The Giant God Soldier did not intervene.
It stood in the black fog of the ruined science base and watched the four-way engagement above the rubble through its single red eye, and in the operating room inside its skull, four people watched the same engagement through screens. The screens had additional information on them.
Each of the four fighters had a number floating next to their silhouette. The numbers changed occasionally, ticking up or down by small amounts as the intensity of the exchange shifted. They were not the same colour for everyone.
"What are those?" Vegapunk asked.
Caesar Clown settled back in his seat with the expression of a man who has been waiting for someone to ask him that. "We have time. Take a guess."
The two women looked at him.
"Physical condition monitoring?" Ada said. "Comprehensive scoring based on biological state?" She paused. "I don't actually believe that's possible at this level of resolution."
Stussy looked at the numbers next to Homelander's name and then at the numbers next to the three invaders' names and noted that they were not remotely similar in magnitude.
Vegapunk studied the display for a moment and said the thing that seemed most improbable. "Those numbers represent combat capability."
Caesar Clown applauded. It was the applause of someone who has been waiting to applaud. "Your satellite configuration hasn't dulled you. Yes. That is precisely what they are." He gestured at the screens. "Red Queen — explain the methodology."
The artificial intelligence's semi-virtual body manifested in the corner of the operating room.
"The combat power assessment system evaluates multiple variables simultaneously," she said, in the voice modeled on the red-haired singer. "Physical output, biological energy concentration, weapon integration, technique sophistication, and real-time comparison against a compiled database of known combatants. The values are dynamic — they change as the observed subject enters different states. The system is designed to be as accurate as the available sensor data permits."
"The combat power system," Caesar Clown said, with the satisfaction of someone explaining something they are proud of, "was something I developed between projects. I had nothing better to do. The instrumentation is too large to miniaturise — the Giant God Soldier is currently the only platform that can carry it — but the principle is sound."
Vegapunk looked at the numbers on the screens.
Meruem's value read 7.
Tien Shinhan's read 8.5.
Monster Garou's read 8.
Above Homelander's position, the number was 100,000,000.
"The units," Vegapunk said, carefully.
"The same for everyone. The system scales." Caesar Clown gestured at the screen. "To give you a reference point — Red Queen, scan Vegapunk."
Red Queen turned and raised her left palm toward the old scientist. A faint red light covered him from head to foot. The number that appeared in her right hand descended rapidly through three digits, through two, and settled at a single figure.
"A combat power of five," Caesar Clown said, with genuine delight. "The Nomi Nomi no Mi (Brain-Brain Fruit) is a remarkable instrument for intellectual storage and processing. It contributes nothing whatsoever to the ability to hit anyone."
Vegapunk accepted this without visible distress.
Red Queen scanned the remaining three at Caesar Clown's direction and delivered the results without commentary.
Caesar Clown: 100. His Gasu Gasu no Mi (Gas-Gas Fruit) provided Logia-class capability, and the number reflected that. He acknowledged, privately, that the number was partially aspirational — in a real engagement, fear of pain tended to reduce his effective output below what the system credited him with. He did not share this observation aloud.
Ada: the Plaga parasite living along her spine contributed roughly 1,000 on its own. The total figure for Ada's integrated combat capability was higher than Caesar had expected, which he filed as interesting.
Stussy: the number climbed past ten thousand without difficulty and arrived at approximately 15,000 before stabilising. The modifications, the artificial human regenerative capacity, and her accumulated technique library combined into a result that made the room quiet for a moment.
"If a combat power exceeds ten thousand, the individual can reasonably be described as a monster," Red Queen said, helpfully. "If it exceeds one thousand, they can function as an independent captain or lead a small-scale organisation without difficulty."
Stussy processed this. She looked at the screen showing Homelander's value. "A hundred million," she said. "Caesar Clown. Is the system functioning correctly?"
"I have studied his cellular data," Caesar said. "The energy density at the cellular level is unlike anything I have sampled from any other living subject. One hundred million is conservative." He looked at Vegapunk. "You built him. You would know better than I do. Is one hundred million an underestimate?"
Vegapunk said nothing.
He had created Homelander. He understood, in the technical sense, what had gone into the construction. He also understood that understanding a thing and controlling it were different categories of relationship, and the World Government had already made clear that the controlling relationship was theirs rather than his. Whether the second-generation Seraph was a god or a devil was a question whose answer depended entirely on who was holding the instruction manual.
He continued not answering.
Outside, the three invaders had made a collective decision that staying at their current output was not sufficient.
Tien Shinhan gathered the energy in his body and moved it with the deliberateness of someone who has been doing this for longer than most people have been alive — concentrating it through the pathways he knew, compressing it into his arms, letting the accumulation build past the threshold where it wanted to express itself and holding it at the edge of that threshold until the moment of release was right. A white arc formed above his open palm. The system's assessment of his combat power jumped from 8.5 to 30.
Ki Slash.
Monster Garou did not gather. He dissolved the boundary between the techniques he had absorbed and the ones he had developed himself, letting them combine into something that no longer had a clean taxonomy — not Flowing Water Rock-Crushing Fist, not Whirlwind Iron Fist, not Explosive Heartbeat Fist, but the synthesis of all three with the symbiote's amplification running through the structure. Each fist shadow moved faster than the previous one. The system registered 25.
Monster Killing Fist.
Meruem shaped his energy into a circle between his hands, contained and precise, the geometry of it tighter than most practitioners could manage with years of dedicated work. He had observed Tien Shinhan's energy release technique approximately once. His version was cleaner. The technique emerged and the system registered above 20.
Homelander watched all three of them.
The sneer had not moved.
"Struggling," he said, in a voice too low to carry to them. "That's what this looks like." He had never encountered a ceiling on his own capability — not a real one, not one that required him to recalibrate. He had encountered things that required more effort than others, which was different. The three in front of him were requiring more effort than the average. "It's almost funny."
The arrogance in him was architectural. It had been present from the beginning — not something he had developed in response to the world, but something built into the structure of what he was. He could perform restraint for Ada. He could perform courtesy when the situation called for it. What he could not feel, in the face of someone matching his combat level with effort and will and sacrifice of personal cost, was the thing those qualities deserved to be met with.
He simply did not have access to that response.
What he had instead was contempt for the gap, and the three people outside were providing evidence for why he found the world small.