The Paragons' headquarters was in crisis mode, the war room alive with tension. The holographic map of the city flickered in front of them, glowing red with emergency alerts. The first wave of attacks had worked—spread the heroes thin. Now, the real threats were stepping onto the field.

  Cerberus stood at the center, his three heads scanning the data in real-time. His dominant central head remained still, unreadable as ever, while his two armored side heads flared with tactical calculations.

  Gathered around him, the active Paragons prepared for the next fight—Mist, The Tunnel, Sentience, and two reserve members: Mr. Normal and First Aid.

  Mr. Normal looked as average as humanly possible—glasses, suit, briefcase. Unassuming. But the second you took your eyes off him, you’d forget he was ever there. Perfect for intel gathering.

  First Aid stood next to him, hands in her pockets, exhaustion behind her eyes. Her power was simple: she could heal others, but it drained her stamina. The worse the injury, the worse the toll on her body. Cerberus had called her in for a reason.

  A new emergency marker flared red. Cerberus tapped the console.

  “We’ve identified the major remaining threats.”

  A new hologram flashed. A grinning figure stood in the middle of a pile of shredded corpses. His body was thin, skeletal—his arms elongated, each finger sharpened to a wicked point. His bone armor had grown over his body like an exoskeleton, shifting as he moved, forming jagged spikes along his limbs.

  MARROW.

  Mist narrowed her eyes at the image. “What the hell is that thing?”

  The Tunnel folded his arms. “Looks like some kind of bone manipulator. Probably uses his own skeleton as a weapon.”

  Cerberus’s central head studied the footage, watching how Marrow carved through armored officers like paper, using his sharpened bones as spears and blades. "High lethality, no regard for collateral. Slaughter seems to be the primary objective."

  “Great,” The Tunnel muttered. “A walking meat grinder.”

  Cerberus nodded. “If he’s active, he needs to be neutralized.”

  The next screen flickered—a woman standing over a pile of bodies, skin blackened, their veins turned to sludge.

  PLAGUE.

  “Jesus,” Tunnel muttered. “She’s spreading fast.”

  Cerberus nodded. “Mist, you’re on her. You’re quick, and you don’t get hit.”

  Mist cracked her knuckles. “She won’t touch me.”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  The third screen shifted.

  A hulking, grotesque figure rampaged through the lower districts, devouring anything in its path.

  Buildings. Cars. People.

  THE GRUB.

  Tunnel groaned. “Great. The city’s about to be eaten.”

  Cerberus didn’t flinch. “Tunnel, you handle it.”

  Tunnel sighed dramatically. "Fine. But if I have to portal this thing into the ocean, I expect a damn bonus.”

  The fourth screen flickered.

  The highways were shattered, the roads torn apart.

  A figure moved through the chaos too fast for cameras to track. The only sign of him was a ripple in the air—a sonic boom that shattered windows, flipped cars, and cracked concrete.

  SONIC BOOM.

  Mist rolled her shoulders. “Speedsters always suck to fight.”

  Cerberus didn’t even blink. “I’ll take him.”

  The final screen pulsed red.

  A high-security facility, its reinforced walls breached from the inside.

  The only footage was a distorted feed of glowing red optics.

  A mechanical figure stepped out of the darkness, sleek but incomplete.

  Exposed wires. Patchwork plating.

  But the eyes—

  The eyes burned with raw intelligence.

  BETA TEST.

  The Tunnel let out a low whistle. “Oh, hell. That thing is still active?”

  Sentience tilted its head. "It was stolen years ago. I had calculated a 14% probability of it resurfacing. This is… unfortunate."

  Cerberus’s central head turned to him. “You’re the only one who can take it down.”

  Sentience nodded. "Understood."

  Before anyone could move, another alert flashed onto the screen.

  Mist glanced at it, her brow raising slightly.

  “Huh.”

  Tunnel leaned over. “What?”

  She tapped the data. “Marrow’s down.”

  Cerberus’s main head finally turned.

  “What?”

  The Tunnel scanned the report. "Looks like our favorite street brawler took him out."

  Cerberus’s right head twitched. His central head remained impassive. “Marrow was a minor threat.”

  “Minor?” The Tunnel chuckled. “The guy was tearing through cops. If Damaged hadn’t stopped him, we’d be cleaning up body parts for weeks.”

  Mist tapped the report. “He won. Alone.”

  Cerberus exhaled through his nose, unimpressed.

  “Sloppy.”

  The Tunnel raised an eyebrow. “Sloppy?”

  Cerberus folded his arms. “He wins through recklessness, not strategy.”

  Mist tilted her head. “And yet, he won.”

  The Tunnel smirked. “Yeah, alright, boss. Keep pretending that doesn’t bother you.”

  Cerberus’s right head flared slightly, but his central head ignored the jab. Instead, he turned to First Aid.

  “We have our assignments,” Cerberus said.

  “First Aid, I want you to get to Timber. See if you can get him back on his feet.”

  First Aid nodded, adjusting her gloves. “He’s tough. I can probably get him stable, but I don’t know if he’ll be back in action.”

  Before she could leave, The Tunnel spoke up.

  “While you’re at it, find Damaged.”

  She frowned. “Why?”

  Tunnel smirked. “Because if we heal him, he’ll come back even stronger.”

  Mist raised an eyebrow. “You want to bring him in?”

  “He’s already in,” Tunnel said. “He just doesn’t know it.”

  Cerberus remained silent.

  His central head didn’t object.

  First Aid sighed. "Fine. But if he punches me for touching him, I’m blaming you.”

  Cerberus finally stepped away from the war table.

  “The Paragons move now.”

  As the others left the war room, Sentience lingered.

  The image of Beta Test still flickered on the screen.

  Sentience didn’t know how to describe what he was experiencing. He ran the probability of emotional interference, but that couldn’t be right—he wasn’t built for emotions.

  Yet, seeing Beta Test felt different.

  An anomaly.

  A remnant of something before him. An older brother, in a way. A version of what he might have been.

  And now, they had to destroy him.

  Sentience tilted his head. Curious.

  He shut off the screen and left to complete his mission.

  Across the city, the real battle was about to begin.

  And Damaged was about to be brought into the fold—whether he wanted to be or not.