The penthouse was as opulent and overdone as he remembered.

Senka let him in with a blank expression, one hand holding a mug of dark coffee, and motioned for him to follow her back through the living room.

The artifacts had been sequestered back into the hollow wall. The rest of the space was even more empty than before, with some of the handful of knick knacks that had been there before packed away and sent to the hunters’ families for safekeeping.

“Do you care which room I take?”

She blinked at him and shook her head. “No.”

Atlas kept his shoes on and took in the cavernous space, his suitcases rolling in haphazard, staccato fashion behind him. This new “home” of his was cold. Distant. Not much of a home at all, really.

Then again, how homey had his studio been in the end?

Once Senka wordlessly led him to one to the top of the staircase and pointed vaguely to the empty set of bedrooms, he spent roughly an half an hour unpacking his sweatsuits, t-shirts and socks. Most of the rest of it didn’t matter enough to bother with right now. The furniture had never been his to begin with.

Apparently, Portal Group didn’t intend to let him take his time to settle in.

He was putting his toothbrush in the en suite bathroom when he heard the intercom beep pleasantly.

“Atlas Cane, please report to the Acquisitions Department at your earliest convenience.”

His fingers twitched, and he pushed his hair out of his face with a displeased grunt. They could call him from inside the penthouse?

This was going to be a nightmare.

Senka was nowhere to be found when he left, so he pocketed the key she’d left for him in the bowl beside the door and took the elevator down a floor.

“Care to explain why you made me come down here so fast?” He sniped, rolling his eyes at Izar as he stumbled through the lab door in a long white jacket. “I literally just got here.”

“Where’s Phi?”

“Asleep on my bed.” Atlas raised a brow. “Do we need her?”

Izar pinched his temples and sighed. “No, I guess not. It’s just as valuable to see what you can do without her.”

“This couldn’t have happened before you sent me up there?”

Izar shrugged helplessly. “Boss’ orders. I can’t turn down a directive. Some folks from the legislature are here and want an assessment of the new S-Class. They’re anxious about who we have on tap if the S-Grade reappears.”

“I’m guessing they already know I closed it?”

Izar had the decency to look sheepish. “I can’t keep things from them, Atlas. It’s a matter of public security.”

It wasn’t worth calling him on it. Not right now. Atlas just rolled his eyes and shouldered his way into the Acquisitions conference room. 

It was packed enough that he skid to a halt before he ran headfirst into a chair. He knew the suits with pins were members of the legislature, but he didn’t have the faintest idea who the others were.

“Atlas,” the Guild President said. She was at the head of the table, her head in one hand, tapping a pen against her notepad. “Thank you for coming. Please go to the front of the conference table. We are looking to provide a practical demonstration for our esteemed guests.”

Atlas grit his teeth, and did as he was asked with little more than an eye twitching in irritation. He wouldn't feign happiness at this.

He balled his hands into fists at his side and stalked to the front of the room, sliding by the thick line of chairs and people and trying not to swear.

Open information panels, he thought, picking at his thumbnail absently as he came to a stop.

Immediately, a number of the people at the table went bright with orange text and lines. 

“What can I demonstrate to you?”

One of the people with a display, a low-ranked hunter wearing a pin, gave Atlas a snide, unsettling grin. “You’ve been dormant for ten years. Surely anything is better than that.”

Atlas slanted a sour look at him.

[EMIL ARCHETTA] — D-CLASS — SKILL: SPARK

“I don’t know, Congressman. It will be difficult for me to surpass a D-class hunter with a relatively useless electricity Skill. But if I must.”

Emil’s face went an angry, purplish red, but the Guild Master gestured for him to remain still. “Do not insult our guests, Atlas. I see that you have not changed much in the decade you’ve been absent from duty.”

Atlas scowled. “I owe you all my compliance and service, but not a good attitude. That wasn’t in the contract.”

Izar clicked the door shut behind himself, running a hand over his face. “Please demonstrate the portions of your ability that you have discovered to them, in a manner that is safe for the members gathered here, Atlas.”

“When you ask so nicely,” he murmured. 

He stared at the gathered crowd. 

There was scarcely a face among them he did not loathe, barring Izar, if he was feeling generous. The frustration he held for him was something a bit more delicate. 

They were each the picture of privileged confidence. Elegant, expensive clothing with gleaming watches of polished gold.

He held out his hand, and thought forcefully about the object he desired.

[MP: 900/1,000]

In only a moment the air around him rippled and made a sharp pop! before dropping a perfect duplicate of Emil Archetta’s expensive watch into his hand.

“I wonder how much these watches will be worth if I flood the market,” he murmured, sliding it over his wrist. It was a vulgar mismatch to the cheap material of his slick, black sweatsuit. “I guess I don’t have to worry about my paycheck all that much.”

Atlas didn’t know how else to describe the feeling that crackled, hard and fast, down his arms and into his chest. It buzzed.

He was giddy with it. Almost manic. Without the pressure and fear of the portal escape, he was beginning to realize now — with a fierce high that felt intoxicating — that he was no longer the weakest person in the room.

Emil was turning a spectacular shade of purple. The Guild President wrote something down, then waved her hand dismissively. “Move on, Atlas. What can you do other than conjure matter? Izar mentioned something with portal manipulation?”

“I only have enough mana to do so once.” It had taken 800 of his mana points, hadn’t it? When he closed the S-Grade? “So I won’t have the ability to close anything I open.”

“Conjure a NULL-Grade, please. Even if that bursts, it will not pose a threat.”

NULL-Grades were small portals that linked to empty domains. They were rarely more than two feet across, and very scarcely released anything more than a faint light and dull hum.

“If you insist,” he said with a shrug.

Atlas wasn’t entirely sure what he was doing, but he had a decent idea. All it had taken was a notion, a desire, to activate the closure of the S-Grade. Why wouldn’t it work the same the other way around?

“President, are you sure —”

The Guild President threw a sidelong look at Izar. “Mr. Abene, do you believe that the Acquisitions Department, staffed fully by competent and capable hunters, would not be able to manage a NULL-Grade if asked?”

Izar’s expression went dim. “Of course, ma’am. We could handle a NULL-Grade very easily. I only worry about the precedent of opening new portals purposefully.”

“I fail to see the issue. Leave the worrying to me. Mr. Cane, if you would, please demonstrate for our guests the full extent of your awakened abilities.”

Atlas met Izar’s eyes, then held up a hand out of instinct.

The assembled crowd’s expressions went slack with shock and wonder as a pale, beige light unfolded nearly into a NULL-grade just over a foot and a half in diameter. 

He couldn’t contain the thrill that surged through him.

How many years had he been called useless? How many indignities had he endured at every school, and job, and office and store?

Atlas had never been someone. But for some unknowable, mystical reason, he was given the chance to demonstrate what a mistake it had been to underestimate him.

He would seize it with both hands. He would make sure that the foolish, terrible people who had spent his life tearing him down knew what it was like to feel small.

“There’s your portal,” he said, with purposeful boredom. He scratched his ear with his pinky. “Do you want anything else, or can I go unpack? I got here like, half an hour ago.”

The Guild Master’s expression was inscrutable, but the others around the table stared at him with something fearful and incredulous at the same time. Emil’s angry face had gone pale.

“You may be excused Mr. Cane,” the Guild President said. “I have a feeling that there is much for the rest of us to discuss.”