That night at the MVP ceremony, the Alpha brat joined the official hero lineup. Either he had played dumb earlier about his lack of a sponsor or he had orders to stay quiet, but Barnaby Brooks Jr had the sponsorship of Apollon Media, TopMag's main competitor.

"Dammit," Kotetsu muttered to Antonio. "This is the worst."

"Why's that?"

"He's an Alpha. A gay Alpha."

"You sure?"

"I noticed it after filming ended."

Not one to pry, Antonio let the subject stand and comforted Kotetsu with a very heartfelt, "That's rough, man."

Kotetsu shook his head at the cruelty at it all: a young, sexy Alpha for a rival company…

"—has the power to increase his physical abilities a hundredfold, but only for a duration of five minutes—"

…with Hundred power. He gritted his teeth. Fancy armor-suit, Hundred Power, Alpha. That kid was picked with the sole purpose of surpassing Kotetus, taking his baseline claim to heroism, his power, and improving on everything else, with superior technology, appeal, results, even Scenting.

The rest of the night failed to give Kotetsu a damn break as he placed sixth of seven heroes, spent the evening wandering the streets alone with his thoughts, and the next morning, he discovered TopMag had been bought out, and he had to meet his new boss (a stuck-up slave driver) who also informed him he had to be part of a hero duo: he would have a partner in the field.

And that partner just had to be the arrogant wonder-Alpha, Barnaby Brooks Jr.

When Barnaby's motorcycle pulled up beside him, Kotetsu froze up, anticipating Barnaby's Scent to hit him at any second, but nothing happened. The kid ignored his stunned silence and did some techy button-pushing that converted Kotetsu's snazzy bike into a sidecar stuck to the side of Barnaby's. Without even giving Kotetsu time to protest, Barnaby revved his engine, prepared to drive off and leave Kotetsu stuck there on the bridge if he didn't get in.

When his mind finally processed the situation, Kotetsu flipped up his visor and voiced the most pressing concern of the moment: "Why am I on the side?"

"You're an Omega," Barnaby answered.

"That's got nothing to do with this!"

"That has everything to do with this," Barnaby said. "We are a partnership at the orders of our company. Naturally, I will lead, and you will follow me."

"Like hell I'm going to follow you like I'm your—" Kotetsu stopped short as the motorcycle and sidecar passed the monolithic Steel Hammer statue. "Hey, hey, hey, you passed it! Go back!"

"No."

"You drove right past it!"

"Right."

"You have to go back!"

"No."

"What, do you have some kind of plan?"

"Yes."

"Then what is it? Tell me!"

The motorcycle slowed and stopped, overlooking the massive statue's path of destruction. "First, we'll gather information on the other heroes to avoid making a simultaneous entrance. That way, we'll stand out."

Kotetsu settled into the backrest of his sidecar and folded his arms. He thought it would be a reason like that. "How stupid…"

Barnaby looked back at Kotetsu. He felt the cold blue eyes of his mask narrowed at him, even though the plate couldn't actually form expression.

"Will we catch the culprit if we stand out? Will that bring peace to the city?" Kotetsu prepared to deliver the lecture that Barnaby had rudely interrupted during their first meeting, but Barnaby cut him off yet again."

"Our suits have air filters that prevent our pheromones from affecting each other," he said. "So I would suggest you closer your visor, unless you want me to demonstrate how Alphas dominate rebellious Omegas."

With that, Barnaby flipped his visor open, mouth twisted in a self-satisfied smirk. Eyes wide, Kotetsu slapped his mask back down as Agnes called them with her usual, "Bonjour, heroes."

So Barnaby not only knew that his Scent affected Kotetsu, but he also intended to use it as a bargaining tool, a weapon, if necessary. Then that meant he definitely noticed how close Kotetsu had been to letting Barnaby claim him back there on the iceberg. He'd have to be careful around this kid, and at every opportunity prove he wasn't the kind of Omega who hung his head and did as Alphas told him.

In the shuffle of arriving heroes, Barnaby ditched his own partner to make his oh-so-special, grand entrance. Well, Kotetsu didn't need him, either! Making his own evaluation of the scenario, Kotetsu engaged his wire gun and took aim for the statue's shoulder.

I'll show you what sort of brilliant plan an Omega can come up with—without an Alpha! This is going to be so cool!

It wasn't cool. It was just another mess.

And the Stick-Up-Ass boss chewed Kotetsu out for it, big time.

"Do you understand the situation you're in?" Lloyds lectured. "We have a contract with you to act as Barnaby's foil. You're his second—his assistant—his add-on—"

"His Omega?" Kotetsu growled. "What's the big idea, making an Alpha and Omega be partners? You knew we're cued for each other and you still threw us together!"

"Barnaby's application was under review long before we considered adding you to the picture. He could have easily become a hero without you. And your identical powers factored into the decision to keep you after the TopMag buyout at least as much as your Scenting did, if not more."

"But you want him to claim me! I can see this game you're playing! I've never had an Alpha—"

"If you don't like it, you can quit," Lloyds cut Kotetsu off with a snide glare. "Apollon has no plans at the moment to market your Scented status. Hero TV is another story, but they've been teasing your availability so long, it's become stale.

"Stale—?!"

"None of this is important at the moment. You still need to go and see our engineer. He's very angry with you; he designed that suit to protect you, and you spent most of yoru time out in the field with your visor up, not to mention failing to use your wires properly…"

"No one taught me this new system," Kotetsu complained. "It's confusing!"

"Then go have your lesson now!" Lloyds pointed very directly to the door. "And stop complaining until you get results!"

By the time Kotetsu returned home later that night, everything had improved, at least a little bit: a sweet end to a bitter day. Yes, Kotetsu's teamwork with Barnaby still sucked. But that young boy's life wasn't ruined. Barnaby saved Kaede, too, while Kotetsu saved everyone else. And to top it all off, Kotetsu came up with a totally brilliant nickname that drove his stuck-up partner up the wall.

Bunny! Kotetsu sniggered again. It was still funny hours later, calling an Alpha a bunny. And the way Barnaby got so steamed up trying to order Kotetsu to stop that, literally shouting, "I command you to stop that!" how could he resist? Kotetsu placated himself, at least for the time being, with little weapons like this. So what if Barnaby possessed a Scent that shut down Kotetsu's brain and made him feel like a trembly-blushing schoolgirl? To Kotetsu, Barnaby was a cute little bunny.

But, that victory was fleeting. Kotetsu's transition to his new life at Apollon continued, and it continued to put him down. He felt like an unfavorite twin. Apollon Media kept making things in apirs, like the matched Chasers and suit pods, and they shared a transport and office space in a way that was lousy with two-for-one vibes. But Apollon still took every chance it could to highlight Barnaby alone: the representative of the company, the subject of the interview, or whatever other errand they wanted him to do.

Seriously, they were a hero combo. Shouldn't they be getting equal attention? Even with Barnaby as the sparkly new thing that everyone wanted to dissect, Kotetsu shouldn't be shoved aside like this. How did Apollon plan to market a duo if they only showcased one half of the partnership? Though, that might be the "second, assistant, add-on" effect Lloyds had talked about. Kotetsu wasn't Barnaby's partner. He had an inherently submissive position, as if being an Omega paired with an Alpha didn't rub him the wrong way already. His role, as defined by Apollon, was to do Barnaby's bidding and make their star hero shine.

Kotetsu dreaded every second of it, but he particularly feared working in the double-cubicle right next to Barnaby. Spending eight hours a day exposed to Alpha Scent while working on super-boring invoices, damage reports, and incident reports. He might get an hour to breath cleanly during lunch, but Kotetsu had never faced such a challenge before, enduring the worst part of hero work while Alpha pheromones slowed him down. And not just any pheromones, ones that practically turned Kotetsu's mind inside out and made submissing seem like an insanely appealing option.

Hero or Omega, Kotetsu. Never forget: hero or Omega.

Kotetsu and Barnaby moved into their desks on the very same morning, Kotetsu lugging a box of mementos and half-used, favorite supplies from his old job at TopMag while Barnaby carried a box of shrink-wrapped materials fresh from an office supply catalogue. Barnaby's overpowering Scent drifted from his side of the office to Kotetsu's, filling the veteran's head with a puffy, silken-cotton-ball fog. Moving around pens and picture frames suddenly felt like moving boulders underwater, and several times Kotetsu found himself staring at an object in his hand, unable to recall why he had picked it up or where he intended to put it.

It felt like days to Kotetus, but within thirty minutes, Barnaby slid his chair under his desk, the surface perfectly and ergonomically organized, not a single paper clip out of place.

"I'm going for a walk," he announced, likely for the secretary's benefit.

"Huh?" Kotetsu looked between his pigsty of supplies and his partner's picture-perfect desk. "You're done?"

"Yes. Now hurry and finish your work as well."

"What's the rush?"

Barnaby fixed him with a glare. "We have too much to do today to bother with petty knickknacks. I intend to finish all of my work today. Apparently, you don't."

That's uncalled for… Kotetsu frowned. "If we've got so much to do, why are you going for a walk? It's a bit early to be taking a break, right?"

Barnaby turned his back on Kotetsu and left the office without giving an answer. Within five minutes, the air conditioning filtered out Barnaby's Scent, and Kotetsu could focus enough to get some work done. He finished giving his supplies new homes, set a pot of coffee brewing for some much-needed caffeine, and even made a surprising amount of progress on the Steel Hammer statue reports before Barnaby showed his face again.

"Nice walk?" Kotetsu asked. He took his last clean breath and held it as Barnaby sat down.

"It was fine," Barnaby answered. He sounded much calmer than before, and he began working on his own incident reports.

In barely a few minutes, the foggy-headedness returned. The numbers and letters all blurred on the pages, and not even running the numbers physically on his abacus could force his mind to focus. Whenever Kotetsu started to adjust to Barnaby's Scent, it shifted, and a whole different spectrum of those strange, secondary smells came to the surface, making his head spin again. Not to mention that a very distracting set of daydreams kept interrupting whatever he should be focusing on, almost all of them featuring Barnaby in some way touching Kotetsu: nuzzling his neck, running his hands down his chest or back, holding him in a close embrace, and princess-carrying him again.

I don't want any of that! Kotetsu shook himself. Especially not with Bunny!

After an hour of completely unproductive wheel-spinning, Barnaby stood again, so abruptly that his chair rolled away two feet behind him. He retrieved it and shoved it back under his desk, plastic clacking against particleboard.

"'Nother walk?" Kotetsu slurred a little.

"I have an interview," Barnaby snapped, irritated and almost hostile. "And I don't see why you would care where I go."

"Your walk this mornin' was kinda long…"

"What's your point? I encountered someone I needed to talk to. But I don't have to explain myself. What I do or why doesn't matter to you. This isn't important. Stop asking questions."

"I'll ask any question I wanna," Kotetsu said, just so Barnaby understood he didn't win the day with his Alpha status. "Go do your interview."

Again, Barnaby all but fled from the office space. Massaging his temples, Kotetsu looked up at the secretary, a woman whose name he had yet to learn.

"Can you believe it?" he asked.

"Believe what?" she countered in a very no-nonsense tone Kotetus had a sinking feeling he needed to get used to, and fast.

"Did you see how rude he was? Kotetsu pointed to the door. "I didn't even do anything, and he just bit my head off! Twice!"

"I noticed."

"…So? Don't you think that was rude?"

The secretary adjusted her red-rimmed glasses. "All I know is, the sooner you two can get over yourselves, the sooner us three will have some peace."

"What? I didn't even do anything!"

"You're suffering, but you're not the only one. You two are stuck with each other, and you both need to learn how to live with it."

Kotetsu pouted and looked away. I want some sympathy, and this is what I get? But the way she phrased it needled at him: "you two, you both." Sure, Kotetsu needed to build up his resistance to Barnaby's Scent, but what did Barnaby need to get over besides his own ego and attitude? The secretary couldn't be referring to the Scents. Barnaby's Scent definitely affected Kotetsu, but Barnaby was just being an asshole, like every other Alpha. He spent a long time around Kotetsu's own pheromones, sure, but nothing about him seemed lazy, cloudy, or unfocused. He was just an anal-retentive person, inflexible and uncompromising and unable to let things not go his way. Barnaby still clung to the notion that Kotetsu would obey him, as if he had already claimed the veteran Omega, even though they had avoided physical contact ever since their first meeting.

Look on the bright side, the hero thought. For there was a bright side: no matter how rude Barnaby acted, he liked getting out of the office whenever possible, which meant Kotetsu's nightmare of eight hours straight in an Alpha-addled office would not come to pass.

Little victories. Little victories.

"Next question, Barnaby, and all of Sternbild is waiting for your answer: are you Scented?"

"Yes, I am. I am an Alpha cued for males."

"Fascinating—Oh! This means you're compatible with your partner, Wild Tiger! Do you have any interest in claiming him?"

"Tiger has made his position on taking an Alpha abundantly clear. However, I'll say that if there are any developments in our relationship, he will tell you on the air himself."