H.E. and Yanaslana: My assumption was that once contact with Dinah was made, precautions similar to the ones taken in canon would be taken, including having her on-call for important people making potentially critical decisions. As for who the character is, I think it is Security, basically (there's like one inconsistency with the main story at present, I might edit it out…)
So, I'm not certain if I have anything more to add to the story of the previous two chapters. However, I had a few other ideas for Security omakes, and I think I'll post them here, if I flesh them out. This first one is a multi-parter.
The premise is that two people find themselves in the worm universe. Events proceed essentially as they did in Security, except perhaps that Alexandria and Eidolon pay the two people from our universe a bit earlier. Thus, Piggot's wiretap ends up recording nothing more than a conversation between the two…
Also, I don't know if Armsmaster's lie detector canonically works as it does in this story here.
They began to listen to the recording.
"Ok, so we're definitely taking down Coil, right? We'll need Contessa for that; are you sure she'd give him up on a whim from us?"
"She'll do whatever her power tells her to do. We just have to hope it's saying 'Do whatever those guys want.' It's actually quite likely what she's being told, given what we bring to the table. And are you really having doubts about taking out Coil? You know what he's up to, all the torturing, raping and murdering..."
"I know, but, let's say Leviathan ends up attacking. We already dealt with one local cape who could have fought it single handedly. Should we really –"
"Coil's gonna stay outta that fight. Even without Dinah, he'll probably be able to lay low and avoid it."
"Right… Crap."
"We need to focus on taking out the endbringers first. Then we worry about the end of the world."
"Not reassuring. There's only one surefire way to kill an endbringer, and that's Scion. We know he'll get his new marching orders between this fight with Leviathan and the next one with Behemoth. And frankly, I think we ought to avoid interfering in any way, let alone going to London and talking to his controller. It's just too risky. And even if we did, it's just a bandaid on the problem. There's what, twenty of them in total?"
"Three out now, three that we know are coming, possibly three more described to us, and 11 more that we know jack crap about… Assuming they really are Eden's weapons, of course. But –"
Piggot stopped the playback. She sat, a spiraling sense of doom washing over her in spite of having heard it all before, as she slowly turned towards the ashen faces of Miss Militia and Armsmaster. She tried to keep her voice steady.
"I think that's enough for now," she said. She was seriously considering deleting all the recordings instead of continuing to listen, out of sheer existential reflex. "What do you two make of this?"
Both heroes were silent for more than a moment. Miss Militia managed to overcome speechlessness first.
"Well, either they're maintaining an elaborate deception... or Coil is a sadistic serial killer, Scion is taking orders from someone in London, there are a total of twenty endbringers, none of which are involved in an imminent end of the world scenario. Also, they might be weapons of someone called Eden…" She trailed off. "Even if it was true, how could they know any of that? When I think about it, one of them must be a thinker, or maybe they have the services of one, who warned them about this wiretap, so they-"
"No," interrupted Armsmaster. He gestured at his helmet. "They didn't lie once during that conversation."
There was another bout of deathly silence. Piggot broke it.
"If we're seriously considering that they could have somehow acquired this knowledge… It's probably equally realistic to assume that they have powers of some kind, able to confuse your lie detector."
"It's possible," conceded Armsmaster. "I only know one thing for certain, after listening to that."
"Yes?"
"This is infinitely beyond our pay grade."
What other secrets have been loosed upon an unsuspecting Wormverse? Find out next time.
