“Chris! Didn’t you just…” The kid said, pointing over his shoulder with a frown.

A moment later his eyes widened.

“You’re not Chris.”

“No!” Perry shouted. “That stupid kid from earlier switched places with me!”

“Oh? What’s my name?” The lean teen asked, raising his chin inquisitively

Perry heaved a breath.

“You’re actually the first person with two brain cells to rub together. Congratulations.” Perry said, adopting a fighting stance.

“You think I can’t stop you?” the kid asked, his muscles gradually swelling.

“I think only a Wildcard could,” Perry said with a shrug.

“I am over a hundred times stronger than a normal human!” he shouted, his voice deepening as he enlarged. “I bench thirty thousand pounds!”

“Just so I can dial this in to an appropriate amount of force,” Perry said. “Can you grow your eyeballs back?”

The meatball towering over him paused, and Perry could see the scales tip in his eyes.

“…We didn’t see each other,” The eight-foot monster said, motioning for Perry to pass by him.

“I’m always pleasantly surprised at how reasonable bruisers can be,” Perry muttered, grabbing Ava’s hand and tiptoeing past the big guy. The common perception of them as muscleheads really did them dirty.

A minute later, a blur of motion in the corner of his eye informed Perry that there was a speedster approaching.

He was moving about a hundred times faster than a normal human, which put him about five times faster than Perry.

Very fast, but not impossible, especially if…

Light.exe

Perry blasted the rapidly approaching speedster with light, causing the boy to close his eyes.

Perry clotheslined him, causing Ava to squeak as a blur tumbled past them at speeds she couldn’t even make out.

Whistling, Perry continued sauntering through Temple, stepping over the groaning speedster, his shirt showing an imposter from Among Us. I don’t think the East coast has this game, Shirt Demon.

Okay, I can see two potential ways to get out of here.

#1 we hoof it all the way outside the compound’s anti-teleport field.

Pro: It takes us further away from the facility and the people inside, and it’s a very simple concept. Run as far as possible.

Con: It brings us out into the open and all the teen supers will get a bead on us and start a hell of a chase. And if there’s any more speedsters, they’re definitely going to catch up. It’ll probably be a fight all the way to the end.

#2 We head deeper into the facility and disable the field, then pop out of existence a moment later.

Pro: Less distance involved = quicker escape, not out in the open where everyone can see at once, means less people to fight at any one time.

Con: Unknown defenses at the field generator, possibly more powerful supers guarding it to prevent this particular tactic. Higher risk, higher reward.

Perry wasn’t sure which one gave them a better shot at escape.

“Well, this seems like a perfect opportunity to try out a new spell,” Perry muttered to himself. He’d tried it in arguments with Heather before, but this would be the first combat test.

“May I have your hands?” Perry asked, holding his out.

The Minder frowned and grabbed his hands.

Paradox’s Probability Dodge.exe

Paradox’s Probability Dodge (Difficulty: Master)

Ingredients: Death Crystal, Feather of Gorm, Realm-Piercing Crystal, Vivant root, Power Stone, Blood of the caster. Reality stabilizer.

Use Reality Stabilizer to allow for manipulation of the Gorm Feather. Always use thick nitrile gloves when handling Death Crystal. Be careful of symbolism while handling Realm-Piercing Crystal.

Infuse The Feather of Gorm with Vivant root, compress feather into a small square on the end of a multi-faceted Realm-Piercing Crystal as shown on Graph 1a. cut the Death Crystal into a cap for the feather as shown in 1b.

Back away to a safe distance and turn off Reality Stabilizer. If the seal is perfect, the Gorm Feather won’t explode out and kill you with Death Crystal Shrapnel.

Once this step is complete, infuse the Death Crystal with the caster’s Fate, drawn from their blood. You should feel a slight physical drain. That’s normal.

Once the Death Crystal is charged, strike the Death crystal cap with the Power Stone to activate the spell.

This spell is excellent for gambling, combat, or arguments with your sort-of wife’s lover… Really any situation in which there’s a high probability that things will go poorly, really. The Master difficulty lies not in using the spell, but creating it, as many of the ingredients are rare and highly dangerous.

Once it has been created, a small sacrifice will allow the user to double down on a specific moment in time, spending potential in one area to ensure a positive outcome. The effect mimics Gorm’s intentional choice of probability collapse in the fourth dimension.

A slightly transparent Perry and Ava appeared on the other side of the hallway, holding hands.

The Avas caught sight of each other, and flinched.

“What are they?” Both Avas asked.

“Think of them as…a decoy,” Both Perry’s said, pointing at each other. Highly inaccurate, but it got the point across. She really didn’t need to know the specifics. Therin lay existential dread.

“We’ll go this way,” Both Perry’s said, pointing over their shoulder, “and they’ll go that way.”

Perry was closer to the generator, so he decided to go deeper. Other Perry turned and went the other way, Other Ava following behind, casting confused glances at the two of them.

“Okay, let’s go this way,” Perry said, using Multi-tool to measure the Anti-teleportation field, homing in on its source. They dodged a couple patrols and snuck their way into the Generator room.

The room was dark save for the humming machine in the center of the room, spinning a sphere of teleportation-disrupting essences thousands of times per second, creating randomly oscillating dimensional waves that would tear a delicate portal to shreds.

Little lights on the side of the machine where the on and off buttons resided were the only light to see by.

Perry clicked the light on to get a better look at it.

It was an older model. By that, Perry meant it was six months old, and the research team at the dragon’s personal research lab had already come up with three new design improvements.

Well, implementation can never quite keep up with theory, Perry thought as he reached out to pull the plug on the machine. It physically pained him to destroy something he helped create, and if he broke it, they would just get a better one to replace it.

If he ever had to infiltrate Temple again, he’d rather they keep the old, shitty anti-teleportation field generator.

“Paradox Zauberer. Stop.”

Perry froze, his body teetering on the edge of falling over as something severed his ability to move.

“It seems like that really is your name.” Severe Bun Woman said, approaching from the doorway, like an evil, sexy principal, flanked by no less than three full-blooded Acolytes.

The places my head goes, I swear.

“I have a list of names to try on intruders. Guess who’s on the top of the list?” She asked, approaching. “You may speak.”

“Santa Claus?” Perry guessed.

I wonder if I could get past this lady and her goons without killing em. It wasn’t looking good, since she’d already figured out who he was and seemed to have a power that let her control people with their names.

Way too good of a Wildcard ability. Wonder what the rules are? Makes sense she’d be a principal in a cult/high school for supers, though.

“Very funny. I don’t know why Tyrannus would devote the slightest consideration to someone like you. I suppose I’ll learn more when I deliver you to him in chains.”

“I hate to burst your bubble, but we’ll probably have a good laugh about it. We’re the best of frenemies.” Perry replied.

Although this might just change that.

“Don’t you DARE speak of my lord as if he was an equal!”

SLAP

“OW!”

The severe bun-woman clutched her hand, scowling at Perry like it was his fault she hurt herself trying to slap him.

Yeah, I’m harder than wood. Duh. Wait…

“So you need to know someone’s name in order to control them?” Perry asked, glancing at Ava trembling beside him, hoping she’d get the hint. “Can you only stop one person at a time?”

Severe Bun glanced over at the Minder, her eyes widening minutely with concealed fear, limbs tensing like someone seeing a tiger loose in the living room hallway. The brief instant of fear was immediately concealed behind a mask of anger. “Ava, you wretched child, what are you doing outside the Mind wing?”

“I-I, Um…I don’t-“

“Return to your room this instant.”

“I…okay.” Ava slumped and turned towards the door to leave, head hung low as she walked around the three Acolytes.

Perry’s heart sank.

Guess I’m gonna have to kill her. Perry thought, warming up the lethal spell-selection. With balanced Attunement, he found committing murder deeply distasteful, but he weighed it against the future of his family…

But Severe Bun pushed her advantage a little too hard.

“Your mere presence corrupts the minds of others, you should be grateful that-“

Perry had never witnessed The Last Straw on someone other than himself. It was pretty impressive. And scary. In like…a strangely arousing sort of way.

Ava turned back around with a snarl, an emaciated banshee of pure psychic energy flying out of herself and locking onto the woman’s brain.

Severe Bun began screaming and clawing out her eyes until Ava jumped on top of her, scratching, biting and shrieking in wordless rage, the word ‘grateful’ howled at nearly subaudible frequencies, with a level of visceral emphasis that Perry could see literally vibrating dimensional energy.

Obviously there’s some backstory there, Perry thought as his body un-froze, lunging towards the stunned Acolytes, flinging the Pernicious Prison their direction.

The inky black webbing engulfed the three acolytes and brought them to the ground as Ava climbed off the headmistress.

“She won’t remember your name,” Ava said, panting as she turned to him, her mouth and hands covered in blood.

Perry glanced down at the unmoving corpse.

“Yeah, probably not.”

“Listen, Ava, if I didn’t have…” Perry choked off the thought and shook the weirdness out of head. Or…tried.

What is it about girls committing violence that’s so goddamn hot? Oh my god, did I get it from my parents? I did, didn’t I? I’ve got the damned super hero kink gene. Damn you dad.

“Let’s go.” Perry said, offering his hand.

“Y-You’re not afraid of me?” Ava asked.

Ava was no more dangerous to him than a hamster, but he probably shouldn’t say that part out loud.

“Nope.”

“Because you’re an inhuman monster like me?” She asked, twirling a lock of blood-soaked hair.

“…Sure. C’mon,” Perry said, motioning for her to follow as he moved to turn off the field generator.

A blur of motion from the door was all Perry caught before Ava collapsed into a pile of ash.

There, a speedster with a light-based tinker weapon. Shit.

Perry flung out a hand to cast a shield, but the speedster was much faster, pulling the trigger before Perry’d even gotten his hand up.

HP 10 -> 0

He dodged to the side, the HP shielding warding off enough pulses from the beam to allow him to get away with only losing his right arm and a chunk of his shoulder.

“Shit,” Perry muttered. They weren’t messing around anymore. Killing the headmistress had taken the kid’s gloves off. A speedster with a disintegration ray was basically unstoppable without being way, WAY faster.

Well, if you wanna go that route…

Attunment 61 -> 46

Nerve 61 -> 69

Body 61 -> 68

Perry focused on the Pernicious Prison and drained the three pinned acolytes, regenerating his hand in a fraction of a second.

In that fraction of a second, the Speedster, wearing an oxygen mask and eye protection blurred behind him, hoisting a shiny death-ray.

Perry’s new speed was just fast enough to partially dodge and lose a large chunk of his ribs instead of losing his heart and spine. The speedster was still much faster.

And he had a gun.

“Damni-“

Perry’s vision went blank as his head was disintegrated.

Probability Cloud Collapsed.

“Well, I guess running for it was the right choice,” Perry said, panting as he rested his hands on his knees, halfway up the mountain outside Temple.

“I killed her,” Ava whispered, the whites of her eyes visible all the way around as the probabilities combined.

“Technically that didn’t happen.” Perry said. “She’s still in there, directing the chase.”

“Can we go back?” Ava asked. “That was the best thing I’ve ever felt.”

“Nnnope.”

Perry grabbed her hand and led her further away from Temple.

They ran in silence for a minute, processing what had just happened.

“Look, obviously there’s a lot of baggage between you and her.” Perry said into the quiet.

Ava didn’t say anything.

“Have you ever killed anyone else like that?”

“Sometimes the Sinners they send for me to extract information from, or change their mind about some thing or other. Not so much anymore, though. I’m a lot better now.”

“On purpose, I mean.”

“No. Never like that.”

“So you’re not prone to violent outbreaks where you melt someone’s brain before tearing their face off?” Perry asked.

“N-no,” She said, shaking her head rapidly.

“Then consider this: From an outside perspective, Severe Bun woman must’ve done something to cause your reaction. Probably a lot of somethings. Anybody who pushes an extremely timid girl to do what you did, probably deserves what’s comin’ to ’em.

“Her name’s Headmistress Stevens.”

“Eh,” Perry shrugged. “I like it better my way. Anyway, you don’t have to explain your reasons, or even talk about it. Just be aware that your violence speaks more to her behavior than yours, and I don’t think you’re a monster.”

“…Thanks.”

“There they are!” Perry faintly made out a young man’s voice calling after them.

“Time to go!” Perry said, scooping up Ava and putting on serious speed.