Captain Solomon Blofeld gazed out of the curved laminate windshield of the cockpit of his six-engined Airbus A390, his body on autopilot as he carried his crew and passengers at roughly 37,000 feet on a smooth course for Berlin from Puerto Paulo in southeastern Panagoa, flying at a steady speed of 920 kilometers per hour as was the usual standard for the recently constructed plane which was put into service roughly a year prior. His copilot, First Officer Sebastián Castro, sat beside him with his eyes locked onto the gauges and dials. He was a stickler for the rules and often prided himself on his ability to discern when a possible mechanical failure could occur, which tended to rub some of his peers who had more laissez-faire attitudes, but Solomon was grateful to have someone of Sebastián’s skill as his copilot. The two of them have been together for quite some time, even meeting each other’s families on a few occasions though the two lived on completely opposite sides of the world as Solomon was an Irishman from Derry living in London and Sebastián remained in Bogotá, Columbia to this day. However, the two of them had formed a bond over their shared love of piloting with Sebastián completing flight school before the age of twenty due his uncanny talent in flying, and Solomon having fallen in love with it during his time in the Irish Air Corps before eventually ending up in the Special Air Service. The two men were considered seasoned veterans of near equal caliber and well respected in their respective communities, though as Solomon stared out of the cockpit, he felt a strange sensation run through his spine that brought him back to his time with the SAS. Immediately he picked up the phone beside his chair and pressed the button to call the head stewardess just outside the door.

  “Captain Blofeld?” Miracle Laloux answered with a cheery tone that masked something Solomon couldn’t place the origin of.

  “Just checking up on everything on your end, had a weird feeling since nobody’s come to give us our water.” He responded, keeping his voice level but throwing a look to Sebastián who immediately clocked the vibe and began pulling up the internal camera system in the passenger shuttle on the screen to his direct right.

  “Sorry about that, Captain, we’ve been busy with a few rowdy folks in business class. It’ll be dealt with soon and I’ll personally take you two gentlemen your drinks in a jiffy.”

  Solomon knew something was up the second Miracle said ‘jiffy.’ The head stewardess was also a veteran of the American Army and often used words as code specifically in the case of certain situations that wouldn’t allow her to speak out loud about what was going on inside the plane. ‘Jiffy’ meant that there were hijackers on the plane and that they were close enough to the cockpit that Miracle couldn’t speak normally. They’d gone over what to do in this exact situation several times before in training and knew that at all costs they couldn’t let the hijackers get into the cockpit.

  His mind raced with the possible outcomes as Sebastián gave him an upward nod and leaned back to let him get a view of the screen which gave a clear line of sight directly down the aisle heading to the cockpit where he saw Miracle sitting in her chair next to the alcohol, but behind her was an unfamiliar blonde man in a black suit and tie with his hands hidden behind Miracle’s back. Out in premium class where the rest of the more well-paying passengers sat were four more men in nearly identical suits posted strategically in the walkways behind the seats where they’d have a clear line of sight to the passengers and into the next aisle leading into the larger business class seating space as well as the stairs leading to the two coach areas.

  Solomon inferred from the way they carried themselves and how they had taken the tactical advantage over any Air Marshals in both manpower and positioning that they were likely professionals with at least a modicum of training and experience, then he noticed the bottoms of two pairs of shoes stuffed behind the man with Miracle on top of one another and immediately came to the conclusion that the hijackers had killed two of the Marshals from premium and business class. Cursing himself for not hearing anything sooner, Solomon motioned for Sebastián to begin calling any local government’s federal authorities to report their situation, hoping that the hijackers didn’t know about the three other Marshals in coach.

  As Sebastián quickly but calmly picked up the phone and began repeating the distress code specifically used for terrorist acts, Solomon reached down between his legs and grabbed a slender piece of metal that he flicked forward while holding the grip of, instantly turning it into a small but effective rifle the size of a luggage bag. He checked the zero on the sights instinctively before slowly but surely aiming the plane in a downward trajectory, not enough to tilt the plane noticeably, but just enough to send her towards the ground in case Sebastián was able to coordinate an emergency landing zone. He wasn’t happy about the situation at all, but he couldn’t lie to himself and say that he didn’t enjoy the sudden rush of adrenaline that pumped through his veins, he hadn’t felt this hyped up about something since his daughter’s birth, his wedding day, or the day he almost died in Venezuela during a black operation less than fifteen people knew about. After he managed to steady his hands, he shrugged the rifle slightly into Sebastián’s shoulder to tell him to grab his similarly styled submachine gun from the hidden box in the dash next to him, and as the Colombian did so while continuing the distress call, Solomon saw something out of the corner of his eye that he didn’t expect to see. At first, it looked as if there was some sort of giant bird gliding away from the plane, but as the metallic beast surged forward, the eagle-eyed Irishman understood exactly what it was.

  It was a man, simply floating still in the middle of the air, half-naked and wearing only a pair of runner’s shorts and compression pants. Solomon had a strange thought as he looked at the man with incredulous eyes.

  He looks so young. Was the last thought through his mind before his body reflexively went to shift the plane’s angle away from the man, causing the weight of the enormous A390 to shift and pull against the inside, sending the oblivious hijacker’s flying against the walls and nearly sending the plane into a harsh jackknife maneuver.

  “Sal, what the fuck?!” Sebastián yelled as he braced against the intense shift in gravity as best he could, looking between the screen to his side and the windshield in front of him, his mind blanking for a moment as he caught sight of the man in the air. “We’re over thirty-thousand feet in the air! Who the hell is that?!” He shouted without thinking.

  Solomon didn’t have time to respond, only catching a glimpse of the man as the plane rocketed by and eventually shifted back to the nominal position. The Irishman could’ve sworn he saw the man looking at him.

  ————————————————————————

  André had been coming up here to take his mind off of things ever since he found out he could, normally first thing in the morning after eating breakfast. From his current position, he could see the curvature of the earth as well as how the sun crested over the horizon in such a beautiful way that people could only could see if they were in a plane. Up here he didn’t have to worry about what was happening on the ground. Up here he didn’t worry at all, in fact, he barely thought anything as he simply just stared at the sublime view and took in the moment. Sometimes he’d just stay here for hours, saying nothing, thinking nothing, just… looking. He thought he could spend the rest of his life up here sometimes, but he always knew he had to come down sooner or later, he had a business to run after all. People to talk to, stuff to see, things to take care of. He’d catch himself thinking his world would be so much more peaceful if he’d stay here forever. Yet, he knew the truth, while he was capable of achieving such awesome feats, he was still human. And humans work, humans play, humans eat, and humans sleep.

  Maybe life would be easier if I was just a bird, a particle of oxygen or something. Yeah, that wouldn’t be too bad. He thought, staring off into the horizon, feeling his mind slowly ease up and his body relax. He imagined himself afloat through an endless ocean that caressed his skin in cold, calming waves. Though, after a second, he noticed he’d relaxed just a little too much and had begun to fall. Flexing his muscles, he came to a sudden stop just a few feet below where he was before, laughing at himself as he thought about how often he did that. When was he going to learn? He didn’t know the answer to that, didn’t really care either, so he just went back to taking it all in for a few moments before his ears perked up and his instincts sent warning signals to his brain in the matter of a single picosecond.

  Jerking his head, he saw a plane. A rather large plane in fact, heading directly towards him. Cursing himself in his head, he flexed his muscles to move out of the way, but stopped when he saw the plane suddenly jackknife away from him, nearly flipping over in doing so. And as he caught sight of one of the pilots staring at him in a mix of bewilderment and intense focus, he instinctively sucked in a deep breath of air through his teeth and waited a moment or two to see if the plane eventually corrected itself, which it did after a tense few seconds, letting him relax and let his body flush out the tension with a heavy breath out. But just as he was about to call it a day and head home, he heard some weird things coming from inside the plane, so he focused his hearing and tried to straighten his mind.

  “Le… I’ll… fucking… high…”

  He closed his eyes and pushed himself forward as he strained his ears further, letting his mind begin its work deciphering and blocking out what needed to be muffled and focusing on what needed to be heard.

  Too much wind… Engine’s are too loud… People are screaming… Who’s yelling? Why is he yelling at the pilot like that? His thoughts ran at breakneck speed, masking unimportant noises, cleaning up the ones that were more critical. Finally, after a few microseconds, he heard something that set his teeth on edge.

  “Open this fucking door right now! Or I’ll blow this whole plane out of the air!”

  Shit, he thought, though his mind didn’t need to use too much attention anymore as his body took control and thrusted him forward so fast he saw the jet-wash he created whipping off the side of the plane as he suddenly appeared beside the upper windows in the back, peering in with squinted eyes. What he saw pissed him off immediately. Less than a few feet from him inside the plane was a man in a suit, holding a gun to an older woman’s head as she pleaded with him and used her body to protect the wailing child behind her in their seat. André knew what he was going to do the second he got into the plane, but a single thought entered his mind unconsciously as he shifted back and under the plane towards the cargo ramp, the frigid air cutting into his skin and giving him goosebumps.

  I should’ve worn a jacket.

  ————————————————————————

  Director Jean Laloux of the Nouveau Tokyo Internal Security Department sat at his desk, tapping his rich brown fingers unconsciously against the bright cherrywood and watching as a single Airbus A390 sat on the tarmac at the Kurosawa International Airport, his eyes glancing between the flatscreen TV on his wall and the phone directly adjacent to his hand. He’d been read in on the situation an hour earlier when the plane suddenly landed on the runway without any prior warning from its pilots, though ‘landed’ was not the term the Section Chief of Air Command had used when debriefing the Director on his report, in fact, he had said that the plane ‘floated down and just practically appeared there’ though the often skeptical Jean Laloux didn’t believe him fully. Surely there must’ve been something else, something the Section Chief missed. But it wasn’t on the forefront of Jean’s mind as he waited for the special operations team from the Nouveau Tokyo Self-Defense Forces to get on site and prepare their assault on the plane.

  Jean Laloux was a reputable veteran of the NTSDF’s Marine Corps himself and it was that same reputation that earned him his commission as a high ranking officer which lead to his scouting by the Internal Security Department where he eventually worked his way up to where he is now. He considered himself a hardworking and dedicated man, albeit a bit gruff and difficult to get along with. He trusted the team he’d personally handpicked and assigned, members of the elite special forces squadron known as PHOENIX, a highly secretive but extremely decorated and disciplined group of men and women he’d worked with in the past, both during and before his tenure as Director.

  So he was quite surprised to see the commander of the team he’d assembled outside his door, his scarred face unreadable as always. His mind churned with the many reasons he could’ve been there, but none of them seemed to be the correct one without any further information, so he calmly raised his hand and motioned for the commander to enter.

  “Director Laloux.” Captain Kiyru Nagata greeted as he walked into the office, bowing his head slightly out of respect for his superior and former comrade.

  “What is it, Smokey?” Jean asked, using the nickname he gave Kiyru years ago.

  Kiyru adjusted his uniform by the collar slightly, obviously a little nervous, before speaking, “My team has performed a detailed surveillance of the situation and the internals of the plane, the report I’ve been given says something… rather strange though. I thought it best if you heard it in person.”

  Jean’s brow perked up in both curiosity and confusion, “Go ahead, Smokey, let me have it.”

  “Yes, sir, Director.” Kiyru cleared his throat as he revealed a small bunch of paper stapled together at the edges in a manila folder.

  “Approximately at 0900 AM the Airbus A390-100C was located on the main runway of Kurosawa International, no visible damage to the exterior of the aircraft was reported. However, after several attempts to hail the pilots and the crew, Air Command was contacted due to a possible terrorist threat caused by the lack of response from any external stimuli enacted by the control tower. Shortly after they were contacted, they called our agency liaison who reported the incident to the National Security Advisor who passed it onto us, leading yours truly to order my squadron to prepare for a possible assault and hostage rescue which we’ve begun to enact as soon as we have permission from you, sir. Apart from the steps taken to this moment you likely already know of, my team has reported that the passengers and crew have been seen within the aircraft, though they are mostly supine and appear either unconscious or dead. The cause for this is currently unknown and my team have already begun preparing for a possible chemical attack and are ready to launch the operation just as soon as they get the green light.”

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  Jean’s eyes were cast in shadow and his mouth was hidden by his hand which pressed against his chin in contemplation, this did not change even when he raised his other hand to shake it with straightened and close fingers in a chopping motion, “Go.” He said, his voice quiet but intense.

  Kiyru nodded and whipped out a short bit hefty looking piece of black plastic and pressed a button, barking into it for a moment before releasing the button and hearing a barked confirmation through its speaker as his eyes turned to the TV. Jean didn’t look as he’d spent enough time with the PHOENIX squadron to understand their methods, so he was confident in their approach to this sort of situation as well as their ability to complete it without unnecessary casualties. Though, he couldn’t shake that strange confusion from when he first heard the Section Chief’s report, it plagued him as he sat in silence while Kiyru’s men stormed onto the tarmac in a group of ten and systematically split into two groups of five with one taking the middle door leading into coach and the others disabling the locks on the cargo door to let it slowly be released by the advanced piston system. After the two groups got into position, they responded to the advance signal from the point man of the team and one group disappeared into the cargo hold while the other ducked underneath the small explosion created by the breaching charge, following suit after they each climbed the ladder and took positions within the plane. What followed was a tense silence in Laloux’s office, each man waiting for gunshots, an explosion, or a response from the unit. It was merely two minutes before they got the third expectation crackling from the radio.

  “Plane’s clear, Captain. We’ve found no serious injuries to the hostages, all are currently awake but somewhat exhausted. The hijackers are also all present and accounted for, but we’re not going to get anything from them.” A man’s voice spoke through the radio.

  Kiyru sucked air through his teeth, “Suicide?” He asked.

  A moment passed before the man on the radio responded, “No, sir. It looks like a third party got to them first. Extreme blunt force trauma to several hijacker’s heads, at least what’s left of them. One shows signs of severe torture.”

  Kiyru looked over at Jean with a confused expression for a second before nodding to himself and telling his team to secure the hostages and get emergency services ready to take them. After relaying his commands, he scratched his head with the same expression from before.

  “Who the hell..?”

  Jean raised a hand and slowly shook his head, “That’s a matter for me to discern, Smokey. You just focus on making sure your men did their jobs and let me handle the rest.”

  Kiyru eyed Jean for a moment before nodding, not fully understanding the scope of the situation, but trusting Jean enough to know that it was none of his business anyway. With that, the Captain offered a salute and left the room after the Director threw one back, leaving Jean alone to make a phone call to the Senior Agent in charge of the satellite program to ask a few questions before hanging up the phone with a sigh.

  Supposedly, there was another irregularity in the flight path of the plane that hadn’t been reported to the Section Chief. At one point, the plane had simply stopped midair before its sudden but slow and steady arrival at Kurosawa, which added further pressure to the weight that Jean had begun to feel on the back of his neck. But he shifted the weight off for a moment to stare at the picture frame on his desk beside the unlit lamp, taking a second to relegate his heart rate and running a thoughtful finger across the glass where a young woman’s face rested, smiling a pair of pearly white teeth directly at the camera. Jean couldn’t help but smile back as he thought of his daughter, not knowing the person who helped her, but knowing that if they ever asked him for a favor, he wouldn’t hesitate. He named her Miracle for a reason, after all.

  A chime from his phone broke his concentration, and as he picked up the receiver to answer it, he felt the weight return as he heard the voice on the other side of the line.

  “What is it, Euphrasie?”

  ————————————————————————

  It had been a little over two weeks since Shepherd had begun his personal surveillance of André LeVerne’s convenience store, and though he’d been expecting some kind of special occurrence, he hadn’t seen anything really out of the ordinary, spare for a few cases where he saw André casually lift a white car that sat in his garage with one hand instead of using a jack like a normal person. According to his records, the kid couldn’t have been more than twenty four years old. It made Shepherd think about some of his own growth involving his powers, sure he couldn’t fly like some people he knew, and he didn’t have any special psionic abilities either, but he was strong as hell and fast enough to be able to make up for his lacking power. He’d trained so damn hard to get where he was, he didn’t mind if people saw him as arrogant or overconfident, because he knew they were right at times since he believed he could act like that since he was able to back up his occasional shit talking. But the kid he was watching was a Third Generation Super on top of being related to Léon, arguably the most popular Super from France and one of the most influential ones in history since he was commonly regarded as the strongest Great to exist.

  Shepherd had heard so much about the Greats from his father back in Quebec, he always wanted to meet Léon in particular because of the way his father spoke about him, he felt like he was the second father he never knew. This caused him to wonder what the kid was doing here in Nouveau Tokyo, working at a small convenience store and living in a garage on a street that doesn’t have a name. Shepherd had met a LeVerne before, but he didn’t know their actual name or her relation to André and it was a long time before he became No. 1, what he did know was that she was way stronger than him and could probably blow his entire chest cavity out through his back with a single punch. She had fiery amber hair and was rather tall, but it might’ve been because of her heels which he always thought were a bold choice since they looked like they were built into her golden-yellow and black bodysuit. She went by the moniker of “Arc” and seemed to be quite composed and confident at all times, though he swore he could’ve seen her smirk every time she heard other people talk about their powers and adventures.

  He could be famous by now, he’s probably just a few years younger than Arc. Why the hell is he just hanging around here? Is it an issue of freedom and personal responsibility? Or does he just not care about being a Hero? Shepherd racked his mind as he stared at the convenience store from on top of a building a few blocks away, his hand resting on his chin while he was deep in thought. Then something occurred to him that made him scan the area around the store intensely. He hadn’t seen the kid come out of his house today. At first he thought he might just be sleeping in, but since it was already almost lunchtime, he noticed the break in his schedule since André would always head into the city by foot to go to a restaurant with a patio called “Hiro’s Hot-Pot.”

  Shepherd’s eyes examined everything he could see in the area surrounding and within the block of streets where the convenience store was, from everything to a scratch in a light post to a woman pushing a stroller with a dog attached to her hip by way of leash. He cursed himself as he frantically scoured the area for the kid, knowing Euphrasie would never let him live it down for losing sight of him. And it was as Shepherd was getting ready to leap off the edge of the building he heard a sound from behind and above him, a familiar and youthful voice, but it sounded different than what he remembered, more monotone and eerily calm.

  “So you people finally caught on.”

  Shepherd couldn’t help but laugh as he slowly turned to see the kid floating a few feet above his head in front of him, dressed in a pair of runner’s shorts and a black hoodie, “Took you long enough to notice. Didn’t know you could fly.”

  André stared down at Shepherd with an apathetic look in his eye that bugged the Hero in a way he didn’t expect, “I could say the same thing. You and the President of the Association don’t know much.”

  Shepherd masked his surprise with his signature smile, “When’d you figure it out?”

  “The night you showed up.”

  “Guess that ruins the surprise.” Shepherd said with a sigh, “I’ll have to get out of here then, which is disappointing because I had some questions I wanted to ask.”

  André’s face took on a slight scowl, “Too bad, I don’t want to talk to you people at all.”

  Shepherd raised his hands defensively, “Nothing on the record, I was just wondering why a kid of your stature would be living the way you do.”

  “Fuck off, Shepherd. My business is my own, the less you know the better.”

  Shepherd’s eyes narrowed, “How the hell do you know my name?”

  André turned his head up towards the sky, “You’re not the only ones who know how to get information out of people.”

  The big man’s brow raised for a moment before he sucked his teeth, “Jett.” He said, not expecting a response.

  “I just want to be left alone. And I’ll get what I want one way or another, so tell your girlfriend to stay away, and nothing bad will happen.”

  “Are you threatening the President of the Association right now?”

  “I don’t make threats, Shepherd. Now go home and do your fucking job. Or are you going to prove me right in believing that Hero’s are just lapdogs for the Association?” André asked with a sudden glare that made Shepherd’s hair stand on edge.

  Is he fucking crazy or something? Shepherd thought as he tried his best to keep his smile on his face, though he felt it begin to waver when André mentioned Euphrasie.

  “I get your stance, but you don’t want to make an enemy of us, kid, especially her.” Shepherd said, his voice becoming more serious.

  André just sighed and shook his head, “You people just had to put your noses where they don’t belong.” He said out loud to apparently himself before suddenly appearing in front of Shepherd who didn’t even see him move which caught him off guard for a moment before he met his eyes with a stern look through his grey-white lensed glasses.

  “I don’t care about making you people my enemies, especially her. You might be strong, but I don’t believe you’re as strong as you think you are and doesn’t really matter to me, you people stepped on my toes. You can take my stance as arrogance or whatever, I really couldn’t care less, I just want to be left to my own devices in peace. I have no plans to kill anyone or start my own group or anything like that, I just want to run my store and keep the people around me happy. If you got a problem with that, then you can meet me out in the Plains and we can settle it.”

  Shepherd couldn’t help but feel proud of the kid for some reason, he might be an arrogant little shit, but he definitely had the namesake to live up to it. And though he honestly really wanted to see what would happen, he couldn’t escape the reality that Euphrasie would go ballistic if she found out he and the kid scrapped. So he just leaned back against the wall of the building for a moment before slowly nodding.

  “You know I can’t decide anything by myself on this, but I’ll make sure to stress the importance of your request.” He said, putting on his smile again.

  André got less than an inch from Shepherd’s face in less time than it took to blink, his eyes wide and filled with a reserved anger that sent disgustingly familiar chills down Shepherd’s back, “It wasn’t a request, make sure you stress the importance of that.” He said, waiting for Shepherd to silently nod before leaning back and drifting up into the sky before disappearing in a burst of wind that relocated Shepherd’s glasses to the top of his head.

  The Warden sat there for a few minutes, thinking about the situation and each word said to make sure he didn’t miss any important unspoken points before sighing and fixing his glasses back onto his eyes with a light chuckle.

  Ballsy, he thought, but he can probably back it up for the most part. I have a feeling that was only a taste of what he’s capable of.

  He felt oddly disappointed as he leaned back against the small wall behind him, likely because deep down, he truly wanted to know if he could take André. But he knew it would be a bad idea and lead into a series of events that he really didn’t even want to imagine, especially since he knew Euphrasie would have to involve herself at some point and he preferred having her away from the frontlines, it was safer that way. So there he stood for a while, his mind jumping back to a time when he was still an up and coming Hero who aimed for the No. 1 spot in the Association.

  He’d spent some time shadowing the No. 1 Hero of that time, Hyro. Nobody knew his real name, but Shepherd knew hundreds of rumors, all of them were a waste of time to him since he already knew the main aspect of Hyro as a man. Hyro was a sadistic, arguably psychopathic, freak of nature that viewed himself as a literal god. Shepherd caught on to this side of Hyro during a commission by the North American Alliance where a Super with elemental powers wrought extreme damage and violence against random people across the countries of Canada and the United States of America for seemingly no reason, or at least no reason Shepherd knew of because Hyro had tore their limbs from their body and threw them into the stratosphere by the time Shepherd had dealt with the plant-like golems the Super had created to slow them down. It didn’t kill the Super, but Hyro casually remarked that he didn’t want to kill them since he “found a new toy to play with.” Shepherd knew Hyro was fundamentally wrong, but this was his first encounter with the “true” Hyro that the public never saw.

  After a series of colossal sprouts that created a set of vines and roots over several hundred meters tall, the two of them found the Super suspended in the air, cradled in a massive ball of various minerals that were so compacted, it took both Shepherd and Hyro over three hours to infiltrate it since they were only able to use their bare hands and fists to puncture the outer layers. Once inside, they had to contend with a literal army of more plant-like golems that were hellbent on killing them both. And after a grueling battle that lasted over ten hours, the two Heroes had made it to the center of the ball where the Super had forcefully remade its body using the materials around it to form a giant earth-mech, which it piloted to crush Shepherd and beat Hyro to death with several hundred vines that cut threw the air like blades.

  However, Hyro managed to get into the Super’s armor and tore it apart to reach the pilot inside. Shepherd never saw what happened since he was incapacitated by the weight of the entire earth-mech standing on top of him, but the sound of the screams he heard coming from inside the earth-mech were enough for him to understand that he was better off where he was. All he saw after the earth-mech collapsed into dirt and rubble was Hyro standing over what could only be described as the faded and nearly forgotten idea of what a human body looked like.

  After the two Heroes left the scene and reported back to headquarters, Shepherd stayed in one of the requisitioned hospitals used by the Association to help severely injured Heroes where he personally contacted Euphrasie Harukiya and told her what he’d seen and what Hyro had done. To this day, Shepherd can still see that smile on Hyro’s face. It looked almost… euphoric as he stood over the remains of the Super. That was the day that Shepherd Brooks and Euphrasie Harukiya began to devise a plan to get rid of Hyro for good. They knew he was just a walking time bomb that would eventually explode at the slightest thing that could possibly set him off, neither of them truly knew what would, but they knew nobody on Earth would want to find out due to the possible consequences that man could bring about. Nobody knew the truth about what really happened to Hyro, and there were several powerful people who preferred the idea that everyone tended to believe. One day, Hyro just disappeared. And in accordance with the agreements made after his so-called “disappearance,” no government or organization would willfully divulge the details.

  Shepherd liked it that way, and though he could still feel the tingling in his bones from that day, he figured André was different in a way from that batshit bastard. He didn’t know what was different, or how for that matter, but he knew at least that Hyro would’ve gone about the situation in a drastically more painfully awful way.

  So be it. He thought as he pulled out his phone and texted the President of the Association of United Heroes, sending a simple string of only two words.

  “He knows.”