I spent the next few hours at my desk, laptop open, diving into this world’s version of reality.

The memories gave me context. The internet gave me the actual picture.

I started with the basics. Hero rankings. Licensing requirements. The IHL Accord. All the institutional machinery that turned superpowers into a profession instead of chaos.

The Hero Network had a public-facing website. Rankings updated quarterly. California alone had three hundred licensed Heroes across all ranks. Nationally? Over two thousand. That was just the ones who passed the exam and kept their license current.

The top hundred got their own pages. Full profiles. Win rates. Case resolution stats. Public approval ratings that read like polling data for presidential candidates.

I scrolled through the California rankings first. Recognized a few names from Lukas’s memories. Stopped on number fourteen.

Grande Dame.

The profile photo showed a woman who understood exactly what she was selling. Jet black hair falling over one shoulder. Violet eyes that stared directly into the camera like she owned it. The costume was purple and gold, cut to emphasize curves that would make a mannequin weep with envy.

Aspect: Paradigm Shift. Classification: Flux. Rarity: Epic.

Size manipulation. She could go from eighteen inches to sixty-seven feet. The profile didn’t mention the obvious tactical applications. It did mention her debut six months ago.

I clicked the embedded video.

The footage opened on a downtown street. Villain threat, some guy with a concrete manipulation Aspect tearing up the pavement. Standard property damage scenario. Three Heroes already on scene, struggling to contain him.

Then Grande Dame arrived.

She walked into frame at normal height, hips swaying in a way that made the camera operator forget their job for two full seconds. The concrete manipulator didn’t even see her coming.

She grew mid-stride.

Twenty feet. Thirty. Forty. The growth didn’t stop until she towered over the entire street, purple costume stretching with her, somehow maintaining perfect coverage at scale.

The kick came next.

She pivoted, leg sweeping out in an arc that probably registered on seismographs. The villain flew backwards into a wall hard enough to crater the brick. Combat over. Threat neutralized.

And then she posed.

One hand on her hip, the other brushing hair from her face, looking down at the cameras with a smile that said she knew exactly how good she looked doing this.

The comment section was predictable. Half the posts were about her tactical performance. The other half were significantly less professional.

"Damn," I muttered. "America’s ass just got a new contender."

The Oracle Feed stayed silent. Apparently it had no opinion on Grande Dame’s posterior.

I kept scrolling. Found the net worth estimates some financial blog had compiled for the top ten nationally ranked Heroes.

Number ten clocked in at forty-two million. Endorsement deals, licensing fees, merchandise revenue. Being a top Hero wasn’t just prestigious. It was obscenely profitable.

The numbers climbed as the ranks descended.

Number five: eighty-seven million.

Number three: hundred and thirty million.

Number two: Prominence. Two hundred and eighteen million.

I clicked his profile. The photo showed a man built like a Greek statue come to life. Blonde hair, blue eyes, smile so perfect it looked photoshopped. The costume was white and gold with red accents, sun imagery everywhere.

Aspect: Solar Flare. Classification: Channeler. Rarity: Legendary.

Superheated plasma generation. Fire manipulation on a scale that made most other Channelers look like they were playing with matches. Based out of New York. Twelve years in the top ten. Never dropped below third place.

Never made it to first.

I scrolled to the top of the rankings.

Number one.

The number that every other Hero in the country measured themselves against.

Radiant.

Net worth: estimated over four hundred million, though the article noted his actual wealth was probably higher. Licensing deals alone put him in a different financial category. Add in government contracts, international consulting fees, and the fact that his face sold products in markets that had nothing to do with heroics, and the number became meaningless.

He wasn’t just rich. He was an institution.

The profile photo showed a man who looked like propaganda made flesh. Seven feet tall even in the picture. Blonde hair swept back into those distinctive horn-like bangs. Blue eyes that somehow conveyed warmth and absolute confidence simultaneously. The smile was genuine. You could tell because fake smiles didn’t reach the eyes like that.

Costume: red, white, blue. Gold accents. Primary colors that screamed American iconography without being subtle about it.

Aspect: Superpower. Classification: Flux. Rarity: Legendary+.

The plus sign was unusual. Most Aspects topped out at Legendary. Whatever Superpower did, it exceeded standard classification.

The description was vague. Physical enhancement. Durability. Strength on a scale that made standard metrics inadequate. He’d held the number one spot for over a decade. His approval rating hadn’t dropped below ninety-eight percent in fifteen years.

He was what every Hero candidate aspired to become.

I noticed the video thumbnail below his profile. Purple link. Small text underneath.

"You have visited this 47 times."

The video quality was shaky. Phone camera footage from a civilian perspective. The timestamp put it at 11:43pm. The location tag said Eastside, Verano.

Smoke filled the frame. Not just smoke. Fire. An entire apartment complex burning, flames pouring from windows on every floor. People screaming. The sound quality was terrible but the panic came through anyway.

Heroes on the ground trying to coordinate. Trying to evacuate. Trying to contain whatever was happening inside.

Then the camera panned up.

Radiant descended from above like a meteor in reverse. He didn’t fly. He fell with such control it looked like flying. The landing cratered the street, shockwave blowing out windows in adjacent buildings.

He was already moving before the dust settled.

The apartment entrance was an inferno. Radiant walked through it like the fire was theoretical. The camera lost sight of him for maybe fifteen seconds.

When he emerged, he was carrying people.

Four at once. Two over his shoulders, one under each arm. He set them down gently despite moving at speeds that should have made gentle impossible. Turned. Went back in.

The pattern repeated. Out with survivors. Back in for more. The building was actively collapsing. Didn’t matter. Radiant was faster than the collapse.

His costume was burning in places. Small fires that he ignored completely. His skin showed no damage. The people he carried were unconscious or close to it, smoke inhalation and burns visible even through the terrible video quality.

He brought them out anyway.

Twenty-seven people total by the time the building finally came down. Twenty-seven lives pulled from a structure that should have been a tomb.

And then he laughed.

The sound carried across the street even through the phone’s speaker. Not mocking laughter. Not cruel. Just genuine relief that bordered on joy.

"Everyone’s safe!" His voice boomed without seeming to shout. "The fire department will handle the rest. You’re all safe now!"

The crowd’s response was immediate. Cheering. Crying. People who’d just watched their homes burn down cheering because Radiant had saved them.

The video ended there. Four minutes, eighteen seconds.

I sat back in my chair, staring at the frozen final frame. Radiant’s smile filling the screen.

Forty-seven times. Lukas had watched this forty-seven times.

The Hero who saved everyone with a smile.

"System," I said quietly. "How strong is Radiant actually?"

The interface materialized.

[SCUMBAG SYSTEM: Radiant’s combat capabilities exceed standard measurement parameters. Estimated power level places him in the top 0.01% of all registered Aspect-users globally.]

"That’s not an answer."

[SCUMBAG SYSTEM: Radiant has never been observed operating at full capacity. Current projections suggest his maximum output remains undocumented.]

"So he’s holding back. Always."

[SCUMBAG SYSTEM: Correct. Public safety regulations and collateral damage concerns limit his operational ceiling.]

I clicked back to the profile. Scrolled through his case history. Disaster response, S-class villain containment, international crisis intervention. The man didn’t just operate in California. He showed up wherever the worst situations developed.

And he always arrived in time.

"What happens if I meet him?" I asked. "

[SCUMBAG SYSTEM: Insufficient data for meaningful projection. Radiant maintains professional distance from academy students. Direct interaction probability remains low until host achieves significant ranking.]

"But it’s possible."

[SCUMBAG SYSTEM: All outcomes are possible given sufficient progression.]

I closed the laptop. Leaned back. Processed.

Radiant was the ceiling. The absolute peak of what this profession could produce. Four hundred million dollars. Universal approval. Power that redefined what Aspects could accomplish.

And I was sitting in a bedroom with baseline ten stats across the board, an Unmarked registration, and a system that wanted me to smack my pseudo-sister’s ass for my first quest reward.

The gap was so massive it was almost funny.

"I’m going to Halloran," I said to the empty room. "I’m going to pass the entrance exam. I’m going to become a licensed Hero. And eventually, I’m going to stand in the same room as Radiant without feeling like a fucking insect."

[SCUMBAG SYSTEM: Ambition acknowledged. Current probability of scenario completion—1.2%.]

"I’ll take those odds."

[SCUMBAG SYSTEM: Your optimism is noted.]

===

[A/N:]

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