Broker

The flickering of the portal intensified, the pylons glowing brighter and brighter. Every time she saw a tiny wisp of light drift away from the portal she felt her heart tighten just a little bit, only to be relieved when she recognized it as nothing more than runoff. Next to her, standing as stalwart as ever, Marta watched the portal with a bit of trepidation. She felt her friend’s eyes on her and graced her with a small smile. “They’re fighting very hard,” She said quietly. If her eyes could twinkle, they would have. Instead, they only clicked and whirred.

Marta looked her way, “Are they?” She asked and looked back up. “Is that why you’re standing?”

Sonya nodded, “Yes. It is,” She said and held her head high, “If they’re going to risk their lives for us, the least we can do is stand for them.”

Marta looked back, “You’re… not a very good villain, sometimes,” She said quietly, only loud enough for Sonya to hear with her enhanced senses.

Sonya chuckled and looked down, smiling demurely, “I suppose you’re right,” She said, just as the portal flashed with a brilliant light. Nearby, Amos let out a shout of alarm and stumbled away from the portal, covering his head. “It’s fine Amos!” She called out to him before turning her eyes on four shapes that staggered out into reality from the bloom of light. Behind them, the portal shuddered, shimmered, and slowly began to collapse in on itself. The pylons dimmed, and then faded back to simple stone.

Bluestar was cradled in Lifesaver’s arms, awake, but she didn’t look like she was in any condition to stand. Firestorm was slumped over a bewildered looking Bandit’s shoulder. Behind them was what appeared to be a trunk of some kind. The four of them stood in the darkening room looking more than a little dumbfounded. Their eyes wide as they looked around as if trying to figure out what had just happened to them. They finally saw Sonya, standing, waiting for them. 

They look just like you did, the first time, how cute. She thought and couldn’t help herself. She opened her arms and greeted them with the warmest smile she could manage, “Welcome back, Heroes.”

Firestorm coughed once and looked up, grinning once at Bandit before meeting her gaze. “We’re back.”

Sonya heard Marta let out a sigh of relief as Amos nearly bounced about, admiring one of the screens on his equipment. “It’s dispersing! It’s really dispersing! Mana levels dropping! Not just here! City wide! Monster appearances are going to drop like crazy! You guys really did it!” 

Sonya laughed and walked over to the heroes. Bluestar got gingerly to her feet and Lifesaver took a moment to heal her a little more. She looked up at Sonya who quickly pulled her into a hug before reaching over and pulling the other three in as well. They looked at one another in surprise before returning the embrace. Sonya pulled away and Bluestar cleared her throat, “We should start the debriefing as soon as- eep!” She gasped when Sonya put a finger to her lips and grinned at her.

“Tut tut! I won’t hear it, you four are getting some rest and a heroes dinner, no arguing,” She said and then turned away with a flourish. “We can do a proper debriefing when we have time. For now, you did your job, now it’s time for me to do mine!” She announced and cleared her throat, whipping her phone out dramatically.

“Amos! I want a full write up and report on all data obtained from the portal!” She commanded.

“On it!”

“Marta! Get our medical team down here and give the heroes a full check up. I’m sure Lifesaver is fine but he should get checked out just in case. Help him do any additional treatments.”

“Yes ma’am!”

She tapped a number in on her phone and held it up to her ear. “I need a press conference scheduled for two days from now. Worldwide broadcast.” She hung up and dialed another number, “Chairman! I seem to have missed a few calls from you! How are you dear?” She laughed and kept walking towards the exit, “Oh I know I know, I’m so much trouble,” She snorted, “I have some very interesting information for you dear. I’ll give you a full briefing in a few days once we’ve collected the data. Why don’t you come to New York, we’ll have a grand time.”

She hung up and turned to a few aides, “The heroes brought back some trophies it looks like, help them carry it out of the building and get it to headquarters. We’ll need a place to store it.”

The aides blinked rapidly before nodding, “Yes! Of course!”

She grinned to herself, in her element, and tapped one last number in on her phone, she held it up to her ear, “Ah, hello, This is Sonya Chernovna, I’d like to make a reservation tonight for a private dinner. Party of eight. I’m sure you can make something happen, dear,” She tittered, “What’s your name by the way? You sound cute, could I ask you to host us?”

Behind her, Firestorm and the rest of his bedraggled party just stood there and gaped.

–

“Oh I wish you could have seen it! It was amazing!” Firestorm enthused, gesturing wildly as they sat around the table together. They were sitting at a long table at a luxurious restaurant, the atmosphere was beyond refined, but they had the good fortune of being in a private room so they could let their hair down a little. He and his team were all sitting on one side of the table with Sonya directly across from him. To her left was Marta and to her right, Amos and Colin. 

Sonya sipped her wine and beamed at the hero before turning to look at Bandit, “To think you figured out how to walk on ceilings like that. I seem to recall you struggling to do more than cling to them just a little while ago. That’s some explosive growth, dear.”

Bandit who was clearly regretting not having his hood to cover his face, flushed furiously as he looked down into his glass. “It-it was no big deal…”

“No big deal?” Firestorm countered, “Are you kidding, you’re the MVP of the dungeon! Sure, my fire power helped, but man, you saved Bluestar twice and got my ass out of the fire more times than I can count, and even dealt the final blow on the boss! You were amazing!”

Bandit seemed to shrink more and more as the praise kept mounting until he finally let out a growl, drained his glass in one gulp, and coughed. “Alright, fine! Yeah! I am pretty awesome!” He declared, wiping his lips.

“Please don’t get drunk,” Bluestar said with a sigh, shaking her head.

“I’m fine! S’no problem! I killed a twenty-foot tall demon!” Bandit shouted, throwing his fists into the air.

“I thought it was fifteen,” Colin asked from across from him, resting his chin on his palm and giving Bandit an amused look.

Bandit blinked and met his gaze before clearing his throat again, “R-right, fifteen, s’what I said. Right? No? Shit…” He rubbed his head.

Colin gave Amos a sidelong look and grinned at him a little. “Maybe you should send some drones in with them next time, to get some proper measurements. Wouldn’t want incorrect data, right?” He suggested. “You know, men and measurements.”

Amos frowned and kept his expression still, not looking at the coy lawyer. “I trust the original report from Firestorm,” He said flatly, ignoring the off-color remark.

Sonya raised an eyebrow in their direction. That was interesting, had they even properly met before this dinner? I don’t recall introducing them. She decided to let it go, she’d interrogate Amos later about it. She glanced over at the heroes celebrating their victory and couldn’t help but find the whole situation amusing. Firestorm, Bluestar, Lifesaver, and Bandit. The first for heroes of the ASTA guild sitting across from Ishtar and her inner circle. It was almost laughable.

“So how did you find that thing anyway? Those images you showed us in the briefing,” Bluestar finally asked, leaning forward to get the conversation in a more sensible direction.

Sonya opened her mouth to speak but Amos cut in almost hurriedly. She glanced over again and spotted a small bit of annoyance on Colin’s face. Okay, definitely getting an interrogation later.

“It was a natural step up from the ability detectors,” Amos explained, “They check to see if there is active mana inside a person’s body. The energy that we naturally draw in and generate to let our powers work,” He tapped his finger on the table. “During an experiment I picked up a fairly significant amount in the air and developed what amounts to a short-range doppler radar.”

Bluestar looked flummoxed for a moment, “That’s… amazing.”

He grinned, “Isn’t it?” He said proudly before carrying on, “We were able to see a monster take form in real time, they’re basically just masses of mana that have gathered in one place. That’s what the portal and dungeon were too, just on a far bigger scale.”

Firestorm looked up, “You can see a monster forming? Doesn’t that mean you can have a pretty good idea when and where one might take shape?”

Amos glanced his way, he looked almost impressed. Sonya knew Amos didn’t have an exactly high opinion of Firestorm, he’d muttered ‘himbo’ at least once before but she’d opted to ignore it. Amos nodded slowly, “That’s right, but it’s more like predicting a tornado. All the ingredients are present for a monster forming but that doesn’t mean it will, only that the chances grow increasingly high.”

“You should make an app,” Firestorm said quickly, leaning forward with a bright look in his eyes. Amos was taken aback and even Sonya glanced the hero’s way with a bit of confusion on her face, “I’m serious. Imagine if all of us heroes had a monster warning system. We could know exactly where to patrol instead of spending all day in pointless wandering. Could even add a dungeon monitor or something, no wait, listen! I’m just saying-” He seemed to be babbling, worried that the distant look in Amos’ eyes was a sign of lack of interest.

Quite the contrary, Sonya thought.

She glanced over at Colin who’s passively amused expression had turned serious. He met her gaze. Both of them had the same thought. Most apps have an end user license agreement, don't they? Would that work?

–

The Chairman rubbed his head, he hadn’t expected to get a return call from that woman. Especially one admitting she’d been up to something. Even more so that she was willing to come clean and share her findings with him now that her research was complete. It was perplexing, but not unwelcome. She had made it clear that she wanted their working relationship to be a largely positive one after the debacle involving his admitted attempt to undermine her intellectual property rights.

Had he misjudged her? Was she simply eccentric? Okay, very eccentric, but he didn’t mind eccentric. Most of the truly powerful people were remarkably strange in their own ways. He’d learned that through his rise to power.

What had been more unexpected, though, was that she’d called him while he’d been away from headquarters and visiting home. The series of events following that had left him not only confused about her, but about everything as a whole. His son and his fiance had been in the room when she’d called and they’d insisted on coming to visit. He’d been proud of his son before, as any good parent should, but even more so when he’d found his son’s reasoning not only to be sound, but remarkably mature.

He glanced over at his son’s fiance, Feng Hyunh for the upteenth time since they’d gotten on the private jet and regarded her thoughtfully. He had wondered a little more than once about whether or not she was a suitable partner for his boy. While she was well connected with a powerful underworld syndicate and by extension their political allies, she had always come across as more demure and overly polite than anything else. Yet somehow, some way, she had managed to reign in his son’s rather abrasive disposition.

That alone had significantly raised her value in his eyes.

She returned his gaze and graced him with one of her easy smiles, her purplish eye sparkling a little. “Is everything alright, Chairman?” She asked, her hands in her lap.

He blinked, realizing he’d been staring a bit longer than he’d intended to and cleared his throat, “Not at all, miss Feng, and please, feel free to call me father,” He said into his fist, looking back down at the documents on the tray he’d pulled out to give him space to continue his work.

“I’ll remember to do that, Father,” she said politely, that easy smile never leaving her face.

He glanced up at his son, “You’re a very lucky man, son.”

Duong had been staring out the window, his expression thoughtful, paying little attention to the interaction. Only when the Chairman spoke did he perk up and glance in his father’s direction. He turned his head and looked at Hyunh, giving her a relaxed smile and nodding. “I’d have to agree with you, Father. She has changed my life in more ways than one. It was her suggestion to form a proper guild and have the state back it formally. The President was very happy with the arrangement.”

The Chairman had of course gotten most of the details surrounding the formation of the Vietnamese People’s Guild, but he hadn’t gotten all the information. Namely how Duong had managed to convince the party to put so much backing behind his son. He knew nominally that his son was powerful, he had an understanding of what the ‘Mythic-tier’ meant, but he himself was not light-touched and so couldn’t fully grasp the extent of what the boy was capable of.

His son glanced at him, “Will we really be able to meet Miss Chernovna during the visit?”

The Chairman nodded, “Yes, you wanted to have a word with her?”

Duong nodded, a bit sullen, “I have a lot to apologize for and I want to make sure that we’re on a better foot going forward.”

The chairman smiled, perhaps, maybe, given the woman’s eccentric nature, bygones could truly be bygones. He was looking forward to the meeting anyway. He hadn’t met her face to face and already knew that she had some significant backing in Europe. She seemed more amicable than before as well, so that was a plus. More importantly, whatever she’d discovered had been important enough that she’d actually taken steps to reach out to him. Whatever it was, it had to be groundbreaking.

He gave his son a firm nod, “I’m looking forward to clearing everything up.”

Duong smiled, showing his teeth a little, “As am I.”