
by Kaniwaza
Heroism is Herculean. So the government wants to put it on payroll. There's a budget. A PR team that picks the colors and focus-tests the names. A list of people too dangerous to walk free and too useful to lock up. Saving the public, it turns out, is a logistics problem — and Uncle Sam solved it the way he solves everything: with funding, paperwork, and assets kept on a short leash. Leo Holt is the newest asset. He came in the hard way — a vigilante who left a governor's son in a refrigerator with two broken legs, then got handed a choice between a supermax with no exit and a superhero team short a member. He picked the team. He hates the colors. He hates the name they gave him. He hates that the leader says "synergy" and means it. What he hates most is that it's starting to work. Leo is strong in a way nobody can explain. Not the woman with ten doctorates running tests on him, not his handlers, not even Leo himself. His teammates are inconveniently good at their jobs. And what the country needs from its shiny new heroes is turning out to be a lot worse than a mascot. A cult is cutting deals with tree-men who pull people down into the dirt and don't give them back. They're building a throne. Nobody will say what it's for. Get this wrong, and the supermax stops being a threat. instead, it'll be something much worse. What to Expect:‣ An antihero who thinks in exit routes, hits first, and is deeply annoyed to find himself caring‣ Progression earned through skill, training, and cold logistics‣ Powers that come from mutations, parasites, mad science, magic, or just reading the wrong book‣ Tactical fights, costume arguments, and the importance of good PR‣ A hero team assembled from people the government probably should have locked up‣ Horrible violence, with consequences tl;dr: Super-strong antihero gets drafted into government superhero work and, slowly and against his will, becomes the real thing. Updates daily. Please make sure to rate and follow if it interests you.
Current
8/11/2026
Peak #21
2d
Current
8/11/2026
Peak #4
2d
#5
7/3/2026
Peak #7
38d
#4
7/3/2026
Peak #4
38d
#3
6/24/2026
Peak #13
8d
Rank updated 14 Aug 2026, 04:15 UTC
Entry forecast updated 14 Aug 2026, 04:15 UTC
Overall Rising Stars shadow rank
deep field · ~#3285 of 6,880 · 3235 below #50
By genre
beats 84% of similar stories
beats 16% of similar stories
beats 86% of similar stories
Firing on all cylinders
Traffic and conversion are both strong for a story this size. Readers are finding it and sticking — if Rising Stars is the goal, this is the moment to push.
At this conversion, the Action Rising Stars bar (≈8 new followers/day) costs about 2.0k views/day — the story currently gets ~694.
Benchmarks: 8,060 active Royal Road stories, percentiles within the 50–149 chapters band, cohort of 2026-07-02. Conversion is measured as followers gained per 1,000 views over the recent window.
Promoted by
Also promotes