A Side S

Lisa stepped onto the balcony and kept brushing her teeth.

Freshening up usually helped her with a headache, but that was before she got transported halfway across the planet.

She watched the street closely. Not for any particular reason. She couldn't help but think something was missing and if she waited she'd see it.

Whatever it was.

Everything seemed new. Probably was. They rebuilt the city from scratch over the past five years. What Lisa found odd was how well built it was. Neatly laid out streets in a grid. Solid construction on the buildings. Clear glass windows. How did they manage to build something that looked so well off in such a short period of time?

Kids in the streets. Moms sitting at a corner cafe. A pair of police officers—no guns— walking the same patrol Lisa observed the previous day. It all seemed too picturesque. Lisa hadn't seen any cars but the streets also seemed too narrow for them. No need for parents to worry about their kids getting run over.

The whole kingdom was one city anyway. Did anyone have anywhere to drive to? All their supplies came in by boat from the port.

The Baltic liked the shores. A few buildings rose over the water's surface here and there. Old cities sunk with the land after the Simurgh decided it wanted to be Leviathan for a day. Sink a country with some tinker-tech earthquake maker. Bye-bye half of Sweden.

No one ever bothered quarantining Sanc.

It was far from where the Simurgh landed and used its device. People didn't get suspicious until the Kingdom rose while the rest of the country descended into a black market paradise. And it kept standing, in spite of the mercenaries, gangs, and modern day pirates that used the rest of the new shoreline to do whatever they wanted.

One bright speck of order in a land of lawless chaos.

Did Count make that happen?

They should at least have some villains but Lisa had barely seen any capes. Capes beside Count, 'Claire' and Doormaker anyway. One guy running a junk yard down by the docks seemed a little suspicious and then there was that one cop who seemed too good at backflips. There were definitely other capes.

Just not any villains or parahuman gangs.

The city was quiet and peaceful.

Maybe she'd been in Brockton Bay too long.

She turned back to the house, still brushing her teeth. Nice room. A little small, but it had a comfy bed, some chairs, a TV, and a private bath. Smaller than her old apartment. No surveillance. That alone massively improved on her previous arrangements. That and the lack of annoying prankster robots.

Which just made her sense of awkwardness worse.

It seemed so…elegantly normal. Downright domestic. It all looked nice, clean, and well maintained. Even had an air freshener. Cool Coconut scented.

Wasn't Relena Peacecraft a princess or something?

It's not like anyone off the street could just take a city and declare it a nation. Not if they wanted everyone else to go along with it. Her father's ties to the Swedish royal family enabled the kingdom's political legitimacy.

Shouldn't the princess have a nicer house? She said she wasn't a princess and all, but seriously. In the US the three story townhouse would go for a very pretty penny, but it was no mansion. She lived on a street occupied by normal people who worked in the city and its port.

The door opened and Lisa watched Count strut into the room. She wore her costume, the aristocratic one with the mask revealing only her mouth and jawline.

"You could knock," Lisa said.

Count closed the door behind her.

"We need to talk about your last employer."

Lisa waltzed into the bathroom and finished brushing her teeth. It was a cheap tactic, an obvious bid for time to collect herself. She still felt the painful throbbing in her skull from trying to avoid death under March's watch.

Though thinking of March did make Lisa smile a bit.

And Cherie. Fuck Cherie especially. The PRT didn't show a single picture of her after announcing the arrest. That meant she wasn't very photogenic.

So Lisa smiled a bit more.

Then Lisa stopped smiling because she remembered Rachel.

Dog girl was a bitch, but she deserved less punishment than the PRT was likely to give her. Maybe she could do something about that. A few well placed phone calls?

Lisa pulled the brush from her mouth and tossed it into the sink.

Worst job ever indeed.

Walking back into the room, Count had taken a seat for herself. Lisa went toward the balcony and looked out. She could see the woman's reflection and that would do.

"I seem to remember someone promising to bail me out if things went bad. The double agent shtick is fun and all, especially with the cliche Bond villain bits."

Coil never gave up his twisted little dream though. He always wanted her locked away. Trapped in a dungeon like a tool in a box was no way to live.

"Things got bad," Lisa grumbled.

"And here you are," Count replied.

After Cherie used Rex against me.

She never wanted to feel that pain ever again. Cherie could have used any emotion. She chose to use the grief because she knew it would hit hardest.

"I still need your help," Count said.

Lisa groaned. She didn't sit, mostly to avoid anything the woman said to do. That wouldn't help her situation.

She needed to get out.

Working with Count against Teacher worked when the alternative was being under Coil's thumb with no lifeline.

Teacher was getting to be a fast ticket. Newtype. Count. The PRT and the Protectorate. Even Faultline was hunting him, though she didn't quite know it.

She couldn't believe she was thinking it, but she was with Brian. This shit was too hot. It was a one-way ticket to not living.

Lisa liked living.

"You can leave if you want," Count said. "I won't stop you. There are plenty of places someone with your power can live a good life and hide. For whatever time is left."

"With Teacher looking for me?"

"He's a rather self-conceited man. Even I am viewed as little more than a clock to be waited out. The only opponent in his mind is someone with no intention of fighting him."

"So he'd ignore me?"

"Insofar as he ignores an ant crossing his path."

Trying to play to her pride. Cheap tactic. Lisa didn't intend to fall for it.

"Sounds like a narcissistic egomaniac."

"Not in the way you'd expect."

Pride failed, so next up came curiosity.

Fuck.

Against her better judgment, Lisa pulled back the lid on her power.

She instantly regretted it as pain spiked right into the center of her skull and traveled down her spine.

"Fuck," she said as she leaned forward.

Fucking great.

Lisa turned and took the other seat.

Holding her head with one hand, she looked through her parted fingers. She wasn't lying and she was terrified. Lisa struggled to read people right. Count in the past seemed able to manipulate her body language to throw things even further off.

Now she didn't even try to hide what she felt or how much she feared Teacher.

"How bad?" Lisa asked.

"What do you know of my power?"

"That it's bullshit tier."

Something about always knowing how to reach her goal. Something was wrong with it. Or, wrong with her. Her power told her what to do but for whatever reason she wasn't able to do everything right. It threw her power off.

Lisa paused.

She narrowed her gaze, endured the pain, and put the final pieces together. Count gave precious few opportunities for her to use it, but now with her guard down…

Lisa pursed her lips.

"You're dying."

Count smiled.

"I am."

"It messes with your power."

"It's never properly adjusted to my injuries. My inability to do things the exact way it wants me to. It produces errors. Flaws in the path."

"And Teacher?"

"I can't path him. Never have. In the past I used a model of him, a hypothetical."

"That worked?"

"No." She turned her head, looking out the window toward the horizon. "He did something. My model was wrong. Now…"

Lisa blinked.

She didn't use her power. Faultline might mock her for being a know-it-all thinker, but she didn't get to use her power much. Maybe a few minutes worth a day. Any more and she was knocked out for days.

She had to do a lot of thinking on her own.

"That's what this is about?" she asked. "All of it?"

"I need to know everything," Count said. "I need a new model. Something to work with. A way to path him." She raised a hand to her right side. "My time is running out."

It sounded like Teacher already beat her once. Why wait for her to die?

Because she's unimportant, Lisa thought. She convinced him she was unimportant. That someone else was his real opponent. Bought herself time.

Lisa glanced out the window herself.

She built all of that while dying? That was part of her plan? Path she called it.

Teacher would come for it, wouldn't he? When he saw the deception, realized the danger it posed. The Sanc Kingdom. Relena Peacecraft. Blue Cosmos. Teacher. Lisa didn't know the picture but she saw enough of the pieces to get the idea.

"You need a new model."

"Yes."

"My power is rough when it comes to people."

"You saw enough. Enough between the three of them to know which was which. Who made what decisions."

Lisa scowled.

Thinking about it that way…

The breakout plan didn't make sense. She already knew that. Calvert was too smart for that. He'd never have arranged such a messy scheme.

That was Teacher.

Leaking the intel Newtype gave the PRT. Arranging for a gang war that made the PRT look bad but also weakened Brockton Bay's gangs.

That was Calvert.

Yes. It was his style. Get others to do his dirty work and don't let them realize it was his.

And the third guy. The one who wore the costume.

Lisa wasn't sure what his deal was. He didn't like Calvert. He didn't like Teacher. He didn't even like himself. He did what the other two wanted him to do, but there were a few times…Trainwreck. He liked Trainwreck, insofar as he seemed to like anything.

That man had his own agenda.

Pets could have their own agendas, and they didn't fully realize how much Teacher influenced them. The way Calvert or Coil would suddenly change their minds, seemingly before even finishing a sentence. It stood out. Even a non-thinker could probably see it if they looked close.

"Can you do it?" Count asked.

"I can do it. It's gonna take awhile."

"We'll have to be quick. Affairs will not await our convenience."

Our, she says.

Asking what she'd get out of it would be pointless. Count didn't know what Teacher wanted but she knew the man. But the pieces Lisa had? Wars. Collapse of civilization. Destruction.

The Simurgh.

Lisa sat up a bit straighter and looked at the city outside.

He tried to thwart Count already.

Teacher controls the Simurgh.

He was waiting her out because he was afraid of her. As much as she was afraid of him.

Lisa pulled at her power and got a few more pieces. She convinced him she could still 'path' him somehow. Got him to believe he couldn't risk a direct confrontation with her. If all the shit Teacher was doing now was what he thought he could safely get away with, what was he waiting to do?

Blue Cosmos. The PRT. Protectorate. Coil.

For all the bullshit, Lisa could rationally recognize Coil was right. The world was devolving. Parahuman power was what mattered and it mattered more and more each passing year. The old order was burning away.

Teacher wants chaos.

Chaos gets him what he wants.

"Putting it together?" Count asked.

And Lisa realized she'd been trapped from the start. "You're a bitch, you know that?"

"My apologies, Sarah." Count bowed her head.

Lisa snarled. "That's not my name."

Count just smiled.

"You'll find it hard to reclaim what you've left behind," she said. "There is good in the bad. You'll hate yourself for casting it aside in time."

"Speaking from experience?"

Lisa didn't get an answer.

Count lowered the hand from her side and leaned back into her chair. Lisa saw it clearly. The weariness. The exhaustion. The drive behind both that kept her going.

She was tired and dying. She knew exactly how much time was left. She tried to give up and go back to being who she was before.

She failed.