The Spectators were relentless. They appeared seemingly out of thin air, many with explosive throwing knives that kept Hiro on his toes as he attempted to reach the Trade Center. As he continued to fight his way through the madness, he came across one of the rat creatures with arms sticking out of its back and decided to try his {Stan} power.

I have to have a higher MIND than that thing.

Hiro watched the creature twitch, its eyes rolling into the back of its head as it came under his command.

“Yo, it worked!” Bianca said once a Spectator landed and the rat creature attacked it.

“Looks like it.” While Hachi took off toward another Spectator that had landed, Hiro cut the first one down with {Blade Whirlwind} using his odachi, which created a more powerful burst of energy, albeit one that produced a wide enough arc that the ends didn’t hit the same as the middle.

Hiro didn’t know how many Spectators he had killed at this point, but he estimated it to be more than a dozen. The frenzy had become a blur, his opponents endless, even if they weren’t strong enough to put up a real fight.

That was another thing he had picked up on as more Spectators appeared. While the one in the subway had been tough, the Spectators he had fought since were manageable, especially with Hachi, Bianca, and now, the rat creature that remained under his control.

Yet he knew not to get confident.

As Hiro had learned since January that year, the Doom System always had a trick up its sleeve. Since it can modify the very nature of reality itself and break its own rules, he thought, I will constantly be at a disadvantage.

He landed on a street near the One World Trade Center, a road that would be hard to navigate with all the debris. There was smoke here, many of the buildings recently destroyed.

“See anything?” Bianca asked from her position on his back. “I’ve got nothing.”

Hiro listened intently for a moment. He had already heard explosions in the distance and there had been a terrible cry, one that he couldn’t quite place, yet the area was surprisingly quiet. A thought came to him, one that he quickly swallowed: Could they all be… dead?

It was a very real possibility, one that made him hate the Doom System even more than it already did. This hatred stirred something within him, the rage he had grown familiar with.

“You good, bro?” Bianca asked as Hiro took a seat and started breathing in through the nose, out through the mouth, like Samuel had taught him. Hachi approached, as did the rat creature, its eyes still rolled into the back of its head.

“Just give me a minute.”

“Right, a side effect of your Roulette Skill. I can help,” Bianca said.

“I don’t think you can,” Hiro told her as his temples pulsed.

“Trust me. How about a lullaby?” She began humming a lullaby, her voice vibrating on his back.

Hiro sat there for another few moments to control the rage. He thought about the things that had once made him happy, from simply going on a bike ride to long weekends, days off in which he was able to explore the city. He thought of Kyoto, the temples there that he had walked around with his grandfather, trips to various beaches in Osaka Prefecture.

Bianca’s humming helped. He didn’t know what lullaby she was humming, and he suspected it wasn’t a lullaby at all because it sounded more like a K-pop song, but she continued, the shield vibrating, Hiro feeling better a few minutes later.

“You good?”

“I’m good,” he told her as he got to his feet, his eyes trained on the One World Trade Center.

They’re inside.

Hiro knew it at that point. He remembered that the inside of the building had massive ceilings over a large, open space where people once played piano amidst cafes and small boutiques. It would also explain why I can’t hear them, he thought as he pushed on.

“Hello?” Bianca asked after he had reached another block, Hiro now near one of the main entrances to the Trade Center. The glass was all blown out, and some of the steel framing had collapsed, but it looked like he would be able to sift his way through the wreckage and enter.

“Sorry,” he told Bianca.

“Wait, you’re seriously going in there?”

“Got to,” Hiro said as Hachi followed after him, the rat creature doing the same.

“Do you, though? And also, this rat creature, you’re going to need to name it if it keeps following you. Might I suggest Splinter?”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Ha.” Hiro stepped into the vast, open space, much of which showed signs of looting and the decay from a number of things, including previous attacks from supers and explosions from Spectators.

A fight had clearly gone down here, and by the sounds of it, echoing down a hall, it was still happening. He took off toward the noises, his pace quickening once he heard Rena shout something followed by the thunk of Valeria’s arrows.

Hiro skidded around a corner to find a trio of Spectators, only these ones had golden robes and big sword arms covered in veins.

Rena was down. Valeria stood before her, crossbow aimed at one of the overpowered Spectators as Samuel rushed forward, the ends of his cape with a mind of its own as it knifed at the Spectators.

Hachi barked and leaped into action, followed by the rat creature, which was quickly killed by one of the Spectators.

“No, Splinter!” Bianca shouted.

Valeria, who had aimed her crossbow at Hiro upon his sudden appearance, changed its trajectory and fired it at the Spectators.

~Kore nani, kore nani, kore nani, kore nani, kore nani, kore nani, NEKO!~

His phantom cats unleashed, Hiro cast {Thoughts and Prayers} to no avail. He skipped over {Kiss or Slap} because he didn’t know how much life the Spectators had, especially without access to their health bars.

“Where did you get that bloody thing?” Samuel called to Hiro once he drew his odachi.

One of the golden robed Spectators rushed toward him and jumped, prepared to use his arm blades as scissors.

Hiro struck his opponent down with so much force that it actually surprised him. Not only did it instantly kill the Spectator, causing a huge flash of Soul Essence to rush into his chest, it also sent his opponent’s body flying backward, where it struck the other two Spectators.

You have new followers!

Valeria released a flurry of birds to distract the two remaining Spectators, who scrambled to regroup as Hachi and Hiro’s phantom cats kept up their relentless attacks.

“I’ve got this one!” Bianca said as she came alive, her tendrils growing in size and rushing forward to trip one of the Spectators. As the Spectator fell, Bianca rubberbanded toward him and slapped the edge of her fuzzy pink shield into the back of his head.

Samuel finished off the last Spectator as he whirled around, delivering numerous cuts. “Nice,” he said, Soul Essence pouring into him. “These buggers are worth a hundred SE each.”

“Really?” Hiro quickly accessed his stats to see he had close to three hundred SE. His next question was aimed at Valeria, who had since turned to Rena to fire a healing bolt and her partner. “Where’s Juan?”

“I don’t know. The raincoat bitch portaled all of us away, like I told you in the note,” Valeria said.

“Sadly, no Juan,” Rena said, “But it’s nice to see you again. Reunited and it hurts so bad.” She showed Hiro the remnants of a healed wound on her arm. “Anyway, that sounded funnier in my head.”

“You said it was the meeting place, right? Or around there,” the Australian said. “What about you, mate? Where have you been?”

“Sleeping. A side effect of my Roulette Skill,” Hiro told him. “I headed to my fallout shelter to rest a bit and ended up passing out for over fourteen hours.”

“Hell yes, you did,” Bianca said.

“Can you all hear that?” he asked as the shield returned to his arm.

“Hear what?” Rena asked.

Oh God, Hiro thought. So they can’t actually hear her… This produced another thought, one that he quickly discarded based on their interactions so far. “It’s going to sound like I’m hallucinating, but the shield has been possessed by Bianca, the teenager I teamed up with in Central Park, the one I told you about,” Hiro said to Valeria and Rena.

“Your shield is possessed by a teenage girl?” Samuel asked.

“Correct. Watch. Um, Bianca, stand on the ground.”

“Really, Big Brother Hiro?” she asked.

“We have to prove to them that I’m not lying here.”

“Ugh.” She removed herself from his arm and stood on the ground using two tentacles, where she proceeded to do what looked like some sort of TikTok dance as she used another pair of tentacles to shimmy left and right.

Samuel burst out laughing. “Didn’t expect that.”

“So she can talk to you?” Valeria asked.

“She can. And she saved me.” Hiro detailed what happened in the East River, after he had been portaled away from the fight against the Lady in the Yellow Raincoat.

“Good on you,” Samuel told the shield. She lifted a tentacle to him and he fistbumped it.

Bianca turned her focus to Hiro. “Did you like my dance?”

“Sure, sure.” He extended his hand to her and she returned, her fuzzy tentacles wrapping into place around his arm.

“We need to get out of here,” Rena said. “It’s like a death trap, and they seem to keep coming from all angles.”

“It does seem like the Spectators appear out of thin air,” Hiro said.

“In that case, let’s go out and join the eyes,” Samuel said, referring to the big yellow eyes that had all opened up in the sky above the city.

“Because that’s not creepy,” Valeria told him. The group started back toward the main space of the One Trade Center, Hachi following after them. “Did you show up with a rat creature?” she asked. “Or am I the one hallucinating now?”

“I did. Another power I have called {Stan},” Hiro told Valeria.

Her eyes darted to the upper mezzanine and she brought her crossbow to the ready. “Sorry,” she said, relaxing to some degree. “I thought I saw something. Getting jumpy. Hungry.”

“All I see is that McDonalds,” Samuel said. “A hamburger and a beer. I’d settle for either, really.”

“Ooo, you should tell them,” Bianca told Hiro. “Maybe they can all travel to the past with you.”

Hiro stopped and took out his phone. “Companion, can other people use Chromokuma with me?”

“Do what, now?” Samuel asked him as an answer formulated.

Hiro glanced up to the hamburger chain and considered how this could work. “Does everyone want a hamburger?” he asked.

“Fuck yeah, we do, mate,” Samuel said for Rena and Valeria. “Even a shitty one from McDonalds. But how would we get something like that?”

“I’m glad you asked,” Hiro said, a smile taking shape beneath his mask.