I’d been expecting a chase.
Instead… nothing.
No pursuit. Just empty sky stretching out behind us.
For reasons I couldn’t begin to guess, the heroes hadn’t followed. Once that settled in, the manic edge of flight eased. Adrenaline bled off slow and heavy, and Ridley’s frantic pace finally tapered down.
We hovered high above the city, swallowed by night. Thick clouds rolled beneath us, smothering the lights below. If anyone bothered to look up, they wouldn’t see a thing.
That was when I heard it.
Faint laughter.
I turned my head.
Igris was perched on Ridley’s back, posture rigid, helmet angled away in what might have been embarrassment. Ridley, the little bastard, was flicking his tail back and forth, the tip tapping against the knight’s armor with deliberate persistence.
I shot Ridley a flat look, then leaned over and gave Igris a light pat on the back.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You followed my order perfectly. Timing was just… unlucky.”
Ridley’s mouth curled into a shit-eating grin.
“Look on the bright side,” I added. “You’re in the lead. One kill to zero.”
That did it.
Igris straightened immediately, pride radiating off him despite the impassive helm. I could practically feel the smugness. Ridley froze mid–tail flick, then slowly turned his head.
I chuckled as the two of them descended into silent, wordless bickering.
The Fool drifted alongside us, sand swirling lazily around his form. I reached out, patted him once, and dismissed him back into the inventory. He vanished without complaint.
Then I focused inward.
The gacha space unfolded in my mind, two tickets floating there.
Bronze and Gold.
I grabbed the bronze first and ripped it.
[A pair of very comfortable socks]
|Trash Item|
Very comfortable. If you managed to roll this out of every treasure in the multiverse inside the gacha, you deserve pity.
I reached into the inventory and pulled them free.
Plain white socks. No glow. No aura. Just socks.
“…Ugh.”
Figures. Not everything was going to be a win.
I didn’t dwell on it.
I tore the gold ticket.
[High Capacity]
|Epic Trait|
You have an extra ability slot.
I grinned.
Now that was more like it.
I slotted in Minor Blessing immediately, then tapped Ridley’s side and focused on speed. Green light flashed briefly before sinking into his scales. He twitched, muscles tightening, wings flexing as if testing the change.
I scanned the bay below and picked out one of the derelict ships drifting away from the docks.
No way I was heading back into the city tonight. Not with the PRT sniffing around, and definitely not with other groups getting curious. That was a headache I didn’t need.
I pointed.
“Go there,” I said. “Fast as you can.”
I almost regretted it.
Ridley launched.
The sky screamed. Wind tore at me hard enough to blur my vision as the world compressed into motion. One moment the ship was distant and dark, the next it was beneath us.
We landed in almost no time at all.
I turned and stared at Ridley.
He had the decency to look bashful.
The ship sat far out in the bay, well clear of the docks. Rust coated every surface. Trash littered the deck. Railings bent and half-collapsed. Definitely abandoned.
I nodded to myself.
Good enough.
Few fliers operated in Brockton, and fewer still had any reason to explore a floating wreck. Lying low overnight, letting Hypnos’ Blessing do its work, then slipping out of the bay quietly to head for the Nine if this panned out—that was the optimal route.
Satisfied, I reached into my inventory and pulled out a small silver bell.
I gave it a shake.
The chime echoed softly through the air, though strangely it didn’t seem to come from the bell itself.
A door opened on the ship.
I turned as it swung open from the inside, and a short elderly man in a pristine butler’s uniform stepped onto the deck. He moved with calm confidence, straightened, and bowed politely.
“Good evening, Mr. Jordan,” Mr. Deeds said. “How may I be of service?”
“Good evening,” I replied, smiling. I paused, weighing how to best request this…
“I would like you to slit Jack Slash’s throat.”
“I’m afraid that cannot be done at this time, sir.” He replied with a slight bow.
“Can you tell me why?”
“I’m quite sorry, sir, but I simply cannot.”
I sighed.
“Of course.”
I hadn’t expected it to be that easy, but I had to be thorough. I listed them one by one, every member of the Nine, hoping to get lucky.
Mr. Deeds refused every request.
“You wouldn’t be able to tell me where they are,” I asked, “or find them at least?”
“No, sir. That is impossible for me.”
Well. There went the optimal speedrun. Original plan it was.
“Can you find Dinah Alcott?”
“I can, sir. Would you like me to bring her here?”
“No—no.” I raised both hands immediately. “Absolutely not. I’m not doing a Coil impression, Jesus.” I paused, reorganizing the request. “I want you to contact her in a way that doesn’t scare her or cause a ruckus.”
“Ah. That I cannot do.”
I frowned. “Why?”
“I do not believe a child would remain calm if a strange man appeared before her in the middle of the night.”
…Ah.
I glanced at the sky. The moon was high and full, clouds thin enough to spill pale light across the bay. Probably close to midnight. Dinah was a middle schooler.
Yeah. That tracked.
“But you’re saying you could,” I said, “just not now.”
“Most likely, sir.”
Fine. I could wait a night. One night wouldn’t kill me.
My stomach growled, faint but insistent. I blinked as I realized I hadn’t eaten in… what, two days? Longer? Hypnos’ Blessing was probably the only reason I wasn’t already falling over.
“Can you get me a sandwich,” I asked, “some chips, and a drink?”
“What kind, sir?”
“Surprise me.”
“As you wish.”
He bowed and turned, disappearing back into the ship. I leaned against the rusted wall and exhaled slowly as the tension finally drained from my shoulders.
Peace and quiet, at last.
Relative peace...
Igris and Ridley had apparently chosen this moment to resume whatever petty rivalry they’d been cultivating. Armor clanked. A tail thumped against metal. A low, indignant rumble answered a sharper scrape as they argued entirely in charades. I could almost see how they were cursing each other out.
I chuckled despite myself. What were they, cats and dogs?
“I’ve returned, sir.”
Mr. Deeds stepped back onto the deck carrying a silver platter. On it sat a thick deli sub stacked generously, a bag of classic barbecue chips, and a couple of cans of Coke.
I didn’t waste time.
The sandwich was incredible. Italian. Loaded with meat and vegetables, exactly how I liked it. The chips were crisp and smoky. The Coke was ice cold.
“Damn,” I said around a bite. “That was good.”
For a moment, sitting on a filthy, abandoned ship in the middle of a hostile bay, I actually relaxed. The chaos of the last few days eased back, just a little.
“Thank you, Mr. Deeds.” I nodded at him.
“My pleasure, sir.”
He didn’t move.
I glanced up. “You’re not going to disappear or something?”
“My apologies, sir. Due to the cooldown, I am currently unable to complete tasks. As such, I must simply remain.”
…Huh.
That gave me ideas.
“So,” I said slowly, “you can still answer whether you could complete a task, assuming you were operating normally.”
“I can, sir.”
“Okay.” I straightened. “Hypothetically, then. Could you buy a bunch of raw fish and find a man named Thomas Calvert…”
What better way to relax than figuring out how to screw over an asshole?
Coil held firmly to the philosophy that one couldn’t be too paranoid. Every moment of every day was a careful balancing act, anticipating unseen threats from every possible angle.
It both satisfied him and deeply annoyed him when that paranoia proved warranted.
In one reality, he was safely ensconced in his underground base, fully costumed, with no fewer than twenty armed soldiers standing between himself and multiple sets of reinforced steel doors. He had spent the night strategizing, issuing orders, and methodically preparing his defenses.
The base was completely hidden, known only to those who worked for him. People who were paid handsomely to keep their mouths shut. No gaps in who should or shouldn’t know where he was.
In another reality, he sat at a small kitchen table with a cup of cooling coffee, quietly following the late-night news. The house was slightly run-down, nestled in a forgettable cul-de-sac. It was well past midnight, and his eyes were red from hours of reading and cross-referencing reports.
This house belonged to a fabricated identity so airtight it bordered on obsessive. A real job at a real company. Medical records, tax filings, dental visits, mortgage payments, all stretching back ten solid years.
So why was this happening?
The doorbell rang again.
With a grimace, Coil slid his hand beneath the table and wrapped his fingers around the pistol taped there. He rose smoothly and crossed the room in a few long strides before opening the front door.
A short, well-dressed Caucasian man stood there, posture perfect, butler attire straight out of a period drama.
“Mr. Calvert, my—”
Coil shot him.
The bullet punched clean through the man’s skull. Blood sprayed, and the body collapsed onto the porch as any normal corpse would.
It almost would have passed as normal.
If not for the dozen other identical corpses already littering his front porch.
Each was the same man. Each dressed the same. Each holding something different. Raw fish. A baseball bat. A dunce cap. The one he’d just shot clutched a small box of glitter. The sheer absurdity of it made his teeth grind.
Having literal dogshit thrown at him had a way of getting to a man.
Even then, despite how absurd it all was, he could have constructed a reason. Some new, insane trigger who had somehow stumbled onto his identity.
Then he looked up.
The sky was wrong. The sun and the moon both hung overhead at the same time, fixed in place like props on a broken stage. The gunshot echoed through the neighborhood, and doors began to open one by one.
An ordinary man stepped out of the house across the street and started walking toward him.
At the same time, that same man was visible through the window, still inside.
The glitch spread everywhere. Children walked down the street toward a school bus despite the pitch-black night. Identical dogs pranced across lawns in looping paths. Copies of copies stacked atop one another, reality tearing at the seams.
If he didn’t know the worlds he created weren’t real, he would have believed he’d finally gone insane.
“Mr. Calvert—”
The butler appeared again.
The exact. Same. One.
“ARGH!”
Coil collapsed that reality without hesitation.
Back in his underground base, he shoved his face into his hands. His jaw was tight, his patience frayed raw by the past hour of absurdity.
“Something is wrong,” he muttered, scowling at the anomaly.
A hiccup like this didn’t happen without reason.
Once more, he split the timelines.
In one reality, he remained in his base, simmering with irritation. Coil moved to his computer and began tearing through his information. The reports hadn’t filtered in yet, but the signs were there. The ripples of a new cape that had already made waves at the Simurgh battle had appeared in Brockton Bay.
But he had only an inkling and nothing more. If his power didn’t work against this cape…
Perhaps it was time to call Tattletale.
In the other reality, he didn’t hesitate. He exited the base at once, issuing clipped orders as he went. All personnel to stand by. Full lockdown. With his power misfiring like this, the odds of being trapped in a bad reality were far too high to ignore.
He loathed the delay, but the risk was unacceptable. If his civilian identity was compromised, everything unraveled.
Damn it all. He had been so close!
It’s fine. It’s fine. This wasn’t over.
He’d already put barriers in place, layers meant to keep the PRT from noticing the girl. If it came to it, he could always hire mercenaries to abduct Dinah, consequences and headaches be damned.
As long as his identity wasn’t exposed, he could fix this.
He forced himself to breathe as he drove out of the city, hands steady on the wheel.
This was only a hiccup—
Cold metal pressed against his temple.
“Wait!” he shouted,
The reality collapsed.
Once more, he was back in his base. Again.
No.
This wasn’t the same eldritch malfunction as before. This was deliberate. An assassination attempt. Tattletale? Or had another player finally noticed him?
He needed to secure the base. Coil reached for his phone and froze.
A letter sat on his desk.
It hadn’t been there before.
Stamped on the front was a simple lowercase c, and his heart sank.
He slid the paper open and read.
Kill him, and your favor is paid back in full.
— C
He seethed. Of all the times!
For a moment, he considered ignoring it.
Then reality intruded. He didn’t have enough leverage to refuse Cauldron.
No. He would treat this as an opportunity instead.
Settle the favor. While removing the rest of the gangs…
Two birds with one stone.
***
Get butler bitched. Anywa as a bonus, I'll be running a 50% discount for my till March 1st for anybody interested
Comments and Thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Likes are like a drug to me and boost my creative juices.
I have advanced chapters on my if you wanna read ahead.