“Well, I’ll be damned…”
Machine Head laughed out of pure disbelief, the lights on his head flickering through the rainbow like a nightclub dance floor.
A few wisps of smoke even curled up from his seams.
“You blew out my window, broke into my office, beat up my men, wrecked my door…”
He kept going, practically singing it.
“And you’re telling me — telling me — this was all so you could go to school?”
“Are you messing with me?”
“For starters, the door wasn’t me.”
Silence followed, Machine Head’s glare growing more incredulous by the second, as Leon set Magnattack down and said:
“Alright, fine, I’ll admit it — there’s maybe a 0.1% chance I was in the wrong here.”
“So you’re telling me you’re not 99.9% wrong?
You’re the villain here, you know.”
Not exactly typical Viltrumite thinking — normally they wouldn’t even leave that one decimal point.
Weakness is reason enough for conquest, full stop.
“Should I be thanking you for knowing to leave yourself that 0.1%?”
“You know I held back.
At least I didn’t smash your desk.”
Machine Head glanced at the three men still catching their breath on the floor.
He knew Leon wasn’t wrong.
For an overwhelmingly powerful being, holding back that much was practically a courtesy, by underworld standards.
The more he thought about it, the angrier it made him — but he had no choice but to hear the man out.
“I’m undocumented.
I need a complete, legitimate set of ID, and you’re supposedly the guy who runs things in Chicago.”
Coming from a man of that strength, the words carried a certain weight.
Cheap as it sounded, that acknowledgment did actually take a little of the edge off Machine Head’s mood.
“So you just—”
“But you can’t deny this is the fastest way to get what I want done, while also making sure you’ve got no reason left to try and use me for anything.”
“Whoever’s got the bigger fist makes the rules, right?
And where I’m from, this practically counts as gentle and considerate.”
“R-right?”
Leon was busy conquering Machine Head’s logic with pure, thunderous Viltrumite reasoning.
In a certain sense, this was exactly why General Kregg thought so highly of him.
The kid actually understood how to reason with people.
Do you have any idea how much of a relief that is for a bureaucrat who’s worked himself half to death, propping up a territory that size with only fifty full-bloods, all while keeping the whole truth hidden from outsiders?
Someone to share the stress with, at long last!
Faced with actual logic, Machine Head chose to cave, calling in his people to get Leon set up.
Last came the matter of choosing a school.
Machine Head offered:
“Personally, I’d recommend Reginald Vel Johnson High School.
All things considered, it’s the best option out there.”
Leon pulled up the student roster and scanned it briefly.
No Mark, but he did spot Atom Eve.
Close enough — call it a find.
“That one, then.”
If you’re in a hurry, you can start right away.”
Before leaving, sensing what seemed like frustration simmering behind that metal head of his, Leon offered a bit of comfort:
“Look on the bright side — since you’re the one setting all this up for me, if I happen to make some friends, you can pretty much do whatever you want with that later, can’t you?”
“Yeah, I trust you like hell.”
Machine Head dragged the words out with obvious disdain, gesturing at Titan, still unconscious.
“The only thing worth anything to me is family like him — the kind that never breathes a word, keeps everything under wraps.”
Leon shrugged.
He walked over to the window he’d shattered, gave a wave, and tipped backward out of it, vanishing from everyone’s sight.
A single boom sounded, and a faint ring of displaced air could be seen rippling outward.
Machine Head stayed in his seat, and after a long while, tapped the armrest.
“You three still playing dead?”
At that, all three subordinates slowly got to their feet.
“Getting taken down by some eighteen-year-old punk, and you’re not even embarrassed?”
“Boss, you actually believed him when he said he was eighteen?
That’s a load of crap and you know it.”
Multi-Paul, the endless duplicate, tried to keep protesting, but Machine Head cut him off with a raised hand.
“Forget it.
Let’s hear it — what’s your read on this?”
Paul was, as always, the first to speak up.
“You all saw it.
He took me down like he was chopping vegetables.
Either he’s got some kind of martial art or superpower, or his body’s just terrifyingly strong.”
Though, going by the end result, it hadn’t mattered which superhuman had gone up against that body of his — same outcome every time.
One hit, done.
But the guy had taken out an entire group with one sweeping kick.
There’s a huge gap between “can kick someone to death” and “cuts through like butter.”
Next up was Magnattack.
“My plating — even Titan’s rock armor couldn’t handle a hit like that.”
He was holding the piece of armor Leon had crushed into a ball, his expression unchanged, though privately his heart was aching over it.
“But he took it head-on.
No problem.”
Titan glanced in the direction Leon had gone, an odd gleam hidden behind his rock plating.
“We all know what this means, Machine Head.
This city’s got itself a new monster nobody knows a damn thing about.”
Machine Head added one more thing.
“And he’s got no hero baggage weighing him down, either.”
Today, he’d finally seen firsthand just how brutal someone on the Guardians of the Globe’s level could get, once they cut loose.
Christ, where the hell am I supposed to find a superhuman with those kinds of stats on my side?
And if this guy doesn’t feel like keeping things quiet…
what’s going to happen to every villain operation we run from here on out…
Red brick walls, white rooftops, the national flag and school flag both fluttering in the wind, and a lush green lawn stretching out in front of the yellow school-bus drop-off.
Once he’d gotten himself squared away, Leon headed for the high school.
No chain-link fences here, no metal detectors, no police cars parked out front — not exactly Beacon-Nation behavior, this.
Still, climbing the front steps was enough to draw a few pairs of eyes his way.
Male, female, undefined, and gunship.
A face carved from the finest cuts of mixed heritage, six-foot-two, and a build he couldn’t quite hide under his shirt.
Right in the strike zone for pretty much everyone.
Feeling a handful of gazes fixed a little too intently on him from behind, Leon thought to himself:
Yeah, okay.
This one’s still very Beacon-Nation after all.
After snapping a photo of the school gate, Leon opened up the group chat.
The last topic had been everyone comparing notes on their respective school days.
[Viltrum’s Top Student]: @Everyone Friends, I’ve finally got somewhere to study.
[Not-a-God Yellow Weasel]: ?
[Mala Donkey Head]: ?
[Orange-Haired, Gold-Eyed Menace to Humanity]: ?
[Kansas Farm Boy]: ?
+1
[The Tiger of West Junior High]: Leon, you’re going as a teacher too, right?
Mr.
Gojo told me you promised to come teach a class whenever you had time.
[Orange-Haired, Gold-Eyed Menace to Humanity]: Mr.
Leon and his jokes, as always.
[Viltrum’s Top Student]: What are you talking about — I’m eighteen, of course I’m going to school.
I’m set on being the first college graduate in my village.
After thoroughly enjoying another round of question marks, Leon closed the chat and headed to the principal’s office to sort out the paperwork.
His connections were the principal’s problem now.
Principal Winslow was a Black man with a Viltrumite-style beard and a considerable belly.
Initially a little wary, he broke into a grin the moment he saw Leon’s polite manner and a hint of East Asian features.
Guessed this kid must be here to actually take his studies seriously.
Leon collected his class schedule, picked up his textbooks, and headed toward his locker.
It wasn’t long before he felt hostility zeroing in on him.
He opened the locker door, set his things down, and counted down in his head.
One, two, three — BAM!
A fist slammed into the locker door right next to his.
A shadow fell over him, along with a cheap cologne and a body odor no amount of it could cover up.
Not this, seriously?
An actual bullying scene?
Whose script did I wander into?
Leon found the whole thing pretty absurd.
Oh, dear Commander Nolan, sir.
The infiltration mission is going smoothly.
I have successfully embedded myself in the local high school and am about to bond with my classmates.
Pray for the guy.
Wish him luck.
To be continued…