Chapter Five

Haruki breezed through biology and slogged his way through math. Memorization classes weren’t hard, and thanks to Kenshi, math became simpler. Balancing his job with his education proved uncomplicated. The few times his boss called him up mid-class to rescue a hostage or solve a major traffic disaster went as smoothly as glass.

In P.E., he slipped out of his uniform and into gym clothes. “Holy crap,” one freshman commented.

“You think he’s on drugs?” another asked.

He couldn’t help but smile internally as he slid his shorts over his underwear and put on his white gym shirt. From their point of view, the scrawny boy had put on months’ worth of muscle in a few weeks. He caught his gym teacher with a disappointed look after he dropped a tablet in a toilet Haruki used. It hadn’t made sense until Matomaru explained it was a drug test. So, he thought, even the teachers are noticing.

In the weight room, the jocks and upperclassmen did their exercises. The gym teacher gave lectures on the proper weightlifting technique. He cycled through exercises to keep his routine even. More than one jealous glance aimed his way.

After P.E., he devoured his lunch before going over his evening work ahead of time. The rest of his school day passed uneventfully, which was how he liked it. He then dropped off his backpack at home and made his way to work.

“What’s on the schedule for today?” he asked.

Matomaru gestured at a meeting room off to the side. “I know you’ve been wondering why this facility is so empty. Here’s where it stops being so empty.” Haruki followed him into the meeting room, where a collection of men and women of various ages, sizes, and physiques sat in wait for him. “They’ve been working on other assignments across Japan while we got you situated. Now it’s time for you all to work as a team.”

Haruki couldn’t help but notice Matomaru repeatedly glance at his phone and look uneasy.

Seated in front sat a man built like an MMA champion. Despite standing no taller than Matomaru, his arms, shoulders, and legs bulged in ways only seen in those who approached the breaking point daily. From health class, Haruki saw the physique had just enough fat not to be a health risk. Bodybuilders risked collapse due to how low their body fat needed to be to have the kind of lines they showed off. This man kept himself in perfect condition, not to look pretty, but to deliver maximum performance. The man stared at him with the flat, analytic stare of a hawk, and brushed aside a strand of light brown hair. “Name’s Kanata Shirai,” he spoke, his voice serious, “and you can call me ‘Operative.’”

“I assume you’re the team leader,” Haruki replied, “nice to meet you all. My name’s Haruki Kawakatsu.”

“His codename,” Matomaru said, “is ‘Laser Hammer.’” Haruki whipped his head around and shot him a bewildered look. “It’s because he can strike with the precision of a surgical laser, or the blunt force of a hammer.” Haruki hated it, but accepted.

“Operative is team leader,” a tall woman with chin-length black hair said. Haruki saw in her the muscular build of a warrior. While not as built as Operative, she nevertheless imposed with her physique. “I’m Fumi Sano, codename ‘Combat Queen.’ I’m the second team leader.”

Haruki turned to a man who seemed the image of normality. His height and build seemed average, though the boy could see the deceptive nature of it. He looked at Haruki and his eyes drew to a line. “Shouji Shimamura,” he uttered, no tone to his voice, “Gunman.”

A young man, who couldn’t possibly be older than twenty, stood up. At least, that’s what Haruki assumed happened, because the boy sat one moment and stood the next. Even with my eyes, he thought, bewildered, I didn’t see him stand up. The young man then appeared right in front of him, extending a hand. “Oh!” the young man said, his short black hair whishing back and forth. “I forget it startles people sometimes! Tatsuyo Yoshida, I’m the ‘Fast Mover.’”

“Nice to meet you,” Haruki uttered. Fast Mover then seemed to instantly reappear in his seat.

A woman with blonde hair and upper-class facial features stood and bowed slightly. She stood shorter than the others. “I’m Kiyoko Nozawa, the ‘Falling Star,’” she introduced. “Looking forward to working with you.”

From the far left, a short man, thick and wide with muscle, waved. “Kenzo Takenaka,” he said, “I’m called ‘Thick Skin.’” He then leaned back in his chair. An average built woman seated next to him extended a hand and a bottle of water from the table in the middle zoomed to her hand. She introduced herself as Kasumi Okabe, and that her codename was ‘Push & Pull.’ Haruki thought it a little too on the nose.

A blade made of solid light extended from the arm of a tall, slender woman. She smiled and reshaped it into several different configurations before making it vanish. “I’m called ‘Blade Extender,’” she said as she brushed aside hair the color of stained mahogany. “My name is Mayumi Sugiyama.”

Finally, from in the back, a woman stood up nearly seven feet tall. She dwarfed everyone else in the room and carried considerably more muscle than anyone else present. Her shoulder-length black hair shifted as she stood. “Chihiro Saito,” she introduced. Haruki marveled at her low, husky feminine voice. “I’m ‘Brute Beauty,’ and I’m looking forward to working with you.”

“Alright!” Matomaru exclaimed as he clapped his hands. “Introductions are over. Time for you to get acquainted with your first mission!”

Haruki stared. “We’ve…” He coughed and tried to gather his wits about him. “We’ve just met!”

“I know,” Matomaru replied. “Incidents don’t wait for us.”

Haruki stood on the edge of a nearby building and watched. He found his senses enhanced by his power and amplified by the helmet. The helmet’s sensors let him see through the building at the targets inside. Far below, a government perimeter had been set up several blocks away from the office building. No helicopters or roving newspeople were allowed anywhere close. The surrounding area was evacuated. Kensuke told the team some equipment had been brought in to prevent cell phone video, so they were free to operate.

“Here’s the plan,” Operative had said, as they sat in the tactical van and stared at displays of building schematics and road maps. He’d laid out in utilitarian detail who needed to be where and how to deal with the crowd of bad guys surrounding the building.

“It’s that damned cult again,” Matomaru had said, earpiece in. “Cultists have control of the building and have agents surrounding it. They want some military secret in a vault in the top office and are trying to break in.”

The van had seized control of CCTV cameras for all the nearby buildings, and the team estimated twenty people out front. There was a secret entrance through an underground service tunnel, and the two team leaders went over who did what.

“Laser Hammer,” Operative had said, face masked by tactical gear, “you’re our heavy hitter. Stay on the roofs of nearby buildings. You are to come in if something unexpected happens, or to prevent something tragic.”

Haruki had felt pangs of annoyance bubble up in him. He could solve this entire problem by himself. His dad always taught him to be respectful, so he had pushed down his irritation and nodded. “I understand,” he replied.

“No, seriously,” Combat Queen had cut in and said, “don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re an important resource we don’t want to reveal to the enemy right away.”

It had made sense to him. “No problem.”

So, he watched Operative and Combat Queen knock out the goons out front. Fast Mover sat poised to zoom into the building once the underground access got secured. Each super, clad in their tactical gear, went in groups where possible. Brute Beauty circled the perimeter to prevent sneak attacks, Thick Skin and Push & Pull got the access hatch open and went in to handle underground cultists, and the remaining three entered the building thereafter.

Seeing the two team leaders go to work was a treat to Haruki. Twenty men and women with guns and stolen tactical gear patrolled the main entrance. The two jumped into the fray. Operative predicted bullet trajectories with ease and pulled Kevlar-armored bodies into their path. Combat Queen knocked pistols aside and dropped goons to the ground, one elbow or flat palm knockout per cultist. They stood back-to-back and let the remaining cultists swarm them. Then they orchestrated a masterful symphony of team knockouts, with one parrying the other into a kick or elbow strike.

In a hair over two minutes, twenty cultists lay tied in cord.

While the team leaders mashed heads and torsos, shouts rang out from inside the building. Haruki saw as cultists inside wielded machine guns towards the street. His heart pounded and he prepared to leap across the gap, until Falling Star shot out a blinding flash of light. She incapacitated those in her floor with laser pulses and tactical use of martial arts. On the floor above, Blade Extender deflected gunfire with forcefields of light. She zipped between bad guys and knocked them out with mallets shaped out of forcefields.

Gunman scurried around his floor. He choked out a man and used his pistol to wound several more. He paid no attention to the gun’s magazine thanks to his power. Haruki stared as wounded cultists went down and he kicked their guns away from them. Despite what movies often showed, once someone took a bullet to the shoulder or leg, they often didn’t have the willpower to continue the fight. He corded them up and moved on.

“Fast Mover,” Operative said as he moved into the building, “come in and secure the security room.” Haruki saw the young man vanish from the van and appear in the hallway of the basement. The security room had six goons in front. Fast Mover corded them up and disarmed them before they even lifted their guns to fire.

“Security room secure,” Fast Mover called over the team’s shared comms.

The team converged on the top floor office. Haruki leapt from roof to roof until he got a good look at the back of the building. The top floor office had a cult leader positioned behind a weapon Haruki recognized as an American M134 Minigun on a turret. Two men used a welding torch and had cut partially through a vault door. The cult leader called to his men. He received no answer and pressed a button on the desk nearby.

The office door splintered under Brute Beauty’s kick. The minigun began to spin up to fire.

The thick door to the security room beeped, and a series of charges in the door fired. Fast Mover ran, but to his surprise, his foot caught a table, and he tripped. The door slammed shut just as he stumbled to his feet.

Operative and Combat Queen saw the six-barreled gun fire.

Haruki ran and leapt. He arced through the air, and horror hit him as his body dropped too quickly. He forced his will outward and bounded up, propelling up and forward. I can fly! He had no time for further thoughts. He crashed through the right window. Security glass fragments hung in the air as bullets soared towards his teammates.

His team saw Haruki materialize in front of them and his arm became a blur as he knocked bullets harmlessly to the floor. The cult leader stared in shock, and the pause let Haruki pull him away, cord him up, and hurl him at his team. The two cultists with welding torches surrendered quietly.

“Excellent job, team!” Matomaru said, as the police vans loaded the cultists.

“You did well,” Operative said to Haruki. “You judged the right moment.”

“It was my fault,” Blade Extender lamented. “I should’ve put the shield up before we entered.”

“You should have,” Combat Queen agreed, “but let’s worry about that for future missions.”

The cult leader was dragged kicking and screaming into the nearby police van. “You can’t stop what’s coming!” he cried. “The gods will have their revenge! Aeriesai will have his revenge!”

Everyone laughed or stood amused as he got shoved into a van that locked and drove away.

Matomaru approached Haruki. “This concludes our first team mission.” He patted the boy on the shoulder. “Excellent first mission. Once we all get back to base, the rest of the day is yours.” The team followed him into the van. Haruki saw a small object fall from the broken window of the building to the ground. “Laser Hammer! Are you coming?”

“Just a moment,” he said. He zoomed over to it and stared. It had some symbol he didn’t know. “Huh.” As he stared at it, something clicked in his mind, and he realized he did know what it said.

“Laser Hammer!” Matomaru called again.

“Coming!” he shouted. He picked up the small wooden object. It was the size of a credit card, and it bore a symbol for a name.

“Korazon,” it read, in a tongue Haruki couldn’t remember ever learning. He ignored the thought and returned to the van.

“What’s that?” Matomaru asked. Haruki shrugged and handed it to him. “Strange.” The man studied it before he put it in an evidence bag. As they pulled into the secret parking garage, Haruki couldn’t help but feel something…pull at his mind.

“Laser Hammer,” Kensuke said as he stepped into the hallway. “I hate to give you extra duty, but we have someone causing trouble at an abandoned school.” He lifted a tablet and showed a man with metal powers tearing through walls. “Be careful.”

“On it,” Haruki said. In moments, he stood in the abandoned building. A man shifted his arm into metal and sliced through a wall. “You’re done.”

The man turned. “Who are you?” He didn’t wait for Haruki’s answer. He shifted his arms into metal spikes and shoved. The tips cut through the clothing but bent harmlessly against Haruki’s skin.

“Someone who’s going to stop you,” Haruki replied. He slapped the man in the chest and shot him through the wall behind him. The man’s metal body absorbed the impact, but he groaned in pain as he came to rest in a pile of desks. He stood up and slashed Haruki’s neck, to no avail. A jab to the abdomen brought the guy to his knees, and he spat up his lunch.

Haruki felt that uncomfortable pull again, the same as when he touched the symbol. The attacker stood up.

“You’re my only real competition,” a dark voice said from seemingly everywhere. The metal manipulator jerked his head around.

“How’d you do that?” he demanded, his voice frantic.

Haruki hadn’t seen the man’s lips move when the dark voice spoke, and the two timbres were vastly different. “I didn’t,” he said.

A violet light overtook the metal manipulator. He screamed in agony before a sadistic grin replaced his visible terror. “Ah,” the metal manipulator spoke, his voice now the darker one. “That’s better.” He stared at the boy with knowing eyes.

Haruki felt a chill come over him, as though ice frosted over his heart. “I don’t know you.”

The man sneered. “Ah, Korazon,” he said, voice coated with arrogance, “if only you knew.”

“What?” was Haruki’s intended question. Before he asked it, a fist slammed into his gut. He felt his entire body rock from the blow, and his insides shook with pain. He didn’t have time to vomit as a right hook shattered his armored helmet like glass and shot him through several walls. His body came to rest in a tiled wall as water from busted pipes splashed on him. A broken mirror showed blood on his face. He stood horrified at the wound. This guy can hurt me, he thought.

The possessed metal manipulator stepped through the hole. He saw a faint puff of flame as the wounds healed. “Ah,” he declared. “That explains it. You’ve somehow gained the gift of the Spirit of Fire.”

“Wha?” Haruki cried as he stumbled to his feet. His balance returned slowly.

“My colleagues might’ve given you a human form,” the villain spoke, “but it won’t save you.”

Haruki growled and launched himself at the man with full force. The tile exploded from the downward thrust of his legs. He shot forward with muscles taut and swung with his full might. The entire building shook from the fist’s impact. The walls around them exploded and parts of floors collapsed.

The man did not move.

Haruki had a single moment of terror before a knee rammed into his gut that splattered his lunch and some blood on the man’s chest. A fist then crashed into his left temple and careened him through the building’s walls. He tumbled unconsciously through holes in floors and came to rest in the basement.

“Sleep it off,” the man said.