4:38 p.m.

Excelsior was watching the onscreen action intently when he heard someone come in. He looked up from the screen on his desk to see Arc, still short his lower calves and feet on both legs, being deposited onto a chair.

“Arc my boy, glad to see you made it!” Arc was his planned replacement for Centurion as one of the two lead front liners for his upcoming organization; Excelsior was indeed glad to see Arc had made it. He had been worried when the Minotaur dismantled the team of four front liners in under a minute. Ironic that the two people he had planned to kill were responsible for keeping his plan alive. Chuckling to himself, he wondered if Petra had figured out what was going on before the Limo crashed.

Arc was groaning, obviously still in pain. The Minotaur must have brought him to the very brink of death for the young man to still be recuperating hours later. Excelsior made a motion and an aide brought an extension cord over Arc, offering him the unplugged end. Arc accepted greedily and Excelsior outwardly smiled at the relief the young man displayed. Inwardly, he scowled at the young man’s weakness. Excelsior decided to vent his frustration, indirectly of course. He was a firm believer that a leader should be unflappable at all times, which meant never showing anger or frustration.

“The Minotaur got you pretty good son.” Excelsior made the appropriate sympathetic noises. “Feeling better?”

“Much, sir.” Arc answered, still sucking every spark of electricity he could from the extension cord.

“Good good.” Excelsior said genially. Before he could go any further, nine more people walked into his field office. Excelsior mused that it was beneficial to insist on having such a large mobile office. Freya and Sledge found couches to sit on, Neutronis leaned against a wall while Chariot and Garganta grabbed chairs, Glyph and Jekyll stood awkwardly near the window, and Titan towered over Spartan by the door.

4:40 p.m.

“Ahh good, the whole crew is here.” Excelsior beamed. “Let’s have an after action report yes? I’ve been watching what satellite feeds we have, but it will be much more informative to hear it coming from your own mouths. Spartan, yours should be the simplest, please start.”

“Not much to say sir.” Spartan responded crisply. Excelsior was proud of the discipline he’d instilled in Meridian, a tradition he planned to continue in his next venture. “It was a deviation from the plan to have one of the Contender’s pop up right underneath us but everybody made it out. Plus, Joan was out of commission early and Petra assigned me as Utilitarian lead, which was unexpected. I just directed the team away from the fight while Sledge took off after Amp and Stormfront.”

“Excellent work Spartan. Not a large part, but crucial none the less.” Excelsior praised the man. Spartan was an easy one to keep in line. Give him goals and give him praise; he’d follow a leader like that to the ends of the earth.

Predictably, Spartan swelled up with pride. “Let’s cover that little hitch in our plans. Sledge?”

“Sure thing boss.” Sledge said. Not as disciplined, but still plenty of respect in his voice. Excelsior tolerated the lax attitude in lieu of cracking down on one of his more morally flexible followers. “It was easy to make it look like Joan simply leapt back to check on Marionette and put her in the path of whatever Contender emerged from the ruins of the church. Arc and Sabre made sure to move too slowly to get there in time. Amp and Stormfront tumbled to the double-cross, I’m sure they saw me blow Khyber away from the building. But I stuck around and dropped the building on them when they tried to escape, so it was taken care of.”

“Excellent work as well Sledge. Good thinking on the building.” Excelsior commented. Unlike Spartan, not just any praise would do with Sledge. However, the man thought he was vastly more intelligent than he really was, and complimenting cleverness was sure to yield a reward. “We’ll save direct encounters with the Contenders for last, so Garganta?”

“They definitely knew about the double cross.” The lack of title irked Excelsior but he didn’t let it show. Garganta lacked any form of a conscience and Excelsior valued that more highly than respectfulness. For the moment. “I barely got Pockets before Bubbles was bailing and Amoeba followed after when I turned to her. I don’t know how she knew I was going to come after her next.”

“It’s not an aspect of her gifts she shared often, but she can sense people’s general intent towards her.” Excelsior offered. “It’s why I advised you refrain from planning and instead act when the order went out, to give her less warning.”

“How did you know that?” Glyph demanded. “She never even told me that.”

“She didn’t trust her team, Glyph.” Excelsior soothed. “Not that it was your fault, she simply had a hard time adjusting to people suddenly valuing her and she feared being feared or hated after being so loved for the powers she openly displayed. She confided in Centurion when she was deciding between joining Meridian or the Crusaders and of course Centurion reported that to me.”

“I can’t argue with that, she never stopped being nervous.” Glyph sighed. “It wasn’t easy, but Jekyll and I managed to keep Black Hat’s A.I. out of the important systems until after you gave the order to leave. Sorry we couldn’t re-task the satellite to guide the disruptors sooner, one of his A.I. had commandeered it to track the position of the Contenders.”

“You did fine Glyph, Black Hat’s A.I. always were troublesome.” Excelsior said magnanimously. He was pleased the two technicians had prevented Black Hat’s A.I. from penetrating into their alternate communications or the outlines of the plan. The apology simply made being magnanimous easier.

4:45 p.m.

“On to the direct clashes with the Contenders. Did anyone observe the Crawler?” Excelsior asked.

The assembled fighters looked around for a few seconds before Neutronis cleared his throat. “The Crawler was easily the biggest we’ve seen sir. It was shrugging off most of Celestis’ stars without blinking and had the ability to produce repeated sprays of a caustic liquid.”

Excelsior noticed the shadow of grief pass over Freya’s face at the mention of Celestis and made a mental note for later.

“Yes, it was a monstrous one. “ Excelsior agreed. “Still, it was indirectly helpful, pulling Khyber and Celestis away from where they could interfere. Onto the Red Angel?”

“I’ve fought at over half the encounters we’ve had with the Angel class in North America.” Freya said after a moment. “That thing was bigger, faster, and stronger than any of the previous Angels we’ve run into.”

She paused and Excelsior made a gesture to continue. “That made it easy to get rid of Pike.”

Freya bit her lip and Excelsior made another motion indicating she should share. “Sir, I’d never seen the Limo in action against a Contender before but I’m glad the Red Angel was so focused on it. I don’t want to think about what that thing would’ve done if it hadn’t wanted to destroy the ship.”

“And though you’re not saying it, you’re glad you didn’t have to go after the ship directly.” Excelsior stated knowingly. Freya started before nodding, avoiding the looks from her fellow fighters. “Those of you judging her for that have obviously never seen the Limo fully in action before. For your information, the Limo held off the Red Angel without assistance for another two minutes after all support was stripped from it. Without their three best blasters, best shooter, and best defense on board. I went up against its’ predecessor myself years ago and was forced to retreat. Freya is not to be disrespected for fearing that ship. Not with the firepower typically at its’ disposal, its’ unmatched pilot, and most dangerously, the mind it carried.”

4:47 p.m.

There was a moment of silence before Excelsior continued. “Now, let’s hear about the Contender that was the most helpful and the most problematic.”

“The Minotaur was something else.” Titan rumbled. His wound had been stitched and seen to by Soother but he was obviously still in some pain. “I’ve never seen any Contender that strong outside Crawlers, Berserkers, or Colossi. It moved with speed and agility similar to an Oroichi class Contender as well.”

“Not to mention, it was a shifter.” Arc added in. “And that it ignored invincibility and invulnerability completely.”

Excelsior watched the young man hesitate for a moment before continuing. “It took down Sabre in a matter of seconds and he was a veteran. That Minotaur was a monster.”

“Hmm.” Excelsior steepled his hands for a moment. “Monster seems to be an accurate description. Though it worked to our benefit, taking Centurion out of the picture and allowing Sledge to bring down Amp and Stormfront.”

There was an air of agreement. “I think it also taught us some valuable lessons in always expecting the next Contender to be worse, am I correct?”

He waited for nods before continuing. “Now, the plan worked. The Dozen are functionally out of the picture, the leaders of the main North American teams have all been replaced, and there will be no practical resistance to the formation of Primus. However, I am aware there was and still is a sentiment that it may have been less costly to simply ambush the Dozen to remove them from the picture before simply overriding the wishes of the team leaders. It is understandable to have this opinion, I am not making judgments as you did not have the relevant facts to hand.”

4:51 p.m.

“The only gifted in this room who may have possessed that information are Glyph and Neutronis. Do you know why?” No one answered Excelsior. “They are the only gifted in this room besides myself who were active more than six years ago. Do you see the connection?”

“No sir.” Spartan said after a minute of silence.

“I thought not.” Excelsior responded tartly. “Titan, what team would you least want to face off against right now? Heroes, villains, doesn’t matter as long as you don’t include Atlanteans.”

“Et Timuerunt or the Pantheon.” Titan responded, looking puzzled.

“Would your answer change if I went back more than six years?” Excelsior asked.

“No.” Titan looked even more puzzled.

Excelsior turned to have both Glyph and Neutronis in his view, watching their eyes light up in comprehension. “Do either of you disagree? Do you think a different team would’ve deserved to be more feared?”

“The Mavericks.” Neutronis and Glyph replied in tandem.

4:53 p.m.

“I’ve never even heard of them.” Arc sounded annoyed. “How am I supposed to fear a team I don’t know exists?”

“You wouldn’t have heard of the team.” Neutronis said slowly. “They mostly worked alone, doing mercenary jobs or bouncing from city to city knocking local heroes and villains down a peg for kicks. They only operated as a team a few times, although it would have become a permanent establishment had fate not intervened. They were forgotten as a cohesive whole with their rather explosive ending. You would know the individual members though.”

“Subsonic, Invader, Luna, Sandstorm, Lionheart, Celestial.” Glyph listed off. The rest of the room took in a sharp breath; every single one of those names had greatness associated with it, already legends in the gifted community that was barely more than a decade old.

“You’re kidding.” Freya said. “I idolized Luna and Sandstorm while they were still active. They were some of the only solo, female gifted. I was a huge fangirl; I would have known if they teamed up.”

“You all recall the double rupture in Billings, Montana seven years ago? That was the first time they all worked together.” Excelsior informed them. “The six of them drove back two Contenders by themselves, without back-up or using disruptor bombs. You know the names, you know they were capable of it.”

“That means…that means…” Glyph couldn’t finish the thought.

Neutronis picked it up. “If we hadn’t done it this way, we all would have died. All of us.”

The younger gifted looked at him blankly.

“Excelsior is implying that some of the Mavericks were folded into the Dozen. Not Luna or Lionheart obviously. But think about it.” He urged them, sounding somewhat panicked. “How similar is Web’s power set to Invader’s? Zero’s to Subsonic’s?”

Neutronis’s voice faltered for a minute as he thought about the other two and Excelsior watched the realization of the narrow miss they’d had. “Petra and Khyber. Oh god, we would have tried to ambush Sandstorm and Celestial.”

Excelsior thought it odd, but appropriate that the normally unflappable Neutronis was unable to stay calm when talking about what might have happened.

4:56 p.m.

“Celestial, I guess Khyber, permanently crippled both Excelsior and Deus by himself. At the same time.” Neutronis said fervently. “It was all anyone could talk about after the Legion collapsed. Before you formed Meridian sir, no offense intended.”

All eyes snapped to Excelsior and he took a moment to calm the rage that boiled up whenever he thought about that fight and the events that led up to it. They had done an immense amount of work muddying the waters in regards to that particular incident. “None taken. Neutronis speaks the truth. Trust me when I say that ambushing those four while they had their eight teammates with them, without the distraction of two or three Contenders, would have been a terminally bad idea for all involved.”

“All six of them were considered as potential recruits by the Atlanteans, with Celestial and Lionheart turning down actual offers. Long before the Atlanteans actually started recruiting.” Excelsior continued. “For the last five years, all four survivors, Khyber in particular, have been on self-imposed leashes placed in Petra’s hands.”

He rewound the video he’d been watching a few minutes ago and turned the screen towards the assembled gifted. “If for some reason you still don’t believe me, perhaps this will change your mind.”

Excelsior pressed play and the room went silent as they watched the final fight of the rupture, between Khyber and three Contenders. And kept watching, as the fight drug on long past reason and into the realm of disbelief. In particular, he watched Arc, gaining satisfaction from the blood draining from the young man’s face. In the same way Excelsior had once evaluated himself in the aftermath of a disaster his memory would forevermore associate with the color yellow, he saw Arc re-considering grandiose ideas of his own strength while watching Khyber finally let loose after five years of restraint.