30

Chapter Text

Oni Lee was not what she expected after she peeled an eyelid up to Master him.

He was…

Not a person.

There was little to nothing there, nothing left in his mind, compared to real people. Few if any connections to people, ideas or concepts existed, and even those seemed like they were just missing huge chunks. His feelings towards Lung were more like a computer who had decided who its operator was.

None. Nothing. Just a vague sense of wishing to do something, and waiting for Lung to tell him what that something was, of expectance.

She had seen something like this before, during the last days of Noxus's collapse, where brainwashed mages and necromantic abominations were told to march against the Void. Even they had more substance within them however.

Oni Lee was not really a man. He was a golem, waiting for his orders.

Which was greatly confusing. This was either an effect of his powers, or some kind of power-assisted brainwashing.

For her, he was perfect.

She didn't have to do much to Master him. Even just a sprinkling of positive emotions was enough, so she gave him that, then muted his feelings towards Lung even further, moving those towards herself.

Then, a heavy dash of secrecy around herself, and she was done.

A minute later, she dragged Lisa over to stare into his glassy eye as she peeled his eyelid back, just so he would insert Lisa's idea into his own mind, even if only as some kind of fever-dream blur, and then dove into him again to solidify Lisa's presence, putting a decent dose of obedient respect towards her.

If she would delegate, she had to at least put down the roots of a functional information network.

They just had to wait for him to wake up.

Lisa lounged against the car, parked in a mess of cracked gravel-heavy concrete surrounded by neck-high reeds and weeds, in the corner of the Trainyard, so Taylor watched him like a hawk as he lay on the ground, not taking her eyes off of him as the mercenary driver patrolled around the perimeter.

Oni Lee was a rather wiry man, who had a very slim, average and forgettable face. Whipcord muscle and blank brown eyes with a short tuft of hair on his head of the same color. His cheekbones stood out a bit, and his chin was rather pointed despite his wider jawline, but beyond that, he was the picture of another face in the crowd.

He looked to be somewhere in his mid-thirties, if she could guess.

Eventually, he woke up, something exceedingly obvious by how he took in a sharp breath. Lisa's hand flew to the massive revolver in her jacket, holding onto it with narrowed eyes as she whirled around.

His eyes snapped open, and with a swift move to the side, he managed to get the blindfold over one eye enough to see. And then he was gone, a bound version of himself standing up, staring at her from a dozen feet away while the one on the floor did the same.

"Which one of you is the real one?" She asked, and the upright man inclined his head.

All he could do, really, while bound up like a turkey on thanksgiving. Stand and nod.

A few muted moments of silence, and the man on the floor turned to fine ash by her feet, carried away by a stray morning breeze.

She shapeshifted into herself.

"Hello, Oni Lee. I am your new master."

He stared at her.

"Do you understand?" She asked, and he nodded.

"Good. Your orders are simple. I want you to go back to the ABB and act like nothing changed. If someone asks, say that you were sedated in the transport and woke up in a ditch afterwards then made your way back. I am Summoner, this is Herald." She jutted a thumb at Lisa, who wore a thick, wide domino mask more akin to an opera mask.

Something about the 'tatted goth aesthetic', she couldn't remember the full reason Lisa gave for swapping out of her normal domino one.

She took a small paper out of her pocket.

"Memorise these numbers and add them to your contacts when you get a phone. Bakuda is with us as well, so make sure both you and her survive. Text us any goings-on and general movements that Lung is making, we want to know everything."

A moment of silence passed, placid eyes staring into her soul.

"Is that all?" Oni Lee asked, voice little more than a raspy, unused whisper.

She was about to say yes, before Lisa butted in.

"No, actually, could you explain how your power works, and what you feel during it?"

Oni Lee turned to Lisa, and stared in contemplation. Lisa stared back with a familiar discerning look, her power likely on full blast.

"I push myself, split. I visualise my exit. I leave things behind, and move." Oni Lee whispered, his calm voice barely higher than the faint rustle of reeds in the wind around them.

Taylor's brows furrowed a little as Lisa shoved the revolver back into her jacket pocket, and eagerly stepped forward.

"What exactly do you leave behind?"

"Pieces. Memories. Other things as well." Oni Lee whispered in an inflectionless, hollow whisper, and Lisa's eyes widened.

She focused on Oni Lee and blinked rapidly, realization blooming.

What a horrid fucking power. To lose a memory, some piece of emotion, or whatever else he meant, gone in the breeze with every clone. Did most of his mind migrate, and the pieces that didn't simply fade?

"Shit. Tay, you might need to uh, refresh him and his mind, if you know what I mean, every once in a while?"

She shook her head.

"I work with the mind, not the brain. No matter what gets removed out of his skull, anything I touch will freeze. Remember? It'll grow back quickly, in theory. I'll have to check him a couple times soon, and see if his power has an interaction with the metaphysical, even if I doubt it, but I probably won't have to 'refresh' anything."

Lisa gave her a skeptical look, but nodded.

She reached into her pocket for a blue card.

"Come here, I'll free you."

Oni Lee teleported in front of her, his back to her.

She swiped the card through the zipties, all four pairs of them.

"Domo arigatou gozaimasu." Oni Lee breathed out, and before she could open her mouth to give him a switchblade or something, or the pair of clothes they'd readied for him, anything that wasn't a dirty orange jumpsuit at least, he teleported away, rapidly forming a line of clones all blankly staring at her as he rushed for home base.

In less than a second, he was out of sight, through the trees and broken fences and weeds.

"... I don't know if I should feel bad for him or ask that you get rid of him." Lisa mumbled, hands on her hips as she stared at the six clones all staring at them within their line of sight.

With only a millisecond of delay, they all scattered in the wind.

"How about neither?" She hummed, and sighed. "I've gotta go learn some stuff about tools now, meet you later in Coil's base."

Lisa stretched again, before fluffing her hair up.

"First of all, it's my base. Or ours, I guess. Coil's just my assistant until he signs everything over to me and I poach all his contacts. Second, I think I'll go straight to base, interrogate the Travellers you brainfucked first, see what I can dig up about them. Some stuff just doesn't fit." Lisa mumbled.

"Right. I'll just fly off. C'mere." She said, and stepped towards Lisa.

Lisa stepped forward and opened her arms for a hug.

Instead, she grabbed her by the cheeks, dragged her chin up, and kissed her forehead, before going for a second strike, ruffling her hair as Lisa sputtered, flailing to push her hand off.

"Mandatory big sis checklist." She said in lieu of an explanation, gave Lisa a tiny smirk, and turned to smoke, flying off.

"Rude! Ffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuudge you! You know what a pain curly hair is?!" Lisa yelled up at the empty sky like an old man yelling at the uncaring clouds, shaking a fist at nothing, while she worked to untangle the mess on her head with her other hand.

Taylor did in fact know what a pain curly-ish hair was.

So she turned to her as she flew off.

Payback for cutting me off and butting in like a brat like three times today. She said in her mind, and then sped off.

Jeremy Graham was a pretty good teacher, once she clarified in no uncertain terms what exactly she wished to learn. Namely, by just giving him example tasks, he would tell her roughly what she might need to make them, then show her how to use the stuff, if he had it on hand in his mechanic workshop.

However, she had vastly overestimated what he knew and owned.

Some of the things, like a lathe machine, he had on hand, and teaching her how to use one safely took about twenty minutes, which surprised the man.

It didn't surprise her much, because Piltover had these things as well. Piltover had more advanced ones too.

Some other things she might need, like a metal press to shape sheets of metal in very specific ways using clamps and tungsten corners, edges, and half-spheres, like molds?

Not so much. He didn't even know what they were called exactly, only that she would have to go to a metal working factory for that.

Still, by the time four hours had passed, she had learned every tool he had, memorised their sometimes different names, their definitely different classifications and regulations, and how to use them.

After that, she simply flit into some abandoned building for privacy, and teleported into Coil's office.

She checked her phone first, and stared with apprehension at the ' 99+' number sitting next to the messaging app.

She opened it.

Seventy four from Bakuda.

Bkd: hey boss

Bkd: hey :d

Bkd: so I found out how to make a gray boy bubble

She paused, blinked, squinted.

Re-read it.

That… what?

Bkd: I was always like 'where do i get these ideas' then i realized i had a hateboner on Shatterbird and i kept watching her vids on livegore which is how i made my glass bombs, then I looked into the butcher and figured out how to make pain blast bombs and pretty much my power is copying powers and turning them into bombs! I figured it out :d

Bkd: so yeah if you ever want to make a mass mastering bomb im your girl! We can master the whole bay and they'll lick our boots clean while feeding us grapes and you can be the empress and ill be whatever you want but preferably something close i can be ur maid or i

Bkd: sry lung walked into the room and i forgot what i was saying i love u boss hmu if you need anything at all ill even clean your room if you want or be your footstool haha im not joking at all btw pelase i wanna be useful to you and im so fuckign bored of making the same four bombs i swear im gonan kill this lizard looking shitbag can we plz go have coffee or something ill be happy to let you nap on me again it was pretty fun

She took a deep breath.

"F uuuuck. " She groaned in despair, rubbing her face as she tilted back and fell into a chair.

She had the powered equivalent of an obsessed, murderous squirrel with a god complex spamming her messages because she'd screwed up her Mastering process.

With an appropriate level of trepidation, she glanced at her messages through her fingers.

Bkd: also is there a chance that you might come over? The labs rly lonely and i miss you

Bkd: hi again <3

Bkd: here's a bunch of safehouses and two smuggling companies Lung uses to get me stuff for my bombs andn theres a warehouse full of chicks somewhere along that road with the blue dinosaur scribble on it

- squiggly map.jpg

Bkd: boss?

Bkd: am I being annoying?

Bkd: im sorry

Bkd: ill do better

Twelve hours gap before the rambling continued.

Bkd: I have a dozen bombs for you, one of them is basically purity in a bottle and i even made a bomb based on the vista kid

Bkd: do you want to grab a coffee or something?

Bkd: did i do something wrong?

Bkd: im probably being really annoying im so sorry

Bkd: ill be a good minion now

She took a deep breath, and blew it out in an incredulous sigh.

"Oh my fucking god…" She breathed out, and scrolled down, down, skimming through pages upon pages of random trivia, play-by-play reports of her daily activities, mixed in with actually good information and walls of rambling and Bakuda continuously going through something like Taylor withdrawal, begging and asking continuously to meet up and hang out, over and over, before her eyes skimmed past something and forced her to stop, and scroll back up, just before reaching the end.

Bkd: imma make a nuke

Bkd: currently making a nuke

"What the fuck did I create?" She breathed out in disbelief.

Bkd: i think i broke my toe by kicking my generator

Bkd: i think i also almost died because that generator was connected to my nuke so ahahaaaaaaaaa fuck im sorry

Bkd: no wait nvm nits good

Bkd: *its gud

Bkd: forgot ot plug it into the nuke i just realaized

Bkd: no dying for Mia today

Bkd: okay so apparently making a nuke is pretty easy i already got the outline for it just gonna take a couple gorillion eons to make it

Bkd: you said no killing but can i turn a not insignificant portion of yellowstone national park into flaming hellfire pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty please? :3

Bkd: please reply im gonna cry

Bkd: BOSS GOOD NEWS I GOT ONE OF OUR WHITE BOYS TO GO TO SOME ARENA THE EMPIRE DUDES HAVE AND HE TOOK SOME RLY GOOD CELLPHONE FOOTAGE OF CRICKET FIGHTING SO I MADE A BOMB THAT LIQUIDATES PEOPLE FROM THE INSIDE OUT USING VIBRATIONS THIS IS SO FUCKING COOL

Bbd: am i being annoying?

Bkd: please tell me if i am

Bkd: im so sorry

Bkd: ill stop

She heaved a sigh, and texted back a quick reply.

Was she being annoying?

A bit. But reading through this mess was oddly cute and endearing and entertaining, she couldn't lie.

The fact that Mia was something like twenty years old just didn't register. That might as well be a child to her. Same reason she likely wouldn't feel comfortable getting into a relationship until she was middle-aged at the least.

000: you're not being annoying, don't worry mia

000: but preface actual important information with some kind of weird symbol like (((info))) to differentiate from your more mundane reports and requests, please?

She hit send, then paused.

000: im rly busy, sorry for not replying often. I got Oni Lee, he's with us now. We'll see about getting that coffee or hanging out too. You're doing a great job. I'm proud of you. But no nuking anything, and if you make that nuke, make sure it's got a way to unarm it, we can use it later.

She wouldn't lie, it was half pity that drove her to adding that last bit, and a mixture of fondness and an actual bit of interest in hanging out with someone without having to do with work.

She could even bring Lisa and introduce her, see how that dumpster fire would work out.

She flipped through her other texts.

Haze, her new drug, was selling… okay. Eight hundred bucks in its first day.

According to Chut, for a new, untested drug with no rep and a high entry cost, that was pretty damn good. Using the Newter excuse seemed to allay most people's fears, considering the bouncers weren't kicking them out and were actively protecting them, adding another layer to believability.

He was expecting to start selling out within the month.

Eight hundred was literally pennies at the moment, but there were reasons to keep this operation going. After a brief discussion of getting her minions' bank accounts to route some money into, she closed the conversation and spent a couple minutes thinking.

Once she took a hold of the rest of the bay, upsizing her operations and shipping internationally would be pretty easy. Best to build some type of reputation here first, no matter how small, so she had a clientele to point at when she reached out.

Sile hadn't had anything interesting to report, and neither did her dealers, beyond reporting the same as Chut.

She eyed the silent man tapping away at his computer to her left.

"Coil. How difficult and eye-catching would it be to gain access to some things for me in your other timeline?"

He rose into his standard soldier pose, slowly but not slowly enough to seem reluctant, allowing his chair to slowly slide away.

"Depends on what, ma'am."

"I want you to find out what happened to Regent. Find out how Oni Lee was caught and where. Beyond that, send me a text with everything you know about the Protectorate heroes and the Wards, the PRT's standard guidelines for console operations, rules of engagement, safety protocols, and all A to S-class threats. Then, I want all the information the PRT has on the Endbringers, and all major gangs and crime syndicates of the United States."

She paused.

"I mean Empire major, not Merchants or anything. Additionally, gather me a list of schemers and plotters. I don't mean people like Accord, I mean people like you, whose power makes them a threat to either me or the world, or would, if their powers worked right. I also want you to find out who and where Grue's sister is, and set a healthy chunk of our resources into finding Spitfire, but not capturing her. When you find her, trail her and tell either me or Lisa, depending on whose available. Pass along everything to Lisa as well, she's looking for Spitfire until she gives up and goes to visit Panacea."

Coil took a moment to think on that, before nodding.

"Shouldn't even raise a brow, ma'am. Everything you mentioned, I can access under the guise of refreshing my memory. You will have it soon, so long as you stay away from the Protectorate building for the next few hours and don't think to contact me. I'll set our men and informants into looking."

"I have an appointment for power testing at six PM tomorrow."

"That's more than enough time for me to get the information and close the timeline."

"Good. Also, does this place have a gym and sparring area?"

"Yes."

"Good, route two skilled mercenaries to me, tell them to obey me. Prospective cape, or some such. I want sparring partners."

She went to leave, then paused.

"Text me the floor plans of this building, I'll go to the sparring area right away. And I just remembered, find me a skilled tattoo artist who will keep quiet."

"Understood." Coil nodded again.

She turned back into herself, covered by her breathable face mask and her hoodie, and opened his door, ignoring the guards to confidently walk down the tunnel.

Her phone rang a constant stream of notifications, ding ding ding, and no matter how annoyed the mercs got at it, she ignored it, finding it as tangible progress with her plans.

Another bit of tangible progress would be sparring while using the rune of Resolve with 'Grasp of The Undying' as her main effect.

The ability to rip out small chunks of lifeforce and incorporate a chunk of that chunk into her own lifeforce was immense, and even if she only had mortals to practise on, it was fine enough. Had to start somewhere. 

"We were told to come here and do as you said, miss. What do you need?" The man on the left spoke, his voice having a baritone purr that momentarily reminded her that she was in a hormonal teenager's body.

She did some basic stretches on the mat as she began to explain, ignoring the monkey-brained urge to flirt.

"I need someone to spar with. I knew martial arts but I'm extremely rusty right now. And I need a second guy who will just be a punching bag for my power after I'm done getting beat up. No, it's not lethal, it won't even bruise you. But the more I hit someone with my power, the more I can use it in the future. It's sort of a growing type thing. It only grows if I'm hitting a living thing however, so one of you might walk out of here with a sore back, at most. Which one's the punch bag and which one's gonna be punching me?" She asked, flicking a finger between the two men.

They turned to each other, uncertain.

"Rock paper scissors?" The second man asked, his voice like gravel.

"Loser gets power-whammied." The first guy chuckled, and turned.

She watched with faint amusement as the two buff dudes covered in tactical gear began to play rock paper scissors, and the second guy lost.

"Fuck."

She snorted in amusement.

"Okay, strip. Or don't, I don't know. Also, tell me your names."

"Dilan." The first guy said as he unlatched his helmet. Rugged, wrinkled face with a scar winding up his neck up to his jaw. Looked tough as nails.

"Dominic." The second guy said, doing the same. Somewhat olive-hued skin, far younger, with a badly healed broken nose being the only oddity on his face, perfectly average otherwise, if masculine.

She idly nodded, wondering if she should say a name at all, before deciding that Sam would have to do.

It was quite a reach to go from 'Sam' to 'Summoner', so she wasn't concerned about safety overmuch.

"Call me Sam, if you want." She shrugged, and remembered she was wearing shoes.

So she joined them in stripping off the useless bits, like shoes and socks and stuff, getting the sparring gear on, bulky helmets and gloves.

Then she spent another ten minutes enjoying the eye candy as they stripped off their gear.

It was a lot of fucking gear.

Knives, flashbangs, grenades, knives, pistols and magazine belts, pouches of first aid, some kind of segmented… plate harness?

She didn't know what half the stuff was, but it had to weigh at least eighty pounds. It was insane that they could move around with this stuff.

"Alright, come here and beat me up. I'm rusty as fuck." She called, and Dilan stepped onto the mat as she took a stance.

"That green stuff is freaky." Dilan grunted, rubbing at a phantom ache in his chest as he backed up.

She shrugged her shoulders, wiping away sweat as her bracelets turned thirty seconds of rest into nearly two minutes.

The green energy swirling around her hands faded within seconds, however.

"Okay, go again."

They did.

She knew every motion, every counter, everything. Theoretically, she was the best fighter on planet Earth right now. She had thousands of years of memories, fighting in every context and situation. She knew how to read every swing of Dilan's fist, how his center of mass moved to allow for momentum, reading tension and key points to know every move he would make a moment before he actually made it.

To him, it likely looked like he was fighting a combat Thinker, judging from the annoyed scowl he wore.

The problem was her conditioning and her muscle memory, and it showed. No matter how easy Dilan was to read, her body reacted slow and clumsily, and so, she did get hit a few times.

She'd take the bruises. Some pain was good.

Still, the green energy of 'Grasp of The Undying' built up and up, until she finally landed a proper hit rather than a redirect or a block.

She watched the energy briefly rush into Dilan's body, then back into her fist, sinking into her, and like the last four times, she felt ever so infinitesimally tougher, the rest of the lifeforce rushing into her body and healing aches and bruises, ever so slightly, more soothing than healing, in truth.

Then her phone rang, and she hurriedly drew a stop sign as she jogged over to it, grimacing at how sweaty her facemask had gotten as she adjusted it.

Lisa was calling.

She clicked accept and brought the phone to her ear.

"Heyyy! So, I've got a slight problem here. I was talkin' to Trickster over on the other side of the base, and found out something you probably will freak out over.

"Okay…?" She slowly said, leadingly, and Lisa hissed out a sigh.

"They're Simurgh bombs. The winged bitch teleported a bunch of buildings from Earth Aleph into Madison, and they found the vials there before they used them to escape the cordon."

She froze, her hands twitching.

She took a deep breath, and let it out.

One of them was far too important to let go, but the rest weren't.

She covered the phone, and turned to the troopers.

"Both of you, get out, now. Dismissed."

They gave her confused stares, but nodded, hurrying over to whatever bits of their gear they had shed.

"One second, Herald."

Lisa grumbled something.

After both mercenaries had left the room, she sighed.

"I'll get rid of them." She grit out, voice tight.

She hadn't escaped the Simurgh's notice, it seemed. Or maybe she had, and their purpose here was something else, something more destructive than if they'd landed in her clutches, but she wasn't going to chance it.

"Wh- whoahwhoahwhoah wait!" Lisa rushed out.

"No. Lisa, just think for a moment. Does this not absolutely stink of a Simurgh plot? She just so happened to teleport people into our world, then they just so happened to get vial powers, then it just so happened one of their vials turned Noelle into a deranged cape printer, then it just so happened that they found themselves here, in Brockton Bay?"

Lisa was silent, in thought.

She was thinking too, thoughts racing a thousand miles an hour.

Three whole minutes of slow, meandering silence passed, before she groaned.

"Lisa, I'm not sheltering Simurgh bombs, nor allowing them anywhere near me or our plans. For all we know the Simurgh sent them here specifically because she knew I'd come to take over Coil. From a guess, this was either done just to cause chaos and kill someone important in the shitshow that would ensue if the heroes tried to take Noelle, or, to very specifically target something wider, like an organisation. Let's face it, I'm the most important figure in the Bay right now, even if nobody knows it yet. There is no fucking way this is a coincidence she ended up in my lap." She hissed.

Lisa audibly gulped.

"From my guess, the purpose was to somehow lead to Noelle getting discovered, getting me a kill order, some other situation where I die from having Noelle around me, or a situation where I get killed by dominos she wrecks around me without even being directly involved, or to capture someone in the know like me or you and make a clone who goes out and declares our plans to the world and ruins everything before I even have a chance to start working on killing that winged cunt."

Then she considered the possibility of the Simurgh further exacerbating Noelle's deteriorating mental health to control her like some kind of permanently wandering Endbringer, sowing further chaos. Or somehow throwing Taylor into Noelle and ending up with a clone of herself, one with technically infinite potential and an esoteric energy that nobody else in this world had, and shuddered.

She doubted that was possible to any extent. Mana and metaphysical things just didn't play along with this world's rules. But there was a chance.

"It doesn't matter if I've already Mastered them, the chances of this being a coincidence with the Simurgh involved are fucking zero. Something's going to go wrong, something will tip over, and everything will crash and kill us and everything I'm working towards."

"I- Ta- Sam, look, I know this pushes every button you have, but…" Lisa trailed off, oddly quiet.

But she couldn't come up with anything, because Taylor was right.

"Are you considering that maybe that's what the Simurgh wants from us? To kill the Travellers?" She asked, and Lisa groaned. 

"Yes- maybe? If Noelle is some kind fledgling Endbringer under someone else's control, it would make sense, but you're not going to kill Noelle even if she's a Simurgh bomb, you will just Master her into a vegetative state or something. Will killing the Travellers accomplish anything if you don't get rid of Noelle?"

"Getting rid of Noelle would be the exact kind of thing that I think the Simurgh would want. You told me not to give the clones names as numbers, but let's face it, versus the kind of threats I'll be facing, they will die. A lot of them will die. But for every- fuck, I hate to word it this way- replaceable clone that dies, an irreplaceable hero will live. For every Armsmaster that gets to live, some cloned version of Hookwolf won't. Noelle is a threat to everything the Endbringers fight for, which is to kill the world by a thousand cuts. So, maybe the Simurgh's plan was to have the Travellers ruin us, what we're trying to build here. Maybe killing the Travellers without getting rid of Noelle won't even do anything-"

"Or maybe she will have some unique interaction with your Mastering, or she's immune, or something crazy like that, and you killing them will end up ruining the last of her mental stability and toppling everything in the exact way you were trying to prevent by killing them in the first place."

She paused, gritting her teeth, because that was another possibility that she was terrified of.

If nothing else, this told her in bright red letters that the Simurgh had her eye on her already.

"Look it's just… T, you have a Thinker-Precog blocker ability that never turns off because of your power. From the way it seems to function, it's because our powers are trying to read into each and every one of your capes at the same time, likely in completely different times too, assuming they got assimilated into your power like an opposite version of the Butcher or something. Likely due to dimensional bullshit, which is the exact same thing that has been proven to be the Endbringer's biggest weakness."

She refused to be that optimistic. It would get her and everything she's working for killed.

Before she could voice that, Lisa continued.

"I know the Simurgh is a fucking Endbringer, but I honestly doubt she could precog a hundred different shuffling places, people, points in time itself from a whole different dimension or wherever the fuck your power came from, and somehow plot all of this to bring you down a full year and something before you were even a parahuman. And we're running into the usual Simurgh paradox. No matter what we do, we don't know if that's exactly what she wanted us to do or predicted us to do."

She let out a strangled snarl of fury, pacing in tight circles.

Then she stopped cold with a simple realization.

"I need to master Noelle before anything else. I need to know if that possibility of immunity or whatever you said isn't an option. If it is, they live. If she's not immune, which is what I suspect, then they die. Sorry Lisa, but I'm not going to condemn millions for five teenagers."

Lisa spat out a long sigh. "Yeah, okay. That's fair. Look, how does your head feel? Do you think you can do it now?"

She chewed her lip, before nodding to herself.

"Yeah. I'll have a raging migraine after power testing in the PRT, but physical exertion is tremendously less draining than more esoteric or bizarre powers, so I should be able to pull through by doing my usual 'oh im just a super boring brute' routine."

Lisa made a positive hum, then sputtered.

"Wait, T. Why the fuck are you still planning to go to the Wards?"

She automatically went to recite the reasons, then blinked in realization.

Coil had more insiders in the PRT than she'd ever get, and the best Maria could give her was office gossip like how Assault and Battery were apparently in a relationship of some kind.

Using their resources?

Meaningless. She had all the things she could need. She could have the entire catalogue of gym equipment, even though she wouldn't get to beat on some Brute in sparring sessions like she'd been hoping for.

Knowing how they worked, operated, getting access to even surface-level clearance files so she could get a peep into threats?

Again, meaningless. Coil was literally sending that to her right now.

The only possible reason she could have for joining them now was to built rapport and camaraderie with the future heroes, so she could try and convince them of her planned deal or mutual agreement in the future, but…

It was just a waste of time now. She already had far too much on her plate to be playing hero while getting treated as a kid.

"I guess I'm not, now that I think about it. Yeah, that's over before it began. Whatever."

"Well, good. Also, according to the file Coil just sent me here, Gallant is a Thinker Master Blaster combo that can sense emotions, which means if he sees you in person, and then sees you while you're pretending to be some other cape, he could put two and two together or just draw some kind of connection there." Lisa added. 

Taylor cussed under her breath as even more work got thrown onto her table.

"Sec."

She took the phone away, and quickly navigated to Coil's contact, scrolling through the nigh-endless series of documents in file forms until she found something that mentioned the Wards.

She skimmed through their civilian identities, willing to know but not willing to do anything about them, then paused when her eye flitted past Shadow Stalker.

Her first reaction was a feeling like someone had lit a flare and pressed it tightly against her heart, a burning sensation of rage and disbelief.

It didn't last. She'd endured worse. The bullying and the locker were little more than footnotes. She'd been skewered and burned alive, eaten by void insects in sands dried and clumped with rivers of blood and broken weapons, flayed alive, crushed between two blocks of bone too large to be called teeth.

It helped that apparently Sophia was in a juvie right now.

The bullying, the locker? They were too juvenile to muster more emotion than that momentary outburst and a bitter aftertaste.

Her second reaction was a slow realization that drained even that aftertaste away.

Sophia could be used. She could be used very effectively, because the PRT knew about what had happened between them. Sofia wouldn't be in juvie otherwise. It was right there in the afternotes, her reason for being booted.

Her brows furrowed, a plan slowly forming and coming together.

She briefly flashed into Evelynn just to check there was nobody around, then turned back into herself to let her body recuperate from the sparring.

"My head's still rather tight, so I'll go get Noelle tomorrow. I'm going to go Master the Travellers and my father first and call it quits for the day on power usage. He should be getting off work in an hour or so."

Lisa choked on air, coughing into the mic.

"No, shut up Lisa. No arguments, this is too important." She said, voice steady and firm as steel.

"I- okay." Lisa said through a small series of coughs, voice heavy with strain.

"Get Coil. I want Shadow Stalker. Mobilise a team to burst into that prison and bring her here by tomorrow. Make it obvious that it's Coil getting her out. Set up fake papers for my father and get an apartment somewhere as safe as possible. I'm moving him to New York or where Eidolon is sitting, I don't know, just somewhere safe. Set him up with a job too, I want to leave him alone and be sure he won't die randomly or get snatched by my future enemies. Tell Coil that after Shadow Stalker gets here I want two people kidnapped and brought here. One male, one female. They can snatch a gangster or something, I don't care, as long as it's not some random innocent. Bring me some human scum nobody will miss. Race et cetera doesn't matter, but preferably white. Get us an apartment too, somewhere half-decent and quiet. We've also moving out of our current house. Call Sundancer and Oliver to Coil's office, I'll go master then, then go grab my dad. I'll master Noelle when I have the tank full."

"Okay. By the way, the kid, Dinah? She'll be getting up soon, and I don't really think it's humane to keep her waiting in a brightly colored cell. Want me to just keep her unconscious until you're ready to meet and explain things to her?" Lisa asked.

She grimaced.

"I don't like the notion of drugging a kid, but if it's safe, keep her under. I want to give her the pitch. If she says no, which I expect, we just let her go. Oh that reminds me, organise a blood draw for everyone on base with pictures next to their glass sample, I want to be able to track everyone."

"Yeah, alright. Moving all of it down the command line. Go master your dad." Lisa said, sounding oddly bitter.

She wanted to just ignore it and bulldoze through, but kept herself in check enough to sigh.

"Lisa, what is it?"

"It's just… it's unfair that you get a parent that loves you, and you're probably the only person I know who doesn't want that love." Lisa groused.

She spent a moment to think.

"It's not that I don't want it. There's just no room in my life for it to have anything but a withering death, through distance and brick walls. It's better he moves on and starts something new, and I don't have to worry about my useless wreck of a father getting squished by the superpowered psychos infesting the world. Also, I can't lie, I hold a lot of resentment for him. Probably something to be said about trust issues as well."

"Trust issues? Oh you don't say, miss 'I must either be able to track everyone I interact with or master them into submission'?" Lisa asked in an exaggeratedly high pitch. Then she snorted. "Okay, I get it. I won't keep you. I've sent your orders to Coil, and he'll delegate further. I'll set your dad up right next to the Houston Protectorate-"

"Why Houston?"

"...Eidolon is in Houston."

"Oh. Okay." She simply said, unsure of what to think about the blatant 'this is obvious' tone that Lisa used.

She hadn't been checking on fucking Eidolon, she'd been checking on villains to kill or take for herself.

"Look, just check your phone, don't leave it in the pocket dimension thingie for when you pick a cape. See ya."

"I will. See you in a bit."

She ended the call, and after checking again for anyone nearby, stalked towards the Traveller's quarters as her phone continued buzzing endlessly in her pocket.

She would have so much fucking reading to do when nighttime came.

Notes:

im starting to feel as overwhelmed as taylor as the pressure keeps ramping and shit keeps mounting :d

im not sure that's a good thing but by the holy creed of Escalation, i seem to be doing right