Tricky

The two of them lay in bed just basking in each other's presence. The worries about what was to come were temporarily forgotten as Cole wanted just to enjoy this moment.

Still, even if he wanted to stay like this forever he knew that he could not. The world around them would not stop spinning just because he wanted after all. At least not yet.

So he started to get out of bed and let go of Tammi's hand. Before he could fully leave she grasped onto his hand. Cole looked over at her and he could see the vulnerability in her eyes.

She knew that he had to leave eventually. That unlike her he had a life outside of this room. A life that might start crumbling down around him already from his reckless actions. Despite knowing that she did not want him to leave. She needed him here as if his presence was the only thing keeping her grounded.

Despite her cocky and light comments from before she was pretty fragile right now.

Her desires were clear from a single look in her eyes but in that same vein, the conflict was equally present. She needed him but she did not wish to ask for him to stay. In her mind, she had already asked too much of Cole. So she could not muster the will to ask him to stay or the strength to let him go.

It was a familiar feeling that bore heavy on his heart for the past week. So he grasped her hand once more and squeezed it tightly while looking at her.

He wanted to reach over to her face and caress in softly. To hold her tight but he was afraid of overstepping. So he only offered his hand to hers even if the moment between them was already far more intimate than a simple touch.

"I know Tammi. Trust me I know. I want to stay here more than anything." Cole spoke out softly looking at her. The unsaid words lingered between them but the both of them knew exactly why he had to leave.

A cape had broken Tammi out of prison tonight. A Cape had broken only her out. It was a mistake but not one he regretted. In this fucked up city there were very few people who cared for her and that became increasingly clear to both of them. So when fingers started to be pointed he was going to be the first suspect.

That would be fine with the PRT. He may not like them very much but he understood that all of this world was a last desperate gamble at saving humanity. All the conflict, all the pain, and all of the death had a purpose. He might hate that fact but he was pragmatic enough to accept it.

So if the PRT started pointing fingers at him the worst he could expect from them was a strong-armed attempt at requirement.

It was the Empire that he was worried about. They were the ones who knew him the best. Despite his general distaste for what they got up to his life story and his actions were constantly under their eyes. So when this incident became more public those eyes would focus in on him.

Knowing that Cole was tempted to run from this city with only Tammi by his side. He had an answer to this desperate gamble after all. He just needed some time to figure it out. Still, while that thought was tempting it was not possible.

For one simple reason. His father. By this point, he was an ardent supporter of the Empire and he would not leave their side. He would stay here while Cole ran and knowing the life he lived Cole feared that things would go horribly wrong if he left. That he would lose that man despite their strained relationship.

So he was going to have to do a complicated dance here in Brockton Bay until he could figure something out.

Those thoughts were left unsaid between Tammi and him but they both knew the truth. So she did not make any argument to get him to stay. She only clutched his hand tighter. 

"I won't be gone for long Tammi. I'll be back before you know it." Cole said softly while he got up once more. The tight grip on his hand was still there but slipping as she knew what had to happen. He put the rest of the money he took and the gun he stole from the mugger on the dresser.

He left that room with her gaze locked onto his frame begging him to stay but he left all the same. When he closed the door behind him he heard her whisper don't go. That was almost enough to have him giving in despite his reasoning. He felt terrible but he needed to sort things out. So he left quickly afraid of hearing something more.

To distract himself in his journey home he went over his options with his power. From what the System had told him he had enough power to steal something again. From some further questions, he started to narrow down what he could get.

He was tempted to open up some new worlds to further his pool but he knew he was unlikely to get something good. Sure, he now had powers but they were not that impressive in comparison to a man who could turn into all the lasers. Hell, Vista could run circles around him and she was quite literally a little girl.

Cole winced as he should not degrade the hero like that. The girl had fought and bled for the peace of everyone in this city when she did not have to. She had a strength of will that he could not compare to. Sure, she had power but she was still a child with far more gumption than any one person in this city.

It was just so easy to see her in that light despite her actions.

Disregarding Vista he was a poor representation of a Cape as he was now. So he should try to further his own power right now to protect himself and Tammi. His first thought was to steal from that world he opened up.

He stole something from another System after all. If he could pull that off again he might get something amazing. Still, he hesitated as he thought he already tested his luck far too much today. The odds of stealing another template card in a random theft would be incredibly low even if he narrowed it down to that world.

He tried some more tags to narrow it down but he learned the price to narrow it down was already far too much. Hell, just narrowing the range from the world to just the System user was out of his budget.

So he started to look at his own world. There were plenty of people here he could steal from. A whole world of superpowers at his fingertips. He was tempted to just narrow the field to power and steal something but he hesitated.

There were people doing the good fight here and if he stole their powers he might knock things out of balance. He could steal Legend's power and the world would be out of a heavy hitter in Endbringer battles. Of course, he could take his place but then it would become clear that he stole the guy's power which would bring further heat on his head.

So it was probably for the best that he stole a specific power. That meant he would spend more energy and he could not get anything impressive but it would work. He started to run through capes in his mind trying to fit an interesting target.

He knew that he was going to have to do a lot of stealing to get more power so he was aiming for a power useful in that regard. A person rang through his mind as he thought about useful powers. 

Victor was a skill thief. The man was terrible and stealing his power would be for the betterment of everyone and it would mesh very well with his System.

He could get more energy to play around with and the Empire would lose a Cape. The thought was very tempting but he discarded it with a sigh.

It would be a great power to have a prime target for later but he was very squishy right now and that was not good. So he moved onto another target.

He felt his lips twitch as this particular person was going to make some waves. Trickster was a part of the Travelers and the guy was not exactly stable with his mind being fucked over by the Simurgh. He only wanted to heal his girlfriend even if he went about it in a fucked up manner. 

Still, while Cole could respect his goal he was not that fond of the guy.

So stealing from him was okay in his book. In addition, his power was something that would help him very much. Teleportation within line of sight as long as he could find a target of similar size. It would make stealing easy and fights complicated. In that chaos, Kaito Kid would thrive.

Cole already has massively increased reflexes from the template card so he could use that power far better than Trickster. It would allow him to slip out of the grasp of most people except some big hitters. Most of them would not come after a simple thief going about their business.

Sure, stealing from Trickster might fuck with things coming down the line but given enough time to grow he should be able to handle it. He did not have a whole lot of time till things popped off but he had enough.

He went to Winslow under his own will. He could have gotten into the better schools but he had an obvious reason for going there.

While he kept his head down for the most part he did know what was going on there. The bullying campaign against Taylor had just started up. It was not really that public with Emma and Sophia playing their games but he had a rather blatant interest in Taylor. She was his clock for when everything went sideways after all.

So he probably had a year or so before Taylor triggered. Maybe less but he never really had a good grasp on the timeline before he came here. It was not like he expected that knowing the timeline of one specific story he read would be vital in his future.

That time was both long and short. With his abilities, he could see himself growing massively but at the same time every day, hour, and second spent was vital to him.

It brought up the same dilemma that he was fighting with earlier. Should he really waste time trying to play innocent when he could be out there growing in power? It was maddening but he did not have an answer for it just yet.

For now, he was going to see how quickly he could grow under this complicated dance. If things appeared to go too slow for his taste he would do something about it.

Cole got out of the poor side of town and shed his final disguise coming back to his everyday look. He was near Empire territory and as distasteful as it was he had protection as long as he walked there.

He quickly got back to his apartment. He knew that his father should still be out but it was kind of a coin toss. If Cole could get back before his father great if not well it would require some lies.

Maybe he could knock him out? That's a fucking thought knock out his father before he could ask awkward questions. He was mostly joking but it might be a good idea.

So when he got to his own door he opened it quietly and surveyed his apartment as the skilled thief he was. Thankfully the place was quiet and exactly as he left it. Meaning his father had not arrived just yet. That would be mildly concerning on most nights considering how late it was but he was thankful for it right now.

He went back to his room and blanched at the sight of it. In his paranoid mood earlier he left his room in a rather….shocking sight. He quickly cleaned up in case his father came back and checked on him.

Once he finished he decided to sit on his bed and pull the trigger on stealing Trickster's power.

[Theft in process.]

[Target Identified.]

[Hook thrown.]

[Bypassing protections.]

[Theft successful.]

[The Theft System has stolen A method from the Displacement Shard.]

[Comment from victim: Wait what!? First superpowers now Systems!? WHAT IS GOING ON!? NO, NO, NO, NO, YOU CAN'T TAKE THAT! I NEED THAT!]

[Would the Host like to leave a comment?]

Cole looked over at the screen for a moment. He had completely forgotten that the victim knew that they were stolen from and that the thief was the user of the Theft System. He got a little excited about the last theft but this was an important detail to keep in mind.

Sure if someone had their power stop working they would assume something funky was going on but they would not know it was stolen immediately. Now it had become increasingly clear that all his future victims would know they had their powers being stolen.

So they would be looking for him and if he became a public figure they would know who fucked them over. That was concerning but he was already too deep in this.

He would just have to be a bit more careful about who he stole from and how he showed his newfound powers.

He declined to leave a comment as he did not want to agitate the Simurph bomb any more than he already did. He did find it amusing that Trickster was such a nerd that he recognized System Flow stories.

Once he declined the power slotted into him without any fuss. There was not really a lot of direction with what he could do but he instinctively knew the basics there.

He looked over at the message and saw he stole the method from the shard instead of the whole shard. Since Tricker's Shard was dead it could not offer him a different method but Cole wondered if any of the Warrior's Triggers would switch up how they operated if he stole from them. 

[A Shard on the Network is rather limited. It would recognize what happened but it is not authorized to offer any other data to their Host.]

Well, that was nice to know. Cole looked over at the System panel for a moment before wondering how it would go about stealing other shards. The previous one gave him a good amount of energy and it was not like the hosts would notice the difference.

[The Host could not steal shards unless specific circumstance come about. The System is not permitted to communicate with other shards by itself. It was only the resonation between the Ownership Shard activating and your own Shard connection that brought about that scenario.]

Cole cursed softly as stealing Shards would have gotten him a nice tidy sum in the bay. Well, it sounds like he would have to find himself near people who trigger if he wants to steal their shards.

[That is correct. The resonation is what the System needs to talk with other shards. If you can get other Shard holders to be near an activating Shard then you can also steal them.]

Cole hummed as he thought that over. He might be playing into the games that the System is playing but getting more Shards sounded like a good idea. Thankfully he knew of a girl who was going to trigger.

It was troubling to put Taylor through her hell just for more power for himself but he tried to firm his resolve. It was a small price to pay for the safety of everyone in the world….at least he hoped it would be.