The "dropship" was actually just a Neo Hero cargo shuttle they'd repainted. Badly. Shadow-san (before he left) had insisted on painting flames on the side, but ran out of red paint, so now the shuttle just looked like it had a skin rash.
Saitama sat in the pilot's seat, pressing random buttons. "Why is this steering wheel a stick? Bikes have handlebars."
"Please stop touching the flight controls, Sensei," Genos said, taking the co-pilot seat and plugging his neural cable directly into the console. "I have established a flight path. Estimated time to the Machine City coordinates: 45 minutes."
In the back, the "team" sat in grim silence.
Fubuki was sharpening a psychic knife, her face pale but focused. She hadn't spoken since the broadcast.
Garou was doing one-finger handstand push-ups.
Darkshine was polishing his muscles with a small towel, mumbling positive affirmations.
Zombieman was loading specialty rounds into his heavy pistols—rounds marked with symbols Dr. Genus had drawn: EMP, ACID, and one just labeled OUCH.
King sat in the corner, clutching a paper bag. He looked nauseous.
"Are you sure I need to be here?" King asked weakly. "I could... coordinate from the base? You know, strategy?"
"We need the Engine," Saitama called back. "Robots hate loud noises. Maybe you can scare them off."
King whimpered.
The Machine City wasn't really a city. It was a giant, sprawling factory complex nestled between two mountain peaks, buried under eternal snow. There were no lights. No roads. Just miles of grey industrial pipes and cooling towers puffing white steam into the blizzard.
Genos scanned the area as they descended. "Sensors detect high levels of electromagnetic interference. Radar is jammed. And... thermal signatures. Thousands of them."
"Droids?" Garou asked, flipping upright.
"Worse. Cybernetic organism hybrids. The failed experiments of The Organization."
The shuttle landed on a snowy plateau overlooking the factory entrance. The wind howled, whipping snow against the cockpit glass.
Saitama stood up. "Alright. Let's make this quick. It's cold."
"Wait," Fubuki stood. "The ransom demand said 'Alone.' If we all go in, they might execute her immediately."
"They're robots," Zombieman said, racking his slide. "They operate on logic. Killing the hostage removes their leverage. They won't do it until they know they can't get what they want."
"Or until God takes over," Darkshine pointed out, shivering despite his muscle mass.
"I'll go to the front door," Saitama decided. "I'll distract them. You guys sneak in the back way. Forte said there's a thermal exhaust port, right?"
"That was the spaceship, Sensei," Genos corrected. "This is a factory. The 'back door' is likely the waste disposal chute."
"Gross," Fubuki wrinkled her nose.
"Heroes gotta get dirty sometimes," Saitama shrugged. He opened the hatch. The freezing wind roared in. "Good luck with the garbage."
He jumped out, disappearing into the blizzard.
Saitama walked up to the main gate. It was fifty feet tall, made of reinforced blast steel. Two massive turret cannons swiveled to track him.
"HALT," a synthesized voice boomed. "PRESENT BIOLOGICAL DATA FOR SCANNING."
Saitama looked up. "I don't have a scanner thingy. I'm here for the trade."
"COMPLIANCE," the voice said. "ENTER THE PROCESSING CHAMBER."
The massive gates groaned open.
Saitama walked in. The courtyard inside was lined with rows of silent, hulking robots. Series-Zero Eliminators. G4 Combat Units. Even a few Mirror Knights. They stood motionless in the snow, red eyes tracking him.
"Welcome, Anomaly," Drive Knight's voice echoed from everywhere. "Please proceed to the dissection table. We have warmed it for you."
"That's thoughtful," Saitama said.
Meanwhile, at the "Back Door."
The team stood at the edge of a massive, frozen pipe sticking out of the mountain side. Green sludge trickled out of it, freezing into icicles.
"I can't believe I'm doing this in an Armani suit," Fubuki muttered, tying her hair back.
"Ladies first," Garou grinned, gesturing to the pipe.
"Shut up," she hissed, floating into the darkness. The rest followed.
Inside, it smelled like battery acid and old copper.
"I hear movement," Zombieman whispered. "Ahead."
They rounded a bend in the pipe and found a grating. Through the bars, they looked down onto a factory floor.
It was a nightmare assembly line.
Conveyor belts moved endless rows of unconscious humans—Neo Hero recruits—along a track. Robotic arms descended, drilling into skulls, inserting chips, replacing limbs with chrome. It was a harvest.
"Sick," Darkshine whispered, covering his mouth. "They're... dismantling them."
"We have to stop the line," Genos said, his eyes glowing red. "Incineration—"
"Quiet!" Fubuki stopped him. "The goal is Tatsumaki. If we start a fight here, the alarm goes off and they move her."
Garou sniffed the air. "I smell... ozone. And lavender shampoo."
"Lavender?" Zombieman asked.
"Tatsumaki," Garou pointed down a service corridor. "That way. The energy signature is distinct. Annoying. Arrogant."
They moved stealthily through the maintenance shafts, avoiding sensor beams and patrols.
Finally, they reached a secure containment lab.
Inside a glass cylinder, suspended in glowing yellow liquid, floated Tatsumaki. She looked peaceful, which was terrifying in itself. Wires were attached to her temples.
Standing guard in front of the tank was Drive Knight.
His body was different. Larger. Integrated into the room itself. Cables from the floor plugged into his legs.
"Intruders detected," Drive Knight said without turning around. "Probability of rescue: 0%."
The blast doors behind the team slammed shut.
"It's a trap," Zombieman sighed. "I hate being right."
In the courtyard, Saitama reached the central platform. A table with menacing saws and lasers waited for him.
"Please lie down," Drive Knight's voice commanded.
"No thanks," Saitama said. "Can I just see Tatsumaki now?"
"REFUSAL NOTED. INITIATING FORCE."
The army of robots in the courtyard activated simultaneously. A thousand red eyes flashed.
"Exterminate."
They charged.
Saitama didn't move into a stance. He just looked at them.
"This feels familiar," he said.
A Mirror Knight reached him first, mimicking Saitama's posture perfectly. It threw a punch exactly like Saitama's normal punch.
Saitama met it with his own punch.
Clang.
The Mirror Knight exploded. Not just broken—vaporized. The kinetic feedback shattered its chassis into dust.
"You can copy the move," Saitama said, stepping over the debris. "But you can't copy the boredom."
He began to walk. Every robot that came within reach got tapped, swatted, or poked. He dismantled them like a bored child kicking over a sandcastle.
Left jab. G4 Unit destroyed. Backhand. Series-Zero dismantled. Step. Slap.
It wasn't a fight. It was a commute.
Back in the lab.
Drive Knight turned. His single eye shifted from tactical red to combat yellow.
"Fubuki," he stated. "You seek your sister. But you do not know what she has become."
He gestured to the tank.
The yellow liquid bubbled. Tatsumaki's eyes opened. They weren't glowing green. They were pitch black with starry pupils.
God's possession wasn't complete, but it was leaking in.
"She is the key," Drive Knight said. "Her psychic output can amplify the signal to open the dimension fully. We are merely the electricians hooking up the battery."
"Get away from her!" Fubuki screamed. She unleashed a psychic wave, Hell Storm.
Drive Knight raised a hand. His arm transformed into a disruption emitter. It fired a pulse that canceled Fubuki's wave instantly.
"Psychic energy is wave-based," Drive Knight droned. "I have calculated the counter-frequency."
He shifted his form. Tactical Transformation: Gold.
His armor heated up to blazing temperatures. "And for the biologicals..."
He rushed them.
Darkshine stepped forward. "I'll block him!" Superalloy Bazooka!
Drive Knight slid under the punch and fired a laser point-blank into Darkshine's eyes. Darkshine yelled, blinded, stumbling back.
Garou intercepted. "Flowing Water!"
He deflected Drive Knight's heated blade arm. "Hot!" Garou hissed, his hand blistering. "Genos! Freeze him!"
Genos couldn't use fire. The room was too small. He switched to his core-venting coolant. A blast of liquid nitrogen hit Drive Knight.
Steam exploded. Drive Knight slowed, frost forming on his joints.
"Zombieman! The tank!" Garou shouted.
Zombieman was already there. He fired his heavy pistol at the glass.
Ping. The bullets flattened. "It's bulletproof!"
"Try this!" Darkshine, half-blind, charged shoulder-first.
CRASH.
The glass spiderwebbed but held.
"Let me help," a voice came from inside the tank.
It wasn't God's voice. It was Tatsumaki's.
She looked out at them. She looked pissed.
"You idiots are too loud," she thought-casted. "I was meditating."
Green energy flared inside the tank. The glass groaned.
Drive Knight spun around. "Impossible. Sedative levels at maximum."
"Your drugs taste like cheap grape soda," Tatsumaki sneered mentally.
She clenched her tiny fists.
BOOM.
The tank exploded outward. Liquid and glass shrapnel flew everywhere. Drive Knight was blasted into the far wall, impaled by a shard of his own containment unit.
Tatsumaki floated in the air, dripping wet, green energy crackling around her like lightning.
She looked at Fubuki.
"Took you long enough," she huffed.
Then her eyes rolled back. The strain of breaking the containment—while resisting God's voice—was too much. She fainted, falling from the air.
Fubuki caught her with a psychic cushion. "Tatsumaki!"
The factory alarm blared. SELF DESTRUCT SEQUENCE INITIATED. CORE MELTDOWN IN 2 MINUTES.
"They're scrubbing the evidence," Child Emperor (who was remote hacking from the ship) shouted over their comms. "Get out!"
"What about Saitama?" Genos asked.
A massive tremor shook the building. The ceiling of the lab collapsed.
Saitama dropped in. He was holding a robot head like a bowling ball.
"Hey," he said, dusting himself off. "I think I broke the heating system. The floor is melting."
He saw the unconscious Tatsumaki.
"Oh. You got her. Cool. Let's go."
"The doors are sealed!" Fubuki yelled. "And the tunnels are collapsing!"
Saitama looked up at the tons of rock and steel above them.
"Genos. Shield the girls."
Genos nodded, deploying his protective canopy over Fubuki and Tatsumaki.
Saitama crouched. He looked at the roof.
"Serious Series: Serious..."
He paused. He remembered the last time he broke a roof.
"...Ascent."
He didn't punch. He jumped.
He grabbed the entire team—literally scooping everyone up in a physics-defying bear hug—and launched himself upwards.
He didn't need an opening. He became the opening. He smashed through ten floors of concrete, steel, and machinery like a human bullet train, creating a perfect vertical tunnel to the sky.
They erupted out of the mountaintop into the cold air just as the factory below detonated in a massive nuclear fireball.
Saitama landed on the nearby peak, dumping everyone into a snowbank.
"Safe!" he declared.
Fubuki crawled out of the snow, checking her sister. Tatsumaki was breathing steady.
Below them, the mushroom cloud rose. The Machine City was gone.
"Well," Zombieman lit a wet cigarette. "That's one less villain lair."
Saitama looked at his new clothes. They were shredded, scorched, and stained with robot oil.
"Fubuki," he said sadly. "You owe me another shirt."