A Hitman's Guide To Becoming A Hero

The thick white phosphorus smoke finally thinned, drifting off into the midnight sky like dirty wool.

St. Jude’s Plaza looked less like a civic landmark and more like the impact crater of a minor asteroid. Heavy association transport shuttles were already descending through the shattered boundary, their halogen spotlights cutting through the haze in blinding white cones. Sirens wailed across every perimeter avenue as hazard containment crews, clad in bulky hazmat suits, scurried like frantic yellow beetles over the rubble to collect Overseer carcasses and sweep for unexploded chemical canisters.

Medical personnel were everywhere, frantically rolling out anti-grav stretchers and barking into comm-units.

"Clear the lane! Priority-one triage for the S-ranks! Get stabilizing foam on vanguard Mercury’s chest!"

A team of four panicked paramedics rushed toward Nicholas, their hands practically trembling as they reached for trauma splints and field coagulants.

"Sir! Please don’t move! You have at least three compound rib fractures, extensive lacerations, and signs of acute chemical inhalation! Sit on the gurney immediately—"

Nicholas didn’t even look at them. He sidestepped the stretcher with the smooth, irritated grace of an exhausted commuter avoiding a subway puddle.

"I’m fine," Nicholas said, his voice raspy and flat. "Don’t touch the coat. It’s dry-clean only, and your bio-foam leaves stains."

"Sir, you are literally leaking blood from your sleeve!" the lead medic yelled, brandishing a pair of trauma shears like a weapon.

"Then give me a roll of gauze and stop screaming. You’re giving me a headache." Nicholas snatched a pack of sterile pressure wraps off the paramedic’s tray, tucked it under his arm, and continued walking toward the ruined edge of the stage.

Behind him, the mood among the assembled vanguard was an awkward collision of godlike relief and absolute public relations doom.

Nectron stood hovering two inches above the ground, his arms crossed, watching the massive holographic news monitors being erected near the command tents. Even though the titans had reclaimed their powers and liberated the state, the global chat feeds streaming across the news tickers weren’t celebrating.

[CivicWatch_01: So they can level a plaza in ten seconds when their own skins are on the line, but District 4 burned for three minutes while Ignis Prime waited for a camera crew?]

[OldDistrict_Survivor: Vance was a monster, but he had the receipts. The association archives are rotten to the core.]

[Realist_Dan: They didn’t even save the day. The guy who killed Vance wasn’t wearing a cape. He was using a broken kitchen knife.]

The public had seen everything. The gilded myth of the Hero Association hadn’t just cracked; it had been tossed into an industrial shredder on live television.

Eric, having shrunk back down to his normal, broad-shouldered human frame, stood nearby with his arm strapped into a heavy kinetic brace. The hulking hero looked thoroughly drained, dirt and dried blood caking his jaw. Beside him, Dana walked with a pronounced limp, leaning lightly on a carbon crutch while an assistant desperately tried to drape a pristine association cape over her bruised shoulders.

Dana swatted the cape away with an annoyed hiss. "If you put one more piece of satin on me, Raymond, I will throw you into Nectron’s gravity well."

She spotted Nicholas standing near the shattered fountain, calmly wrapping the medical gauze around his bleeding bicep with one hand and his teeth.

Eric and Dana exchanged a solemn, heavy glance before walking over to him.

"Nicholas," Eric began, his deep voice carrying a gravelly, formal resonance that usually prefaced medal ceremonies. He planted his boots, straightened his posture, and extended a massive, scarred hand. "On behalf of the vanguard, the regional council, and every operative who was bound on that platform... we owe you our lives. You held the line when we were nothing. You showed the world what true, indomitable will looks like. The board of directors has already authorized an immediate, fast-tracked induction into the Special Operations High Council. You will receive the Grand Cross of Valor, full diplomatic immunity, and—"

"Is there money attached to the medal?" Nicholas interrupted without looking up from his bandage.

Eric’s extended hand froze mid-air. "The... the Grand Cross is a priceless symbol of association gratitude—"

"So it’s gold-plated tin," Nicholas said flatly. He tied off the knot with a sharp tug of his teeth and finally looked Eric in the eye. "Keep the medal. Give me the check."

Dana pinched the bridge of her nose, letting out a dry, exasperated laugh that immediately made her wince from her cracked ribs. "You just dismantled a global doomsday plot with a piece of string and a broken blade, Nicholas. You could demand a statue in the capital plaza. You could ask for a permanent council seat."

"A statue doesn’t pay for property taxes, and council seats come with unpaid committee meetings," Nicholas replied smoothly, reaching into his torn tactical vest and pulling out a crumpled, blood-stained contract sheet. He tapped a specific paragraph with a gloved finger. "Section 4, Clause B. Emergency tactical deployment during tournament lockdown guarantees immediate disbursement of the full grand prize purse plus twenty-five percent hazardous hazard-pay surcharge. You have an encrypted association ledger terminal in that mobile command truck over there. Transfer it."

Eric blinked, his jaw slack as he stared at the contract. For a man who dealt in grand philosophical battles and epic heroic legacies, Nicholas’s absolute, laser-focused mercenary pragmatism was like being splashed in the face with ice water.

"You... you really only care about the purse?" Eric muttered.

"I care about punctuality," Nicholas said. "The banks close their automated batch processing at midnight. If the wire doesn’t clear in fifteen minutes, the surcharge goes to thirty percent."

Selena walked up behind them, her dark hair tangled and her uniform torn, but her face completely composed. She looked at Nicholas, then at the stunned faces of the two top-ranked heroes on the continent, and couldn’t stop the faint, genuine smirk from breaking through her exhaustion.

"He isn’t joking, Director Eric," Selena said, crossing her arms with a quiet sigh. "I reviewed his contractor paperwork before we crossed the perimeter. If you delay payment by more than twenty minutes, he is legally permitted to bill the association for emotional distress and ammunition expenditure. And considering he used custom tungsten sabot rounds... the invoice will make your finance department cry."

Dana shook her head, pulling a sleek, biometric authentication fob from her pocket. She tapped it against Nicholas’s digital tablet with a muted beep.

"Eight point five million credits," Dana said, the screen flashing an immediate, solid green confirmation. "Transferred directly to your off-grid private account. Paid in full."

Nicholas looked down at the screen.

The seven-figure balance updated instantly.

For the first time all night, the cold, murderous hitman who had butchered a mutated warlord and stared down three superpowered lieutenants showed a glimmer of absolute, genuine satisfaction.

"Pleasure doing business with you," Nicholas said, slipping the tablet into his pocket.

A few yards away, sitting perched on the hood of an overturned police cruiser, Julie was waving her arms wildly at a hovering micro-camera, completely lost in her own dimension of euphoria.

"—and that, my beautiful Peach Blossoms, is how we dismantle a doomsday cult in four-K sixty-frames-per-second!" Julie shrieked into her collar mic, her eyes wide as she tracked the metrics on her wrist display. "We just crossed forty-eight million concurrent viewers! Forty-eight million! We literally broke the international streaming backbone! Don’t forget to hit the follow button, subscribe to the premium tier, and buy the commemorative ’I Survived St. Jude’s’ sticker pack dropping in the shop tomorrow! Peach Fairy signing off!"

She slammed the broadcast kill-switch, falling backward onto the dented hood of the cruiser with an enormous, theatrical groan of pure bliss.

"I am rich," Julie whispered to the night sky, staring at the stars. "I am so unbelievably rich. I’m buying a helicopter. No, two helicopters. One for me, and one just for my luggage."

Selena walked over to Nicholas, who was already dusting off the shoulders of his jacket and checking the keys to his car.

"You’re not staying for the debriefing?" Selena asked, tilting her head. "The media vans are already breaching the outer perimeter. If you step out there right now, you’ll be on the front page of every publication on Earth by sunrise."

"That sounds like a terrible way to spend a Tuesday," Nicholas replied, tossing his empty utility pouches into an association disposal bin. "The Master is dead. His lieutenants ran like rats into the sewers. The association has enough PR fires to put out for the next ten years. None of that is in my job description."

Selena looked at him for a long moment, the faint moonlight catching the bruised, weary lines of her face. A subtle warmth softened her usually strict supervisor glare.

"You did good work tonight, Nicholas. Better than anyone had a right to expect."

"I did the work I was paid for," Nicholas said, though the corner of his mouth twitched slightly. "You didn’t do terrible yourself, supervisor. Your parry against Shadow was only slightly sloppy."

"Sloppy?!" Selena scoffed, glaring at him with mock indignation. "I saved your flank while you were rolling around in the dust!"

"I was executing a tactical relocation," Nicholas corrected deadpan. "There’s a difference."

He turned on his heel, walking away from the flashing sirens, the ruined marble, and the gathered heroes who were already bracing for the impending political storm of a lifetime. He picked his way through the rubble, completely unbothered by the chaos around him, heading straight for the highway where his car was parked just beyond the perimeter.

He checked his wrist watch. It was 11:42 PM.

Nicholas pulled out his cheap burner phone, dialing a saved number with one gloved thumb as he unlocked the car doors with a crisp beep.

The phone rang twice before a sleepy, irritated voice answered on the other end.

"Nicholas? Do you know what time it is? If you wake up Katie, I am locking you out of the apartment."

"I’m on the highway, Marina," Nicholas said, his voice dropping into the quiet, mundane calm of an ordinary older brother. "The tournament had a small delay in the final round."

"Did you win?"

"Of course I won," Nicholas replied, sliding into the driver’s seat and wincing only slightly as his broken ribs settled against the leather. "And the check cleared."

A brief pause on the other end, followed by the faint rustle of bedsheets. "Good. Because Katie wants that expensive braised chicken from the corner market tomorrow, and we are completely out of milk."

"I’ll pick it up on the way home," Nicholas said, turning the ignition and listening to the smooth, low purr of the engine. "Go back to sleep."

He hung up, threw the phone onto the passenger seat, and shifted the car into drive, leaving the burning remains of the Hero Association’s empire behind in his rearview mirror.

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