It was 4 pm.

… Was it time?

I supposed it was. Without much fanfare, I started the car's engine (noticed that it had only four gallons of gas left) and - after making sure that I wouldn't be rammed from behind by a speeder - pulled my car back off the curb and onto the road. I drove in silence, but my heart was pounding.

This … this part of the plan was going to be the most morally evil thing I was going to do. Killing was instant and painful to the victim's close ones. Extortion made life hard but it wasn't exactly homicide, but it was up there in the law as a felony. Stealing (from living and the dead) was bad, but hey, I needed to survive in this new world.

What I was about to do?

This was both the morally worst thing I was going to do yet strategically and tactically best thing I could achieve in the short term.

'Be silent, my beating heart,' I thought to myself as I parked in front of my destination.

I sat there for a second before reaching into the bag to pull out a Bible, a part of my disguise.

Yes, I was disguising myself as a random person but not just any old random person; I was disguising as Jehovah's Witness. This was, by the way, a part of what I was doing that made this even more evil than it otherwise would have been.

I stepped out of the car with the Bible clutched to my chest and looked around.

My target was in control of a large area, and this gave her information flow that made lying hard. This was why I parked away from my destination and waited there and not in front of my destination. I also had to keep up the act of appearing to be who I was, but I couldn't over do it either. I had to be imperfectly average, or so I thought. How my target reacted to me would tell me all about how I did.

I looked around as if I was making a choice as to which house I would visit first before starting with the closest house, which was the destination. I walked up nervously, though the reason was completely different from what an outsider might believe the nervousness to originate from, and knocked thrice.

There was a reluctant sound of someone walking down the stairs. A latch opened, and then the door opened just slightly.

And there. On the other side of the doorway was a dark haired teenager. Though definitely tall as described in the book (or rather, described poorly by herself about herself after long exposure of mocking by someone who wanted to put her down with no one supporting her, and thus getting infected by that same negativity), she looked far better than I expected.

I could inspect her later.

"Hi!" I said cheerfully, if a tad bit loudly because of my own nervousness. I extended my hand. "My name is Alan! Nice to meet you."

She seemed wary before picking out just her hand to shake my hand. She took my hand gently. "Hi. I'm Taylor."

One of the most heinous powers in my possession activated, and "Willing Chain" activated.

"Willing Chain" was my only Master power and required physical contact for activation. When she shook my hand, "Willing Chain" wrapped her mind in an instant, and the wider doorway and the smile on her lips told me just how successful I was.

That and the confirmation from my power that one of the five "slots" for Master'ed subjects it was limited to was now filled up.

And thus, the plan was complete.

"Is your father in?" I asked quietly, just in case the Hebert patriarch was in.

"N-No," she replied shyly, meeting and breaking my eyes

"Do you mind if I come in… Taylor?" I asked gently and politely. She didn't need anymore prompt. She opened the doors wide and stepped aside.

"Y-Yeah! Come in, Alan. It's … uh… great, no it's nice… to have you in…" she started off strongly but words failed her and now she felt bad.

She was mine now, so I … would do what I normally do to people who feel bad around me. I took the door from her, closed it, and wrapped my arms around her.

She jolted in my arms before she minutely relaxed. Then she really relaxed and hugged me.

"... This is weird," she mumbled. "I don't even know you."

"I know."

"... You master'ed me," she said, but she didn't sound unhappy.

"You're awfully smart," I hummed and placed my face into the crook of her neck. "Yes, I master'ed you."

She stiffened before she just nodded, causing ripples in her hair.

"I know you're a cape, Taylor."

This time, she really froze stiff, far stiffer than any of the other revelations and actions in our minute long relationship. Then, for a brief moment, she struggled to get away from me. Instead of holding her down against her will, he gently moved across the living room to the couch and released her.

She looked up at me in surprise as she fell backward, but I stunted her falling vector, and she landed softly on the couch, not even bouncing twice.

"I did say I was going to be using you a lot, Taylor, and I meant that in more than one ways."

She blushed and looked away, but when I took her hands in mine, she didn't resist.

The thing about Taylor, from what I remembered, was that she was … lonely. She longed to be touched and have someone dependable even as she reached out to be independent and impactful in the world.

I intended to give her all three, because through that I would have a … happy partner. She was a master'ed partner, but a happy partner was a partner that wasn't looking to end the partnership. A happy Taylor was an intelligent, aesthetically pleasing (though not exactly beautiful or pretty), and swarm-bringing partner who wouldn't turn her back on me, because my power?

It wasn't exactly broad.

"Willing Chain" was a perfect name for how the power operated. Its general usage was ensnaring emotional and mental dependencies of an individual to myself, kind of creating a deep emotional or mental connection where there were none before or altering a previous existing negative bond into a positive bond.

In detail, it didn't work on people who had a good relationship with me and what master-bonds I did have were reinforced by my power, regardless of the actual interaction I had with, in this case, Taylor. I could cut the power off from a person, but I wouldn't be able to use it on that person again until the relationship was sour, bitter, or any similar state.

What it also didn't do was adjust the bond reinforcement, so if I mistreated Taylor, then eventually there would come a point where my mistreatment would overpower my power's reinforcement.

The devil, as they say, was in the details.

I intended to treat Taylor well. She never intended to abuse her. She was a nice girl that would have gone down a bad path by outside influences. I would make her feel safe, wanted, and loved. It was the best way for me to connect to her (barring the things I intended for her in the future).

I smiled down at her before I leaned in and hugged her again.

Her body stuttered as she blue-screened at the contact again.

"It's alright, Taylor," I said as I lowered myself down and embraced her fully. "I'll be here with you. You don't have to worry about me leaving you."

Taylor began to cry. It started off as a whimper then a sob and then a full blown wailing.

I shifted us around so that I sat on the couch and Taylor was straddling me, but in her emotional turmoil, she was crying.

'I suppose this was the result that was going to happen,' I thought to myself.

Plan: Obtain Taylor was a success in perhaps the best way possible.

Thanks to the emotional connection made by "Willing Chain" in Taylor, my soft words and actions using the information I shouldn't know about Taylor made her cling to me.

After she spent two hours crying her eyes out, we just sat there together in her dad's house, playing 20 questions with each other and getting to know each other. Never once during this "interrogation" did Taylor let go of me, however. Even when I teased her about it as a test, she clung to me, making sure that a lot of her body was touching me at all times.

Unfortunately for her, I had to go because her dad was coming.

I promised her that I would meet her tomorrow. She made me do a pinky promise. Ha! I laughed a lot at that. It was her attempt at being cute to someone she liked, and I promised her with my pinky intertwined with hers that I would come back for her tomorrow.

My next target lived in the Downtown South, where most of the bay's suburbs were. I drove right up to the target's house. On my way there, I changed the car (stole another one) and then changed my clothes. I wore E88's most common minion wear: leather jacket and jeans.

I walked up to my target's house with a letter. There was nothing inside the letter, of course.

I parked right in front of the lawn and walked up to the door. Then I knocked harshly.

"Got a message for you! Kaiser wants to talk with CEO of Fortress Constructions!" I shouted as loudly as I could, making sure that the people around the neighborhood was seeing this. "Are you in, sir?!"

Pedestrians began to shy away.

I smirked while facing the door, making sure no one was looking. "Kaiser wants to talk with you!" I shouted while pounding on the door.

I felt someone approach the door, though I couldn't exactly get their shape by looking at the vectors.

There was a click and then a clack.

I heard faraway sirens.

The door opened and a black man came out. He looked very annoyed, and he also had a gun with him. Thomas Calvert was described to be black and I saw his face on the internet. This man in front of me was Thomas Calvert.

And if I had Calvert in front of me, I had Coil in front of me.

Bingo.

I grabbed him and he tried to get away but I was faster. I touched him and "Willing Chain" activated.

Thomas Calvert, aka Coil, was under my control, though not for long.

"Shut down your other timeline," I ordered, and the lovesick puppy that was once Coil nodded.

I turned the vectors of his skull's bones inward, magnifying their strength in the process as well.

Coil's head crumpled inward and he died on the spot.

Just for good measure, I laughed. "Kaiser sends his regards, Coil!" But internally, I was saying "That's for kidnapping me and attempting to force me into your service, Bitch!"

I ran to my stolen car and drove off to the sounds of quickly approaching sirens. Changing the car elsewhere and changing my clothes was enough to lose the police.