The vents that thrummed from a cool breeze seemed to be colder than usual. The swirling vortex caused microscopic icicles to form in a blooming pattern downwind, tracing the sharp metallic edges of the thin aluminum walls. The current bent and turned in its progression, roiling towards the path of least resistance and finally found purchase in a duct that released the already warming air into the busy hall below.

A perfectly still body, resting against the doorframe of a patient’s room reacted to the new change.

Adrian flicked his eyes towards the grate, watching the thin tendrils of blue curl downwards and swaying ever so gently as the errant winds of a random passerby in the hospital’s hall came punching through the perpetual wall of still air behind him. Even if the sight of the mixing air was still a novelty in and of itself compared to what he’d known his whole life, it still only amounted to a small, momentary distraction.

His eyes moved back towards the room’s interior and rested on the focal point of his concern - Nova.

Heat was billowing off of her petite body, concentrated around the eyes where inflammation was indicated by flushed, red skin. A subtle, almost imperceptible shaking would rock her body every so often before she quickly and discreetly forced her muscles to obey her control as she sat on the seat to the side of a hospital bed. Increased heart rate, erratic attention shifts. She probably didn’t even realize herself that she was teetering emotionally. For now, she was the only person there that Yogini knew, and thus her rock of support, because the girl’s family was still on their way in.

Adrian gazed at her soft eyes that held too much moisture and quietly sighed. The face she was making, the one that balanced precariously between personal grief and outward consolement, made him feel… unsettled. He wasn’t really sure how he felt about her in the grand scheme of things, but here in this moment his empathy took him past the moment of an acquaintance's reflection into uncharted territory.

It was only after he’d taken her entire bearing under observation that he deigned to shift his attention to the focal point of the room. Yogini. Two fractured ribs. Lacerations and contusions covered a full 20% of her tan Indian skin, concentrated on her arms, face, chest, inner thighs, and abdomen. She was so small… It was hard to believe that this was a 20 year old. It was extremely fortunate that a group of people had happened upon her and her assailants before anything more than bruising happened.

From what Nova had told him about their relationship, the two had become friends after a shared psychology class. On his way here, he’d had Raide look into her background some more and had gleaned the basic information regarding her person. Family circumstances, online behavioral patterns, relationships with contacts, and management of finances were all laid bare. He even went so far as to investigate the school and the people she has relationships with.

After reviewing all of the data at hand, Adrian was confronted with a sobering realization: there was no reason for any of this to happen. It was pure happenstance. Of all the infinite variables woven into the fabric of reality that constituted Humanity and its happenings, a series of events had occurred in sequence that put this girl through a horrible experience and brought her to this moment. A random tragedy perpetrated at the hands of evil.

Taking out his phone, he once again looked at the tattooed symbol the sketch artist had drawn up. Before she’d slipped into unconsciousness, Yogini had remembered a detail, one so ridiculously familiar that it bordered on the realm of the absurd. Are these people so stupid and their luck so bad that this really fell into my lap?

The tattoo was of a simple dagger. There was messy, indiscernible writing along the blade where Yogini had very obviously tried to recall as many of Cyrillic characters as she could. Honestly, she’d done pretty well considering she knew no Russian. A slight, bewildered chuckle escaped his lips.

Quietly turning away from the doorframe, Adrian pocketed the phone into his shorts and strode down past the window to the room, catching Nova’s eye has he walked past. Giving a slight nod, he mouthed the words Call me if you need me. He received a pensive nod just as he passed out out of her field of view.

When he was out of range from any nearby staff or patients, his small earbud squawked to life, Raide’s voice filling his ear, “I started checking on the Envy members when the dagger drawing was brought out. It’s as you imagined, they really haven’t taken what you said to heart. Ten of the older generation made preparations and moved their money and resources, liquidating some of their assets and transferring the funds out of the country. Other than that, though… there’s been no decrease in trafficking or movement directives to their subordinates.”

Adrian let loose a dry chuckle. “I’d hoped I scared them more than that. It seems they won’t take someone seriously just for killing one of their favorites.”

“Hmm...Occupational hazard, I guess.” Raide hummed in agreement.

“That’s alright with me. Let them think everything’s okay while you keep tabs on them. In the meantime, we need to develop the tactical suit.”

Raide got weirdly excited when that was brought up. “So that’s what you were sketching on the plane ride back!”

Adrian almost walked into a sliding glass door in his distraction. “What the fuck? You mean you didn’t know?”

“I never saw it! Well, I mean I could tell the length of your pencil strokes based on the soundwaves you created, and I tried to develop a sound-based positioning algorithm to approximate where on the paper you were striking based on the movements, but the phone’s microphone is pretty shitty for that purpose and the background noise coming from the plane and the people aboard was atrocious…”

“-Jesus, dude.” Adrian interrupted right as he got to his car. “It’s just a body armor suit. No big deal.”

“You don’t understand, though, I am bored to tears in here. Keeping tabs on a bunch of 100 IQ baddies is about as interesting as watching paint dry.”

Adrian paused with his hand on the gear shift and then continued after shaking his head. “I can see your point.” He reached over to the side seat and then grabbed the sketch book he’d been toting around, flipping it open and pointing his phone’s camera towards it.

Raide turned serious upon noting the various materials notated in the margins and took a snapshot before he began mapping the design elements of the armor into CAD software. By the time he was done, Adrian was already back at his apartment and sitting down at his workbench.

The AI made a show was of whistling out in an impressed fashion. “This is a pretty fancy amalgamation of proposed designs. Liquid body armor elements that harden upon impact, ballistic plating resistant up to a .50 cal...what is this electrostatic nervous structure you have spaced out like tendons?”

“Twitch muscle buffers. I improved upon the functionality in the electrostatic material X-2 developed by DRI Bionics and then incorporated it into a second nervous structure that will be attached at key fulcrum points. It’s the best I can do with our limited toys. You’ll be riding shotgun with me anyway, so I’m giving you a inlet to induce minor body movements on my behalf should I become incapacitated.”

“And if I see a gun trained at your back?”

“If you see a Barrett or higher level weapon pointed at me, by all means take the appropriate action.” Adrian chuckled. “I do reserve the right to countermand that directive in the moment however, so take note.”

“Understood.”

He stopped talking and stared at the CAD image displayed on the wall and softly sighed at the sheer magnitude of the task ahead. “Considering the tools at hand, how long do you estimate this will take us? Not just this one - all of them.”

“If we stop for snacks and recess every day...a month.”

***

Adrian was pissed. That fucking AI either lied to him, or even worse... its prediction algorithms needed to be tweaked for variable weighting. It took them two whole months to complete the suits, and that was even with him discovering the fact one night that no, sleep actually wasn’t as important as he once thought.

Fuckin’ hell. A flurry of movement woke him out of his reverie as a cut figure tried to slide a jab inside his guard.

Granted, he was a bit busy doing other things as well, so maybe the failure to meet the projected time frame wasn’t entirely the AI’s fault. Just maybe. Okay, entirely not his fault.

“Come on, you’re moving too slow! Is this the best you’ve got?” Adrian bellowed his annoyance, more out of general frustration than at the assailant, while intercepting Victor’s punch on the inside of his forearm. Sweeping his friend’s arm aside, he ducked low and solidly struck his elbow to Vic’s ribs saying, “Hit.” Dodging back out, he traced the other arms trajectory and spun into it, the other arm just barely going behind his head. Adrian used the opportunity to grab hold of his sparring partner’s wrist and leveraged a throw, chucking him 10 feet away. Victor found himself staring up at the ceiling after a second and change of bumpy rolling.

“What...do you expect...when I have to fight... a superhuman?” Victor’s ragged breathing misted in the cold basement gym’s air. Adrian appeared in his vision and offered his hand while grinning. They had been sparring non-stop for an hour. While Victor looked quite fatigued, Adrian barely showed any signs of exertion.

“I expect you to adapt to the speed. You’ll have an advantage on me when you get the upgrade, ya know. I had to fight regular instructors on normal terms. You, on the other hand, get an opponent that’s six times stronger and faster than you. Humans only advance under the threat of a challenge.” Adrian pulled Victor to his feet easily and offered a towel.

“Honestly, you’re making great progress,” He added, then squirted water from a bottle into his mouth.

Victor massaged his neck with the towel and asked, “Is this what they call a baptism by fire?”

Adrian laughed lightly. “I prefer the term ‘controlled burn’.” He walked over to the mirrored wall, taking a seat and motioning Victor to the nearby chair. “I’m trying to force your mind into adopting two ready aspects of combat: speed and control. By experiencing the feeling of your body being attacked in a multitude of different ways, I’m hoping to mold your unconscious mind into anticipating all of my movements. If we can get you there, that’s half of all your future battles. Because anticipation with a high degree of accuracy eventually transforms into…”

“Information.”

“Correct. Statistical data, once complete enough, starts to draw closer and closer to truth. Truth is knowledge. And information is an approximation of the two... if accurate. Over the past two month, I’ve managed to take down another 30 members of the list. 3 Senators, 2 junior congressmen, 15 lobbyists and 10 varying businessmen and women. Several of them had their own security teams - especially towards the end of the past month when everyone started getting more cautious.

“While outnumbered every time, I was able to easily neutralize them all singlehandedly due to two grouping factors: my training and ability, and the information at my disposal through Raide. It’s impossible to fully know an opponent, as you can’t read their mind, but whoever can obtain the most information can hold the reins of the engagement.”

“So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss.”

Adrian nodded. “Good, you read it. Sun Tzu articulated a concept that lay at the very foundations of conflict and human interaction. He was mainly talking about the larger picture, states vying against one another in strategic conflict. However, it would be narrow-minded to believe that that thought only prescribes to state vs. state scenarios. It is just as applicable on the personal combat level as well in real time battle on the micro level.” He paused for a moment to take another swig of water and redo his hair into a ponytail before continuing.

“Information is power, right? It’s so glaringly obvious, that most only skim over the thought without truly sitting down to understand what that means with all of its ramifications. It’s why our government pours so many billions into our various intelligence agencies. The form of martial arts I have designed for everyone is encompassed around this precept.

“Once upgraded, your minds will be able to process a host of untapped data like mine. The combatant’s physique, posture, vectoring force, muscle elasticity, eye movement, pulse...all will be reassembled into usable flags in combat. Take your earlier punch for example. As soon as I saw your muscles begin their expansion to throw the blow at my head, I was able to calculate your arm’s trajectory, determine whether it was a feint or committed strike through the positioning of your weight, study my options, and then execute the least lethal and most energy efficient move available. Your body is information. With the right training, no attacker besides one of our own will have a prayer of standing up to you in hand-to-hand, regardless of style.”

Adrian felt a slight, cooling suction effect on the hairs of his arm, indicating the movement of air. Looking around to trace the flowing light blue streaks, he saw the door to the gym being pulled open and a short, pale beauty walked in, garbed in training wear.

Heather smirked as she sauntered up to the two. “Did my ears betray me, or were you just giving Vic the same speech on ‘information in combat’ you gave me two days ago?”

Victor turned to Adrian, an air of incredulity seeping out of his questioning look.

Adrian apologized with smirking wince. “Sorry, she’s a little ahead of you brother.” He didn’t go into it, but Heather had really shown herself to be a quick learner in training. Out of the five, she was easily the most talented in hand-to-hand, which, quick frankly, surprised the hell out of Adrian.

Like Nova, she was short but slightly taller at 5”1”. Petite and combat don’t really mix readily, so she had grasped the speed and control aspect that Adrian was harping on much more quickly than the others. This led her to refining her movements into efficient ones with no wasted motion. Her power was lacking of course, but it didn’t bother either of them as it would be fixed with time, training, and a very uncomfortable gene therapy.

Victor only sighed and shook his head. “Looks like I need to train harder, huh.”

Arching her eyebrows, Heather responded teasingly, “What, can’t stand the thought of a girl beating you?”

The rankings of the group looked like this at the moment:

1 Heather 2 Victor 3 Peter 4 Rich 5 Sergio

“Not that I can’t stand it, but... it certainly has been hard to deal with. I was better at fighting than you only a month ago. Now that we’ve begun the training regimen that Bearcat went through before his transformation, you’re starting to dance circles around the rest of us. It’s a bit dispiriting. Don’t worry though, I’ll catch up with you soon and put you back in your place.”

Heather smiled, her polished white teeth peeking out from her lips. “You’re welcome to try. I don’t have any intention of slowing down for noobs like you though. So keep up if you can.”

Victor just shook his head while chuckling. “Alright, I’ve got to go. I have to maintain appearances for my rotation at least. Even if I’ve already got a job secured, I still want to get my diploma and that ‘Dr.’ prefix for my name. Bitches love a prefix. See you guys later.”

Adrian nodded as his friend walked out the door. Suddenly feeling a circular movement of air on his side, he quickly dove the opposite direction and popped up from his roll grinning. “Very good! Seems like you remembered yesterday’s lesson.”

Heather recovered quickly from her attempt at a roundhouse kick to his temple and rushed over, raining a steady stream of precise blows at weak points on Adrian’s body. He perfectly met and deflected each, redirecting their force and trying to get Heather to lose her balance if she overcommitted.

Just when they had started to settle into a rhythm, he switched it up and aimed a glancing strike at one of the sensitive peaks on her chest. The feeling jarred her, a look of shock crossing her face as her arms unconsciously moved to cover herself. Adrian moved in, grabbing her head and throwing a solid long knee into her abdomen. After he pulled away, he dropped down and swept her legs from underneath her and she fell backwards to the mat, finding herself facing the same ceiling that Victor had earlier.

Adrian appeared at her side, kneeling down. “Do you know why it went like that?”

Heather coughed a little as pain coursed through her stomach and she tried to regain the breath she’d lost when she hit the mat. “I got too used to the rhythm.”

“True, that was the first mistake. Your lesson yesterday though focused on the fact that combat is never fair or honorable. You allowed yourself to think along normal societal boundaries when it comes to your body, but in combat those sensibilities are meaningless. The groin shot is okay, but the breasts are off limits? Don’t make me laugh. Since you didn’t think it would happen, I made sure it happened.” Adrian grabbed her hand and vaulted her into a standing position. He paced about 2 meters away and turned around.

Seeing her frustrated expression, he said, “I won’t necessarily do that again...maybe. Now, show me what you've got!”

Heather dashed back to back towards him and struck towards him with renewed ferocity.

***

“But why a crown?” Raide asked curiously. His figure flashed in the monitor and the various new cameras in the room zoomed in on the circlet that was steadily getting more full as the sensors were added one by one.

Adrian frowned in consternation, eyes tracing the wires feeding into a port located in the helmet. Even if the action was basically not needed due to his perfect recall, the human side of him still demanded that he double check all of his connections to ensure that no wires were crossed. A grimace flashed across his face. It was a feeling he needed to suppress. Trust the new you.

“An old fascination, I guess you could say.”

He gingerly grabbed the crown with its interior exposed and palmed a thick plating of steel cut into a shape that would fit on the outside and slotted it over the wires which he pushed back inside. Positioning a few clamps into place to hold the two pieces together, he gave a it one last look over and then dropped a welder’s helmet over his face. Bursts of light flooded the room as he methodically welded the crown into one final unit.

“How incredibly descriptive of you.” The AI commented drily.

Adrian rolled his ethereal blue eyes as put down the torch and picked up a grinder while not saying a word. Bending back over, he set to smoothing out the welds he’d just finished as he finally said, “Fine.” Standing up from the stool where had been hunched for four hours, he cradled the headpiece in his hands and examined every millimeter of its construction.

“I was always intrigued by the idea of the ideal ruler, a monarch who weighed each action with iron-wrought determination and foresight. He would essentially be a being where all power coalesced and concentrated into his existence, not for the purpose of tyranny, but of reciprocal noblesse oblige.”

All of the lines were sharp and angular, savage yet regal. Sweeping diamonds of steel with embedded micro wide-angle lenses pointed proudly heavenwards like speaheards.

Raide’s attention flitted between the two. “I remember you discussing something similar with Nova,” he murmured. The apartment was incredibly quiet apart from the dutiful cluster server's fans.

“True, but it was only a touch. It's one of those things that a human dares not speak about at length lest he alienate the listener.” Adrian’s lips parted into a small smile.

Softly glowing electric eyes lovingly traced the contours of the intricate enameling he'd engraved by hand on the front of the ballistic shell that protected the internal components. “Because who else could understand that person's unique fixation on a concept and its symbols? The enduring millennial fortitude of an ideal as old as man. The resonance of a soul with an archetypal truth...”

He picked up a paintbrush waiting nearby on the workstation and dipped it in a pool of swirled darkness. “That seems like it was made just for him? They can be simple circlets of steel...”

Brush.

“They can be ornate frames of vainglorious splendor that curl and twist...”

Dab, brush.

“But it's always been obvious to me that all the crowns of history and myth were nothing but prototypes of the one that will adorn my head.”

Stroke, dab.

“It will have many versions over time, upgraded to suit my needs. Yet, it will be mine.”

Brush. Adrian’s eyes moved back to rest on Raide’s face.

“The final crown.”