Math Moth, Sly Cheshire, and Rokuro Inoue faced off against Henrietta Albani’s building-sized Platinum Crown. Dancing around the feet of the massive mech like ants scuttling beneath the boots of a human.

I faced off against the Three-Eyed Queen. Sticking to the woman like glue so she couldn’t go off and kill the heroes I’d been hired to protect. Dancing between her blows because she was actually fairly powerful and my current body wasn’t up to the task of receiving her blows.

Henrietta’s Platinum Crown fired some kind of energy beam at the two heroes. Sly Cheshire grabbed his partner and teleported out of the way. Since I was feeling generous today, I gave Rokuro a telekinetic shove saving him from disintegration.

The beam of green energy tore its way through the warehouse and managed to break through the barrier that Cloudy Midnight had set up. I hadn’t expected that.

Fortunately, none of the police officers and emergency responders waiting outside got caught up in the blast. However it was a very narrow thing and a broad swath of empty warehouse simply ceased to exist.

Though those cops and emergency responders weren’t my responsibility, I decided it was time to get serious. Having unnecessary collateral damage happen tonight would put a bad taste in my mouth.

I went on the offensive. Lashing at my costumed opponent with sharp, snake-like, strikes.

I managed to land a kick that sent the Three-Eyed Queen flying back a few dozen yards. I exhaled a breath of glowing steam. A sigh that was fifty percent genuine tiredness, because I may have underestimated exactly how much the tether had limited me, and fifty percent near-erotic anticipation.

I tapped the ground with my umbrella and then pointed the tip of my umbrella towards the sky. A beam of light flew from my umbrella and exploded.

The explosion became a bubble of glowing energy that transformed into a shape similar to a jellyfish and descended back towards the earth. The glowing jellyfish expanded over the part of the warehouse district we were standing in and then transformed into a glowing dome of isolated space.

“Hey, what are you doing?! This isn’t a fight for civilians like you!” said Math Moth. Dodging a piston-powered blow from one of the handfuls of hardworking Albani men who were still alive and kicking, and doing their damndest to defend their mistress.

I rolled my eyes wondering how she found the leeway to worry about what I was doing. Since we were still close, I took the opportunity to trip the goggle wearing super and ducked beneath one of the blows of the Three-Eyed Queen instead of redirecting the attack like I’d been doing before.

A wave of force flew out from the Three-Eyed Woman’s fist. A wave of power so potent that if it weren’t for the isolate space I’d established it probably would have wiped out the entire warehouse district.

Everyone but the Three-Eyed Woman and I froze. Even Henrietta had cooled off momentarily seeings the large amount of earth and concrete that had been gouged out by the three-eyed woman’s fist.

“You were saying?” I said. Still ducking and parrying the three-eyed woman’s attacks.

Cheshire just nodded.

“You handle her...We’ll handle the mech.”

Math Moth clucked her tongue and didn’t say anything.

“A sensible plan.” I said.

“Here… Maybe this will help.” I said. Sending a schematic that highlighted and exposed various weak points on Henrietta’s Platinum Crown, to the micro-computers connected to Sly Cheshire’s mask.

“...Thanks.” said the cat-masked man. Teleporting onto the shoulder and immediately tearing out a hidden coupling I’d highlighted.

I patched myself into the heroes’ radio communication network.

“Oi, Cloudy...You’re friends here need you. You don’t need to worry about the barrier anymore so get down here.”

A moment later, the gray and white costumed super appeared within the dome. He gazed at me with a look that was hard to read because of that stupid round mask of his and then turned to join his partners as they tangled with Henrietta and her giant robot.

As I watched Sly Cheshire use his phasing and teleportation powers to tear apart some of the easier weaknesses I’d pointed out for him, and watched Math Moth and Cloudy Midnight deal with the bigger weaknesses I decided those kids would be okay.

I figured Sly Cheshire’s plan was the best way to handle things. I’d deal with the bigger threat on my own and so long as none of the heroes were completely incompetant they’d be able to take down Henrietta on their own.

*************************************************************************************************************

As I fought the Three-Eyed Queen, our clashing bodies made sounds like mountains crumbling. I now understood why Cassandra had requested my aid, or rather I now understood why Cassandra needed someone to look after her niece and nephew for tonight’s mission.

To explain what it was I understood, I’d need to explain the hero rankings, but that’s fine we all know how much I love to show off the many things I know.

The Heroes Guild and roughly two-thirds of the gray industry operated off the Heroes Guild ranking standards. The militaries of most nations also relied the standard, or a modified version of it. As you can expect, unlike with the players league’s levels, the heroes’ guild rankings actually meant something.

Starting from the weakest and going to the strongest, the rankings were G, F, E, D, C, B, A, and S. Six ranks all holding a specific meaning in terms of general strength and combat capabilities for the average super.

G-rank heroes weren’t ‘actually’ heroes, at least in terms of capability. The Heroes Guild didn’t even hand out qualification badges to G-Rank heroes. Instead you got a simple certificate that signified nothing beyond a simple right to go out in costume.

G-Rank heroes were generally normal folk. They usually had little to no special training. They were mostly made up of eccentrics and entertainers who wanted to be able to legally call themselves heroes. They might show up in hospitals, and public parks, as volunteers doing community service. Or they could show up at your kids birthday party and do a few tricks. That was the extent of what a G-rank hero could do.

F-rank heroes were slightly better. F-rank certification involved either taking a three week training course, or having verifiable experience in both first aid and self-defense.

F-rank heroes were actually heroic, but they weren’t especially powerful. They mostly did what G-rank heroes did, but in safer locales they might also be hired to “patrol” with the understanding being that if they saw something happening they were to contact the police, or actual heroes, rather than get involved.

The E-rank was the lowest rank for getting the Hero Qualification badge. Again there was no expectation in terms of paranormal abilities, however E-rankers tended to have them more often than not.

You were also expected to be physically fit. It didn’t need to be peak human-fitness but you still needed to be able to run a couple miles without becoming uselessly winded.

Your average E-rank hero was usually a former police officer, or discharged soldier, who wanted to get into the security field, but didn’t want to just become a security guard. There were also a number of reformed former gang members who got themselves ranked as well.

Many companies viewed E-rank certification positively, so there were actually quite a lot of people registered as E-rankers.

Next came the D-rankers. Said plainly, the D-rank was made out of action movie stars. Think back to every improbable, and impossible, thing you’ve ever seen a supposedly normal humans do in an action movie. Every dodged bullet, ever leaped crevice, every fall that should have broken bones, every blow that should have knocked them out. A D-rank hero was expected to be at least ‘that’ capable.

D-rankers were often military elites, government agents, elites of the criminal world, or high-tier martial artists. If they weren’t at the peak of human physical performance they were expected to be close to it, and have either a shit ton of training, or a useful power, to make up the gap.

The C-rank was the first rank where you kind of ‘had’ to be superpowered to gain the rank’s badge. Margot was initially a C-rank. She could hit hard enough to flip a car over. She could run faster than a horse. She could leap up to a second story window. She had superhuman reflexes, and a higher mental capacity than the average human. She also had a moderate regenerative ability.

She was basically the perfect example of what a mid-tier C-rank hero looked like. However, now that I thought of it, that probably wasn’t true anymore. The girl cultivated and trained quite diligently when she wasn’t watching anime or playing games.

She was one of those infuriating people, who looked like a slacker, but actually was secretly putting in hard work while no one was watching...Just like yours truly. In the month’s that I’d been with her, Margot was probably more than a little bit stronger now. At least strong enough to have made her way into the beginnings of the B-ranks.

As for what a B-ranker was capable of, the B-rank heroes and villains were all different. The average non-powered governor, or general, could be considered roughly B-rank due to the amount of resources, and influence they had at their disposal.

Speaking in concrete terms the power of a hero in the B-rank was the power to destroy entire cities. Henrietta in her Platinum Crown could technically be considered the equal of a B-ranker. With her mech’s plasma cannons, ion missiles, plasma guns, and tyrannically tough defenses, she could wipe out the city of Prospero in one night. Even if other heroes came to aid my heroes and tried to stop her, most of the city would still be destroyed. That was what it meant to be a B-ranker.

Then there was the A-rank. The physique of my current body was in the A-rank. Even without drawing on my powers, I could throw houses and trucks like they were toys. I could dodge bullets, or simply stand, let the lower caliber-rounds bounce off me. I could outpace, and stop, a speeding locomotive. Being a partly mechanical and partly magical entity, I could heal from anything short total annihilation.

However you didn’t ‘need’ all that to be considered an A-rank. A peerless sharp wit, a shit load of resources, and a lot of skills could make up the gap. An example of unpowered A-ranker would be a certain nocturnal, flying, rodent, themed superhero from american fiction.

If B-rankers could kill cities, A-rankers could threaten nations all on their own. A-rank hero was either the glory, or nightmare, of their homeland. They were the ones who got called in to save the earth from the various otherworldly horrors and alien invaders. They were ones who usually got put on the news, or had a big hollywood biopic made of their exploits.

The woman in front of me was an S-ranker. The Three-Eyed Queen was formerly one of earth’s greatest heroes. Rather, she’d been one of earth’s greatest anti-heroes.

The Russian and chinese governments seemed to be on the fence as to whether they should classify her as a villain or not. However there was no denying that she’d been a big name once upon a time, before she fled from the control of the Chinese-Russian Unified State, and disappeared.

Now here she was. Kicking up a fuss. Now I completely understood why Cassandra had needed help. If she’d believed that her niece and nephew were going to have to face the Three-Eyed Queen, I couldn’t help wondering why she’d only invited me to help, or why she’d let the two young heroes show up for this fight in the first place.

Was she that desperate? Did she have so few people she could turn to? Or did she just ‘really’ believe in my capabilities? If it was the last one, I couldn’t help wondering what gave her such confidence. A level 20 player was in no way the equal of an S-ranked Player. So, did I give away a little of what I really was at some point?

S-ranked heroes weren’t really considered heroes anymore. If you were S-ranked and a government became aware of your presence they would either recruit you with all their strength, leave you alone as a sort of state within a state, or fight you with all their strength because S-ranked heroes were known as world killers.

The beings that caused the Endless Night Event were classified as S-rankers and it took yet more S-rankers to finally defeat them. There were three words that described the S-rank: “power...beyond... comprehension”.

There was no real limit for what the S-ranks could do. The weaker ones could devastate continents. The stronger ones could blow away moons and small planets. Others could cause ice-ages, others could set the whole world on fire.

Honestly, the only reason there was so little panic concerning the S-ranks was because they were so rare that few people knew they existed, and there were pockets of s-rankers in each of the world’s factions keeping the more troublesome s-rankers at bay.

If you want to understand what the typical s-ranker was, I can give you an example of what an average s-ranker was by the standards of most worlds. Wanna guess? No, you don’t want to guess?... Because this is a book and I thus can’t hear you? Fine, I’ll just tell you.

The gods. That select group of miscellaneous beings and entities that dared go around calling themselves gods, with the cosmos actually half-acknowledging their bullshit, and giving most of them special privileges and responsibilities, were all S-rankers. Maybe they’d be A-rankers if they were runty and it was a lower-energy world, but for the most part any deity-class being would be S-rank by default.

That was what I was facing up against, a being that was equal to, or at least nearly as strong as your average physical god...

Honestly, it was kind of a pleasant surprise. After entering this world, I hadn’t expected to get the chance to really push myself so early. This would be a hell of a fight, my only regret was that Margot wasn’t here to experience it with me.