Or something, I had no idea what their judgement parameters were. I just knew of the three S-class that had gone in, only two had come back out. A part of me worried it was just a farce for appearances, a photo op opportunity for the press hanging around, and they’d already decided based on our official records, which probably meant I didn’t have a shot. Whatever it was, I was sure there were a lot of pissed off heroes leaving by the front door.

  That said, not one of the B-Class heroes had come back out, so they at least had some concern for ability.

  It’d been such a long wait, I almost missed it. It took me about four seconds to realize she’d called out Daniel James in the list of twenty names. I walked over to the door and joined the queue, a few of the others giving me a dismissive look. I was used to that kind of thing, enchanters weren’t known for living long, and powered suits by technology couldn’t truly stand up to a flesh and blood A-class.

  I hoped the third floor was nicer, the bottom one looked like a typical government building. Black flecked white tiles on the ground, white molding and off-white walls. We all followed Jenna into the building and down the hallway towards the front of the building. Then turned to the right.

  She called off names as she passed office and small conference room doors, and when my name was called, I walked inside to see Special Agent Carina Russo. She looked exhausted, and irritated. Great.

  She took one look at me and sighed, “Daniel James? You’ll need to remove a gauntlet, and your helmet. I want to see your eyes when we talk.”

  I activated one of those other enchantments I’d mentioned. Early on I’d found myself without my suit, when I really needed it, and had built what I called a quick-change amulet. It not only swapped my street clothes with my suit, but it also cleaned and even repaired them if necessary. A dark inky shadow rose up around my body, and I winced when I saw her flinch.

  It was necessary, because I’d be naked for a split second, between the armor disappearing into the amulet, and my clothes coming out. I wore a pair of nice black jeans, and a collared shirt, with running shoes. Not the best for an interview, but I hadn’t planned to be in my street clothes for this.

  Even inside my amulet, I could access some of the enchantments on the armor, such as my shields and apparently the new enchantment that scanned and sent the output to my intuition. I had no HUD of course, for the detailed information, but I still felt all the heroes nearby. Which was neat, and new.

  I smiled in apology, “Sorry, I built that so the suit’s always with me. Special Agent Russo.”

  She waved that away, “Sit, we don’t have a lot of time, and it’s been a long day. Put that wrist device on, it’s a lie detector and saves a lot of time. Or you can walk out.”

  I blew out a breath as I sat, and then picked up the device at the edge of the desk on my side. It was definitely a mad scientist invention, and I slid the strange looking band around my wrist.

  She asked dubiously, “You’re registered as an S-class, with only one ability?”

  I nodded, “I can harness the meta energy, and enchant equipment with it. My suit allows me to fight as an A-class energy wielder, or physical brawler. That gives me a lot of flexibility in a fight, more than most,” I tapped my amulet, “And as you can see, I have abilities past taking down a villain in a fight.”

  She frowned, “I’ve heard of enchanters before, most of them are dead. At least, the ones that fight as heroes or villains.”

  “True, an enchantment can only be so powerful, but I can power mine and feed it my personal energy. Just like an A-class who will be invulnerable as long as their meta-energy holds out. That makes my enchantments far more powerful than the norm.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and I didn’t think she looked all that impressed.

  “I have four different weapon types, plus of course, my gauntlet covered fists. I have two shields, one for kinetic and one for energy attacks, and I even wear a ring,” I held up my right hand, “That guards my mind from psionic attacks, such as mind reading and mind control. My power gives me the ability to adapt to almost any situation, and the power to go head to head with most.

  “Most S-class are limited to one special ability, maybe two, I’m a lot more diverse.”

  I shut up at that point, I’d probably already been babbling.

  She still didn’t look at all impressed, in fact I got the impression she thought I was mistaken. Not lying obviously, because of the bracelet, but perhaps self-deluded. The silence went on for about fifteen seconds, and I couldn’t keep my mouth shut, despite knowing about the interrogation technique she was obviously using on me.

  I sighed, “You can see my record’s been perfect the last three months. It took me a while to perfect my suit, and the enchantments. Not to mention tactics and ability in a fight.”

  She grunted, and looked back at my file, then frowned.

  Well fuck, maybe she hadn’t even read it? Way to point out my failings. Nice going Daniel. I wasn’t normally this nervous, but it was my whole life on the line, and my choice to be a hero. I couldn’t keep doing it, at least not without being a rogue outlaw hero of sorts, that the government would throw in jail if they ever caught up with me. It was join a city team under their auspices, or nothing.

  I also wouldn’t get paid as a rogue hero, which was important, if I wanted to eat.

  My head snapped around, and my eyes widened, my mouth might have even dropped open.

  The white witch stood behind me right outside the door, in civilian clothes. She had on a black skirt, and a nice red blouse. She also had a backpack over her shoulder, maybe she was coming in from class?

  She was exquisitely beautiful. She had the face of an angel, and at eighteen she still had the blush of youth on her face with a perfect fair complexion. She had light dirty blonde hair, with brown eyes. She was petite, and curvy, at five foot one with a perfectly proportional hourglass body, rounded B cups, and a tiny waist.

  She looked different, I’d never seen her on the street looks. As the white witch, she was just as stunning, but had white-blonde hair and stormy gray eyes, instead of dirty blonde and brown. That was pretty much the only difference, save the costume.

  Of course, her stunning looks wasn’t the reason I was staring like a hooked fish. She was attractive, very attractive, but I’d turned down better. Looks weren’t everything after all, and there’d been more than one hot groupie who’d tried to vamp her way into my bed.

  She said, “Hey Carina, long day?”

  Carina nodded, “A little busy, we’ll talk at dinner, if I ever get out of this office.”

  She looked down at me, noticed my expression, and rolled her eyes, which finally broke me out of my shock.

  I said, “Wait, sorry, not what you think. I was just shocked for a second by your power. It was like a nuclear reactor walked up behind me.”

  It was true enough, I’d never felt such concentrated power before. Magic, or Meta-energy as I called it had a limited pool that was always refilling, from the alien energy in the core of our planet which sent out secondary radiation. It was really that secondary radiation that powered us. There were two limits though, not just how much power a person could hold, but how much they could use at once, how much they could channel.

  In other words, I couldn’t use all my available meta-energy in one blast of my plasma, that was common to all supers. Point was, not only did she have a ridiculously huge amount of power inside of her, but she could channel a lot more of it at once than most. Not all of it, but a whole lot of it.

  She didn’t look sure she believed me, but since I’d stopped staring at her like a gaping idiot, she gave me a small smile and the benefit of the doubt. It might’ve helped, that I hadn’t stared at her body at all, just took note of it as I looked above her neck.

  “Good luck,” she said neutrally, and then she turned around and walked away.

  I turned around, and Carina had her eyes narrowed at me in deep thought, I felt like a bug under her microscope, and she was the nice one. At least it wasn’t Nate interviewing me. That time I managed to hold my voice, mostly because I wasn’t sure what her look was about. Otherwise I’d have probably spilled my guts to defend myself.

  It was probably a good thing I wasn’t a supervillain, I’d make a shitty one. Especially when it came to resisting interrogations.

  Carina finally said, “Remove the bracelet, we’re out of time.”

  I took it off reluctantly, and I placed it on the desk. I was also positive I was going to walk out the front door, which was why it took all my control not to grin like an idiot when she spoke next.

  “Go in the back, we’ll give you a fight trial. It’ll probably be another two hours at least, if you want to go seek out dinner.”

  I said, “Thank you, maam” and left quickly, before she could change her mind.

  Her voice followed me, “Call me Carina.”

  I smiled.

  Chapter Four

  It was several hours later, close to eight-thirty, and the sun was low in the sky. The fight portion of things was to test effectiveness and be judged. We’d also had to sign a waiver against accidental deaths, so it wasn’t a joke. Chances are that wouldn’t happen though, I imagined most of the ones with a truly bad record had been booted before this phase.

  My record wasn’t great, but that was because of losses, not accidental deaths while trying to apprehend a supervillain. I’d never killed anyone, and with my scanners I never would. My weapons would automatically adjust for that final blow, assuming I won the fight of course.

  Red Siren was up first, up against an S-class lightning flyer with shields. She was extremely attractive, most supers were, a quickening often changed physical characteristics as well as granting powers, and most heroines became what their ideals of beauty were.

  Red Siren’s costume was basically a red bikini, with a blue and white Sari wrap that was about fifty percent sheer. Outside of that, she wore red sandals, with three-inch heels. In short, she looked ready for the beach. She was a few years older than me, mid to upper twenties, and she was five foot six, with a mostly lissome body, soft curves and in shape, with the exception of her breasts. She had at least D cups, and they looked even larger on her lissomly flexible dancer’s body. She also had a heart shaped ass to die for, and I could see why one of the assholes had been staring earlier. She was a vision.

  It wasn’t just her body either, she had long lustrous dark red hair, piercing green eyes, and a beautiful face, which was thin, with a small nose, high cheekbones, and a lightly tanned complexion.

  According to my scan she was a special as well, with three abilities.

  The hero with lightning was in a black and gold suit, with lightning designs on it. He was an energy A-class, and I wasn’t sure what his other abilities were yet.

  Millicent said, “Subdue only. This is to gauge your fighting abilities and ability to adapt, no accidents, or I will prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law. Now, fight.”

  The large field had the other fifty or so that’d passed along the back of the building, while those two faced off in the middle of a field.

  The lightning hero launched into the sky as soon as she said fight, and immediately shot lightning down at his opponent.

  Red Siren on the other hand, started to dance, and sing. Her voice was angelic, throbbing, and compelling. I noticed almost right off most of the attention of the crowd went straight to her, and stayed there, while I freely looked around, despite how alluring she was. I suspected at that point, there was a mental or telepathic component to her singing, since my ring blocked it, I wasn’t ensnared.

  Hence the name, Siren, for the Greek legends.

  Lightning guy must have been as protected as I was, by his shield, because he just flew around and kept shooting lightning at Red Siren, while presumably her song was trying to wear down his shields. I’d guess, if it was a normal A-class bruiser without energy shields, he’d have already been in her thrall. Not many heroes were protected from mind control or psionic abilities, which were fortunately rare.

  Red Siren’s dancing was really about dodging, but I sensed it was a dance because she had to keep time with the rhythm of her song. Red Siren had energy shields too, which made me wonder what her third ability was. Mesmerizing song, shield, and something else. Point was, she was dodging for a purpose, the lightning couldn’t get through her shields, but it would wear them down and consume her energy. Every time lightning missed her, it drained her opponent by that much energy without draining hers.

  She on the other hand, couldn’t miss, as long as he could hear her, her power was battering against his shields the whole time, without pause. All things being equal, she was far more efficient, which I predicted would let her use less energy and come out on top.

  She also looked sexy and incredibly limber doing her dance and dodge thing, which was just a bonus to my male mind. Alluring didn’t even cover it, it was compelling. Not just on the base attraction level either, there was a hypnotic grace and beauty to it that drew the eye on other levels as well.

  The fight went on for maybe five minutes, until lightning guy, I never did catch his hero name, lost his shield. After that it was over, he flew down to the ground, and docilly looked at her like the sun shone from her ass, and there was nothing more he wanted to do than serve her every whim and desire.

  That part was both cool and disturbing, and I was glad I had my ring and magical shield.

  Red Siren walked over rather sensuously as she continued to sing to him, and then she slipped on a pair of power suppressing cuffs which subdued him. In short, she kicked ass. No bruiser without a shield could ever even face her for a second, and with her ability to never miss with her talent, and dodge strikes from energy opponents, I suspected she was a shoe in for one of the positions. Perhaps most of all, neither of them even had a bruise, her power was perfect for not killing as well, if in a different way than my tools.

  I was similarly adaptable against all threats, but I’d have to work for it against both bruisers and energy opponents.

  Millicent said, “Excellent. Myriad, Genesis, you two are up next.”

  Myriad was a female, and wore a dark blue cat suit, full bodied from neck to ankle while leaving nothing to the imagination. She had a lissome body, with generous B cups, and a tight pear-shaped ass. She was five foot seven, about twenty-two years old, with long straight black hair down to the small of her back, and vivid dark blue eyes that matched the color of her suit. She had an exotically beautiful face, with pouty lips, long thick eyelashes, creamy brown skin, and wide eyes.

  The only thing not blue, were the black gloves that went to her elbows and the knee-high black boots with three-inch heels. The catsuit also had cut out diamond shapes in it, small ones along her arms and down the outside of her legs, and a much larger diamond shape cut out revealing some of the creamy brown skin of her cleavage.

  She was an A-class with four abilities, but she didn’t feel like a typical one.

  Genesis on the other hand, was a six-foot five bruiser with a white and gold super suit. He was built like a brick wall, and he was also A-class. I hadn’t heard of either of these guys either, but to be fair I doubt anyone had heard of me either. I was in New York until earlier that morning after all. I got the sense he had the typical package, flight, speed, strength, and invulnerability, no doubt triggered when he was sixteen, which meant he had at least ten years of fighting under his belt.

  The name Myriad made sense almost as soon as the fight started.

  Millicent said, “You know the rules, subdue only. Fight.”

  Myriad ran at Genesis in a seeming blur, and then seemed to vibrate and suddenly there were three Myriad’s running toward Genesis. Which must’ve been her fourth power, instead of flight.

  Genesis took up into the sky to avoid the rush, but the two Myriads on the outside picked up the middle one and tossed her up in the air. Genesis tried to dodge, but wasn’t quite fast enough, as Myriad snagged his arm, swung herself down and around, where her leg whipped out and wrapped around his throat from behind, and started to choke him out while her other leg and two arms clung to his body, upside down.

  Genesis wasn’t a newbie by any stretch, and ripped his arm free of Myriad’s arms, and then slammed his elbow into her, while at the same time flying toward the ground, back first.

  Myriad cried out involuntarily from the impact, but apparently it was what she was hoping he’d do, because there were two more Myriads waiting for him on the ground. She also managed to keep her hold around his neck, choking him out, even though she was grunting with every elbow strike.

  His head snapped to the side, as the black boot of Myriad number two kicked the side of his head, while the third Myriad tackled him and made him a Myriad sandwich, and she locked her legs and arms around his front. He was in essence, trapped between them, while the third kept kicking him in the head. It was disturbing, and despite how attractive she was I never wanted to be in a Myriad sandwich.

  At least, not a fighting one.

  He tried to take off twice, realizing his mistake, but each time he was grabbed by the third and thrown back into the ground, and kicked in the head. It was brutal, disturbingly hot, and lasted for almost a full minute before his partial vulnerability wore down, and he passed out.

  Two of the Myriads disappeared then, and to my surprise the real Myriad was the one on his back, doing a leg choke in a demonstration of limberness I tried not to think about too hard.

  To my surprise, I was the third one called to fight, and when I perhaps subconsciously glanced in Carina’s direction, she gave me an encouraging and hopeful smile. Honestly, it was a bit of a shock, did she really want me to win, or was she just being polite?