Chapter 189 Lawyer.

Chapter 189: 189 Lawyer.

"But why?" I asked, keeping my voice carefully level. "Why do you even need her? If you can silently puppet the most powerful heroes on the planet, you can clearly manipulate minds yourself."

Micheal didn’t chuckle. He didn’t gloat like a comic-book megalomaniac.

A monogrammed pen suddenly rose smoothly from his breast pocket, levitating into the air between us.

"Ah. Well, that is the primary bottleneck of my operation, Polaris," Micheal stated. "I am not actually a telepath. I am a telekinetic."

I stared at him. "What?"

"I manipulate physical matter and kinetic energy on a sub-atomic level," he explained like I cared. "I can reinforce the human body. I can sever synapses. I can physically puppet a biological nervous system with absolute precision, like I am currently doing with Richard and Cloudfire."

The levitating pen suddenly shot downward with the speed of a bullet.

It buried itself three inches deep into the solid steel table, embedding exactly half an inch between my chained fingers.

I didn’t even flinch. I just gave him a dead, even look.

"Oh?" I said softly.

"Indeed," Micheal said, his face remaining entirely expressionless. "But genuine, organic mind manipulation? Altering a subject’s thoughts while leaving their personality intact? That is incredibly resource-intensive for me. I am frankly quite terrible at it.

"It requires decades of passive, localized influence to achieve even a crude result, as you saw with Mystic. And for what I have planned next, I require far more processing power. I need an amplifier. I need a specialist."

"Psyren," I growled.

"Precisely. You see, Miles, there are simply far too many heroes currently operating in the world. It is highly disorganized. It is completely inefficient. We need a single, centralized hero association. A monopoly under which every superhuman asset is properly managed and deployed."

"But superhuman egos are notoriously fragile. So many heroes have differing, illogical opinions on how to dispense justice. You have teen groups.

"You have specialized squads of four, or five, or thirty. You have international icons clashing with local vigilantes. Hero Guilds. Independent associations. They all have conflicting moral frameworks and contradictory operational methodologies.

"Some work exclusively for corporate bodies to sell insurance. Some work for the prison-industrial complex. Some only work for themselves.

"Do you have any idea how many civilians suffer statistically because heroes simply do whatever they feel like doing on any given Tuesday? Because they waste time arguing over jurisdiction rather than neutralizing the threat?"

He leaned forward slightly.

"Too many, Miles. The casualty are unacceptable. What this world desperately requires is efficiency. Standardization. No more random, unvetted heroics."

"So, you’re not really looking to build a hero association," I said, the true scale of his madness finally clicking into place. "You’re looking to build a complete, unassailable hero monopoly. An army of biological drones."

"In a manner of speaking," Micheal agreed. "For the greater good."

I was getting so fucking tired of those exact words.

"Is that what the original BSA initiative was supposed to be?" I asked, gesturing with my chin to the drooling, insensate body of Mister Invincible and the slouched billionaire.

Micheal nodded, a faint flicker of genuine annoyance crossing his features.

"Yes. But the organic variable proved too stubborn. It did not work out. Free will and independence are such massive inconveniences when the objective survival of the world is at stake. Ah, well."

The satisfied, serene look returned to his face.

"But with Psyren integrated into the Override Array, that inconvenience is permanently solved. All I will need to do is legally invite a hero to walk through the front doors of this facility, and ta-da. Neural pathways optimized. Perspectives aligned. Contracts enthusiastically signed. And look at that! Every hero on the planet, safely housed under one unified roof."

Satisfaction deepened the corners of his mouth. "My roof."

Holy hell.

He was absolutely serious. And the absolute worst part of it was how horribly, nightmarishly sane the underlying logic was. It made complete, ruthless sense.

It was a terrible, midwit middle-management corporate restructuring plan, but scaled up to a monstrous, world-ending level.

I couldn’t even think of a word to adequately describe the sheer, sociopathic scale of it.

"You really think you’ll get away with that?" I demanded. "You think no one will notice when every single independent hero on the planet suddenly decides to uniformly join your specific association?"

"Once the global populace sees the sheer, optimized efficiency of my system, no one will even care to question it," Micheal replied smoothly. "Besides, once I have Psyren powering the Array, even if regulators do grow suspicious, it will be simplicity itself to just... adjust their perspectives.

"Invite the federal auditors to take a tour of the facility, and they will leave as my staunchest advocates. The United Nations. The military brass. Whatever demographic I need to manage, I will."

He reached out and tapped a single finger pointedly against the steel table.

"And you, Miles, are not going to stand in my way. You are a problem that has been successfully taken care of. You are done. And I am going to make sure that you never see the light of day again."

I glared directly into his unblinking eyes, my hands tightening into fists.

I was going to kill him.

Right here. Right now. I didn’t care about the cameras. I didn’t care about the structural integrity of the building.

I could feel the deep, resonant humming of my magnetic powers waking up, vibrating through the pristine white room.

It had been building ever since he started talking, a slow, pressurized geyser of kinetic fury, but now we were rapidly reaching the absolute limit of my restraint.

The heavy steel table rattled, the bolts groaning against the concrete floor.

My tungsten cuffs clinked violently.

The metallic struts hidden inside the blindingly white walls began to shudder, emitting a high-pitched, structural whine.

"Go on," Micheal said, his voice dropping to a low, sharp whisper. "Take your shot."

He wanted it.

He wanted me to try. He wanted me to hit him. He’d absorb the blow with his telekinesis, instantly cry victim to the federal authorities, and legally bury me in a black site for the rest of my natural life.

Should I chance it?

I felt my head pound with pure, unadulterated fury. My blood roared in my ears.

This bastard. This absolute, sanctimonious, sociopathic bastard.

Fuck it.

It would be worth it. It would be worth losing the chalet, losing the sponsorships, losing everything just to magnetically crush his smug, gray-suited chest cavity into a singularity, and I would—

The heavy, seamless door suddenly violently blew open, the metallic BANG echoing like a cannon shot in the tense silence.

I violently jerked back in my chair, my magnetic field instantly snapping like a cut guitar string.

Micheal’s head snapped toward the entrance, his perfect composure momentarily shattered by the sheer volume of the intrusion.

We both stared at the doorway in absolute shock.

And the sight made my jaw literally drop open.

Standing in the threshold, one crimson, stiletto-heeled leg thrust aggressively forward through a scandalous slit in a skin-tight pinstriped skirt, was Lilith.

She was dressed in what could only be described as a stripper’s interpretation of corporate legal attire.

She wore a tailored black blazer that was fighting a completely hopeless, losing battle against her massive cleavage, paired with adorable, wire-rimmed reading glasses perched on the end of her nose.

Her spaded tail whipped excitedly behind her as she tilted her head, taking in the sterile interrogation room with glowing yellow eyes.

"Milesyyyyy!" Lilith squealed, her impossibly bubbly voice shattering the grim atmosphere of the black site into a million pieces.

She threw her arms wide open and strutted into the room like the metal table was a Parisian catwalk, completely ignoring the fact that she was currently inside a highly classified federal holding facility.

"There you are! I’ve been looking all over this dreadfully boring building for you!"

"Lilith?" I said blankly, my brain completely short-circuiting as I stared at the towering demoness. "What... what are you doing here?"

"Oh, Milesy, look at you!" Lilith gasped, rushing forward and leaning right over the table, giving me a terrifyingly close view of her plunging neckline. "Cuffed to a desk! Oh, how cute and quaint! It’s very bondage-chic, but totally unacceptable for my client! Excuse me, sweetie, would you mind taking these off him?"

Lilith turned her hundred-watt, aggressively cheerful smile directly onto Micheal.

The transformation in Cortex was instant and absolute. The terrifying, calculating sociopath vanished in a microsecond.

Micheal stared up at the towering succubus with wide, totally expressionless eyes, his posture instantly slumping back into that of a dull, overworked bureaucrat.

And as the mastermind retreated behind his mask, I noticed something else.

Mister Invincible suddenly gasped, bolting perfectly upright in his chair.

The invincible hero blinked rapidly, instantly matching Lilith’s bubbly energy with his own booming, media-trained grin.

Cloudfire was up too, though didn’t act like there was anything wrong, just brought back up his chair and sat.

"Well, hello there, little lady!" Rick boomed jovially, completely ignoring the fact that he was talking to a six-foot-three demon. "Great to meet you! And, well, we’d absolutely love to help you out with those cuffs, but I’m afraid there are... you know. Severe legal circumstances at play here!"

"Indeed," Micheal droned, his voice returning to the flat, robotic tone of dishwater as he peered up at Lilith through his thick glasses. "And... exactly who are you supposed to be, miss?"

"Me?" Lilith gasped, pressing a perfectly manicured hand to her breast, her bubbly smile not slipping an inch.

"Why, sweetie, I’m Miles’s lawyer!"