~Night of Seraph’s first appearance~

  The surveillance footage wasn’t particularly clear, but it didn’t need to be. Thomas Calvert, currently in his villain guise Coil, leaned forward in his chair with elbows resting on the dark wood of his desk. Multiple grainy PRT feeds playing across his monitors were currently taking up his attention.

  In another timeline, he was doing the same thing, but in an entirely different location, wearing an entirely different suit.

  A massive swarm poured through downtown two hours ago like a living fog. Funneling through intersections, scaling buildings, and crawling over cars. But what truly caught his eye wasn’t the swarm itself. It was the figure just ahead of it: a black silhouette flying at speed.

  Through several different angles, the chase presented an almost hypnotic dance. That was, until a sudden burst of white-hot flame engulfed the swarm several hundred feet over Brockton Bay, sending a burning haze of ash spiraling in all directions.

  Coil's eyes narrowed. The PRT already started classifying the cape and the results were impressive, indeed.

  And then, the flyer dove straight down into the bay to escape the approaching heroes.

  He hit pause, freezing all of the clips playing at the same time.

  Evading lawful authorities did not paint this newcomer in a heroic light. He still could be in intention, but that has never mattered to the PRT or the public. There’s an opportunity here.

  With that said, the unidentified parahuman hadn’t shown up on any database. The most popular supposition was Tinker. But there were too many variables to account for that. Most likely a new trigger. Coil didn’t know why, but his gut was telling him this was the case.

  And that swarm... That wasn’t an ordinary Master power. It was something else. Something... new.

  He needed more information. Fortunately for the villain mastermind, his reach was long and his influence wide. Whoever this new pair of parahumans were, they won’t escape him for long.

  The next incident occurred less than a day later.

  Coil studied the collection of reports scattered across the screen: emergency dispatch logs, injury assessments, and fragments of civilian footage.

  Seraph had defeated nearly all the heroes in the city.

  Not just the Protectorate. New Wave, as well.

  This didn’t bode well for his plans.

  He leaned back in his chair, one hand tapping thoughtfully against his chin. The encounter hadn’t lasted an hour, but it left an impression. Most of the footage capturing the city-spanning battle was spotty. But taken together, they created a single terrifying picture.

  Seraph had not merely overpowered the heroes. He had dismantled them.

  Coil shifted to another file, this time an audio recording.

  A 911 call where a young female voice was giving a short and concise report of gang activity.

  Opening another one, he heard the same voice, but from a different location.

  Digging deeper, a pattern emerged quickly. Six calls, all traced to different public phones. All coincided with emergency response deployments. And at every site, civilian witnesses mentioned the same bizarre phenomenon: strange insect behavior.

  From there, it wasn’t a huge leap to conclude that this was the insect manipulator. The same one who unleashed the swarm against Seraph.

  Coil's fingers drummed against the desk and ran the probabilities in his head.

  It lined up, though, not as sharply as he would have liked. More importantly, it gave him the first real lead to finding the flying weapon of mass destruction.

  He had followed fuzzier lines of logic before and came away with gold. Case in point, his entrapment of dear Sarah.

  If Seraph was a complete mystery, perhaps the swarm controller wasn’t. And if the two were connected in some way…

  The girl will be found and through her, he will unravel the secrets of swarm and fire.

  Glass shattered against the far wall.

  Coil stood in the middle of his office, chest heaving and fists trembling in anger. His boots crunched against broken shards and splintered plastic. Remnants of his explosive loss of control.

  “Fifty-eight,” he growled. “Fifty-eight failures.”

  Jaws clenched tight, he felt the rage die down to a simmer.

  He had used his power every day for over a week. Splitting timelines and operating in parallel while trying every possible permutation of approach. Yet Taylor Hebert, the swarm controller, remains beyond his grasp.

  Attacking her home had proven disastrous time and again. Kidnapping her father, the same. Even laying traps during her jaunts as the city’s most prolific 911 caller completely backfired.

  Her swarm would explode in size when cornered, behaving beyond what was biologically possible. Millions of insects would manifest and swarm his agents. Using the most expensive protective garments and insect repellents made no difference.

  As if that wasn’t enough, if she didn’t kill his men, then Seraph would arrive to do the job for her.

  He would come from out of nowhere with absolutely no warning or signs of his arrival. In some timelines, he attacked from the sky. In others, it was as if he could teleport. One moment, he wasn’t there, and then the next, he was.

  What follows typically involves charred remains.

  But none of them could compare to the worst iteration, yet.

  An hour after a specific timeline where he arranged the Hebert girl’s quiet death to see what would happen, Seraph appeared over his base. The resulting attack still haunts him days after.

  Coil had never seen fire melt rock, steel, and concrete in so short a time. He never actually saw the parahuman, either personally or through his surveillance network. But the wave of flames was unmistakable.

  The feeling of his skin bubbling and his eyeballs popping were his last memories before that timeline was forcibly dropped.

  Even relocation didn’t work. In branches where Coil moved across the country or out of state entirely, Seraph still found him.

  But worse, oh so much worse, were the inconsistencies.

  Following the one where his base was reduced to molten rubble, timelines no longer mirrored one another. The divergence started slowly. Calls are coming in that happened in only one branch but not the other. News reports of events that don’t align. Even someone bringing up a discussion that he couldn’t remember having with them.

  Then the deviations truly became frightening.

  Coil would open his timeline from a completely safe origin point, only to suddenly find Seraph waiting for him. He dropped that branch swiftly, but not before seeing the cape slowly morph into something monstrous… inhuman.

  This happened again and again, with progressively worse differences.

  Endbringers would attack, Ediolon would crash into his civilian office, and in one particularly memorable instance, gigantic monsters he had never seen before were laying waste to the city.

  The one bright light to his current struggles is the limitations of the interference.

  So long as he used his power on anyone other than Seraph and, to a certain extent, the Hebert girl, it would still work.

  Even so, he couldn’t escape the fact that he was completely outmatched.

  In the alternate timeline, Lisa Wilbourn screamed as another electric jolt coursed through her.

  Coil observed the pitiful creature with unhindered glee. She was suspended by the wrists, bloodied, her defiance long since lost. Unsurprising, really. Hours of uninterrupted pain will break anyone.

  He had tasked her with uncovering the secrets of Seraph and had produced absolutely nothing of value. No names and no weaknesses.

  Nothing.

  “Useless,” he said coldly.

  Lisa laughed bitterly, even through the pain. “You’re torturing a thinker for not predicting a… a goddamn hurricane.”

  Coil’s hand twitched. “I don’t care for your excuses, Tattletale.”

  At his signal, the cycle started again, eliciting more pained screams. Truth be told, Coil no longer believed that this would achieve anything. But after days of frustration, he felt the need to find an outlet beyond his usual options.

  This wasn’t the absolute worst thing he could do to his pet Thinker, either. However, he wasn’t in the mood for using more involved ways of tormenting the girl.

  Without noticing, he had allowed the electrocution to go on for longer than he intended. This, it would turn out, was to his benefit.

  “Stop!” she wailed. “Please, just stop! I’ll tell you… I’ll tell you.”

  Coild held up a hand to pause the currents. Well, now. Has dear Sarah truly been holding out on him?

  “Tell me what?”

  Her panting tempted him to start the pain all over again, but he held himself back. This could be useful.

  After regaining her breath, she whispered something he couldn’t hear completely. But Coil was done playing games.

  “Speak clearly Tattletale or the switch turns back on and stays that way. I don’t need to tell you what will happen then.”

  “I said,” she began, her voice raspy but clear, “he can empower others.”

  Coil paused to take in this new information.

  “Explain.”

  When hesitation made a brief appearance, he made to raise his hand again.

  “Wait,” she whimpered.

  He paused.

  Lisa swallowed before continuing in a sobbing rendition of a confession.

  “Seraph… He… He made Taylor stronger.”

  And there it is, the hysterical weeping. It would appear that being forced to reveal this guarded secret broke something in the girl. Coil would normally have waited for her to at least collect herself, but his patience has run thin.

  He stepped closer. “Elaborate.”

  “The rooftop fight… against Lung,” she said between hiccuping mewls. “Taylor… her swarm got bigger after… after Ser-Seraph did something… something to her. I don’t know how… my powers don’t… it doesn’t work right when… he spoofs it. That’s all… all I know. Please…”

  The words landed like hammer blows.

  A Trump, then. Seraph was a Trump. One who could strengthen the power of other parahumans.

  Coil stood still, then dropped the timeline.

  This could change everything. Coil lost himself for a moment on visions of unlimited timelines where he could pick and choose events to his liking.

  He would become a true master of fate, then.

  I must have him. I’m the only one who deserves such power.

  The hum of fluorescent lighting buzzed faintly overhead, muted by the thick walls of Coil’s underground compound. He sat alone in his private office, bathed in the pale glow of a half-dozen monitors, each streaming real-time surveillance feeds, facial recognition data, and mission reports.

  The screens meant to bring him certainty offered nothing but contradictions, discrepancies, and failures.

  He didn’t move, didn’t blink. For the first time in days, he wasn’t simulating a split. Not because he didn’t want to, but because he feared the results. Again.

  By this point, he suspected that Seraph existed outside the boundaries of his power.

  Coil leaned forward and clasped his hands together in front of his mouth, glaring at the screen as if it might offer salvation. He had turned his attention from the insect master, briefly. Fixated instead on Seraph and the possibility of breaking him first.

  Lisa had confirmed Seraph could empower parahumans and he did so to Taylor Hebert. That explained the sudden spikes in her power. She'd been getting stronger mid-operation.

  Too late, he realized the pattern. Seraph only arrived when Taylor’s swarm was large. Visibly, unnaturally large. It acted like a signal to draw in the bigger threat.

  The question then is how he could stop her from calling him.

  A faint rustle made him look up and found a single, crisp sheet of paper falling through the air like a drifting feather.

  It wasn’t there a moment ago.

  Coil stood slowly. His chair creaked beneath him as he rose, one gloved hand reaching out with practiced caution. He didn’t touch it at first. Just stared. Then, gingerly, he picked it up.

  On it was a handwritten, careful script detailing instructions. They were a precise series of steps. In a language of implication and subtext, yet clear in message.

  Coil felt his blood go cold, finally understanding who had sent it.

  Her.

  Cauldron’s greatest weapon.

  But why now?

  He had kept to the agreement and they did the same. This intervention was a new development and it unnerved him.

  Reading the instructions again, this time line by line. Tinkertech to disperse, disrupt, and incapacitate large-scale Master-type swarms. Who to get it from, how to apply it successfully, and ways to ensure a smooth capture.

  Cauldron was giving him the means to suppress the swarm. Which meant… they wanted Seraph either neutralized or coopted.

  He didn’t know why, but it doesn’t really matter.

  A deranged smile slowly formed on his gaunt face.

  There was now a solution to his previously unsolvable predicament. One he would soon enact and be one step closer to becoming Brockton Bay’s true ruler.

  ~One hour after Taylor’s abduction~

  “Why is my power afraid of you?”

  There was so much more to the question than Lisa could put into words. Even as the rain outside became heavier, lightning began to flash, and thunder started to roll. This burning mystery was all that filled her mind.

  Lisa had become familiar with her power over the years since she triggered. She knew its limitations and flaws. More importantly, she knew its drawbacks.

  Thinker migraines are nothing new and she certainly wasn’t the only one to suffer such an issue in her power bracket. She’s learned to contend with it, plan around it, or delay it if needed.

  Now, there was absolutely nothing.

  Even as she parsed through data that should have reduced her to a gibbering mess just a day ago, her brain wasn’t screaming for mercy. Information that would have overloaded her senses now came from a multitude of directions, allowing her to make connections that completely escaped her before.

  It wasn’t perfect. She was getting much more out of her surroundings and her body’s current condition, for example. More details, more nuances. However, she couldn’t draw conclusions from questions that didn’t have a starting point.

  She was still an inference powerhouse, but that’s about it.

  Yet for all that she seemed to have become a much better Thinker, the hooded boy in front of her remained a blank void. As if her power simply refuses to go near him.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Lisa wanted to know. No, she needed to know. It felt like seeing land after months of being lost at sea. That’s why she latched onto him in a way that she normally never would with anyone else.

  Unfortunately for her, Seraph was not one to indulge the Thinker’s curiosity.

  “If you’ve recovered enough to ask stupid questions, then it’s time to make good on your offer.”

  The shift in tone was jarring. Whereas before, he was almost frantic in his bid to comfort her, he now seemed detached and wholly devoid of any concern for Lisa.

  Shifting his arms so he could pry her hands away with a steady yet firm grip, Seraph stepped back to observe her closely. There was consternation in his demeanor, as if he couldn’t quite decide if Lisa’s recovery was good or not.

  “How can you help me rescue Taylor?”

  For one insane moment, she felt a sting of envy at how he said the other girl’s name. There was warmth there, hints of care and affection that she couldn’t quite place. Having to rely on her own intuition was frustrating, but it was all she had to work with.

  Lisa was tempted to ask why this cape, this absurdly powerful parahuman, was so invested in the safety of a single girl. A girl who, from everything she had been able to gather, had never even met him before that night.

  But she couldn’t. Not now, anyway.

  “I’m part of the Undersiders,” she said instead and saw the lack of surprise on his face, “but I guess you already knew that. Look, if Coil came after me, chances are he’ll go after them. I can convince my team to help rescue Taylor and bring that megalomaniac down.”

  “How?”

  Lisa smirked, “By appealing to their desire for survival.” At the unmoved look of skepticism, she amended, “And the possibility of a huge payday. Helping you take out Coil would let me steal all of his wealth and resources. Possibly even take over his organization.”

  Once again, she failed to elicit any strong reaction from Seraph. As if her declaration was a forgone conclusion.

  “You already knew I would do that, didn’t you?”

  Silence met her question, so she pressed.

  “How much do you know about me? About Taylor?”

  This time, he did deign to respond, but not in a way that she wanted.

  “What I know or don’t know is none of your business. If you can help with Taylor’s safe recovery, then you can have everything else.”

  Coming from anyone else, Lisa would have snorted in derision. But this was Seraph. The cape responsible for the Protectorate ENE and New Wave’s greatest defeat in living memory.

  “Fine. I just need to contact my team.”

  Seraph simply gave a casual gesture in response.

  Fishing her phone from her jacket pocket, she dialled Brian’s number. The line rang twice before he picked up. “Lisa?”

  “Hey. You guys okay?”

  “Yeah. No trouble on our end. Why, what’s going on?”

  She blinked. That was… weird. Coil hadn’t gone after them? Briefly directing her power to this incongruity, she got the all clear. It seems her former employer didn’t bother with the rest of the Undersiders.

  “Meet me at the hideout, now. Wear your suits. I’ll explain everything when I get there.”

  Brian wanted to argue, she could tell that much, but just said “On it” instead and hung up.

  Before they left, Lisa turned to Seraph. “What about the meatheads you stuffed into that van?”

  He gave her a look, then pulled a battered flip phone from his coat. Her power gave her a soft green light—burner, recently liberated from ABB gang members.

  So she can use her power on his stuff?

  She tried it on his clothes, but got absolutely nothing. The discrepancy was getting really annoying.

  Seraph dialled the police hotline and left a deadpan report about a suspicious vehicle parked near a warehouse, full of what might be unconscious men. After rattling the address, he crushed the phone in his hand.

  Lisa smirked faintly. “Efficient.”

  “The hideout?” he asked, clearly getting impatient.

  “It’s nearby. We can get there in twenty minutes if we hurry.”

  The tensing of his shoulders and the clenching and unclenching of his fists signalled Seraph’s dissatisfaction. Fortunately, he relented and gestured for her to lead the way.

  They moved fast through the rain and got thoroughly drenched as a result. With rhythmic steps, Lisa wondered at her seemingly increased well of energy. Not superhuman in any way, but certainly notable for someone as exercise-averse as her. Yet another mystery to the growing pile.

  Along the way, she took the chance to try and unravel at least some of those. She knew it was unwise to potentially provoke someone of Seraph’s power, but opportunities like this didn’t come every day.

  “So, Sera–”

  “Ruff n Tumble,” he cut off her opening gambit.

  “What?”

  She slowed down to ask, but one tap to her waist urging her forward got Lisa moving again.

  “If we’re anywhere in public, you call me Ruff n Tumble. R-U-F-F. Nothing else.”

  Lisa got the feeling that the name was a reference of some sort. But now wasn’t the time to get into that. Instead, she focused on his reasoning and was glad that her power made an exception again.

  One second was all it took for her to understand and she agreed. There was just one problem, though.

  “Getting Taylor back is going to be a lot harder if you go as Ruff n Tumble,” she said, the implied question clear in her tone.

  “I know,” he said. “But there’s no need to bandy the truth about where anyone can hear.”

  True enough, there could be devilish eavesdroppers with similar powers to her, after all.

  “But when we get there?”

  He said nothing, but Lisa got the distinct feeling of amusement and anticipation coming from him.

  When they reached the hideout, tension bloomed immediately after walking through the door. The reactions were exactly as she anticipated. Brian was instantly on his feet and got in a fighting stance. Rachel started growing her dogs. And Alec… well, he just kept on playing his game with affected nonchalance.

  Lisa raised her hands in a placating manner. “Everybody relax, he’s with me.”

  “And who’s he?” Brain asked, suspicion suffusing his muffled voice. “And why did you bring him here?”

  Lisa was about to launch into a statement she’d been crafting on the way, but Seraph beat her to the punch. Emphasis on ‘punch’.

  “Because Lisa had no choice, Brian.”

  The casual, almost careless way he revealed their identities was in stark contrast to the reaction he got.

  “What the fuck, Lisa!”

  “You told him?!”

  “I didn’t say anything!”

  “Well, this just got interesting.”

  The convoluted cocktail of outrage would have continued had Seraph not put on a thunderous and electrifying light show. Once revealed in his armored form with the wings tucked behind him, stunned silence was the order of the day.

  “Listen to me very carefully, because I’m only going to say this once,” he almost drawled. “Yes, I do know all of your names. No, Lisa didn’t tell me. And no, I will not use your identities against you… not unless you force me to.”

  His gaze passed over the other occupants of the room, eyes glowing with barely restrained power.

  Even already knowing who he was, Lisa still felt shaken at this turn of events. She almost allowed herself to believe that they were in lockstep. Which was really stupid of her.

  Seraph was an unknown element in the cape community. Even the PRT was stumped, nevermind the fact that her power never worked right with him. And now?

  Was it the deceptively ordinary outfit? The act of kindness when she was distressed? Because he healed her?

  Regardless of the reason, Lisa had lowered her guard and got bitten as a result. She would have to talk to him about his behavior. But that was for later.

  Addressing her team, she launched into the night’s events and held nothing back. Coil’s mercenaries, the ambush, and Taylor’s disappearance, though she was careful to use ‘bug girl’ when referring to her. When she revealed that the villainous mastermind was their employer all along, Brian looked about ready to explode. Only Seraph’s presence kept him from interrupting.

  Lisa was particularly gruesome in presenting their current status as loose ends. If Coil was willing to get rid of her, then he would have no problems doing the same to them.

  By the time she was done, the room was silent.

  “So, what now?”

  Surprisingly, it was Alec who asked.

  Lisa looked at each of them. “Now you choose. We can try to make a break for it, but that means getting run down eventually. That would just be delaying the inevitable. Or we can take the initiative. We rescue our swarm mistress, take down Coil, and take over everything he built.”

  “You know where he is?” Brian asked, his form almost sagging in defeat.

  “I do.”

  “How are we getting in?”

  Lisa turned to Seraph, who had his arms crossed over his armored chest. “Leave that to us. For now, you need to decide if you want to help or if you prefer to run. Once you’ve made up your mind, find us in my room.”

  She grabbed Seraph by the gauntlet and dragged him to her door before more questions could start flying. Once inside, she closed it and rounded on him.

  “What the fuck was that?!”

  A small voice in the back of Lisa’s mind was screaming for her to stop, but she was too incensed.

  “Do you have any idea what you just did? How far you just violated the Unwritten Rules?!”

  She went on like that for another minute, becoming progressively shoutier in her quest to vent her spleen at the unmoving cape. The unmoving, very dangerous, and seemingly amused cape. By the time Lisa was done, breathless and panting at the verbal exertion, there was a palpable release of tension in her gut.

  “Feeling better?” Seraph asked, one eyebrow raised.

  After taking another deep breath, she nodded. “Yeah, actually, I am. But I still need you to answer my question. Why did you do that?”

  It took a few seconds, but the answer still came. “As you said, we can’t rescue Taylor in the time we have if I go as Ruff n Tumble. But to reveal the truth of who I am to a group of villains without leverage would have been stupid in the extreme.”

  Lisa could at least understand that. She was hoping that Seraph would be content with getting the Undersiders to help rescue Taylor, but additional assurances of secrecy were always going to be on the table.

  She just didn’t expect said assurance to come in the form of their identities. Or that he would immediately use it.

  “So, what? Mutually Assured Destruction? We tell the world about you and you do the same in return?”

  He snorted. “You can think of it like that. You could also think of it as putting us on an even playing field. I don’t need to use overwhelming power to hurt you if you decide to stab me in the back. Not with what I know.”

  And wasn’t that the neat little conundrum for Lisa? Seraph likely wouldn’t entertain questions about where he got his information. With him spoofing her power so thoroughly, she wasn’t left with too many options, either.

  “You got a way to crack open an underground bunker then?” she asked, shifting gears.

  Seraph’s eyes glazed over for a moment, as if getting lost in thought, before answering.

  “I might have some ideas. But I’ll need to ask you something first.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “What?”

  “Have you ever been to his underground endbringer shelter?”

  Lisa wasn’t even surprised anymore. “I have and to answer your likely follow-up question, I already know the complete layout.”

  For some reason, this got the first true reaction from him. Seraph’s eyes widened and his brows furrowed while looking at her with incredulity.

  “My power might have gotten a bit of a pick-me-up,” Lisa said with a sly smile. “Thanks for that, by the way. Really helped put a lot of things in perspective.”

  She delighted at the scowl he sent her way. Considering just how frustrating dealing with him had been so far, it was only fair that she returned the favor.

  “Can you at least tell me how far his office is from the surface and where it’s located?” he asked impatiently.

  Why would he – oh. Oh…

  Several things clicked and it wasn’t just due to her power, either. His questionable decisions with the others earlier started making more sense, too. And when combined with the storm outside…

  “Yes,” Lisa confirmed. “I can definitely give you all of that and more.”

  “Excellent. Now, what’re we doing about the self-destruct?”

  The question brought her up short and she blinked in confusion. “What?”

  “Coil strikes me as the kind of guy who would install a failsafe and blow the whole thing sky-high out of spite.”

  She opened her mouth, closed it again. That… actually made sense. Before she could say anything else, though, there was a knock at the door. Walking over, she opened it and found Brian waiting on the other side, looking resigned.

  “We’re in.”

  “Good,” Lisa smiled, all teeth and intent, before looking back at Seraph. “Let’s ruin Coil’s day.”

  Thinking on the situation at hand a little more, it occurs to me that current conditions really worked to my advantage. Almost conveniently so. The storm had turned the skies into a churning sea of black and grey, blotting out the stars and moonlight with a thick curtain of cloud. Sheets of rain lashed against rooftops and streets below, turning the world into a blur of shifting shadows and water-slicked surfaces.

  From this height, I was little more than a ghost in the storm, especially with all the usual Dragoon Spirit lightworks dimmed.

  Down on the ground, visibility would be abysmal. Anyone looking up would see nothing but shower and gloom. Most people would have taken shelter by now, huddled indoors with the heaters running and the curtains drawn tight.

  As for the skies? No hero in their right mind would be flying in this mess, not with lightning cracking across the heavens like the snap of a god’s whip. It wasn’t just dangerous, it was suicidal.

  And that made the airspace mine.

  Such were the benefits of wearing supernaturally enhanced armor that’s infused with the spirit of a dragon. Right now, it’s doing a lot to stop me from becoming a human lightning rod. Had this been any other time, I would have indulged in a moment of whimsy at being a master of electromancy.

  But, I digress.

  Hovering over the unfinished high-rise in Downtown, Brockton Bay, my thoughts went over the rather straightforward plan again. Funnily enough, it’s one that several pieces of fanfiction had already featured. It was only a matter of adding my own twist to the mix.

  Coming up with anything more elaborate would have taken more time. It would have also been pointless.

  With Coil’s power being what it is, giving him any opportunity to react would have been stupid. Taking him down will require speed and coordination. Fortunately, Violet had the former in spades. The blonde Thinker currently in my corner took care of the latter.

  Right now, my only concern is to watch over three locations, waiting for the signal flare. The Undersiders were split up to cover them, with strict instructions on what to do upon arrival. My response would depend heavily on which gets marked.

  Anywhere other than the spot directly below me would receive the mother of all lightning bolts. It would undoubtedly cause untold collateral damage, but it won’t matter in the end. Such instances would be erased once those timelines were dropped.

  Quite frankly, the biggest obstacle to the plan’s success would be my willingness to endanger innocent lives. When told of what I intended to do, Brian was horrified. He was rather loud in his objections.

  It took the hasty intervention of Lisa to smooth things over, but in the end, he stuck around. After all, none of it would be real. Just a dream, basically.

  To be clear, that this was an incredibly reckless plan hadn’t escaped my notice. A lot of things could go wrong, many of which I couldn’t even begin to predict. The PRT taking notice, Taylor getting caught in the crossfire, Coil being his usual slippery self and escaping, and more.

  It’s half-baked, crude, and rushed.

  Lisa advocated for taking some time to iron out the details, but I had to put my foot down for several reasons. The first and most important: allowing the bastard to hold Taylor for any length of time was intolerable. Second: waiting any longer could mean losing our biggest natural ally (i.e. the storm). Third: giving Coil more opportunities to prepare the field was just a bad idea, in general.

  So, this is where we’re at.

  In the middle of enacting a Hail Mary of a rescue operation, and me just hanging around, contemplating the events that landed me in this position. If I were honest with myself, practically everything I’ve done from the moment of arrival has made things worse, not better.

  Before coming here, I thought my plans were as good as they could possibly be.

  Meet Taylor. Help Taylor. Save the world.

  Simple, elegant, and uncomplicated. How could things possibly go wrong?

  Now that I’m here, the answers were stacking up and none of them were in my favor. The only thing I’ve got going for me is overwhelming power, but what good has that done me, so far?

  Lung is out of the picture, sure.

  But I also got chased away by the story’s protagonist, laid waste to Brockton Bay’s heroes, and did more damage to the city than all the gangs combined. What, was I supposed to punch (fry, drown, bury, or terrorize) all my problems until they go away? I may not be a genius, but neither was I a knuckle-dragging Shonen meathead.

  Though if some of my Dragoon Spirits had their way, that’s exactly what would happen. How was I supposed to know that the shiny magic marbles were conscious and could make their own decisions? The most they ever did in the game was react when other dragons or Spirits were around.

  Then, as if all of that wasn’t enough, Taylor gets taken by a villain who constantly has a finger on the Quicksave button. It was supposed to be Dinah, dagnabbit! I’ve been keeping an eye on the girl in between beating the crap out of goons for exactly that reason. Only to find absolutely no surveillance activities around her.

  And now I know why. This frustrating bit of switcheroo came completely out of left field!

  Speaking of which, I haven’t even gotten that far into the events that were supposed to happen. Bakuda is in hiding, Oni Lee is still loose, the E88 has its full roster, and Panacea is still in danger of becoming the Red Queen!

  If I made this much of a mess at the beginning of the story, what’ll happen when the roving band of murdhobos comes? Or the Fallen? Noelle and the Simurgh bombs were already here, too!

  And what about when Leviathan makes landfall?

  Could I interfere in any of those without wiping Brockton Bay off the map?

  To cap off this shit sundae, this whole setup is fishy as fuck.

  The abduction happening on a stormy night, when I was close enough to notice the swarm but too far to stop the kidnapping, in the first place? Me finding Lisa just before she got riddled with bullets and the Undersiders being left alone, thus making recruitment viable?

  Yeah, no.

  None of that made sense unless one considers outside forces pulling the strings. I might not be the brightest bulb of the bunch, but even I can recognize the signs of someone fucking around in the background. Then again, I’ve been on the lookout for exactly this development from the get-go.

  Resistance to clairvoyance and precognition, my ass.

  Cauldron was onto me someway, somehow. Right after unjamming this particular busted printer, I’ll have to give that special bunch of bozos a bit more of my attention.

  As much as it hurts to admit, though, it’s become clear that I really had no idea what I was doing. But I couldn’t just give up on the mission, either.

  Ironically, I’m now stuck in the same predicament as Taylor was. Having the means to solve her problems through violence but unwilling to do so for fear of exposure. Granted, my reasons were different from hers (she is way more concerned over ethics than I am, for example), but did that really matter?

  Seraph has become a monster in the eyes of everyone. Had it only been me, this wouldn’t have been an issue. But that’s not the case, is it?

  Anyone I interact with in my Dragoon forms would be subject to invasive scrutiny from practically all sides. I wouldn’t be surprised if my brief encounter with the bug mistress caused this mare’s nest, to begin with.

  In the end, however, I couldn’t allow myself to be paralyzed by indecision. So, I had resigned myself to the only solution at hand. Since my perspective is literally alien compared to the inhabitants of this world, I needed someone local to help me out.

  And as cliché as it might be in fandom, my only real option here was Tattletale.

  I might be dancing to Contessa’s tune by going this route, but there simply isn’t another viable path to take. Not one that doesn’t lead to widespread destruction, which would take me further from my goal, at any rate.

  My thoughts were cut short by a single crimson flare streaking into the sky. The moment it burst upward, time seemed to falter. Rain hung motionless in the air, each droplet suspended like glass. Lightning crawled across the clouds in slow motion, and the world fell strangely silent, as though holding its breath.

  This was undoubtedly the most dangerous part of the plan.

  Giving myself over to the Dragoon Spirit, I looked inward and started pleading.

  I’m counting on you, old man. If there was ever a time to take things seriously, this would be it. We’re not getting a second chance here.

  Haschel was vastly more experienced in using Violet than I was. He understood its full capabilities in a way that I have yet to grasp. Going at this on my own would unravel everything I was trying to achieve in this operation. So, having no other choice, I turned to my only source of finesse and absolute control…

  …And it worked.

  Sensations not my own flooded every nerve, bone, and muscle fiber. Instincts I never developed took over as purple electric discharge spread from my core, before white-cyan fire wreathed my whole body. With a thought, I arced skyward first, then inverted to fly straight down.

  Thunder God, a variant of the Violet Dragoon’s third magic, capable of punching through earth, rock, steel, and concrete.

  From what little I was able to glean from the previous user’s memories, 90s video game graphics did not do this ability justice. It literally surrounded me with a shroud of super-heated plasma, and momentarily allowing me to move at 220,000 miles an hour.

  In less than a fraction of a fraction of a second, I punched into Coil’s office at the exact coordinates provided by Lisa from my starting point of 2,000 feet in the air. Through multiple levels of the underground facility and while avoiding major structural damage.

  Not giving the villain time to act, I buffeted the cloud of dust with my wings to clear the way. My target was still seated in full costume, undoubtedly in shock after his other timeline was forcibly dropped and my own unexpected entrance.

  With quick strides, I was upon the slithery bastard, who remained frozen in his chair. Before he could get over his surprise, I had my hand wrapped around his throat and proceeded to lift him into the air.

  “Hello, Mr. Calvert. I can’t express how much I’ve been looking forward to meeting you,” I growled into his face with every ounce of menace I could muster.

  All I got in reply was some choking sounds which… okay, I should have expected that.

  Also, he peed himself.

  So much for Worm’s bond villain extraordinaire.