25

SummonerSomeoneYouWontRemember

Chapter 25

Chapter Text

"My paths are breaking."

There was silence for a moment.

"Elaborate." Alexandria said calmly.

"I had an active path to prevent any outsiders and third parties from knowing of our existence. As of a few hours ago, that Path had told me to remind a doctor in our employ of what we are capable of, one who worked at Asylum East in Philadelphia. I moved onto another path, before briefly doubling back to check for any changes in the previous one. Path to Victory told me that the path to keeping us hidden now had seven hundred and ninety eight thousand four hundred and thirty three steps."

"What." Eidolon said quickly, inflectionless.

"I checked again three seconds later, and the path had four hundred and sixty one steps. The first step was to blow up the sun ." Contessa continued, voice allowing a hint of incredulousness to show, a tiny hint of tension in her shoulders giving away the woman's confusion.

" What. " Both Eidolon and Number Man echoed simultaneously.

"I asked for the path to blowing up the sun, out of sheer curiosity. No answer. I asked the path to keeping us hidden again. This time, the path was fifty six steps. So, I decided to follow this path out of curiosity, or simply to see if it was some bizarre fluke. After completing the first step, which was to 'acquire a pound of physical currency in gold coins', the second step was to " take a ship to the western Noxian coastline ". "Noxia" does not exist . It has never existed, anywhere. A moment later, the path was empty. Since then I have started checking every one of my paths, and some of them show this exact same breakdown. This includes the path to keeping Jack Slash alive and active. I trust I do not need to explain how catastrophic this is if not addressed." Contessa said.

Alexandria felt that familiar, tiny little weight of dread settle in her chest.

"Is this limited to nonsensical breakdowns or does it affect the paths that do still function by falsefying specific instances and steps to make your plans fail on purpose, or even backfire?" She asked.

Contessa moved her head to the left, a little. Unease?

"Hm… No. It does not seem surgical whatsoever. The effect is exceedingly obvious when it happens, and it is total. Any path this… anomaly gets involved in, the entire path is… scrambled, for a lack of a better word. If my power was a computer, this anomaly feels akin to a computer virus that feeds junk data to it. After some initial alarm, I began asking specific paths. For example, I asked the path to ensuring Glamour does not speak about Cauldron to anyone. The path was normal, and easy to follow. I asked for the path to ensuring Coil does not speak about Cauldron to anyone. The path was incomprehensible and its steps kept changing erratically like a random number generator. It took about an hour and a half of continuously asking questions, but I eventually located the problem in Brockton Bay. This is assumedly the result of an unexpected power interaction with a new trigger."

"Is there a chance it is the same kind of progressive weakness exhibited by David's shard?" She asked, and Doctor Mother shook her head.

"If that were the case, all our vial capes would have the same problem. It's likely a new trigger, or an anomaly. Contessa herself should be fine by all accounts."

There was a collective wave of slight relaxation that came with those news.

"To be able to do that though… do you think it is a trigger of similar power to David's, assuming it's a new power?" Doctor Mother asked all present with a thoughtful stare, accented voice sounding as alarmed as it was intrigued, though for some reason, it sounded like a test question.

Alexandria considered it for a moment.

In a way, it would explain some part of this. Contessa's power could not read things that were too powerful. David, the Endbringers, Scion. But that was the strange thing. It either could use precognition on someone, or couldn't. They'd never faced this kind of bizarre interaction before.

Was it luck, or something more alarming?

"No. Regardless, whatever is causing this has to stop, as soon as possible. Even if they were comparable to Eidolon's power, which I highly doubt, it would still not be worth it. We need Jack Slash alive, we need to keep Cauldron a secret, and we absolutely cannot afford things like this slipping through the cracks." Contessa said, and Doctor Mother hummed uncertainly.

"If this is a person, if they are powerful enough to where we might need them in the final battle, we could attempt to force them into stasis until it is time. Maybe throw them on an uninhabited planet with enough supplies to last them years and try to explain ourselves? Reach an agreement?" Doctor Mother asked, sounding uncertain.

An uncertain Doctor Mother was oddly… disquieting to see.

"The paths only seem to break if this anomaly, or parahuman, has some kind of interaction with them." Contessa opened her mouth to continue, but Number Man interrupted her.

"Maybe let's work with the assumption of a human element, for now. Unless there is some unique fourth Endbringer, I find it rather difficult to believe this is caused through sheer chance, or we would be dealing with dozens of precogs having the same issue as Contessa."

Assuming this was not somehow the work of the Simurgh. She thought with a sigh.

Contessa nodded.

"Alright. For example, this indicates that Coil will somehow be affected by this parahuman soon, or already has been. Or maybe they'll change their trajectory to interact with someone else and ruin some other plan. In a reverse sort of way, this also lets us know what paths our parahuman will be interfering with, which makes finding some things about them significantly easier. Despite that, these seem to be our only options. Forced stasis, throwing them on some other Earth where they can't interfere, or outright extermination if they are weak. If they are powerful enough to perhaps make a difference in the final battle, let's try to keep them alive but out of the way. But to find out if they are, we'll have to find them first, and prod them into using their powers second."

Alexandria leaned forward.

"Those can all be arranged, given some time and resources. Can we afford that time, or must we brute force it?"

Contessa tilted her head, just a tiny bit.

"Personally, I don't think we can. Too much is at stake. We need to find out who this is, and take them out immediately. Assuming they're doing this by their very presence and involvement, we should also consider capture. We could invest some resources in the future once we harvest Heartbreaker's children, have them on site until we direct them to get involved in the final fight. If their shard can somehow mess with Scion or the Simurgh's precognition simply by being involved, they might be an invaluable tool. If not…"

"We kill them. And because it's too dangerous to send you for this, and we don't have time to be pulling favours from our customers …" Eidolon trailed off with a disappointed sigh. 

"Yes. I'm afraid it will likely fall to you two to find them and ensure they're gone."

"I see." Alexandria nodded. "I'll try to direct our Thinkers and precogs to Brockton Bay, make the search seem organic. I'll door them to one of our special holding cells in Earth Gaero, and if they keep somehow scrambling things, we'll do what we must. Any other issues to bring up?"

"Heartstopper." Contessa said.

"I say we just kill him." Eidolon sniffed, dismissively waving a hand. "He won't be of any use and he's too much of a psychotic maniac to keep around."

"I'm in agreement." Number Man nodded, not glancing up from the economics report he was reading.

"I as well." Doctor Mother said quietly.

"While I'd love to agree..." she began, "Scion is not the only threat we have to face. It would be more prudent to keep him in captivity until we can use Heartbreaker's kids to wipe his mind and control him. We could have Regent control him for us, just in case we need to put someone troublesome down. Like our mystery precog-scrambler, if they prove troublesome. Speaking of the boy, any changes or concerns?" She asked Doctor Mother, who shook her head.

"None. His new identity is secure, and we've planted breadcrumbs to make sure Heartbreaker follows a false trail before it cuts off and makes him give up. Contessa reports no concerns of him breaking up, giving us away or betraying us. He's oddly content with simple things. Easy to control. But I'm not sure it's prudent to give him control of Heartstopper. We've only started rounding up Master capes recently, and it's working thanks to the Canary gambit we pulled, but wouldn't it be better to wait to give Heartstopper to a better handler? As far as we are aware, Regent's control range is not nearly big enough to keep Heartstopper discrete. The nature of his power makes keeping Heartstopper alive difficult as well, when Regent is removed from his range."

Alexandria allowed a small frown.

"Hm. Didn't we have a Case 53 Master? Some peacock-looking woman? We could use them."

Contessa's head moved a bit.

Eidolon scoffed.

"Too volatile. And they are not exactly… well-disposed to us. If Heartstopper is to be our first attempt at something like Project Death Row, which is what this sounds like, and we wish to keep him just in case, we need to hold him until it's time to kill Heartbreaker. Regent isn't suited for this. Besides, that's the entire reason we've let Heartbreaker continue as he has in the first place, isn't it? Make Master capes to ensure cooperation from subjects of Death Row?" He asked Contessa, and the woman nodded.

Alexandria steepled her fingers.

"Yes, I suppose. How long until we kill Heartbreaker?"

"I believe eleven months would be best." Number Man said, and she nodded. He'd know better in this subject.

"So, are we killing Heartstopper, or taking him in?" Contessa said, shoving the conversation back into track, and glances were shared all around the table.

"I say kill." Eidolon said.

"I must admit I agree with Alexandria. Capture." Contessa said.

"I vote kill as well." Number Man mumbled as he thumbed through a page.

The vote was down to Doctor Mother.

She seemed conflicted.

"I think… it might be best to capture him. Keep him on hand just in case someone dangerous and unforeseen pops up."

Contessa nodded.

"Alright. I will bring him. Inform our more cooperative Case 53's and employees to prepare restraints for a line of sight power. Door me." Contessa commanded.

A portal opened, and just like that, the meeting was over, each getting up and dooring away to their duties.

"Can you transform into your… 'first stage', again?"

The scrutiny on something as small as how she entered her 'brute state' was not exactly welcome. It was, frankly, a little annoying.

The testing site was at least interesting.

It was like someone took a giant gymnasium, again shaped like a hangar of sorts, filled it full of random crap and Tinkertech, and made said gymnasium's walls be full of mechanical limbs that could make the giant square and rectangular sections of the floors and walls extend and shift and bend any which way for powered sparring or movement simulations.

Then someone stuck it to the top left corner of an oil rig, across the helicopter pads. Odd place, but it worked, and the windows had a lovely view of the sea beyond the bay. 

But she hadn't gotten to do much since coming here. There was a camera set up in the corner against a white sheet, and she was just told to swap in and out of her 'first Brute stage' in front of them. It had been thirty minutes of doing nothing but that, so far.

"Yes, I can." She sighed, finally.

She switched to Evelynn's black-purple smoke, a quick shimmer and a mental push to make her shapeshift as fast as possible, and it was done.

"Strange power. The smoke seems out of theme. We had assumed this was some kind of Changer effect, that you turned into that large, ehm, creature biologically before rapidly switching back when contained, but this looks more like a Breaker state of sorts. Alright. Are you certain you cannot change your shape to anything else?" One of the researchers asked, a man wearing a simple beanie with casual clothes and an inquisitive look in his eyes, whose name she forgot.

She nodded.

"Y-yeah. I thought I could maybe change into something in between this and uh, the big thing, but it didn't work at all."

The man nodded, staring at a slow-motion replay of her 'transformation' from a supposedly normal teenager into a mid-tier Brute.

"So it works on extremes, perhaps? You have your normal state, where you're barely tougher than a normal average human, then some kind of basic Brute state, then the large creature you turned into is the… maximum power state, let's say?"

She nodded with false excitement.

"Yea. It's what I've gathered from what little testing I've done. I uh, haven't been able to do much, of course, because changing into the big creature makes me… really… angry." She half-asked, waving her hand vaguely.

The second researcher, a man in a buttoned up shirt and tie with slicked back blonde hair, paused, and glanced up at her. The first took a moment, then he furrowed his brows in puzzlement as he glanced up at her from the screen too.

"Could you explain a bit more in detail?"

She took a deep breath of preparation for show, then nodded, tilting her head down as appearing quite disappointed.

"It's… so, when I turned into that thing, it felt like I got split in two. There was the big purple monster that wanted to kill e-everything, and everyone, and break anything it could see. B-but it was also… me, in a way? Like, I could control its limbs, but it felt as if it had a mind of its own and it was really angry and trying to mold with mine..." She forced her voice to waver like she'd practised, then swallowed.

Maria frowned, concerned, and went to speak, but she continued.

"I couldn't not hurt anything or anyone. Even though I was p-practically screaming in my head, the most I could do was redirect the… the rage, I guess, towards myself. I felt like I was inside that thing, buried deep down behind layers of violence, and all I could think about was clawing out my real body from inside that thing to stop wanting to kill everything. So… I haven't tested anything to do with that form since then. I never want to try. No I, I refuse." She quietly said, clenching her fists as if finding her spine and courage.

Man, acting was so easy. Especially with the kind of mental trickery she was used to and used extensively to make herself feel somewhat normal again.

She glanced up.

Maria looked pitying and sympathetic, and the two researchers looked both disappointed and understanding.

The first researcher, a man with a beanie and a slight goatee, nodded with a slight smile.

"Alright, that's your choice. Though, there is a chance there will be people in the future looking into similar cases or seeking to find some heroes who could assist you with harnessing the 'final stage', let's call it for now, without any of those feelings, so don't despair, your potential will not be wasted if we can help you. Shall we go on to test your strength?"

Finally, something more fun.

She nodded.

Two minutes later, she realized that this was not really fun.

They'd basically put her under a gigantic hydraulic press-looking machine, instructed her on proper pushing posture, and told her to push as hard as she could against the press until she couldn't stop it from descending, at which point it would automatically stop.

A bit of an odd way to figure out someone's technical strength, but it made sense.

It took about a minute before she could feel her arms buckling under the strain, and no matter how much she pushed, the metal plate slowly slid downwards.

Then it stopped moving with a hissing round, like something depressurizing.

"That is four point two tons. Nine thousand and five hundred pounds, roughly. Do you think we could do another test, or are you tired at all?"

She went to accept, just to be sure, only for the door to the hangar-gymnasium to slam open, a man in a ruffled suit waving a bulky phone back and forth in a wave as he stared at her.

"Uh, Miss Ward? Shrieker? There is some girl who claims to know you calling the front desk, they said it's urgent. They called you by civilian identity, full name. They said it's really urgent."

Wha-

Lisa.

She dashed straight at him, past the researchers, ignoring their startled yelps, and slid the last two feet to him, yanking the phone out of his hand as he cringed back, a reasonable reaction to someone speeding at you like a car.

She put it on her ear.

"Hello?"

"Hey, so, I think I found your slithering little friend while out on a walk-" Lisa started hurriedly, and was interrupted by a ruffling thud, and the sound of crunching glass.

"Lisa? Lisa?" Her mind raced.

The water wasn't far. She could sprint off the edge, duck underwater, and fly out of here as a bunch of smoke.

"Hey, back! I dropped the phone, whatever, look, I found your snake. I found your coiling little snake and now he's ready to be your pet again instead of terrorizing the rat population!" Lisa rushed out, sounding breathless and slightly manic.

What the fuck was… she…?

An idea rose.

This was a PRT phone. And the number she was calling from was not one of the burner phones.

Past the initial thought of 'what fucking drugs did you take', it didn't take a genius to tell that Lisa was trying to send her a very obvious message without being outright about things.

"But he's pretty fed and happy right now, so I'm kind of in the middle of some really pressing time limits at the moment. The window closes soon, you know?! I managed to get some blood too? So we should hurry for that vet visit before the guy's schedule window closes."

It took a moment to run through possibilities on what else Lisa might mean, but she discarded most of them, because nothing else made sense.

She wasn't sure how, but Lisa had apparently found a way to give her Coil on a silver platter. Did she find his civilian identity and shoot his leg or something? How did she get his blood?

If she wasn't sure it would make Lisa grossed out and probably uncomfortable beyond belief, she could fucking kiss her right now.

"Got it, on my way." She said, and closed the call before shoving the phone into the suited guy's hands, switching from Resolve to the Rune of Domination, half a dozen compasses flaring up in her mind. She focused on the one that had Lisa's mental image and concept attached.

"Miss Maria, there's a bit of a family emergency! We'll reschedule this and the Ward meeting as soon as possible, but I have to go, and I have to go now. Could you please drive me out? Now, fast please?"

The researchers and the suit opened their mouths to either protest or offer help, she didn't know, but Maria agreed first, and a moment later, she was princess-carrying the woman as she sprinted through hallways, ignoring the confused looks she was getting.

Five minutes later and a bunch of hasty excuses given by a ruffled, wide-eyed Maria, they were in her car, speeding down the forcefield bridge on the way to the mainland.

Her foot tapped up and down manically.

"Get to some alley as fast as possible." She said as she rolled down the window with the hand-crank, the ancient vehicle rumbling away underneath her. "Also, please get a better car." She murmured, amazed that this european-looking hunk of junk was still driving.

"Oh, I haven't found a need for better, but if you say so." Maria nodded deferentially, carefully sticking to the speed limit like glue.

The blocks and stops at the front of the pier raised, and they moved down the little street that cut through the boardwalk as she ducked down to avoid being seen.

She could fly out of the window right now, but she didn't known how many cameras or eyes were around to notice how Maria's car was oddly empty. They had to get out of the general vicinity first.

"Found a good alley, just after this turn." Maria said after three mute minutes punctuated by harsh turns and stops.

"Okay. Don't make this suspicious, act like you took a trip to some meeting place to drop me off, claim a friend of mine had found my lost pet snake and he needed an urgent vet visit."

Maria nodded.

She looked at her for a moment.

There was some steel in those eyes. Some razor-sharp focus. And the woman was young. She barely looked a day over twenty.

Maybe she lucked out on her choice, again.

The next time she felt the yank of momentum pull her shoulder to the door, she ducked down even lower, and turned into invisible smoke, shooting up to the sky through the open window and speeding straight to Lisa.

A minute later, she found her laying on the hood of a wrecked piece of junk that had seemingly drove into a dumpster in some random back alley, on her back, clothes singed and cut and burned, only the bodysuit and the waistband of her jeans intact from what she could see, breathing with strain and massaging her chest with her right hand.

She reached for her mind as she shot down.

Lisa. I'm here, don't freak out.

Beside a slight startle, followed by a grimace of pain, Lisa obeyed.

She materialised in front of the car, using Evelynn's soul perception to see if there was anyone nearby, and after a brief check for any eye witnesses, turned off the invisibility, rushing over.

"Hey, I-" Lisa started, and tried to rise.

She hopped onto the hood of the car, feet on either side of Lisa's hips, and shoved her back down with a hand on her shoulder, switching to the Rune of Inspiration to double her Summoner Spells for a moment.

Then Taylor cast two Heal spells in the span of half a second.

The sound loud and the green particles erupting out of Lisa startled her, before the tension in her face faded for relief.

She immediately swapped to the Rune of Resolve and locked in the Guardian effect.

"What the fuck happened to you? Who did this?" She asked calmly as she squatted down, elbows on her knees, and Lisa rolled her eyes beneath her.

"Before you go plotting murder, nobody. I kinda did all this to myself. Someone lit some shit on fire, I walked in, then fought Glory Girl for a moment and fractured a rib while escaping like an idiot. Also I think Amy Dallon now either owes me one, or doesn't, and hates me, depending on who you ask. Doesn't matter. There was an incident at the bank, the Travellers were there doing a job for Coil. They succeeded, but I badly injured one of them with your cards, so I got his blood in my left hand, now lick it up and let's go get that piece of shit now because he just succeeded, and that's when he converges his timelines, and whatever they took they're delivering straight to him. They have a disabled member, so they're bunking in Coil's base. We've got him, Tay." Lisa rushed out like a woman in a lot of rush, played on fast forward, a hateful, vindictive gleam in her eyes and grin. Then she brought her left hand close to her face, opened it, and pushed it up towards her.

She blinked at the pieces of glass for a moment, before the red made her understand, and she snatched them up, switching Runes again.

With only a small amount of hesitation, she separated them and ran her tongue up each piece of glass, before spitting to the side and throwing them behind her back with a lazy flick.

"Whose blood was this?" She asked as another compass needle formed in her mind, side eyeing Lisa as she glanced up at the mouth of the alley.

"Ballistic. Big dude in football-looking gear, more angular, now one-legged. We can apologize later, you can grow him another foot anyway. Let's go." Lisa said, starting to rise, and she shook her head as she pushed her back down by the shoulder.

"Lisa, I hate to sound like a bitch, but you'll just get in the way. I don't have a convenient way to get you there quickly, nor get you down to him, if he's still using his underground base you talked about. I'll go grab him, then I'll come get you immediately and teleport you into his base from our basement so you can access his resources and we can talk about how to deal with him. Alright?" 

Lisa's brows furrowed, her lips pursing.

"But I- I… I just got…" Lisa started, looking for words that wouldn't come, then planted both palms to her face, blowing out a breath of frustration as her nails dug into her skin.

"I can't get you in there while being inconspicuous. You did your part, Lisa. And closure won't come by having you watch me Master him, it'll come when you stroll into his base like you own the place because you fucking will. You can even beat the shit out of him after I'm done, I can heal him with the spell I used on you." She offered, and lowered a hand to squeeze her shoulder.

"Yeah, yeah, you're right. Fuck." Lisa spit out, then raised her hands to push Taylor's knees away from her chest, forcing her to get up.

"Okay, go. I know the way home."

"Alright. Good job, Lisa. Grab you soon." She said as she rose, then smiled and nodded.

She turned into smoke and flew away before she could decipher Lisa's angry grumble.