Morning headlines did me the courtesy of starting the day with music.
UNIDENTIFIED VIGILANTES DISRUPT FISK'S OPERATIONS. LAW ENFORCEMENT BAFFLED.HELL'S KITCHEN NIGHT RAID LEAVES "GIFT-WRAPPED" SUSPECTS, INTACT EVIDENCE.WHO ARE THE TALL MEN? (NO, NOT AVENGERS.)
Click. Click. Click. Every network had a take: Daily Bugle outrage, local stations breathless, one national anchor delivering concern with a smile big enough to sell toothbrushes. The Marvel Cinematic Universe loves a spectacle; last night we gave it a quiet one—clean takedowns, preserved warehouses, trucks parked neatly where auditors could find them. Apparently restraint is newsworthy.
I flipped channels with a grin and a soda. The fortress breathed around me—pipes warming, concrete settling, the subtle, shared exhale of a building that has decided to wake up and take a swing at the day. Veterans drifted through the lobby with their usual inevitability. Rookies haunted coffee like it owed them time off.
Ding.Points available: 3,000.
I let the blue overlay bloom in the corner of my mind like a HUD I didn't order and wouldn't trade. "Time to grow the family," I said, pushing off the couch. Veterans didn't blink. Rookies—07 through 12—looked relieved in the way men look relieved when they learn pain is about to be divided by a bigger denominator.
I clapped once; the building's attention clicked over. "Today," I announced, "we buy numbers."
No speech. No drumroll. Just the spending screen only I can see and the kind of certainty you get when the plan and the points finally agree.
"System: summon clone—designation Alpha13."
Light answered as if it had been waiting in the stairwell—soft, clean, a wash that made the lobby seem newly drawn. Height coalesced into a silhouette; the silhouette found posture; posture found stillness. The man looked up and locked on to me like a compass needle finding north.
"Commander."
"Welcome to the circus, 13," I said. "Don't worry, the elephants are house-broken."
Zero reaction. Perfect. Humor is optional; obedience to physics isn't.
"System: summon clone—designation Alpha14."
Another flare—another tower of potential. The floor didn't creak; it adjusted.
"Commander."
"You're 14," I said. "You stay with 03. Follow his discipline, not his hairstyle."
03 didn't bite. Of course not. 03 keeps his hair like he keeps his groups: tight, austere, unimpressed by trends.
"System: summon clone—designation Alpha15."
Light. Steel. A third set of eyes stepped into the work.
"Commander."
"Congratulations," I said. "You're alive. Don't waste it."
Assignments fell into place like magnets remembered they were related.
13 → 02 (mats, fundamentals, misery with purpose).
14 → 03 (range, reload cadence, muzzle discipline).
15 → 04 (gravity, footwork, humility as a martial art).
01 watched it land, then resumed being a piece of load-bearing horizon. 05 rolled his shoulders once, doing math I'd see on a whiteboard later.
"Orientation," I said. "Short and sweet. Rules of engagement: no fatalities, preserve evidence, civilians first, ego last. Posture is a verb, not a pose. Our brand is boring on camera, inevitable on the street. S.H.I.E.L.D. watches. Stark watches. Fisk bleeds money. We don't miss."
"Understood," 13/14/15 said together, voices tuned to the same quiet key.
We broke the lobby apart and poured it into the basement. The fortress carries sound differently when the count's this high; footsteps become weather; breath becomes tide.
The Circuit (Bigger)
Training persisted on a larger circuit, the way a city persists when it grows—same streets, more traffic, smarter lights.
13 hit the mats with 02 and learned the first rule of Spartan-II posture: you don't stand so much as you decide where the ground ends and you begin. 02's instruction is the opposite of poetry—one- and two-word fixes, sometimes just a tap on the elbow that says lower, or a knuckle to the lat that says own it.
"Guard," 02 said.
13 raised his hands.
"Taller," 02 said.
The guard didn't go up. The presence did.
"Jab," 02 said, and 13's hand extended with honest velocity and bad intentions.
"Again."
We build a man with repetition: jab–cross, cross–hook, frame–pummel, underhook–turn, breakfall–shrimp–stand. Sweat sheeted until the mat forgot it was a product and remembered it was a partner. 02's face changed twice: once to nope a sloppy posture, once to approve a correction so clean it made the air nod.
14 found the line with 03. Ear pro, eye pro, safety briefings recited until they sounded like prayer. 03 field-stripped him of bad habits he hadn't even had time to form.
"Grip," 03 said, correcting thumbs without ceremony. "Front sight. Press. Don't paint me a mural; type me a sentence."
14's first string grouped like a neighborhood dispute. The second turned into a family reunion. By the third, the holes hugged like punctuation.
"Reload," 03 said.
14 slammed a magazine like it owed him rent. 03 lifted a finger, no. "Make it music."
Tap–seat–rack—again. Three strings later, 14's hands learned a cadence he could carry outside the range and into a crowd without telegraphing panic.
15 spent time with 04 and the ground got to say hello a lot. 04 doesn't throw you at the floor; he introduces you to it until you finally treat it like a responsible adult. Balance drills. Base. Hand-fighting that looks like arguing quietly with physics and ends with physics feeling heard.
"Step," 04 said—tiny adjustment, left foot, half-ink on paper.
15 stepped, weight like poured sand.
"Hands," 04 said.
15 raised them and discovered his shoulders had been talking behind his back.
"Again."
They chain-wrestled through mistakes until the mat started returning the favor and catching him soft where it could have caught him loud. The first successful outside trip landed because 04 let it land. The second landed because 15 stopped trying to be a hero and started trying to be correct.
I floated between them, the way I always do—a soda in hand, irreverence holstered, eyes never still.
"13, you're petting the pads," I said over 02's shoulder. "Hit."
The next combination arrived with commitment instead of apology. 02 approved with a silence that made the air blush.
"14, the target's the middle. Try it."
14 made the middle feel seen.
"15, toddlers keep their feet longer."
He scowled then smiled then stopped doing both and got better.
Ignored, focused, perfect.
Fitting the Teeth
Numbers don't mean much if the gear doesn't fit. We ran a fast, ugly, necessary uniform day.
Armor & Fit. 05 ran the tape while I ran the mouth. Torso plates seated flat—a hard requirement, not a suggestion. Shoulder mobility tests, ankle flex checks, hip clearance in a squat that 05 held for an eight-count because, and I quote, "control is not a rumor." 13 took a size we had in stock; 14 required shimming; 15 inherited a set that looked like it was made for him in a factory that knew my name.
Comms. 03 issued earpieces, encryption chips, the strict admonition that comms discipline isn't a vibe. Call signs only. No names. If a camera can read lips, it should learn nothing. We ran a check—01's "Start," 02's "Clear," 03's "Front sight," 04's "Balance," 05's "Controlled"—and made sure the new three could hear the beat of the building.
Medical & Baseline. I ran a fingertip pulse ox because oxygen deficits don't care about heroics. 02 measured resting heart rates; 05 wrote numbers with the neat cruelty of a man who intends to lower them. 04 tested ankle integrity the way a sculptor tests stone—press, release, watch the rebound.
House Map. 11 led 13–15 through the corridors like a docent at a museum for stubborn architecture: armory, med, kitchen, lounge, bunk rooms, roof, egress routes. Do not touch 02's label maker.Do not move 03's targets.Do not ask 05 if you can skip leg day. (There is no leg day. Every day is leg day. The floor is everywhere.)
Doctrine. I repeated the rules because nothing ruins a good day like improvising ethics: no fatalities, minimal property damage, preserve evidence, civilians first, ego last. If you can end a fight without throwing a punch, you do it and then you go home smug.
03 added, "Muzzle low unless you intend otherwise."04 added, "Hands are statements."05 added, "Controlled."02 said nothing; his posture said everything.
Two Floors of Work
We turned the basement into a metronome and the first floor into a classroom. Veterans taught like the military makes saints teach—patience with a stopwatch.
02 & 13: combinations into clinch work. Frame–pummel–turn. Elbow shield that won't break your own wrist. 13 moved like a man who planned to keep moving; 02 corrected like a man who had done this too many times to tolerate decorative mistakes.
"Lower your car," 02 said.
"My—"
"Center of gravity," 02 clarified. "Drive it. Don't wear it."
13 lowered. The mat approved.
03 & 14: failure drills and malfunctions. Tap–rack–bang becomes tap–rack–assess; add magazine changes without mag-dumping your neighbor; introduce no-shoot overlays that punish impatience. 14 had steady hands; 03 tuned his eyes. We walked the rails to "moving target, no-shoot at two o'clock," then to "target occluded, wait for window," then to "this is a camera; cameras are predators; be boring."
04 & 15: balance as a way of life. 04 is gravity's lawyer. He sues your feet for malpractice. 15 learned when to be a post and when to be a door, when to push and when to become a hole someone falls into by accident. The first time he tried to muscle a throw, 04 let him push himself into the floor as a demonstration. The second time, 15 redirected pressure and the mat accepted him like a win.
05 & Everyone: strength as punctuation. Farmer's carries up and down the narrow hallway that pretends it's wider when 02 walks through. Sled push on painted concrete, measured by breath not by distance. Tempo squats to the count of a man who doesn't blink. "Control," he said, and quads obeyed.
01 & 11: shadow work, because the roof doesn't guard itself. 11 mirrored 01 step-for-step through the microdrills that make a sentinel: scan, identify exits, read the weird, decide what matters, do nothing until it's time to do everything. 11's stance settled into that Spartan-II inevitability I like seeing: ready without shouting ready.
In between, I heckled for morale and corrected for keeps.
"13, if you're going to throw that hook like you mean it, turn the hip like you own it," I said. He did. The bag agreed.
"14, stop flirting with the edge. Center. The target has one. Use it."
"15, you have a spine, not a swivel chair. Plant. Then move."
They ignored me the way good students ignore applause and pity. Focused. Perfect.
The Culture Grows
Fifteen Spartans filled the building's seams. The fortress learned new footfalls, new respirations, new habits. Our culture doesn't change when the headcount does; it deepens.
Choreography of Silence. More bodies, same quiet. The weight room didn't get louder; it got steadier. The firing line didn't get busier; it got tighter. We didn't repeat commands; we refined them until they could be passed with a look and a point.
Rituals. 02 wrote the watch schedule on the whiteboard in the neat, murderous cursive that makes time behave. 03 added a column for "ammo checked" and underlined it once. 04 penciled in "mobility" blocks that read like a yoga studio owned by a bouncer. 05 wrote TEMPO on the wall between two racks and underlined it with chalk thick as a finger.
Humor. 07 and 08 invented a game where you get one look per day at 02 and have to decide if it's disappointment or approval. No one ever wins. 09 started writing BALANCE in tiny block letters on the corner of a mop bucket as a gift to 04. 10 found out 05 doesn't believe in music during lifts because "the metronome is inside you." 11 caught 14 moving like 03 and never mentioned it because he remembers how many corrections it takes to make a person quiet. 12 tried to reorganize the med cabinet, caught 02's eyebrow, and reorganized his choices.
Doctrine Reinforced. Law enforcement headlines turned into case studies. We watched muted segments about "unidentified vigilantes" and learned how the outside sees the inside. S.H.I.E.L.D. would file memos; Coulson would underline variables. Tony Stark would ask JARVIS to match silhouettes and come up empty except for the note annoyingly consistent posture. We kept training on being "annoyingly consistent." That's our magic power.
The Afternoon Test (Small, On Purpose)
I'm allergic to letting new steel rust. Late afternoon, I staged two micro-scenarios to shake out the fit.
Scenario A — The Hallway Squeeze
Narrow corridor, foam "benches" as obstacles, two cones representing people who panic and don't listen, a taped "electrified rail" because I don't waste a good Stark Expo lesson. Team: 02–13, with 11 running crowd language and me observing.
"Start," 01 said from the end of the hall, voice like the sun accepting an invitation.
13 led with his hands low and open—the universal sign for I'm here to help and I could bench-press your bad day. 11 slid into the pocket, pointed with palm, not with finger (less stabby, more shepherd), guided the cones—er, "civilians"—past the rail without making them feel stupid. 02 floated, inventorying disaster, preventing it.
At the midpoint I bumped a bench into 13's shins because I am both teacher and hazard. He didn't stumble; he folded like a hinge, absorbed, redirected, kept moving. He earned the half-inch of approval 02's chin gives out on holidays.
Scenario B — The Corner and the Camera
Stairs, a tight landing, a "hostile" with a foam knife (hello, 07), and a civilian with a phone (08, acting with a commitment that would land him a background gig in an Avengers crowd scene). Team: 03–14, with 04 as the backstop.
07 came hot around the corner on cue. 14's hands came up—the good kind: thumbs in, fingers out, elbows ready to frame. 03 said, "Hands. Voice. Move him, don't box him." 14 stepped off the line, guided 07 into the corner without joint drama, stripped the foam knife with a disarm that would make a dojo nod, kept the muzzle low even though he didn't have a muzzle yet. 08 shoved a phone in his face. 14 didn't swat. He shifted—face out of frame, body angled, action boring for camera, effective for life.
"Better," I said. 03 allowed a single approving exhale. That's basically a parade.
The Headcount
By night, the new trio shook with exhaustion; the old guard looked like statues that had decided to breathe. Fifteen Spartans filled the hallways and the idea of this building. We lined them wall to wall in the lounge because sometimes morale needs a picture.
From 01 to 15, the sequence looked impossible in the way mountains look impossible when you try to count them. Different heights; same inevitability. The uniforms weren't identical—the fortress is a tailor with opinions—but the posture was. Spartan-II posture. UNSC discipline poured into MCU problems. The kind of lineup that makes Wilson Fisk check his bank accounts and S.H.I.E.L.D. check their bandwidth.
I raised a soda like a general at a picnic. "From one to fifteen," I said. "Full squad and then some. Kingpin doesn't stand a chance."
Silence answered—the good kind, the kind with weight. Not bravado. Not growling. Just the quiet of men who understand that numbers are multipliers, not costumes.
I tapped the rim of the can to the table and let the moment hold. The System glowed faint at the edge of thought—3,000 spent, 0 banked, a ledger that finally matched the roster on my wall.
Logistics, Because Family Is Work
Bunks. We reshuffled assignments without turning it into drama. 13 bunked across from 02 because osmosis is real. 14 took the corner near the range door so 03 could drag him out at unholy hours. 15 went two doors down from 04 because you should never sleep next to your teacher—too much gravity in one room.
Watch. 02 slotted the new three into the rotation. No one pulls two consecutive. Everyone learns how the fortress breathes at 3 a.m. and how New York sounds just before dawn.
Gear. 03 handed over fresh slings; 14 learned that a sling is a seatbelt, not a necklace. 05 set a schedule for plate carries because gear doesn't count until you've sweated under it. 04 snuck mobility sheets onto 15's pillow; 15 pretended not to see them and did the work anyway.
Admin. I hate admin. 02 loves it. We compromised: he did the boring parts; I signed things that said Commander in a box no one else can see.
Pizza: A Tragic Farce
It is a law of this household that pizza arrives when the day says enough. I ordered too much because fifteen Spartans eat like a fiscal policy.
The delivery guy walked in, saw what looked like the Avengers line-up if the Halo franchise wrote the casting call, and nearly fainted. To his credit, he didn't drop the bag.
"They don't bite," I said. "Mostly."
He laughed the terrified laugh of a man who gets tipped in survival. I tipped him out of sympathy and civic pride. He fled like a gazelle that had seen a National Geographic camera and knew how that ends.
We ate like training is fuel, not punishment. 02 enforced hydration like a petty god. 03 warmed his hands around tea and scribbled a note about "occlusion drills" that would ruin 14's tomorrow in the best way. 04 stretched calves on a stair and gave 15 a nod for doing the same. 05 sat under a rack, back to steel, and wrote numbers with the contentment of a man who sees the shape of next week and approves.
07 tried a joke, failed, then succeeded. 08 showed 14 a trick with mag pouches that he'd learned the hard way. 09 ate steadily, no rush, like a man who has made peace with fuel as duty. 10 rotated a lacrosse ball under a hamstring and made a face that said he was reconsidering every life choice but would keep them. 11 watched 01 watch the room and copied the watch without copying the worry. 12 asked 05 a question about tempo and got an answer that will haunt his quads forever.
I stood in the doorway, soda in hand, and let the noise wash through me—low chatter, fork scrape, boot scuff, chair leg. I counted to fifteen and didn't worry about the number. Numbers can be broken. This felt like something else. A chorus line the city doesn't know it needs until the music changes.
Debrief (Micro, as a Treat)
No speeches. We're not a movie with a standing ovation. Still—there's value in one paragraph of gospel.
"Today was for growth," I said. "Tomorrow returns to Wilson Fisk—cash houses, fake charities, the arteries he thinks we won't find. S.H.I.E.L.D. will watch. Tony Stark will smirk. Coulson will underline. We'll be the reason the headlines get bored."
"Directive?" 01 asked, because he's the hinge every day turns on.
"Same as always," I said. "Train, patrol, points. Civilians first, ego last. If the MCU tries to hand you a spotlight, use it to light an exit."
Nods. One "Understood." The room dissolved into cleanup without me having to point.
Roof: Fifteen and a Skyline
Night fell and put neon eyebrows on the city. I went to the roof because ritual keeps you honest. 01 joined without being asked because mountains don't need invitations.
New York's glow wore a Stark hue even when Tony wasn't throwing a party. Somewhere, JARVIS crawled a police blotter, flagged the "gift-wrapped suspects," and failed to cross-reference our posture with a known entity. Somewhere, Phil Coulson wrote annoyingly disciplined in a margin and pretended he didn't respect it. Somewhere higher, Wilson Fisk poured a drink and asked a mirror if respect and fear are twins or just cousins who eat together on holidays.
"From one to fifteen," I said quietly to the skyline, raising the last soda like a toast to math and stubbornness. "Full squad and then some."
01 didn't comment. He doesn't need to. The wind tried to move him; the wind apologized.
"Fisk doesn't stand a chance," I added—not as a boast, as a forecast. We're not storm chasers. We are the weather. Slow fronts. Clean pressure. No lightning unless necessary.
Below us, the fortress settled into that late-hour hum I love: watch rotations clicking, bunks groaning, someone in the kitchen putting three slices of pizza into a plastic container like the future owes them kindness. The System sat in the corner of my awareness and didn't blink. Points: 0.Roster: 15.Trajectory: steady.
We'll spend again—on skill, on steel, on the kind of upgrades that turn good into inevitable. But not tonight. Tonight was for teeth. Tomorrow is for biting.
I finished the soda, crushed the can, and listened to a city that thinks in sequels and snacks on chaos. We'll be there between the acts, the quiet part of the Marvel story, the Halo spine under the MCU skin.
"Progress steady," 01 said, because he always knows which line to deliver last.
"Damn right," I replied, and we stood a while longer, two silhouettes on a roof, counting a squad by heartbeats, not by names.