27

Chapter Text

She couldn't read minds.

Well, she could, but not like this. She would need an entire crate of resources and a process to read someone's mind, as well as plenty of preparation beforehand.

But by combing through mental connections and one's feelings towards them, she could learn a lot about someone.

Coil was…

By her standards, an amazing employee, honestly. He was cautious, he was intelligent, socially adept, incredibly well-connected, considering he had enough mental connections to entities to make her dizzy, and just cruel enough to not blink at kidnapping, torture, extortion, or whatever else she might require of him in the future, unlike Lisa who she'd rather keep away from such things, at least not on first-hand experience.

Sentimentality or not, she'd rather keep Lisa as her left hand, holding the pen behind her back.

Who her right hand would be, holding her sword, she wasn't sure yet.

Coil would not be it though.

She would need a powerhouse with her, someone on the field who could keep up. Maybe a flier? Oh, Purity? She seemed like a good fit. 

Regardless, making Coil her literal puppet, along the speeds of what she'd done to Bakuda, but even more, just more balanced and restrained, took a lot of time.

She imagined that this was quite odd to be on the other end of. These emotions, so intense yet so balanced that to an outsider, it wouldn't be all that apparent. Nigh-worship mixing with enough temperance to rival a hundred monks combined.

Emotions so intense she doubted normal people would ever feel them, not without experiencing things that would have them slipping into madness. The human mind had an emotional threshold, of sorts, and it was different for everyone.

Thankfully, she could see that threshold, so while she tugged Coil ever higher towards it, she didn't go too too far.

If this happened to her, she imagined that it would be like she had lived her entire life seeing and feeling life in monotone grays, and suddenly, some girl strolled in with a bucket full of rainbow and painted a portrait of herself in the middle of her psyche.

Didn't even sound that bad honestly, pre-locker incident at least. Would have been nice.

It took half an hour of careful balancing before she dragged herself out of his mind, and left him there, dazed, to work on his weirdo sidekick.

On Mr. Pitter, she spent barely ten minutes, just ranking his loyalty to her and Coil as far as it could go.

More as a curious experiment on if this would be enough to Master people. Just loyalty.

Would resentment and other feelings slowly win over said loyalty? Was it possible? Evelynn and her scarce cults were never active for long enough to make such experimentation, so she had to do a bit of her own.

In fact, it took such little concentration to work on Pitter, that she began to idly wonder about some things.

Namely, Lisa's phonecall.

She had no doubt the PRT would have been trying to call her father over her sudden absence, but jokes on them, he didn't have a phone, and Lisa would likely cover for her when he got home and saw the phone buzzing away.

Still, if the PRT checked the phone call log, they might question the snake bit. Should she get a snake? Or turn something into one using Lulu? Would they even bother caring about that when there was some other incident that very same day?

She briefly considered turning Coil into a snake. She could even allow him to speak like a normal human for business purposes.

Interesting, but she'd shelf the idea for now. 

After Mr. Pitter was sufficiently cowed, she withdrew.

Even while squatting, she almost stumbled to fall on her back, hastily saved by her tentacles before she straightened.

Curiously, there was no migraine that felt like someone was digging into her brain with a buzzsaw.

More like someone was pounding a nail into her skull every time her heart beat, and a bone-deep tiredness. Horrible, but manageable. 

She let the fuzz from their minds clear as she rose to Evelynn's full height, and after a moment of confused blinking, Coil rushed to get up, blinking at her in confusion before straightening into a soldier's attention pose, staring up somewhere above her head.

Her brow rose.

The fact his response to overwhelming respect and inferiority was to snap to a soldier's pose suggested things his physique did not.

"Ma'am?" He asked, his voice rattled but somewhat firm.

"Call me Summoner, or The Summoner, in private. In varied company, I do not exist. Why is the girl here?" She dryly asked, flicking a claw at said victim.

Then she realized that wasn't a mannerism she had, and frowned.

She should probably use another Legend from time to time.

"She has a precognitive ability that answers what the chances are of any questioned event happening." Coil answered.

She stilled.

That was… incredibly powerful. It was powerful enough to rival Coil.

"And I assume you kidnapped her?" She coldly asked, and Coil gulped before nodding his head, stoic.

"Yes. I orchestrated an attack at Brockton Bay's National Bank utilising a parahuman team named "The Travellers", to retrieve confidential documents that will help me uncover the hidden identities of all the parahumans of Empire Eighty Eight through their financial crimes to launder and funnel money from legitimate businesses to their own ends. This doubled as a distraction, while I sent a strike squad to retrieve Dinah Alcott, age eleven, at her family residence. Her parents unfortunately saw my men, and thus had to be killed to tie up loose ends. She is unharmed, physically." Coil said, his cadence the carbon copy of a man giving a standing report on an operation, even his feet widening apart a bit.

She took a deep breath, let it out.

So, taking the Empire down became a cakewalk.

This was… all going blindingly fucking quickly. Was there really only Lung and the Merchants left?

Regardless, she squashed the offended, cold distaste in her stomach, and nodded.

"You work for me now. Whatever your goals and routines are, put them on hold for a moment while I go retrieve an associate. As for the girl, keep her on base until she is lucid, and I'll deal with her then, tell her her options. Anybody who touches her in any way unnecessary will die. Do you use any passes or devices or anything of the sort to identify who is allowed on base or not?"

"No ma'am. The mercenaries know everyone or are briefed in the case of unexpected visits." Coil said, eyes still staring off into the nonexistent horizon.

"Tell them that there will be new capes roaming around the base, and that they are Summoner's employees. Summoner is someone whose orders supersede even yours, should any be given. Relay that as well. Take the girl to her room, Mr. Pitter, whatever that may be. Coil, stay here."

She barely gave both men a chance to nod before she put a Teleport waypoint right in front of Coil's desk and Teleported to her house's basement.

The purple light vanished, and in its place she found Lisa, tension in her every muscle and microexpression, damn near bouncing in place, eyes wide and laser-focused on hers, not even bothering to comment on Evelynn's bizarre appearance.

"Did you get him? Is he-"

"He's ours." She cut her off, and turned back into herself, spreading her arms with a subdued smile.

Lisa damn near tackled her, and she felt her ribs bend and creak as her feet momentarily left the floor before Lisa shifted and she felt ground again.

" Air…" She wheezed out as she hugged her back, and Lisa laughed as she loosened the hug up, breathing heavily and making relieved groaning sounds.

"I was so fucking scared that he was going to split his timelines the wrong way and open a black hole or some shit, or just somehow see you coming or- or catch you. How- how sure are you that he's ours?" Lisa rushed out into her shoulder.

She thought of the little girl who just had her parents murdered today all so that a villain could enslave her for her power, and tilted her head a little.

"Dead sure. Hey, Lisa? Do you know what the best way to get over your fears and frustrations is?" She asked, quietly, and Lisa shrugged against her, still breathing heavy breaths of relief.

She leaned closer to her ear.

"To beat them into a pulp until they can't even whimper." She husked, fully aware that she was projecting her own desire to hurt Coil onto Lisa.

But she was doing it because there would be no point if she was the one to do it. Lisa would gain closure. Confidence. 

Lisa stilled for a moment, her hug slowly tightening.

"I… does your spell thing heal brain damage?" Lisa quietly asked.

"Yes."

"How much damage can you heal?"

"Close to death with two casts. But don't kill him. That takes a lot more effort to bring back." She murmured, her hands softly rubbing Lisa's back through the bodysleeve.

The hug loosened, and Lisa stepped back, eyes hard and heavy, oddly mournful.

"Take me there."

She turned into Ryze, and grasped for space, mind and memory and geometry melting together into magical slag that pooled at her feet into a swirling vortex.

Her eyes did not stray from Lisa's.

Hers, calm, placid, observant, a dark push and impulse in them, a purpose.

Lisa's, heavy, angry, the echoes of grief shimmering around the edges.

As the vortex sunk them into the floor, she realized what this was really about, to Lisa.

Seeing Coil again made her freeze for a moment.

Not from fear, nor from shock, just…

It felt so bizarre.

So sudden.

In a basement one moment, in his office the next.

He lowered the phone with a muttered platitude, and rose to a pose she'd never seen on him. Stiff, military attention, eyes above their own.

"Coil." A man's oddly-pitched voice rumbled from behind her, and she flinched for a moment before remembering that that was not a guard, but one of Tay's bizarre capes. The voice threw her for a loop every damn time.

She took a step forward, another.

Coil's mask had been torn open.

There was something oddly ironic or maybe poetic about how this was the first time she saw the eyes behind the mask of the man who killed two of the only people she could loosely call friends.

"Do not defend yourself." Taylor's order came forth, and Coil did nothing but nod, eyes still somewhere above her.

She hadn't prepared for what she would do in this situation, what question she might ask, except for one.

"Did you plan to kill the Undersiders indirectly, or was it unintended? A mistake?" She asked, her voice unable to rise beyond a quiet, frothing hiss. Her nails dug into her palms.

Coil's eyes flit to the side, behind her, asking permission to speak from Taylor as her power politely told her.

He got it, and his eyes strayed back up.

She stepped around the desk, coming closer to him as he took a single, efficient step back, to give her room.

"It was not planned, no. I did not anticipate Lung finding their hideout nor the ensuing chaos that drew Oni Lee to the fight." Coil said, voice cold like giving a report, said as blandly as a soldier explaining why he was late to morning stretches. 

"Did you have a chance to save them?" She whispered, her hands trembling and numb like someone was electrocuting every nerve.

"I had a timeline open with my power where there could have been a more favourable result, perhaps, but their end was total and thus cleaned up any loose ends. In the other timeline, a favourable circumstance regarding another step to a replacement project had gone underway. I judged the outcome acceptable."

She wasn't sure what she expected to feel when she got her answer, but at that moment, she felt nothing but fury.

She let out a cry as she slammed her fist into his stomach.

He gagged as he staggered back and hit the floor in a tumble.

He did not raise his hands to protect himself, even as she stomped on his stomach, merely tugging his mask down over his chin as he twisted his head to the side to vomit, his legs reflexively curling up to protect himself then forcibly extending straight.

She didn't let him have that, slamming a foot into his ribs.

He let out a sound like a wounded animal as his back curled around her foot, and she felt his ribs crack against her as he hacked and croaked and gasped on the floor through his vomit.

She staggered a step back, her breaths heavy as she stared at the bastard that fucked everything up for her. She took another step back as she stared at him, reminding herself that he wasn't a threat, not anymore.

A hand stopped her, a familiar one.

"Is that it?" Taylor murmured behind her, in her actual, normal voice, and Lisa paused. "Don't you think he could take a little more? That he deserves a little more?"

She worked her jaw, her teeth gnashing, her nostrils flaring.

He did. He deserved so much more. He deserved to scream and wail while his flesh sloughed off his bones and his bones cracked open from the blistering heat, he deserved to gasp for breath as he stared up at the sky with dazed eyes and a hole in his chest, his blood painting his shirt red as he mouthed 'Angelica' without a voice.

The edges of her vision pulsed like veins, red.

"All the years he took from them…" Taylor quietly said, her voice sounding upset for them, and Lisa felt those words move through her brain like a physical shockwave.

She could feel her pulse in her fingertips. In her tongue, she could smell blood and felt her spine roil and coil with eager shivers, her breaths turning stuttered with shudders.

In her room up in Lung's shitty club, she would sometimes torture herself with the future that would never be, things that might have happened if Brian and Rachel hadn't died.

She'd imagine Rachel content under some big name gang or another, an army of dogs rushing at her with wagging tails as she snarled her way to an orderly breakfast.

She'd imagine Brian having breakfast with his sister, away from whatever made him want to take custody of her in the first place. Maybe they could even hang out in the future, out of costume, reminiscing about the stupid asshole that made them work together before his inevitable downfall.

Hell, she even imagined Alec, lounging back on the world's most extravagant couch and gaming setup, playing his stupid Aleph games on a screen that belonged to a theater, being a brat to them as he lazed about.

"All their potential, all their experiences, their future, gone. Because of him. And this is all you think he deserves? You heard what he said, right? Does it matter that he's on the ground? Does it matter that he's ours when he's yet to pay?" Taylor emphasized, the hand tightening, a light prod forward.

She knew this was wrong, that this was a step too far, but she could hardly see Coil himself anymore, leaving behind nothing but a bag of bones and flesh, a dehumanised icon responsible for everything that had gone wrong since she stepped into his city, even if a more rational Lisa would have argued she was at fault for much herself.

She wanted to kill him. She wanted to rip him apart.

"Do you feel satisfied? Has he paid?" Taylor whispered softly, like both the devil and the angel on her shoulder saying the same thing, agreeing with each other without realising it, and she…

She remembered Alec throwing potato chips at Brian's helmet, yelling ' score' whenever he would land one inside the rim. She remembered the way Brian threw it off his head when he tried to put it on and she heard a series of crunching, and the way they both devolved into giggling and wheezing cackles, even Bitch snickering a little on the side as Brian literally seethed with golden potato chips covering his new haircut, his eye twitching as he contemplated how hard he should punch Alec. 

She remembered Bitch passing her a beer, unprompted, her fumbling attempt to mimic a human behaviour she did not understand, simply to convey a 'thank you' that she wasn't even sure of why she felt the need to give.

She remembered the arguments, the hissy fits, the snarly, grudging understanding standard to a group of troubled idiotic teenagers.

"Just let it go. Let it out."

With a strangled cry of hatred, she did.

Taylor surveyed the scene before her for a moment, watching Lisa like a hawk as she panted with her butt on the floor and her back to Coil's desk, her head upturned and every breath mingling with something like a sob and snarl. Her hands were covered in blood, smeared and drying all the way up to her wrists, some in splotches and others in a collective sheen.

She prodded her summoner spells.

Another thirty seconds to use 'Heal' on Coil again.

That... wasn't even satisfying, she was just concerned for Lisa at this point.

She moved her eyes over his form, over the teeth and blood covering the floor around his weakly rasping body. A single eye stared back at her from within a puddle, torn out of its socket by blunt force, the result of a swing that Lisa took with one of Coil's cabinets before she threw that side to get more personal again.

She might have pushed Lisa a bit harder than she'd intended.

Scratch that, she wasn't even sure if this was a result of herself or if Lisa had been… feeling a lot of stuff lately, and she just hadn't noticed. Or Lisa hadn't let her notice. Or maybe…

Lisa had probably suppressed it all. Old reliable for damaged people like them. Just shove it into a corner and move on because you don't have the time nor the mental capacity to truly deal with it at the moment.

Still, she wasn't sure she'd done the right thing by pushing Lisa forward. She just wanted her to let out her frustrations now before they could cloud her judgement later or slowly ebb away in an unsatisfying haze, but she hadn't expected it to be so… explosive. She didn't even know that Lisa was capable of such violence, not intentionally. She had been expecting the lack of resistance to make it a lot more unsatisfying to just wail on him, thus ending it quicker, but it... hadn't really seemed to factor in.

She had broken bones, punched his teeth out with enough force and so many times there were more teeth on the floor than he had in his mouth, stomped and kicked at everything that wouldn't be fatal, breaking fingers and ribs and bruising everything. She'd kicked him even if he was groaning or writhing or fading in and out of consciousness.

Had she not healed Coil twice so far, he would be dead.

And now, here they were.

Lisa's breaths slowly took on the edge of sobs, and she crouched down in front of her.

"Do you want me here?" She whispered.

Lisa went to speak, sniffled, and lowered red-rimmed eyes to her, before they slid further down, in shame and some desire to not be so exposed. She extended both shaking arms towards her in a hesitant request just a moment after.

Tasting emotions felt oddly like cheating, somehow, at this moment.

She crouch-walked forward into them, and narrowly avoided her head smacking into the desk when Lisa tugged her forward, bringing both of them forward to meet in the middle. She let Lisa sob into her shoulder she held her, ignoring the faint pressure where Lisa's fingers dug into her back and sides, enough to bruise her when not using Evelynn as a cover.

There was... both more and less guilt than she expected in the cocktail of emotions that Lisa was exuding. Perhaps somewhere during the tail end, she'd realized how incredibly over the top she'd gone, but who Taylor to judge her? She wasn't the one who'd lost her team to him.

She came up with speeches, words of comfort, words of realistic promises. None felt right.

So she said nothing.

And when she healed Coil, he had the social awareness to not shift an inch from his spot on the floor, to not draw attention to himself even a little, to let them have this moment of bloody catharsis.

Lisa had the awareness to know he was conscious too, but by the time she seemed capable of caring, she was pretty much limp against her, not crying nor doing much of anything beyond occasionally sniffling. 

"I can take you back home and let you sleep. You've had a tiring day."

Lisa shook her head, rasping "No," before clearing her throat a few times, then leaning back enough to be against the wooden frame again, eyes closed and Taylor pretty much sitting on her lap awkwardly.

"We've uh… we've got work to do. I could use some work right now. Will he listen to me If I tell him to do stuff?" Lisa quietly asked, eyes still closed. Wariness, some kind of distaste... She couldn't quite tell what she was feeling.

She turned to Coil.

"You obey her like you would me." She said, and he nodded, still lying on the floor.

"Will he forget he heard any of my gross sobbing if you tell him to?"

"No, but he doesn't know who you are yet." She said, mostly going from hints of confusion and bewilderment she could taste wafting off Coil.

"Fuck." Lisa sighed, and gently pushed her back.

She got off of her, and helped her up by grasping a sleeve and yanking.

Lisa went to rub at her eyes as she opened them, before blinking at the blood on them and grimacing as she paused midway. More out of guilt and shame than disgust, but there was some in there as well.

She grabbed her wrists, and mouthed an incomprehensible chant, something too low to hear besides a strange, tiny whistle and a whispering inhale, mentally targeting spots and nudging distances.

The blood vanished in a fast wave, leaving Lisa blinking for a moment before a resigned ' of course' expression came over her, muted acceptance radiating before being smothered by everything else.

Even if one shitty cleaning spell emptied her dry of mana, it was something she could do at this point, and it felt like it might help.

"Thank you." Lisa whispered, and wiggled her wrists.

She let go.

Lisa straightened, took a deep breath, wiped her eyes, and just like that, she seemed remarkably more composed, more like herself, but… something was missing. Then she glanced at Coil, laying there in a pool of his own blood and vomit, and a smug, vindictive little smirk curled her lips as she backpedalled onto his leather office chair and dropped into it, rolling back and kicking her feet.

Ah, there it was.

"So. I'm Tattletale." Lisa began, cheery and smug with only an undercurrent of exhausted heaviness to her voice and motions, the emotions in the air tasting somewhat like she was… not faking it, but exaggerating it quite heavily, to make herself really feel it. A familiar thing as well, to Taylor.

Coil's head jerked to the side to stare at her, wide eyed in realization. He was probably wondering what the fuck the beating was about, until now, or where he'd heard that voice before.

"And unless-"

"Summoner." She interjected before Lisa could spill her name.

"- has an objection to this, I'm your new boss under her, and you're my new bitch."

Coil's brow twitched, but he nodded.

"So…" Lisa began, and crossed her legs as she stretched. "Tell us what your plans are while I rifle through your stuff. Don't tell me your passwords, I want to figure them out myself."

Coil nodded, and went to get up.

"No, bad. Stay." Lisa said like speaking to a disobedient dog, one fist propping her cheek up and the other hand pointing at him as her grin widened to show teeth, despite the sag in her shoulders betraying how tired she was.

There wasn't much emotion there. It seemed the satisfaction had bled away, and Lisa was just kind of going through some mental routine.

That was fine, if it helped her feel a bit less unbalanced.

Coil had a brief flash of humiliated annoyance before it faded for reluctant acceptance, and he settled back onto the floor, staring up at the ceiling.

She wasn't sure if this was the type of closure Lisa needed, or if this would just haunt her as a moment of unneeded violence that would shame her, but she hoped it would bring more good than bad.

Coil began to speak as Lisa began to tap away at his keyboard, and both their eyebrows slowly rose.

Notes:

not sure if this chap's good or not, but i like it a lot

had a lot of fun making taylor accidentally turn into jack slash for about ten seconds

also big thanks for the criticism on last chapter, made it like, twice as good

i rly do appreciate genuine criticism

and i do read all ur comments, they make me fuzzy inside and smile, so thx