1.6

-- Tanya von Degurechaff --

I touched back down some 40 minutes later. I felt... frustrated and restless. Even in flight I couldn't relax. Which I suppose shouldn't be surprising; I've rarely had the opportunity to fly without the threat of attack. As wonderful as it is, I must have conditioned myself to view flight as a prelude to combat. Even as I'd slowly ascended in a lazy spiral, my eyes had automatically scanned the peaceful city, on the lookout for nonexistent anti-air guns, aerial mages, fighter planes, tanks, even just a hint of a Federation uniform. Hell, I'd nearly shot a man going about his day in a brown hat and drab green coat with a couple unfortunately placed stripes before my conscious mind reminded my hands that he couldn't possibly be Russy infantry.

There was another moment of excitement when I felt a flare of magic over in the more intact section of the city and saw a figure ascend into its own aimless flight. My lips drew into a snarl as I charted out a course that would allow me to approach the figure with the sun at my back. My speed tripled as I poured manna into the flight spell, simultaneously pushing my reflex enhancement just that little bit passed the standard combat level. Expensive, both in concentration and manna, but when you're fighting for your life, an edge is an edge. I'd nearly committed to the attack run, the poor dead fool somehow having completely failed to notice me, when I forced myself to at least ascertain their identity first. An annoyed flick of thought shaped the air just inside my aerodynamic mage shell into a pair of lenses.

It took a couple accelerated moments, but I finally recognized Glory Girl from Lisa's description. A 'hero,' though not one of the government ones. A sanctioned vigilante. I... wasn't supposed to kill heroes. Even the independent ones. It'd alienate the others. Turn cold distaste into unrelenting antipathy. I found myself struggling to care. These local heroes, by Lisa's descriptions, were decidedly unimpressive. My 203rd could take them all at once, no problem. Hell, I could take them all at once, and the 'villains' too, prove my strength and skill to this ignorant world with the corpses of the 'protectors' they loved and the 'monsters' they feared. They didn't understand yet that I wasn't someone they could fuck with, could take from. I had to show them before they got any ideas because afterward, no consequences would ever be enough. I discovered that I was crying.

I broke off and ascended at top speed, blowing right past my operational ceiling, the height at which my flight spell could no longer reach the Earth below to push against. Momentum carried me upwards as my flight spell sputtered and failed. I dropped my mage shell, letting the wind hit me at full force, the thinness of the air balanced against my high speed. Immediately, I began to tumble, my body decidedly un-aerodynamic compared to my mage shell. Body reinforcement and reflex enhancement let me experience the wildly spinning view and the utter confusion of my inner ear in relative comfort. A mental 'chime' from my altimeter formula alerted me when I had fallen back below my operational ceiling, a modification to the spell I'd been quite proud of in training, before even that fateful day in Norden.

A long moment later, I held my rifle close to my chest, elbows in, legs together, and reformed my mage shell, manifesting magical fins to slow and finally stop my tumble. To my shock I saw Glory Girl rushing up towards me, arms spread. Was she... trying to catch me? How'd she think I got up here if she thought I couldn't get down? And if she actually caught me at our relative speed, absent body reinforcement, she'd in fact just splatter my body across her forcefield. But I guess it's the thought that counts.

I let out a wild laugh as I finally spun my flight spell back up, allowing me to dodge her without any real effort, and continue to accelerate down passed her. I leveled out just above the tallest buildings, slowing down just enough to let her think she might be able to catch up to me. She obliged, and I briefly amused myself by staying 'just barely' outside her grasp, appearing to not even notice her as I relied purely on my magic sense, able to clearly map out her forcefield at this minuscule range. Then she started trying to talk, shouting into the wind. Ugh. I accelerated again, half again then double her max speed. After another minute of fruitless chasing, she gave up and went home, evidently frustrated. A couple minutes later, I did the same.

I stared at Lisa.

"Seriously? I mean, I appreciate your faith in me, but what made you think a few soldiers could deal with that?"

"Oh, give it up. There's hardly a point to false modesty after you told me you think you can 'work out a counter' to Alexandria. You already have ideas."

My stare briefly transitioned into a glare, from which she gratifyingly quailed. I'll instill discipline in you yet, just you wait.

"Fine. Can't he use his power to get around Dinah's question limit?"

"No. Her thinker headaches transfer over from the dropped timeline, somehow."

"Does she have to observe the outcome with her own senses in the future to report on it?"

"No."

"Around when does he ask Dinah about the next week? Is there a gap?"

"No, he's smart enough to overlap it a bit, every six days. Well, I say 'he,' but I suspect he tortured the idea out of me or Skitter in a dropped timeline."

"Does he ask about Dinah's continued captivity, or just whether his base will be attacked?"

"The latter."

"Who decides what counts as an attack? Dinah?"

"Not consciously, maybe not at all. Powers have to make that kind of determination all the time and no one's really sure how they go about it. A rescue mission without any fighting or major damage probably wouldn't count."

"Hmm. Well, that still wouldn't be easy, and it doesn't get us Coil himself. If we take Dinah in both timelines and prove he can't beat us in the one where he tries to fight it out, what does he do? Go to ground?"

"Yes, but not forever. He'll try to gather strength and strike back from ambush, using his power to try as many times as he needs. I think he has a cordial relationship with Accord. Maybe he could convince him to lend him some heavy hitters."

"And we'd have no way to track him down or otherwise respond proactively. You don't know his civilian identity, and he'll close any timelines where his attack fails."

"Yeah, pretty much. If you can get me onto the base's intranet during the rescue mission, maybe I can figure it out from there, but don't bet on it."

"if Dinah tells him his base will be attacked, what does he ask next?"

"Whether his forces will succeed in the defense, and then he tries to figure out who. Shows Dinah pictures and asks her if the people in them are involved."

"So her power does sometimes depend on her knowledge?"

"I think her power is visual. She or maybe just her power actually watches the futures to determine the answer to the question. Either way, she can't remember anything about them afterward but the number. She doesn't have to actually see something with her own eyes in that future, but it does have to be visibly recognizable."

"That's something. So if I wear an illusion of Alexandria while I break down his door?"

"Dinah will report that Alexandria is responsible for the attack. I think. But don't do Alexandria. His PRT informant is high up. High enough they might be able to figure out she actually has other things to do. Maybe Dragon? Lot harder to get someone in the Guild, and he's never hinted he has anyone there. And she can effectively be in multiple places at once. And he'd probably blow a lot of questions narrowing it down since there's really no reason to suspect her."

"OK, so Dinah tells him Dragon will break down his door tomorrow. He clears out, presumably? If he can't win the fight, no reason to leave assets in place to be seized."

"Yes."

"How about this: we plan to break down his door disguised as Dragon tomorrow, but we also stake out the base today. If nothing unusual happens, we do nothing until tomorrow, but if he tries to clear out, we attack immediately."

"That's... Yeah, that's the one. And I do know where all the exits are for his secondary base. You'd have to do the attack tomorrow too, even if we already won, but that strategy works. Dinah doesn't see the results of her own predictions, so he'd have to ask again about earlier attacks. Which he wouldn't, because he's an idiot when he can't torture good ideas out of other people. And you said you couldn't do it."

"I said no such thing. And we're not quite there. That gets us Dinah and the rest of his stuff, but if he stays away from the evacuation in one timeline, we're back to the last scenario."

"He won't. He'll feel secure 'knowing' the attack isn't coming until tomorrow. He'll sit in his base organizing the evacuation while he spams his power trying to find just the right approach to get Accord to send help or something like that."

"If you're certain... The scenario where he gets away seems very annoying. And probably fatal for you, sooner or later."

"I'm certain."

Her grin was positively feral.

I gave her one of my own. Somehow, I felt a lot better.