“I’m late fourteen! I’ve just had, uh, an unusual childhood...” I trailed off, and The Mountain grunted again, pointing.

He was driving an old blue pick-up that was neither too flashy nor too decrepit, but if you knew how to look, had clearly been modified and reinforced to support his size and weight.

I hopped clear over the back of the truck, he watched without comment, and reached over to unlock the door on my side after he got in. I bounced up into it and pulled the door shut.

“You’re pretty trusting. What do I call you, girl?”

“Snipes trusted you, and he was alarmed I was following you, not concerned about what you’d do. That means no odious personal tendencies, and reliable under contract.”

“Sharp ears.” He engaged the engine, letting the name thing slide. It had a very understated purr to it that promised a lot of power on demand. “The Aerie is a glamour position. It ain’t that they ain’t good at the job, but this is where the pretty boys get posted. Hawkeye should be out doing intelligence work, and instead he’s a liaison to the entertainment folks who want a good-looking soldier around.

“Hawkeye’s power is in his eyes. They are literally as good as an eagle and owl put together. He can see in basically any light, see through tricks of light, and see maybe, fifty, a hundred times further than most people. I understand they call it Devasight or something.”

My scribbling in my Visual File paused for a second, restarted.

“He’s been trained in Special Ops since we parted ways, and the hero stuff and Core work on top of it. He’d be top of Beta Tier, or low Gamma.”

I scrunched my forehead, held up my hand as he pulled out of the restaraunt. “Powered Ranking system? Different from what I know.”

“Alphas, normal people with powers you can replicate with machines or Core disciplines. Betas, highly trained Core users, and those with powers you need active psionics to replicate, or low-grade Weird Science. Gammas, full trained psions, and Powered with powers at another scale. Deltas, the most powerful Powereds or Psions most folk ever might meet, either world-class in a narrow range or nation-class in several ways.

"Epsilons, the top of the stack, either by being number one in their category, or Delta +'s across multiple categories.

“I’m considered a high Delta-class by most, one of the ten strongest men in the world. I don’t have the breadth of an Epsilon, and I’m not THE strongest person around, but I can tussle with just about anyone.”

I was watching the road and everything going by, painting everything into my Visual File as I did so. The car wasn’t Energized or anything, so it was interrupting my Lived-Line, but that was fine, as I couldn’t Teleport yet.

So I was talking to one of the strongest men on the planet. Well, I suppose he was called The Mountain for a reason.

“Understood on the ranking.”

He grunted. “Angel is another pretty boy, comes from money, schmoozes well. His Power is just flying, maybe some charm. Gets invited to all the parties at the high end. He gets short shrift from most people in the business... but nobody is part of the Aerie without being good at their job, and he’s still there after a few years, with no scars despite all the people who want to mess up his pretty face.”

“So he’s playing the fool behind the pretty face.” I wasn’t unfamiliar with the type. “Upper Beta, maybe low Gamma?” I guessed, just like Hawkeye, and got a slow nod in return.

--------

Mr. Hill went on with Griffon, a superstrong flier and the main muscle of the team; Zephyr, a wind-user; the Hornet, who could shrink, fly, and used lots of insectile drones; Wings, an armor-user with arm-wings and a pilot background; Fugit, a hopped-up psi who was their coordinator, and Data, a genius techno who ran support for the team, and did a lot of consulting work for special effects for the movie industry.

“The Aerie is considered a public relations team by most of the business, and an extension of the Champions down south.” He paused, waiting.

“Don’t know anything about them, either,” I admitted at his silent question.

He just grunted. “Champions are the toughest team of Powered outside of Russia and below the High Guard. There’s a lot of Powered types who’d die happy just making it to their satellite teams. When the Champions move out, well, someone is going to have a bad day.” His grudging respect showed through in his voice.

“The paper I read this morning mentioned Hercules, Tornado, and Bulwark.”

He grunted again. “They get most of the press. The leader of the Champions is The Hag, but no media has permission to use her name or image, so she gets absolutely no press. That is a woman who is not afraid to get her hands bloody, and she can terrify the most cocksure fearless sunuvabitch with just a glare.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Don’t cross The Hag.”

I noted that for future posterity, wondering...

“Hercules is the strongest being on the planet, as he’s a god of Strength. Or, to put it another way, you can’t be stronger than he can be. And he’s a god. Tough bastard, and damn good at his job. You ain’t considered a performer among the Bricks until you’ve been schooled by Hercules and didn’t get totally broken.” The ruefulness in his voice indicated that it had happened to him more than once. “Full Epsilon, all the way.

“Tornado is considered the strongest Air Elementalist on the planet, if not a weather controller. Zephyr is one of his apprentices. Top-end Delta.

“Bulwark is a Tank Armor guy, toughest armor suit outside Russia. Really strong, excellent power, great defenses, sets the standard for tin cans. He also tweaks the armor of a dozen other armor users, and the Champions support teams.

“Titan is a superstrong grower. High Delta.

“Phantom is their stealther, both invisibility and intangibility, a sneaky bitch with the most irritating laugh, but another high Delta.”

I had to smirk. No doubt she had played tons of tricks on him in the past.

“Mentat is their psion and second in command. One of the top ten telepaths on the planet and a major telekinetic. Might be Epsilon grade.

“Bolt is their speedster, supposedly one of Hermes’ sons. High Delta, top three speedsters on the planet. If he were tougher or could fly, he’d be Epsilon.

“Photon is their solid light-user. Very powerful, fast, creative with the things. Great hitting power, great defending power, great utility. Epsilon all the way.

“Fury is their Paramount. Flies, has wings, super-strong, invulnerable, fights like a demon. Might or might not be part angel, a nephilim. High Delta.

“Locus is their magician. She can do most anything, given time, but she gets them where they need to go, watches for major events, and does a lot of illusion stuff in combat, rather than direct fighting. She’s not seen much, but she’s either high Delta or Epsilon, it depends who you talk to and how much preparation she has to fight you.”

He ended there, which interested me. “And The Hag?”

He grunted, an odd light in his eyes. “Epsilon. The best commander and trainer of Powered in the world. She wrote The Core Disciplines, and founded Coretech in all its forms. As strong as me, tons faster, and that woman can fight.” He had a weird light in his eyes. “I saw her pull her Sword once, back when Mordred brought a chunk of Hell up to Terra some years back, when I was kinda fresh to the business. I swear to you that whole demon army flinched and stopped in its tracks when she did that.

“I never knew what it meant to pronounce a death sentence on things that thought themselves immortal before that day. It started to Sing, and I just knew that whole demon army was fucking doomed.

“So did Mordred. He ran like a rabbit. That demon lord he brought up has its skull hanging from the Hall of Champions, all polished up pretty-like.” He lifted his hands from the wheel, and clenched them, rocks shattering inside his knuckles. “Damn, that was some good fighting. Didn’t even mind not getting paid.”

“She got a name, other than The Hag?”

“Friends call her Sama. I, uh, ain’t a friend of hers.” He almost sounded apologetic about it.

That info dump before I came here indicated that the Ranthas got a monstrous Racial Class. I guess I was hearing about one taken all the way to the top.

“Forgive me for being curious, but you speak like The High Guard sits above the Champions. Shouldn’t she be with them?”

He huffed. “High Guard bounces when Sama calls them. Even Primus acknowledges her, and the only other person he respects that much is The Great Bear.”

“I don’t know any of them...”

“Girl, whoever raised you should be shot.” I just shook my head helplessly. “Primus is The Paramount. Most powerful man in the world. Brains, experience, strength, flying, speed, invulnerability, eye-beams... he’s got it all.

“He was born Russian sometime around 1900, and has not stopped getting more powerful as he gets older.”

Supermanoff. Right-o.

“Paragon was born over in Murica after the First Great War. A lot of people call him the Smartest Man in the World. He built LaGrange Station, rides the edge of the tech wave, and is one of the best mortal human combatants in the world at the same time, mastering every Core, mental, and physical discipline there is. Doc Bronze is like the rich man’s hero, where the Patriot, the head of the Shieldmen, is the hero to most everyone else.

“Phoenix is the most powerful woman in the world, like an A-bomb in human form. Energy projector and TK, mostly fire. She can take out a city with a snap of her fingers.

“Comet is a Paramount with more energy-absorbing and shooting than Primus, and stands as the toughest female Paramount when she’s all charged up.

“Atom is the ultimate size shifter, able to shrink below atoms and grow bigger than planets, and the big brain about quantum mechanics.

“The Lantern is a red-skinned alien, uses a Lantern or something with incredible power, like Photon’s whole power set and more in one little toy. Supposedly belongs to some intergalactic police force, or something.

“Wrench uses the most powerful mech-robot on the planet, he’s like Paragon’s assistant. Damn thing has a dozen bodies, some of them as big as skyscrapers!”

“Flux is a matter-manipulator, who can turn just about anything into something else. She’s not got as much raw power as Phoenix, but she’s just as destructive, and much more precise most of the time.

“They are all Epsilons in their own way. The power core for Wrench’s mech supposedly could power the whole planet. Paragon can outthink just about anything. Primus can wipe out whole star fleets by himself, let alone with Lantern and Comet. The Atom can grow big enough to crush moons in his hand.

“They’re called the High Guard because they sit up there and mess with alien things that want to come to Earth and mess with us. The only reason they come down here is for disaster relief, or an Extinction Event.”

“Like an atomic reactor about to blow?” I had to interject.

“Yeah, they take care of stuff like that. When Primus told the whole world that he wouldn’t allow an atomic war to happen, well, that was pretty much it for the whole Cold War. He simply wouldn’t let the missiles reach their targets without using extreme means, and he also promised that anyone who gave that order would die.”

“Which stopped the idiots from using shrink tech and teleporting as delivery systems.”

The Mountain nodded after a moment. “Right. Only nukes we’ve had go off since then have been aliens setting them off.”