Endbringers Hate Paperwork Part 3 (Patreon)

Contessa didn't even bother to look up from the massive stack of reports she was reading when Eidolon turned to look at her and opened his mouth. "I don't know, he's a blindspot."

Eidolon scowled as he looked across the table at Kurt, a touch annoyed that Contessa could predict his question even though she couldn't path him directly. "Is there a chance that he's Scion's new form?"

Kurt took a drink of his whiskey as he considered the question for a couple of seconds then shook his head, looking over the reports of Scion's disappearance, trying to find any evidence that he wasn't dead. "While it's certainly possible that Scion could change his appearance, I doubt he'd bother."

"If he's not in Brockton Bay moving ships, where is he?" Eidolon asked, frustrated that they couldn't find any trace of the monster after he’d popped like a soap bubble while getting a cat out of a tree.

"Currently we are checking to make sure, but he appears to be dead or gone," Contessa offered, annoyed that he didn't believe her. "I had to recheck most of my paths because they're much shorter without the blindspot he represents getting in the way."

"Do you have any idea how to deal with the endbringers?" Eidolon asked Contessa, unwilling to believe that Scion was actually dead, mostly because there was nothing to indicate that anyone had done anything and after all the sins they’d committed to gain the slightest chance of killing him…

"No," Contessa lied, not wanting to admit that the path she'd tried included building a massive mud pit and buying popcorn. "They remain a blindspot."

"The new cape, is there a chance that he's an endbringer?" Eidolon asked.

"You're reaching," Alexandria warned him.

Eidolon glared at Alexandria. "He levitated a giant fucking cargo ship without the use of tinkertech or any visible signs of strain, that shouldn't be possible!"

"We still have some vials unaccounted for," Doctor Mother pointed out.

"Would any of them make someone grow that large or give them Telekinesis on that level?" Eidolon demanded, certain the answer was no, considering his shard was one of the more powerful ones and he'd have trouble pulling off the same trick without cutting it apart.

"No, which means he probably got lucky or he's using hidden tinkertech to help with the load," Alexandria suggested, going through her own massive stack of reports with ever growing hope as she found nothing to show that Scion had done anything but stop existing for no apparent reason.

Kurt shook his head. "You'd need an impressive amount of force to rip the hull off like we saw in the video, more than someone that triggers naturally should have."

"Which means it's probably an endbringer," Eidolon stated firmly.

"Except for the fact that he was talking to people and actually using contractions and colloquialisms that I doubt that Scion would understand, much less an endbringer," Kurt explained dryly. "You're just annoyed that someone can do something you can't or won't."

"He created a dragon-like construct, that makes him a master, he's fifteen feet tall and someone posted a video of him taking a grenade to the face without any visible injuries which means he's a brute, he can fly which makes him a mover, his telekinesis makes him a shaker and the fact that he can't be precogged makes him a thinker. There is no way he's one of ours or a natural trigger," Eidolon argued.

"What if he's another entity?" Doctor Mother asked.

"No," Contessa cut in, trying to avoid Eidolon going anywhere near the new cape before he had a chance to calm down. "The Earth isn't going to be destroyed in a couple of years or twenty years or twenty thousand years as far as I can tell, if he's an entity, he's not like Scion."

"Can we recruit him?" Alexandria asked, thinking about the number of problems they could solve with a cape that powerful.

"I don't have enough information," Contessa admitted.

"Is it worth calling in one of Coil's favors to run some tests?" Eidolon suggested.

Doctor Mother shook her head. "His power isn't working, he called twenty minutes ago to complain about it."

"More evidence of him being an endbringer," Eidolon argued.

"Just because he's stronger than you doesn't mean he's an endbringer!" Alexandria snapped, annoyed at David for bringing down her mood with his obvious insecurities.

"He appeared out of nowhere, near the school and saved a girl, what if he's like the Siberian?" Kurt suggested.

"A projection?" Eidolon mused. "That's a hell of a power set, but the Siberian is one of the most terrifying monsters we've ever run into, so there is precedence."

Alexandria scowled as she thought of the bastard that had killed Hero and betrayed them. "We should consider killing Manton now that Scion is dead."

"We might need him against the endbringers," Doctor Mother pointed out.

"If you want him, grab him and erase his memories, maybe you'll get something we can use," Alexandria argued.

"That would reduce the number of natural triggers, triggers we might need to fight Scion," Doctor Mother argued. “Until we are one hundred percent positive Scion is gone, we need him.”

"She has a point," Eidolon agreed. "We don't know for certain that he's dead."

"He's dead," Contessa cut in, quite sure he was dead as every path was dozens if not hundreds of steps shorter.

Alexandria mentally ran through several arguments that might be able to convince the cold hearted woman that Manton was uncontrollable and not worth the resources before admitting that it was mostly just a numbers’ game to the woman and that she didn't care about the people the lunatic killed as long as it increased the chance of creating new capes by a couple of percent. "Door to the back of William Manton's head."

"Don't…" Doctor Mother trailed off with a scowl as Alexandria moved like greased lightning and obliterated the man's head with a punch before the portal could finish expanding all the way.

Alexandria pulled her gore covered hand back. "We should have done that back when he’d killed Hero."

"The Siberian could have been useful against the endbringers!" Doctor Mother snapped, glaring at Alexandria. “Even if, and it is not yet certain that Scion is dead yet, if Scion is dead, we still have a number of tasks we need to perform to stabilize Earth Bet."

Alexandria glared at the 'Doctor', letting her see her rage at the fact that nothing they'd done had actually mattered in the end beyond covering their hands in a river of innocent blood. "I gave you a chance, all you had to do was grab him, knock him out and erase his mind."

"Contessa could have convinced him to be useful," Doctor Mother argued.

“Then you should have done as I’d suggested and wiped his mind, you didn’t so I removed him,” she said smugly. “We can deal with one less murder hobo in the world, in fact it’ll probably make all our jobs easier or at least more pleasant, I know I’m in a much better mood now.”

Doctor Mother turned to look at Contessa. "We can still save this, we just need to find someone to replace the Siberian, it might even increase the number of powerful capes that trigger."

Contessa winced when she ran a path for that particularly stupid idea and realized they'd end up dead in a week if they helped the Nine now that Scion was dead. "Doormaker, I need a door under Jack Slash, drop him on the docks in Brockton Bay, he can stress test the telekinetic."

"Have you lost your fucking mind?!" Alexandria demanded. "You're trying to give the Nine someone that can toss cargo ships!"

Contessa shook her head. "It was the easiest way to deal with Jack, since he is no longer necessary for any of my paths and represents a danger to us."

Doctor Mother turned to look at Contessa. "How?"

"I've been running paths since Scion disincorporated himself, I can't find a way to keep Jack alive longer than a couple of months and that one involves dropping him in a nightmarish jungle world so he can die in a jungle, he's dead within a week in every other path, same with Crawler and Hatchet Face. If I try to save him, all paths involving everyone in this room end in exactly one week’s time. Well, except for David, as I still can’t path him, but he’ll no doubt end up dead as well," Contessa said casually, before sliding an empty glass across the table to Kurt so he could refill it for her.

"How?" Alexandria asked.

"I don’t have a path that leads me to that information,” she replied, “but it seems rather obvious a blindspot is involved, so unless David is going to decide to ‘go postal’ at work… I’m at a loss.”

"That implies a connection with the new case 53," Kurt mused as he poured Contessa another glass. "Or with someone that used to work for us, unless we are going with David finally losing it." He took a sip of his whiskey to cover his grin.

"Do you have any good news?" Alexandria asked.

"I know how to kill the Butcher without creating another one. Door, under the Butcher and twenty feet above Hatchet Face," Contessa said, following the path that kept everyone in the room from dying in a week.

"If we're dealing with threats, we should deal with Nilbog," Eidolon suggested, hoping he could get a proper fight out of it, one that actually had meaning and improved the world in a way he could see.

Alexandria nodded. "We're going to need an excuse for why we didn't deal with him earlier."

"Blame the precogs," Contessa suggested, not particularly worried about that part of the plan, they could easily spin things as Eidolon finding a decent combination of powers that finally got the green light. "You'll need a power to contain his creations that doesn't involve fire," she reminded him, thinking about the previous warning they'd gotten from Watchdog about using fire.

"I have a couple of ideas," Eidolon admitted, thinking about his notebook filled with ideas he'd passed over because they didn’t have the resources to devote to removing him from the board.

Alexandria glanced at the clock hung on the white wall. "I need to get back, is there anything pressing?" she asked, wanting time to decompress before she had to get back to work.

"If we're going to keep the base safe, we'll need to move all the case 53s within a week," Contessa warned them.

"Why?" Doctor Mother asked.

"I don't know, the path doesn’t give me specifics," Contessa reminded her. She glanced at Alexandria. "If we don't move them the path to keeping Doormaker safe collapses."

"What happens if we kill the new telekinetic?" Eidolon asked.

"Blindspot," Contessa replied dryly. "I have a feeling there would be one less blindspot afterwards and I'm not sure it would be him."

Eidolon scowled as he considered the idea that he might have lost his spot as the most powerful parahuman around. "We need to find a way to kill him in case he's an endbringer."

"I'll work on it," Contessa said, telling him what he wanted to hear.

"Leave the telekinetic alone, we don't need the hit to our PR right now," Alexandria warned Eidolon. "Give him a chance to show his true colors, he seems decently heroic so far."

"Fine," Eidolon complained, mentally shifting gears to figuring out what powers he'd need for dealing with Nilbog. "Door, my office."

Alexandria took a drink of her whiskey as she watched David stalk through the portal. She turned to look at Contessa once the portal closed. "Is there a reason you two were winding him up?"

"I'm running a path to make sure Eidolon doesn't crack, I can't predict him perfectly but I know him well enough to get close," Contessa explained.

Kurt finished another sip of his whiskey, savoring the taste. "Yeah, that's the reason, nothing to do with him being an annoying asshole half the time."

Doctor Mother put her face in her hands and sighed, fairly sure the world was doomed.

Kurt slid a glass of whiskey to the frustrated woman. “Have a drink, try and adapt to our new reality. Scion is gone, our darkest actions may have been meaningless or they may have been the reason he decided to stop existing and we will probably never know which option is true. What is important is what we do now.”

“That makes me feel somewhat better,” Alexandria said thoughtfully.

“All the case 53s we created could well have been what eventually caused him to decide to end it,” Contessa offered. “We know that he avoided them as much as possible.”

She nodded and then frowned. “Are you saying that because it is true or is it a path?”

“Path to making you less of a bitch,” Contessa replied, not even looking up from her work.

Alexandria pinched the bridge of her nose. “I think the path would have been more effective without you telling me that.”

“Yes, but you are much less of an ass than David is and I can path you, you are relatively stable,” she offered.

Alexandria chuckled and shook her head. “Door to my office.”

0o0o0

Myst almost missed a step when a familiar and unwanted power appeared on his mental list of powers he could copy. 'What the fuck is Jack doing in the city?' he asked himself as he watched the pair of attractive blonde giants walking down the street towards him. "What do you want?"

"We want to offer you a place in the Empire," Fenja offered.

"No thanks, I'd rather inspire people to be better than to tear them down," Myst replied as he studied the two giants dressed like movie valkyries. "Not to mention that I like dogs, I'd have to beat the shit out of Hookwolf and that's probably a deal breaker for Kaiser."

"It wasn't a request," Menja told him.

"I'm curious, can you swim?" Myst asked, wanting to make sure the girls knew how to swim before he tossed them in the bay.

"Why?" Fenja asked warily.

"Because I have it on good authority that Jack Slash is in town and I'd like to twist his head off his body and pop him like a zit before he gets a bunch of people killed. You're probably going to try to stop me from tracking him down so I'm going to pick you up with telekinesis and toss you into the bay. I wanted to make sure that you could swim so that I don't get a murder charge, I hate paperwork and having the police shooting at me or calling in heroes to arrest me is problematic."

"Problematic?" Menja asked.

"Exactly, it's not morally wrong to kill Nazis, it's just currently illegal," Myst replied as he continued walking towards where he could sense Jack, wondering how the asshole had gotten into the middle of his range without noticing him.

Fenja shook her head. "We're not Nazis, that political party disbanded sixty years ago."

"Fair enough," Myst admitted. "Are you going to get out of the way or are you going swimming?"

"If Jack Slash is in the city he needs to be dealt with. Is the Siberian around?" Menja asked warily.

"Not that I know of," Myst replied, fairly sure he'd be able to sense Manton if he was close enough for the Siberian to be a problem. 'I can't sense the rest of them so maybe Jack is just scouting? Makes as much sense as anything else.'

"Lead the way," Fenja suggested, not particularly interested in ending up in the bay.

Myst stared at the twins, surprised they were actually doing something reasonable. 'They probably just want part of the PR,' he mused as he continued down the street, ignoring the people pointing camera phones at him. 'I should have just tossed them into the bay.'

Thankfully it didn't take all that long to find Jack, mostly because he could sense his power.

[You should miss], the Broadcast shard ordered.

[To the left or right?] Myst asked as he focused on the man with a goatee that was looking at Myst with a smirk.

Fenja shivered as she recognized Jack Slash from the various times she'd seen pictures of him on the news.

[Left], the shard replied as it prepared to tell its host to dodge.

Myst reached out with his telekinesis and caught the man as he dived to the side, before he twisted the man's head around one hundred and eighty degrees, not seeing a point in giving Jack an opportunity to talk on the off chance that he actually could master capes or manipulate endbringers.

[You were supposed to let him dodge!] the shard complained.

Menja gulped when she realized the telekinetic that could lift cargo ships wasn't Manton limited and wasn't particularly fond of white supremists. 'Shit!'

[Next time, pick a better host], Myst replied then closed the connection. He levitated the dead cape into the air. "I need to drop his body off with the PRT, you should probably leave unless you want part of the bounty."

"Part of the bounty?" Fenja asked, surprised that he'd be willing to share.

"He's a mass murdering psychopath, if the bounty isn't enough to retire, I'd be surprised," Myst replied as he floated the dead cape over to where they were standing, ignoring the civilians that were taking pictures or running.

"You'd give us part of the bounty?" Menja asked in surprise.

"That depends, are you willing to quit the Empire?" Myst asked.

"Are you seriously trying to recruit us?" Fenja asked in disbelief.

"No, I'm trying to take a couple of capes off the street," Myst argued, not particularly interested in working with someone that was willing to join something like Fenrir's Chosen. "How much is Kaiser paying you?" he asked, his lips curving up into a smile as he remembered the scene where Mal recruited Jayne in Firefly.

"Not enough," Menja admitted.

"Oni Lee blew himself up and I tossed a broken Lung at Armsmaster's feet. How long do you think it will take before Kaiser sends one of his idiots to do something stupid enough that I'll be willing to deal with the paperwork?"

"Oni Lee is dead?" Menja asked, glad the psychopath was dead as he'd killed a number of her friends over the years.

"Explosives are dangerous," Myst replied. "You have a chance, take the money, get some therapy and be better."

Fenja shook her head. "Kaiser wouldn't let us walk away, he doesn't like losing."

"Just tell him that you're going on vacation," Myst suggested as they started walking towards the PRT building to turn in the bounty. “Pretty sure he’ll cease to be a problem before you get back.”

Fenja took a breath and thought about Max's personality and how he'd basically jumped into bed with her and Jessica before he was officially separated from Kayden. 'How long until he tosses us to the side for someone younger, five years? Ten? How long until a hero with an axe to grind kills us? Screw it, worst case, we take the deal and spend a year or two in Hawaii.' She glanced at her twin and noticed that she was considering it. "I wouldn't mind a few million and a pardon."

"I'm sure we can work something out," Myst said, not looking forward to the paperwork he was probably going to have to fill out to get the money and to make sure the twins didn't stick around. 'Are you doing this because they're hot or because you think you can save them?'

He considered the question as they walked to the PRT building with Jack's corpse floating in front of them. 'They were raised by a nut job and I doubt they're even twenty. Would I make the same deal with Hookwolf?' He frowned as he thought about some of the pictures he'd seen on the news over the years of dog fighting victims. 'Yeah, not a chance. At least Crusader had a reason, his parents were nuts,' he thought as they reached the square in front of the PRT building where there were about two dozen agents with their guns pointed at them. "We come in peace!"

"Are you part of the Empire?" one of the PRT agents demanded.

"No, we're just here to turn in a bounty for Jack Slash," Myst assured them.

"We're done with the Empire," Fenja assured them, keeping her hands where they could see them. 'Max isn't going to be happy but fuck it, I want a couple of million and a vacation.'

"As part of a deal, Menja and Fenja are retiring from the Empire in exchange for a share of the bounty provided you can arrange a pardon."

"What?" the captain asked, not sure he'd heard them correctly.

"The girls fell into a bad crowd and they want a chance to do something more productive with their lives. I'm sure there's room to negotiate," Myst argued, reasonably sure the PRT could swing something if it got two dangerous capes off the street.

"We'll have to confirm that this is actually Jack Slash," the captain replied, knowing that was the first step before they made any promises.

"Understandable," Myst agreed, hoping it didn't take all night, as it looked like it was going to rain and he wasn’t sure where he could rent a ballroom to sleep in. 'Worst case, it doesn't work and you'll bring them in later, no, worst case is this mess tanks your reputation or makes it harder to protect Taylor. Screw it, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, you can't save everyone but you can't save anyone unless you try.'