Chapter 185 Down.

Chapter 185: 185 Down.

All around the ruined bazaar, the black market began to violently wake up.

Thousands of discarded assault rifles, heavy machine guns, and plasma cannons began to slowly levitate off the floor, clicking and cocking as they hovered in the air.

The ruined chassis of the attack helicopter groaned, floating upward. Heavy armored transport vehicles shuddered, their steel frames rising from the dust to form a massive, hovering barricade behind me.

I was effectively a one-man army, and I had the entire armory.

Cloudfire’s eyes widened slightly as the shadow of a hovering, ten-ton tank fell over him. Rick’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t back down.

One twitch, one wrong word, and the entire underground cavern was going to turn into a bloodbath of unimaginable proportions.

But before I could decide whether to throw the first punch or attempt a tactical retreat, a heavy, booming voice echoed down from the ragged crater in the ceiling.

"STAND DOWN."

The voice wasn’t amplified by a PA system or magic. It was just raw, booming vocal power, filled with a deep, gritty resonance that instantly sucked all the oxygen out of the room.

A shadow eclipsed the light from the mall above.

A figure dropped straight through the hole. He didn’t use jets or magic to slow his descent; he just let gravity take him.

He hit the reinforced concrete floor with the devastating impact of a nuke. Spiderwebs of deep cracks shot out from his boots, traveling all the way to the walls of the warehouse.

The dust cleared, and I felt my stomach plummet straight into my boots.

It was Extraordinary.

He was the final, missing member of The Five. I had never actually seen him in person, but his reputation was legendary.

He looked like a dark, gritty parody of a patriotic super-soldier.

He was clad in a muted, midnight-blue and black tactical suit, heavily armored with thick ballistic scales. I would’ve tried to manipulate that if any of it was from Earth.

Unlike the clean-cut golden boys of the industry, Extraordinary looked like a veteran who had seen too much war. A thick, unkempt beard covered his jaw, and his eyes... his eyes were the worst part.

They were glowing with a terrifying, contained heat-vision energy. But it wasn’t the heat that terrified me. It was the pure, unadulterated, fatherly malice burning behind it.

He slowly straightened up, his massive frame towering even over Mister Invincible. He didn’t look at the frozen Mystic. He didn’t look at the floating arsenal of guns I had aimed at them.

He looked entirely, exclusively, at me.

"You put my boy in a tube, Polaris," Extraordinary rumbled. His voice was quiet, but it carried the distinct promise of intense, prolonged physical violence.

I stared at him, doing the math in my head at light-speed.

I had the metal of the warehouse. I had a lot of raw power. But against four S-class founders, plus a vengeful, Superman-tier powerhouse who was actively looking for an excuse to tear my spine out through my throat because I had put his son in the ICU?

The math didn’t add up.

If I started a brawl right now, it wouldn’t be a fight. It would be an execution.

And even if I somehow miraculously managed to escape, I’d have the entire global might of the Bureau hunting me down.

The only chance I’d have at survival would be to go full, global-terrorist villain. I’d lose the chalet. I’d lose my carefully built reputation.

And I’d worked entirely too hard on this empire to let that happen.

Besides, I was reasonably sure I had a solid legal defense. The Mega Mall didn’t exactly lack for high-definition security cameras.

There was plenty of footage of Mystic obliterating the skylight and attacking me completely unprovoked. I could beat this in a courtroom. I couldn’t beat it in a warehouse.

I exhaled slowly, my breath fogging in the cold air radiating from Mystic’s icy tomb.

With a heavy sigh, I released my iron grip on the magnetic fields.

The entire hovering arsenal of the black market dropped simultaneously.

Thousands of guns, tanks, and mechs slammed back down onto the concrete with a deafening, metallic crash that echoed for miles.

"Rhea?" I murmured quietly into the encrypted radio link inside my helmet. "Did you and Psyren get out okay?"

"Yeah, sure, Miles. We got separated for a few minutes in the stampede, but we’re together now," Rhea’s voice crackled back, tight with anxiety. "But I just saw a massive squad of S-class heroes go through the ceiling crater. What the hell is going on down there?"

I breathed a genuine sigh of relief. They were safe. That was all that mattered right now.

"Head back to the lair," I ordered softly, keeping my eyes locked dead on Extraordinary’s glowing gaze as I slowly raised my empty hands. "I’m just going to have a polite chat with the Bureau. I’ll meet you back at the chalet."

"If you say so, Miles," Rhea said, her tone shifting from anxious to fiercely protective. "But if you’re not back within six hours, we are coming in to get you. I don’t care if I have to orbital-strike the Hall of Heroes."

I couldn’t help but snort, a brief, genuine smile crossing my lips beneath the visor.

I really did love those girls.

"Hold off on the invasion plans for now. Something’s deeply fishy about all this, and I need to figure it out."

I killed the radio feed. With a metallic snick, I peeled out the earpiece, exposing my face to the hostile gods surrounding me.

"Fine. I’ll come quietly," I said, looking directly at Rick. "But I want to stress the legal fact that I did absolutely nothing wrong here. I was defending myself."

"If that is truly the case, then you have absolutely nothing to worry about in our custody," Khonsu said, his tone entirely unconvinced.

Ha!

I couldn’t help but laugh out loud at that, a harsh, cynical bark that only made the heroes tense further.

Extraordinary’s eyes flared a brighter red, the heat making the air around him shimmer.

Still, I held my ground and let them close the circle around me.

Mister Invincible stepped forward, producing a heavy pair of glowing, industrial-grade magnetic suppression cuffs from his belt.

I rolled my eyes dramatically, but I obediently held out my wrists and let him click the heavy restraints into place.

The familiar, sickening sensation of my powers being artificially dampened washed over me.

It had been a very long time since I’d had to do a proper, humiliating perp walk.

Cloudfire immediately stepped up behind me, grabbing me roughly by the shoulder and shoving me toward the heavy freight elevators at the back of the bazaar.

"Move it, villain," the billionaire snapped.

I rolled my eyes again, stumbling slightly as I was marched forward under the furious gaze of five actual demigods.

Ah, the memories. This was going to be a phenomenally long day.