As the sun rose above the Capital, a loud alarm rang, almost exactly like the one back at AA. Mateo sat upright, disorienting himself, forgetting that he was already sitting on the floor. The alarm was from Alex's phone—she had apparently recorded it and used it as her wake-up call.
"What the hell," he muttered, blinking at the harsh light seeping in through the steel-barred window. His back ached from sleeping against the bed frame all night. He rubbed his neck where it had kinked, feeling like he'd been hit by a truck.
Alex didn't seem to notice the chaos she'd caused. She stretched slowly, arms above her head, her messy braid swinging across her shoulder as if they weren't all about to head back into a ruined war zone.
Henrik stirred on his bed, making a sound like a wounded animal. "Five more minutes," he mumbled into his pillow.
"We don't have five more minutes," Akira said, already sitting up and stretching. Dong uncoiled from around her neck, flicking his tongue irritably at the disruption. "Reeves said oh-seven-hundred. It's six-thirty now."
Mateo pulled himself to his feet, joints protesting. Through the window, Capital Crest was already coming alive—early commuters heading to work along the wide boulevards below, completely oblivious to the fact that a group of teenagers was about to head into a war zone on their behalf. The morning air carried the distant hum of traffic and the faint smell of coffee from street vendors.
"Then we should get moving. I'm going in first," Alex announced, gathering her pack as she headed to the bathroom, the door clicking shut behind her.
Mateo caught a whiff of his armpits—a faint musk wafting from them. The last time he had taken a bath was yesterday morning when he was still up in the sky at Atlas Academy. He wasn't sure what kind of hygiene they'd have at the warfront, but he figured it would be best to get one final bath before then.
"You slept on the floor? You look awful," Henrik observed, finally dragging himself upright. His pale brown hair stuck up at odd angles, making him look even more skeletal than usual, despite the mountain of pasta he'd consumed last night.
"Thanks for the pep talk," Mateo replied dryly, digging through his bag for clean clothes. The Academy-issued gear was practical but not exactly comfortable for sleeping on floors. "Kind of wish we could still sleep for a little while longer, instead of waking up to Alex's awful alarm."
Henrik shrugged, his indifferent cadence slipping back into his tone as his eyes cleared. "Better than waking up to screams. Which won't be too far from our future."
"Way to jinx it," Akira shot back, standing to clean her costume. She didn't need to change like Mateo since it wasn't complex and served as casual clothing too. "Think we'll actually see combat today?" she asked, securing her yellow sash around her waist.
"Reeves said cleanup duty," Mateo reminded her, pulling out his suit. "Probably just stragglers trying to escape the main fighting."
"Stragglers can still kill you," Henrik pointed out, his voice carrying an edge as if he knew this from experience.
Before Mateo could form a response, the bathroom door opened, and Alex emerged fully dressed and ready, her hair still slightly damp. Instead of a hero costume, she wore an expensive red leather jacket with black stripes over a blank tank top, paired with tight black jeans. She looked like she was going to a party or casual meet-up, instead of joining a fight that would determine the fate of the world.
She didn't need to dress in a cool utility hero suit because her quirk and style didn't require any special equipment, though she somehow managed to make regular clothes look like the best hero suits whenever she was wearing them.
"Your turn," she said to Mateo. He realized he had been staring a little too long at her, at the way the tight black fabric stretched against her chest. He picked up his backpack where his hero suit lay and walked into the bathroom past Alex without a word, clicking the door behind him.
The small bathroom was thick with steam, signs that Alex had taken a hot shower. The mirror was completely fogged over, and condensation dripped from the tiled walls. He took off his clothes and hung them on the hook, then walked into the shower pod, placing his bag on the dry floor nearby.
The air smelled like honey—probably Alex's shampoo. The steam had condensed on the glass walls of the pod, bathing everything in white as he turned on the shower. The warm water washed over his body like a blessing, since AA only provided cold water in the showers. He felt the fluid wash through his hair and skin, relaxing muscles he didn't even realize were tense and stiff until now.
The steam and the faint smell of lavender sent bliss through his brain as the hot water washed away the layer of sweat and grime. He wanted to stay in this moment a little longer, but he knew he had work to do.
Once he finished cleaning himself, he stepped out of the pod and dried his body with the damp towel Alex had left behind—there weren't any other choices.
Then he looked at the mirror hung on the bathroom wall, stretched out his hand, and cleaned the fog from the part where his face would be.
He didn't look very different from how he had been last week before he joined AA. His jawline was a little sharper, his brown, tussled hair longer, and his skin tone a little healthier since he had been eating better at AA compared to Ashdrift.
He wiped the mirror even more to reveal his entire body. Before, he had been skinnier, since he had occasionally starved himself to save more money for the Atlas application he no longer even needed. And even when he got food, it was usually low quality and unhealthy.
Now, because of the high-protein diet and rigorous training at the academy, he looked far more muscular. His abs were more defined, his biceps and triceps thicker due to the fact that most applications of his quirk involved his upper body, and his chest was broader and more toned.
He looked different. He felt stronger. But was he ready for what was going to come next?
I don't need to be ready, he affirmed to himself as he put on his underwear, a light black sweatshirt and pants, then his hero suit over them. The thick dark green porous leather fabric fit snugly against his skin. His heavy gauntlets were placed on his hands next as he flexed his fingers in them, the iron block that acted as a flail settling against the back of his neck.
He finally placed the green helmet with its visor on his head. The protective mesh in the eye holes blocked out most of his eyes from the outside, so only the greens of his iris were visible. He brought the lower jaw of the helmet up as the respirator clicked with the upper jaw, already filtering the air.
The black horns stood at either side of his temples, gleaming darkly in the hotel bathroom's fluorescent light, reminding him of his purpose.
I don't need to be ready. I just need to get the job done. I just need to avenge him. Then he will be at peace.
Twenty minutes later, they were gathering in the hotel lobby with the other teams. The morning light streaming through the tall windows felt different from yesterday's golden warmth—sharper, more urgent. The marble floors echoed with footsteps as students moved with purpose. Everyone looked alert, the easy camaraderie from dinner replaced by the focused tension of soldiers preparing for deployment. The deployment was no longer something postponed into the future. They were heading straight into the fire now.
Reeves appeared in full military gear—thick combat boots, body armor over a black uniform, and her dark hair with red highlights catching flecks of sunlight like blood. She looked like she'd been awake for hours, her movements crisp and deliberate.
Through the lobby's floor-to-ceiling windows, Mateo could see a large military vehicle parked at the curb—matte black, heavily armored, with tinted windows that reflected the morning sun like dead eyes. It looked like something designed to survive explosions. Steam rose from manholes in the street beyond, and the city's usual morning bustle seemed muted, as if the world itself was holding its breath.
"Good morning, everyone," Reeves said, her eyes sharp as she examined each of them, already arranged in three groups of four. "I hope you all enjoyed last night?"
They nodded in unison.
"Thank you, Commander Reeves," Mateo found himself saying. And he meant it. Last night was the first time he had ever indulged himself in fast food, and it gave him a chance to meet Shinji too. She never had to do any of that—they could have just slept at AA like everyone else and taken off by morning.
Mateo had never even thought about it, but was she actually allowed to do what she did? Did the Academy grant permission, or had she just done it on a whim?
Reeves smiled a little as the others thanked her and greeted her too. Her facial expression shifted from the regular stern Commander to something softer underneath as she spoke her next words.
"Now, I'm sure you all know the stakes of the missions we'll be undergoing," Reeves spoke as she entered the rhythm of her previous speeches, pacing back and forth in front of them. Her movements reminded Mateo of a prowling cougar. "We will do our best—me, as the Commander of this squad, and you twelve—to protect each other, but you are aware your safety is not guaranteed, affirmative?"
They slowly nodded their heads as Reeves continued. "Good. Like I said yesterday, we will just be starting with scavenger and cleanup duty. That is what the other squads will be doing—securing the abandoned city to weed out any lone villains."
"But it will not remain like that." She spoke with unnerving certainty. "The war is predicted to continue and tip over, favoring the villains. All the heroes are doing their best to fight them off, but sometimes, even our best is not enough."
She stopped pacing and stared into all their eyes. "That's why I'm offering you this final opportunity. You were aware of the stakes before you joined AA. Eliza's EP17 is true—we need as many more heroes and fighters as we can get to fight this battle."
Her eyes suddenly turned wistful and despondent, sending chills down his spine. "But the people on the other side are far more powerful, far more ruthless than we imagined. Our best fighters are already gone. The rest—and the newest AA graduates, including you—are currently our only hope."
This was basically a repetition of what Mateo had heard from Eliza on his first day at Atlas, that the top thirty heroes, the mightiest of them all, had already perished. But Reeves delivered it in a far more depressing tone. If the top heroes were gone, they must have at least put up a good fight, right? They must have weakened the frontlines of the villains and given the runners-up some chance, right?
"So, here's the final option," she said as she narrowed her eyes. "Once you get in that vehicle, there is no coming back. It will be a fight to the death out there.
"But you can turn away now. No strings attached. You can leave here and live a normal life... like the rest of them."
When she said that, she gestured to the residents of the Capital around them. Through the windows, they could see people walking the sidewalks without much tension, almost oblivious to the war happening far away.
If what Reeves was saying was true, then they could take off their hero costumes and leave, joining the masses. But even then, was their safety guaranteed? Refugees from the edge of the nation were already rushing into the city, disrupting the job landscape and bringing scarcity, as the people from yesterday's dinner had said. What if the war continued and forced even more people out of their homes, into the Capital until it became overpopulated? What if the villains eventually reached the Capital anyway and destroyed it all?
There was no safety anywhere. If he cared about his safety, he would still head into the battlefields and fight.
But he didn't even care about his safety or the safety of those around him. Not really—that wasn't why he fought. He fought for only one reason.
For the people I lost.
"No. We will not turn away," Mateo said, surprising himself as he spoke first.
Reeves nodded her head, her eyes filled with something that resembled disappointment.
He wondered if the reasons for the other students being a 'hero' would hold under this pressure, but surprisingly, none of them relented. They stood firm, pushed by whatever their motivations were, ready to fight.
"So be it," she sighed. She pointed to the vehicle. "Load up. Team B-1 front, B-2 middle, B-3 back. Keep your bags close and your heads on straight."