March 31st

It wasn't until I recognized that we were only a few blocks from my neighborhood that I spoke.

"Alexandria, she…"

Armsmaster spared me the tiniest of glances, but otherwise let me gather my thoughts.

A minute passed in silence, before I started again.

"… why was she like that?" I asked. "I mean… it wasn't just me, was it?"

The hero was quiet for a moment, before he sighed.

"I have been wondering that myself," he admitted. "Her reaction to your power was… extreme, and I will be having words to Piggot about it. Hopefully she will pass my report up the chain of command quickly and the Chief Director will hear about what happened here."

Armsmaster removed one hand from the wheel and drew it across his damaged chest piece, feeling the hand-shaped dent in it out.

"… that was not the actions of a proper Protectorate member, especially for the leader of the organization."

I had to look away at that; most of what I'd experienced with the PRT or Protectorate wasn't what I'd expected either.

"… what happens now?"

Armsmaster grunted. "You go home and go to school, act like nothing has happened; I'll ask Dragon to contact you if anything new happens, as well as with the basic report from the testing. I, meanwhile, will push for an investigation into Alexandria."

"… it was almost like she had seen my power before," I noted absently.

"Impossible, you are not the Butcher, nor have I heard of a power similar to the ones that you'd used in case you were a powers thief."

I didn't know what to say to that, I didn't really know much about powers either after all.

"… will you… will you get in trouble for what you did?" I managed to ask.

Armsmaster didn't respond.

March 23st


"Door."

A single rectangle of light soundlessly manifested in front of Alexandria. On the other side, a white hallway, with white floor tiles and a glass ceiling of fluorescent lights.

Floating at nearly two-thousand feet, the female hero passed through the portal, seamlessly going from flying, to walking.

The Door shut behind her, only detectable by the shifting of air currents brought up by the different pressures.

Alexandria honestly hated the white-on-white, as it was too well done, and reminded her far too much of her time in the hospital, years ago. Plus, even with her power enhanced memory helping, it always took her a few seconds to figure out where exactly she was in the compound.

Which was an undertaking of itself for most, considering that the whole 'building' was spread across several different locations, a few even being on other worlds.

Still, the limited signs (A set of dashes there, the placement of where a door card would go there, a few scuffs on the floor and door handles) were usually enough to orient her to the point that she could go where she intended.

The fact that Doormaker only ever dropped her off in one building, unless specified, helped as well.

She passed six nearly identical doors until she got to the one that she needed.

Inside, Contessa waited, as well as Doctor Mother, Legend and the Number Man.

Like the halls, the room was very minimalist: white walls and tiles, offset by the table with chairs in the middle, a set of cabinets and shelves on one wall, as well as the rolling whiteboard set aside. The far side of the room held an array of TV screens to simulate windows. Currently, they were showing a beach with a crystal-clear ocean further on.

Contessa was standing beside the Doctor, who was seated at the single table that the room held, a clipboard in her hands. The Number Man was in a similar situation, only with a small stack of papers in front of him.

Legend was at the far end, alone, hands clasped together on the table and mask off. A purely symbolic gesture, as the man disliked having Cauldron attached to his hero persona.

"Eidolon is busy," Alexandra said aloud as she moved to a seat and took her helmet off. For her, it was more of a matter of not being the only one wearing a mask; there was no reason to stand out.

"He is dealing with a Protectorate situation."

The Doctor nodded and set down her clipboard. "Very well, then we can begin. Contessa?"

The suited cape spared no time in getting to the point. "There is a new Deviant."

Deviants, publically known as Case 53s, were amnesiac parahumans, and usually had severe physical alterations borne from their powers. In truth, they were Cauldron experiments, either forced to receive powers, or had taken a powers vial that had failed (a rare case to be sure).

Legend knew nothing about Cauldron's involvement in Case 53s, as most of the group feared that he wouldn't understand the necessity of them. Yet to have Contessa bring one up piqued Alexandria's interest.

"It has caused interference on my Paths."

Alexandria narrowed her eyes at Contessa. "Explain."

"Coil was late for our meeting."

Legend raised an eyebrow. "… that's… unusual?"

Alexandria found herself understanding Legends confusion. Despite the man's power, Coil himself was human, and prone to everything that entailed, so being late to a meeting was hardly cause for concern.

"And what does Coil have to do with the interference?" Alexandria asked.

"You have misunderstood," Contessa stared. "The Path showed me when to arrive at his office, to discuss the Winslow Event and its Precog-affecting aftermath with him while he was there. He was late."

That was cause for concern. 'Deviant' was also the term given to capes or situations that either interfered with Contessa's Path to Victory, or shifted Cauldron's plans. The most common were the Endbringers showing up, or Trigger Events. The amount of these cases were small, but each one had the potential to derail their plans; as such each one had to be carefully managed, lest another Grey Boy situation happen.

This meant that it was a natural Trigger that caused it, something that was harder to control.

There was a reason that some people like the Sleeper was still around and running free after all.

"Explain," demanded Alexandria.

"Traffic," started Contessa. "A side effect of the arboriform. Vehicles being diverted around the quarantined area and children having to change schools has altered the paths of drivers in the city. This led to an accident, which in turn delayed Coil from getting to his base on time in accords with my power. Furthermore, my path auto-corrected itself upon arrival, instructing me to wait for Coil, then continuing with most the rest of the 'old' path. I discovered the source upon an investigation of what had happened by using my power to investigate the arboriform, as well as information provided by Coil, as he was experiencing problems with his power as well. However, it was not the tree itself that had affected us, but the parahuman responsible."

Most would view Contessa's power to be infallible, and ninety percent of the time, it was. It was the other ten percent that really caused problems.

Trigger Events were never fully able to be Pathed, and in those cases, it was the Number Man that proved better suited to discovering what powers would emerge from a vial.

Through Contessa's power was helpful in regards to causing Trigger Events, that didn't mean that the Path was able to fully explain and predict the particulars of the powers that would emerge.

In these cases, Contessa's power would adjust within a second to deal with the power, even if (as in one case) it was to simply provide the instruction to run.

Which was why whenever a case like this happened, Cauldron needed to deal with it. If they lost Contessa's Path to Victory…

"… this could be either a problem, or a boon," Doctor Mother said after a moment. "A power capable of disrupting Contessa's could prove useful in the final battle; the issue is her age and events behind her Trigger, as well as her link to Kuzunoha, through her mother."

"Wait, she has links to Kuzunoha?" Legend asks. "Who is she?"

"I have a report here," The Number Man supplied, holding up the stack of papers for the passing Contessa to take. "Compiled from the PRT report, as well as from mine and Contessa's investigations."

"Her name is Taylor Hebert, age fifteen," Doctor Mother stated as Contessa gave the sheets to the two heroes. "While she has managed to avoid getting pulled into the Wards program due to the difficulties surrounding her Trigger Event, this newly added information could easily change that."

"Difficulties?!" Legend exclaimed as he read over the document. "It was a Ward that caused this girl to Trigger in the first place!"

"Which is exactly why it was covered up," Alexandria responded calmly as she burned through the report. It wasn't that interesting; a dead mother, a blue-collared working father, Triggered after a combination of extended bullying from her former best friend reaching a singular tipping point and likely having little support at home due to her father still being emotionally absent from his wife's death.

It was entirely within the Trigger bounds, and Alexandria had seen worse.

"If the world knew that the PRT had someone like Shadow Stalker within the ranks and that she had caused this Trigger to happen, then the amount of bad PR that would generate would not be good for us. It would cause questions to be asked about any more 'bad eggs' within the agency. Perhaps it would even cause some of our capes to be looked at more closely."

Legend looked ready to argue, but Alexandria cut him off to avoid the morality of the issue.

"The fact is that the situation has already happened, and it seems Piggot is making amends to Taylor while playing the long game of recruitment. A sound strategy, considering both the state of her city, and the profile complied by the PRT on Taylor's personality. What has happened, has happened, and this oversight will not happen again, as Piggot has taken steps to prevent it."

Legend didn't seem happy about it, but he conceded the point.

"We should at least look into other situations, set up better protocols over this type of thing." The man shook his head. "This shouldn't have happened inside the Wards program in the first place."

"Agreed," conceded Alexandria. "While it was the byproduct of several mistakes overlapping each other, such a thing could also be replicated by the other powered divisions; Accord was once Watchdog after all. The Guild should be fine, they vet their members well, Sentinel might have a few issues within them, but it's the Protectorate that takes in most of the switch-overs."

"I'll start setting things up on the PRT side of things, but for now let's get back to Taylor Hebert," Alexandria continued. "I'm more interested in her power, as well as her supposed link to Kuzunoha; does she know about this?"

"We don't currently know where Kuzunoha is," supplied The Number Man. "But with the Clairvoyant we can find her easily, but the numbers do not suggest that she knows. However, the link likely originates with Taylor's mother, most possibly due to with her former Lustrum ties. I used a few of our contacts within the Order, it seems that Kuzunoha passed through Brockton Bay years ago, during which she came into contact with some of Lustrum's followers. The woman that would end up becoming Annette Hebert was there, they met and hit it off and they stayed in contact over the years via mail. Apparently, Annette even sent baby pictures to Kuzunoha of Taylor."

"… Do we know if Taylor herself is aware of this?"

"No, but given the PRT's investigation and monitoring of the Heberts, there is an eighty-four percent chance that she never told either her husband or daughter. This may have been to protect them both, as well as keep the life of a cape out of their own, particularly from someone like Kuzunoha. With Annette's death, that cord has been cut, and there is no sign that Kuzunoha knows what happened."

"Small blessings." Legend mummers. "They're still talking about what she did to Heartbreaker, and Kuzunoha didn't have personal reasons to go after him. If she found out that the daughter of one of her 'friends' was attacked like this…"

Then the Bay would be in flames.

It was only slightly an exaggeration, as Kuzunoha wasn't the type to burn a entire city down to get payback, but the fact that she seemed unaware of what had transpired to her friend's daughter was a blessing.

"What of her power?" Alexandria asked after a moment. "Do we have a grasp on how it affects yours, Contessa?"

"The closest that I can ascertain, is that she semi-unpathable," Contessa explained. "As an experiment, I pathed my way into an interaction with her. I followed the path to a bus stop and waited. Taylor came jogging by and I engaged her in a conversation about the time and bus routes. We both followed the Path, up until she didn't, by asking me questions, and while my path corrected to account for this, she did it several times."

"The closest that we have ever observed that happening is when someone Triggers," Doctor Mother explained. "However, those are singular cases, and her power usually provides a hint as to what power will be formed beforehand as part of the path."

"Suffice to say, we've yet to properly figure out how powers generate in what patterns as they do," supplied the Number Man. "The best that I can do is provide the odds for a particular formula. How the power manifests as a Blaster… that is unknown, even to me."

"Yet unless Taylor was Triggering multiple times," Legend added. "Then she has an anti-Precog effect only outmatched by Scion and the Endbringers."

Scion and the Endbringers, both the major threats that Cauldron was formed to eliminate. Alexandria knew that much of Cauldrons work was done to take steps towards stopping the Endbringers, as well as Scion, the source of all powers. They also worked hard to stabilize the world as powers became distressingly more common. Coil, and his plan to take over Brockton Bay, was one such necessary plan.

"… while this is interesting, how is it a concern?" asked Alexandria after a moment. "We are hands-off on Brockton Bay because of Coil's experiment. While Taylor's power should be watched, and if possible, held on to for the final battle, how does it affect now? Why was this meeting called?"

"This was not the first time that my path has been altered," Contessa supplied to the shock of the others. "Since Taylor Triggered, there have been multiple times that my Paths have auto-corrected, all occurring on the East Coast. First, I believed that they were simply the ripple effects of new Triggers reaching me; however, such an event has never happened before in such a short time span. Furthermore, when Coil contacted us about his powers encountering problems, I attempted to find the cause, as his power can be useful at a later date."

"But it was not until I Doored to Brockton Bay to discuss things with Coil that I realized the extent of the issue. For when I walked through a Door to Coil's base, I did not find him sitting at his chair as my Path said he would be, instead, I encountered him walking into his office a few minutes later. From there, I backtracked to find the source based on the info provided, Pathed to Taylor, encountered her, had the Path altered, and then performed similar experiments within the city. On several occasions, my Paths corrected themselves even while walking through downtown."

Contessa possessed the Path to Victory Agent; a (near) perfect Precog, capable of preforming (nearly) any task by showing her the 'steps' she needed to take. One of the most powerful assets Cauldron had at their disposal.

To hear that it was encountering 'errors' was disturbing for everyone in the room.

"Are we sure that it is Taylor?" Legend asks. "Because we all know that even the Path to Victory doesn't always provide the perfect answers."

"I do not encounter the same effects that Contessa does," supplied the Number Man. "But, as a second experiment at the Doctor's request, I too walked through Brockton Bay. What I did encounter was a higher-than-average chance of statistically unlikely events. Events that had under a forty percent chance of happening, happened far more often than providence would normally dictate, as though a normal distribution curve were being bent into a straight line."

"So, we're not fully sure that it is Taylor?"

"She is the only possible link," Doctor Mother explained. "Furthermore, other Precogs that have viewed the Winslow Event, or even Taylor Hebert herself, have had difficulty with their predictions being… accurate. There is also scattered reports of … of them talking to themselves."

"… talking to themselves?" Legend asks.

It was Alexandria that supplied the answer, memorized from the document provided in moments.

"There were several reports of people encountering a doppelganger while under the influence of the arboriform. It was one of the leading reasons that many were committed to a rapidly constructed PRT clinic on the outskirts of the city."

"And this is also affecting our thinkers?"

"The data set is small, but a handful of Precog capes have stepped forward citing a request for Master/Stranger protocols after using their powers in the vicinity of Brockton Bay," supplied the Number Man.

"A M/S power that works through Precogs? That's the same as Mama Mathers," Legend says softly before tapping a pair on fingers onto the table to gather attention. "That is something you should have started with, because that has the potential to become a problem for every Precog and Thinker out there. Why didn't you start with it?"

"There is a ninety-six-point seven percent chance that Contessa Pathed this conversation this way," the Number Man supplied. "Likely to provide background information, to make sure that we are paying attention, as well as to provide all the information in a manner that delivers it quickly."

"It is also a high possibility that even this part of the conversation was Pathed for the best impact," finished the Number Man. At this Legend paused in opening his mouth, then closed it swiftly.

Legend hadn't been (almost) fully brought into Cauldron until a few years ago. Mostly because the group feared that ultimately, he would not be willing to stomach or understand the entirety of what Cauldron needed to do.

The events of Tāwhirimātea forced the group to expose more to the man, including things like Contessa and what she could do.

Still, Alexandria reflected, it was hard for him, as he really did just care too much, and often had a hard time convicting himself that the path that they were on was for the benefit for all.

"This is not the first time this has occurred either," Contessa added.

Legends brow furrowed. "When? Because I'm pretty sure I would remember if all of our Precogs started messing up on a grand scale."

"The scale is larger," Doctor Mother interrupted. "But there have been several cases of capes that are capable of negating some Precogs to this degree, even to Contessa. Specter, Paladin, Charger, to name a few."

Specter… Alexandria knew that name. Limited flight, Tinker-tech weapons, combat specialist, capable of deploying a decoy and going invisible, had an area of effect flashbang, could open a portal from which pure plasma and high levels of radiation poured out of in a beam.

Not to mention…

It took a moment for the hero to realize that everyone was staring at her, likely because she had crumpled her armrests in her grip.

"We haven't seen one of the Clan in years," Alexandria said as a way to divert attention from her lapse. "And we tasked Dragon to keep an eye out for them."

"Not that she's had much luck," Doctor Mother pointed out. "Same as us, the Clans have always been very good at staying hidden, even during their more public movements. However, that being said, it is unlikely that Taylor has any links to the organization, as the only time any of the Clan showed up in Brockton Bay was when Specter stepped in after New Wave lost Fleur."

"The next closest was during the Boston Games, Yokujin," Alexandria continued. "Accord was not happy with an invisible archer going around and targeting capes."

"All the more reason to investigate this new parahuman," Doctor Mother concluded. "We first believed that it was only Scion and the Endbringers that were immune to Contessa's power, however, we've encountered far too many instances to the contrary to assume that they are isolated cases. Taylor's power should be studied."

"Piggot has plans to begin a round of power testing after the girl has spent more time at Arcadia and has been befriended by at least a few of the Wards there," Alexandria remarked. "She has hopes that she will join the Wards afterwards given the presence of friendly faces. I'll bring up some of the PRT Precogs having issues to Piggot, get her to accelerate that timetable."

"Seems underhanded," Legend added. "From the report, Taylor hasn't fully recovered from her trauma, if we push her then she might walk out. If that happens, we might have to use legal actions against a fifteen-year-old girl."

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Alexandria countered. "For now, the issue of the Path to Victory takes priority."

The hero lifted her hand up, ghosting it along a point just under her breast…

"… Whether or not Taylor is actively causing this is not the issue, the fact is that we simply don't know anything about her power; it might be similar to the Clan's anti-Precog powers, or it might not, the only way to know is through testing."

"And she will come in for testing…"

… Right were Specter's blade sank into her body during their fight.

"… even if I have to bring her in myself."


As Contessa walked away from the meeting, seeking food - Step: seventy-six for the day – before heading out to deal with a few things as directed by Doctor Mother, the cape reflected on Legend's words.

Her power was… powerful, but it had its flaws.

For one, no amount of steps allowed her to kill someone like Legend or Alexandria for example, without the use of another cape or Tinker-Tech.

Even with it helping her body along in a fight, there was no way to defeat someone like Crawler, unless she used the same methods as with the two heroes.

And her power was not perfect, she learned to always view the steps before committing to a path after she got what would have been the fifth member of what would eventually end up becoming the Triumvirate killed.

While the recruitment went flawlessly, she had been following the paths mindlessly, unaware that she was still human. Because during the trip to a safe Door opening location, the man's old enemies took notice of her, an unknown woman talking to him. And while her power protected her by placing her in the exact spots to avoid the bullets, she had failed to specify that both of them needed to arrive alive.

The result was the man known the world over as the Baga Yaga was killed, and Contessa learned that even with her power, one could make mistakes.

In the end, she was still human, her power was not.

Figuring that out took a few tries, as she couldn't just chain paths together; sure, she could take out the Sleeper, but not help the PRT defeat the Slaughterhouse Nine at the same time, not without adding hundreds of steps (she'd tested this before) and requiring more time.

Which in turn could add more steps to a Path, if she found herself not agreeing with how it took things (or if the others did at least).

Asking several questions, then working off of that was the best way to move forward. Still, a missed or wrong question would spell disaster.

"Ahh, is the little Farmer Girl being introspective? Can you even do that without using that power?"

Contessa paused mid-step, her Path altering to account for her stopping...

To view herself standing before her, all smiles and black glowing eyes.

'How do I defeat the opponent before me.'

The cape blinked as her power… gave her the steps to destroy the Custodian? As far as she was aware, the Custodian wasn't able to mimic others in any capacity.

"Can you even live without your power? I mean-"

'Steps to defeating my doppelganger.'

"It's dug in so deep, that you can't even eat without it."

Two thousand, four hundred and three steps, of which she cloned herself, then killed the clone.

"Hmmm, you're too easy, and therefore, no fun."

There was a flash of dark light/mist, and…

'How do I find the teleporter that was just here.'

… the figure was gone.

'How do I detect the Stranger that was in this hallway.'

'S-steps to stop panicking.'

Seven, a room, a shower with the heat set to high, and tears.

"But will that solve the underlining problem, Farmer Girl?"


A/N: Crew, Cause and Effect is in play, or... is it... Effect and Cause?

An... absence has reached out, detected, perceived, then... withdrew.

… Irrelevant, back to work Tenno, YOU have a job to do.

In other words, I would be playing Empyrean right now, if it wasn't for the fact that I seem to experience an out-of-Warframe experience whenever I interact with the Railjack as part of the crew.

Ah well, an bug fix update should happen soon enough, for now, an update here.