Bob and Nemesis stood around in a circle, having put the jet on autopilot for the moment. Elise’s robotic eye lit up and displayed a holographic ILS HQ building in between the group. Bob heaved a sigh.

“So, let’s review the situation. Elise has determined some sort of time disturbance at the ILS’s main HQ. By accessing the ILS’s own systems, she’s pinpointed the exact location as the ILS’s Vault. However, the Vault’s security is such that she cannot determine anything further.”

Bob took a deep breath.

“So…we need to get Elise into the ILS vault so she can determine exactly what happened there.”

“Question!”

“...yes, Saydaa?”

“Didn’t you like, hide drones or something there already?”

“Yes, but after the incident with Linda Director Green conducted a full-scale revamp of the ILS’s security. As the drones would have been discovered at that point, we had them destroyed to prevent capture.”

“What the heck?! Those drones catch me every single time and now they suddenly don’t work?! Be honest, you’re only using them to stalk us, aren’t you boss-man?! And killer robot girl you can’t just hack the Vault? I didn’t think there was anything that could stop you like that!”

“Defensive Explanation: Vault security currently utilizes a completely isolated network. The dumb noobs informed Director Green as to this unit’s intrusion on ILS systems. She was unable to fully evict this unit from standard ILS network, but had an entirely separate system built for the Vault as a result. This unit would require physical contact with that network to gain access.”

“Can’t you like, send viruses through some kind of radio wave or something like that?”

Bob shook his head.

“The Vault is completely insulated and sealed off from the outside by both technological and magical means. It has its own Mass Suppressor dedicated entirely to protecting the Vault and incapacitating any would-be intruder. It has all sorts of magic runes and wards put in place by the best mages the ILS has access to, including a void barrier put in place by Voidspeaker that will simply drain any energy attempting to pass through. Which means Elise herself can’t even get into the Vault without having her cybernetic components temporarily disabled, so we can’t even sneak her in either.”

At that, Nana groaned and held her head.

“That idiot senpai. So now you can do geometry and complex magic formulas, huh? Where was that on the first semester test, huh? He’s so annoying.”

Elise placed a hand on Nana’s shoulder.

“Sympathetic Statement: This unit has also suffered due to Aurora Legion’s lacking capabilities and understands friendly Nana’s pain. Recommendation: Would friendly Nana like to inflict virtual violence on Voidspeaker and his romantic partner after mission conclusion?”

“Yes.”

“Focus, you two.”

Arvid crossed his arms and frowned.

“I imagine the true problem is not getting past the actual defenses, but the fact that any breach will be immediately detected, is it not?”

Bob nodded.

“That’s right.”

Arvid simply smiled.

“I suppose you already have a plan for that, though?”

Bob smirked.

“The weakest part of any security system…are the people using it.”

Londyn and her staff were hard at work in her office, late into the evening. After all, she had to organize a global manhunt for two shadow masterminds of Bob’s capabilities, which meant pulling out all the stops to even have a chance.

Oh, and she absolutely couldn’t allow that hunt to cause any delays in the efforts to reverse engineer Vophae tech. She could not allow the advanced wrecks drifting among the Solar System to fall into the wrong hands under any circumstances, after all. Which also meant constantly deflecting half the Council’s efforts to either obstruct her or gain access to the ILS R&D department.

And then there were the ongoing negotiations between the UN, the ILS, and the AVS. Those negotiations were critical as they would set the direction of human (and monster) society just as the people of Earth were about to gain access to the stars. She absolutely needed to stay involved in and in charge of that discussion, which meant playing politics to the full.

And of course, her main assistant Wilson had gone missing and was presumed dead during the Battle for Earth.

What all this meant was that even with her expanded staff and as much delegation as she could manage, Londyn and her team were working overtime.

So of course, they were all very stressed and exhausted towards the end of each day.

So when a crucial document one of them was waiting for arrived in his inbox, he immediately downloaded it and got to work. There was an official process for these things that he wasn’t sure was followed to the letter but contacting the necessary parties to verify if it had would add at least an hour, if not several, before he could finish that report the Director absolutely needed by tomorrow. All he knew was the document was there, it had come from an ILS address, and that if he finished up that report he could actually eat dinner out of the office for once.

So he assumed the process had been followed by the sender and got to work.

And when his screen flickered slightly he assumed it was just eye-strain. He rubbed his eyes and got back to work.

And no one noticed when the Director’s own computer screen flickered shortly after that…

Saydaa crossed her arms.

"Ok, so, killer robot girl hacks the boss-lady's computer and gives us all super classified access to the top secret vault. She's still going to get disabled the moment she hits that void barrier and then the jig is up. So how is she going to get past that?"

Bob shrugged.

"She's not."

"She's not?!"

Bob smiled and glanced at Kiyosuke.

“You are.”

A girl and a boy walked into the ILS HQ. They wore suits and sunglasses, nodding at the receptionist. They scanned their employee badges and made their way into the staff-only part of the building, arriving at the restricted elevator. They displayed their IDs to the guards and scanned both the IDs and their fingerprints on a security panel, after which the elevator doors opened up.

They made their way down to the Vault. The Vault then had its own security check. A full biometric scan, looking for everything from facial structure and fingerprints to eye scans and voice confirmation down to an analysis of the person’s stride. Detection for magical energies and a light dousing of void energy that would remove any sort of magical illusions. Not to mention yet another ID check. And a simple schedule check. Even the Director would not be permitted access if she had not set up an appointment via the appropriate method.

And yet…

The pair passed all the checks. Their profiles were listed as approved, their IDs were in order, and they had an appointment. The void scan didn’t reveal any illusions and they weren’t carrying anything restricted on their person, so they were allowed inside.

Saydaa, and Kiyosuke couldn’t help but to glance at one another and smile.

They were in.

From there Saydaa simply formed a sword out of magic and passed it to Kiyosuke. He cut the air and Elise appeared with a flash of light.

And then they got to work…

Arvid crossed his arms once more as he glanced over the HQ blueprints and the notes on the security system.

“A clever plan as always, but there’s another issue. Even if Elise hacks the Director’s computer to add Kiyosuke and Saydaa to the system and gives them an appointment, part of the process is that all entry into the Vault is reported straight to the Director. The deception will be revealed the moment she hears about it. The team may not have enough time to do what they need to do and escape.”

Bob nodded.

“Yes, that is a problem. But one with an easy solution.”

“Oh? And what’s that?”

“We give her something bigger to focus on.”

Arvid rubbed his chin.

“What could distract her such that she fails to check on the Vault?”

Bob smirked.

“Me.”

“Director, we got a hit!”

Londyn almost fell out of her chair.

“What?!”

“Small security cam on a corner store caught sight of the target! He entered into the sewers in the direction of that EL Bank we were keeping an eye on.”

Londyn rushed for the door.

“Get me a grav-jet and every free asset and hero in the area! Let’s go people, this is our only shot!”

Londyn did have doubts that Bob would make such an obvious mistake. Which is why she was so flustered the large-scale facial recognition scan she had ordered more for formality’s sake had actually produced a hit. But it was a small private security cam for a local corner store. Even Bob couldn’t know everything. It was reasonable he may have missed such a small thing, or at least not realized that particular camera was accessible by the ILS.

In either case, she needed to act quickly. A simple facial recognition scan was a method available to every intelligence agency on Earth of sufficient scale and capability, and so every single one of them would get this hit sooner or later. Even if she had doubts on if this hit was genuine, the rest of the world would not, and would be moving in to apprehend Bob.

So she needed to get there first, on the off-chance this was a rare mistake by Bob. She did not want to consider what would occur if Bob got tortured by the CIA. Or rather, she knew exactly what would occur.

Londyn grabbed her phone and immediately started calling up the heroes she had on standby for this, the ILS staff, and even the local authorities to coordinate. So busy was her phone during that moment that she didn’t notice a call from the Vault security staff until later. They sent someone to inform her in person since they couldn’t get a hold of her but she had already left to oversee an operation in-person.

Informing the Director was a formality for the most part, as everything else was in order for the two visitors. Policy did not require the Vault staff to bar entry in this case, and the issue did not seem particularly urgent since the pair had an approved appointment, so once they had tried everything they could to reach the Director, they simply left her a message and went on about their business.

So it took a bit longer than it was supposed to for Londyn to be made aware that someone had entered the Vault.

And by the time she did, the intruders were gone.

Nemesis had gone completely silent. All eyes turned to Bob.

Eventually, Arvid broke the silence with a sigh.

“This problem should go without saying but…how are you going to escape?”

Bob continued to smirk.

“That’s simple. I’m not just letting the ILS find me. I’m letting everyone find me.”

Bob climbed out of a tunnel into an abandoned warehouse, filled with dusty boxes, some larger than a truck. He heaved a sigh as he pinched his nose. He was getting too old to be skulking about the sewers.

Time travelers really were so annoying.

He checked his watch and nodded. Everything should be on schedule.

It wasn’t long before he heard the sounds of jets and sirens all around him. Eventually, the doors of the warehouse slammed open. Captain Hot Devil walked inside, a team of supers taking positions by the doors.

Bob simply sat on a box as the hero approached him.

“Captain.”

“Bob, was it?”

“That’s my name.”

“Are you going to surrender?”

“Not exactly.”

Captain Hot Devil took a deep breath.

“Look, Bob. You’re surrounded. You can’t escape me now, and even if you do we have a full team of supers and drones scouring every inch of this place. The regular authorities are right behind us. And the Director and I both owe you. You come in with us, we’ll make sure to protect you. Even now, Londyn’s arguing with some suits from the government, buying time for us. Because they brought some helicopters I’m pretty sure are holding either a JSOC team or some secret CIA hit squad. Neither of us want to see you hurt, you can trust us.”

“Well, I do appreciate that. Still, I refuse.”

Captain Hot Devil heaved a sigh and took a step forward.

“You know I can’t let you go, right?”

Bob smirked.

“Well, you’ll have to get in line.”

Just then the ground burst open. Captain Hot Devil swore and leapt back, fire blazing around his hands.

“AHAHAHAHA! I finally found you, Bob! Prepare yourself! I deleted all the WIFI passwords so you won’t hack me again! You’re not getting away this time!”

Giant undead spiders burst into the room, followed by Arachnalich.

“The leader of the AVS? What are you doing here?”

“Hm? Oh, the heroes huh? Get out of my way, I’m not here for you.”

Captain Hot Devil raised his fists.

“We’re in the middle of an arrest, Arachnalich. Or are you saying Bob is one of yours?”

Her eyes narrowed.

“One of mine, you say? No.”

She licked her lips.

“He’s my prey. Do not come between the spider and her prey.”

Captain Hot Devil had seen Arachnalich personally, and knew enough of the situation not to immediately escalate things into a fight. In fact, if Bob was her prey, they should be able to come to an agreement.

The other heroes who had come with him and were securing the entrances to the warehouse did not know this. He had asked them to give him some space, a chance to talk with Bob one on one after all, so they did not hear the conversation either. So all they knew was that a bunch of giant undead spiders had erupted from the ground in front of the Captain.

And so they immediately responded.

The Captain didn’t have a chance to tell them to hold before an attack struck the spiders.

And once it did the spiders immediately counterattacked.

“Stop! Arachnalich, call them off!”

“Oh I don’t think so.”

A spider stepped in front of Captain Hot Devil, obscuring Arachnalich from his view. The hero swore. No helping it now.

Arachnalich was about to become deeply enraged, however.

Because Bob wasn’t sitting on the box anymore.

The moment Arachnalich had arrived, he had slipped away, entering a hidden door on one of the largest boxes.

Inside was a giant undead spider, with a small metal door on its thorax. Bob opened the door and climbed inside. He pressed some buttons.

A previously prepared invisibility spell activated and hid the spider from view.

Then the mecha-undead spider acted on preprogrammed orders and climbed into a tunnel in the ground. Once a decent way down it dug horizontally until it reached Arachnalich’s own tunnel.

And then the spider climbed away, no one the wiser as both technological and magical surveillance only reported Arachnalich's undead minions moving through the area.

Londyn ended the day with a pounding migraine. A fight between the ILS and the AVS, with the US government all around. An absolute political disaster just waiting to happen if she didn’t handle this perfectly. And no trace of Bob, save for Captain Hot Devil’s testimony that he was, in fact, there at some point.

Oh, and she got word that someone had accessed the Vault in the meantime, supposedly with her full approval. Someone she determined was Nemesis once she checked the security footage.

She rubbed her temples.

“Bob…you’re so annoying!”