshiped her mother and father.

  “What news do you bring?” the bark of her voice split the relative quiet of coordination office, making almost everyone turn towards the still battle-drunk demigod. “Ah! Quasar Sage! About to retire for the eve?”

  “Yes…” he spoke while his mind was desperately trying to tell him something. “I was just making sure-”

  “Ah, Ms Alsdottir!” The coordinator he had been talking to spoke up. “We’ve got a message from Victory City. It’s marked urgent!”

  The coordinator reached out with a sheet of paper she’d printed out. Thana snatched the paper with a smile.

  “Victory City! I’ve been meaning to go there for the name alone!” she loudly chuckled. “Although it must be trouble if this was urgent. Ugh, no doubt we’ve finally found where one of my Jarlden brothers have scurried off to…”

  She held up the message and Sage watched as her smile fell. Then her hands began to shake.

  “Um… Ms Alsdot-”

  An urgent message. For Thana.

  The pieces clicked together finally and Sage knew what it was now.

  In an instant, he threw up his hands and conjured a shield made of starlight between himself and the rest of the office as wicked blades of lightning tore out of Thana like snakes, carving into everything around her. Glass shattered and the thunder shook Sage’s teeth. Outside, dozens of heroes turned, some immediately dropping into a fighting stance at the explosion. No one knew what to do and so only a few cautiously moved forward. It’s not as though Central Towers had never been attacked, but everyone thankfully was taking a moment to evaluate the situation rather than immediately leaping towards the explosion to help out.

  As the dust and smoke cleared, Sage saw the Stormdaughter turn and hold her arm out to her side. Lightning flowed from her finger like water droplets then spread out into a single line of gold, and in moments, her spear was in her hand, a leash of lighting coiling from it to her wrist. Without another word she flung it like a javelin, her body dissolving into a bolt of lightning to trail the spear she had flung and sailing straight through the crowd of heroes into the clouds above. Sage traced their movements towards the south… towards Victory City.

  Turning back, Sage asked, “Is everyone okay?”

  Several confused, but affirmative answers came back to him, and he sighed, letting his barrier fall.

  “W-what was that?” the unfortunate coordinator who had set this off asked.

  “Could you print me off the message you gave to her?” Sage asked.

  “I-I’m sorry but-” the poor woman was working off pure procedure now, almost in shock. “But I can’t share private messages with-”

  “Did the message have the code OC3002116 in it?” he interrupted, carefully spelling out the code as plainly as he could, as several heroes began coming up behind him into the ruined coordination offices to check on everyone.

  The woman gulped down her words and simply nodded.

  He heard a loud thump behind him as a hero landed a few feet behind him in the destroyed offices.

  “What’s going on Quasar Sage,” Maximillion, head of the Protectors of the Globe, asked him calmly. “Care to tell me why I just saw Thana decide to clock out with a light show?”

  Sage looked at all the witnesses, both the coordinators who had been in the office and the heroes who were quickly fanning out to check on everyone, and beckoned the Protector off to the side to whisper at him.

  “Apparently, 116 just showed up in Victory City.”

  Max grimaced, immediately grasping the situation and beginning to formulate a plan, “Alright, I get it now. I’ll talk to everyone here. Help them calm down and try to keep the fact that we’ve got a demigod off her leash quiet.”

  “Max, it’s 116,” he repeated. “I’d say she has every right to be mad.”

  The Protector nodded, “You have a fair point, but I have to make sure this doesn’t hurt people’s trust in us. In the mean time, you need to get a message over to Victory. I’m sure they know if they contacted us, but they need to be ready for Thana to hit the ground hard looking to turn over every rock in that city.”

  Sage nodded, but felt the need to defend the demigod, no matter how dangerous she might be at the moment, “As destructive as she might be, can you blame her?”

  Max shook his head, “Just… let them know to handle with care. After all, I don’t know what I personally would do if I found out where the person who killed my fiance was.”

  ---------------------------------

  Alex twisted the finished helmet in his hand, gazing into it and imagining the feelings it would conjure up in the heroes he would soon face. It could be more menacing, but we’ll save that for a future iteration.

  He looked over his work, pretty much completed. Just need a couple screws tightened and some wires adjusted and the Mark 1 should be ready to go. And like he promised Ms Song, no accidents with the gauntlets.

  His gaze shifted over to the fire extinguishers he’d scattered across the apartment and his thoughts shifted back to the conversation from earlier, and even further back to Orion.

  Song had mentioned there were only four villains in this complex. He hoped that meant that there weren’t any heroes living under this roof this time.

  He really didn’t want to ruin another home by fighting with yet another hero under the same roof.