Some things in life are destined to happen.

  When looking back on the reciprocal nature of history, one can spot the pattern written in the bedrock using the blood of man as its ink.

  But it is always hindsight that allows us to see these patterns clearly. If you told the Aztec, in the height of their power, that they would be butchered by their neighbors with aid from a foreign power, they'd likely ugh at you in their leopard hide pajamas and subsequently toss you onto their altar and sacrifice you to their gods. If you told a Roman that their massive empire's capital would be sacked by some Barbarians from the North, they'd likely also ugh at you while they made you into a sve.

  The point is, nobody expects to be a part of the cycle.

  When one, unintentionally, butterflies away the initial plot of a story, they don't expect to then hear on the news that a major plot point is being redone just wearing a slightly different hat.

  She should have seen this coming honestly, what with the ABB STILL making a very public dispy of wanton violence in the prior week. The open attack on the PRT HQ was a very costly thing in terms of civilian lives, as reported on the local news channel. While the federal building itself was quite sturdy and well defended, the surrounding office buildings and cafes were not, and many were left with gaping holes or sheared faces only seen out of warzones that experienced the US's tender loving proportional response.

  Many would require months to rebuild while others were so thoroughly fucked over, they'd need to be demolished and rebuilt from the bedrock up.

  The ABB did not fuck around when it came to being domestic terrorists and judging by the occasional shots of paranormal damage, like frozen fires form broken gas mains, or densely packed balls in the bst center of a thought of explosion, led Xena and other experts/thinkers to believe that they had a certain bomber tinker on payroll now.

  So, it shouldn't have come to Xena's surprise that while she just got done turning Rachelle into a cream stuffed chocote truffle; breaking news pyed over the sement rimmed ftscreen TV about a hostage situation at the Brockton Bay Central Bank involving the "notorious" undersiders and the wards.

  Xena looked at the screen as the news anchor informed the popuce of the event that she's read about countless times. Just about every fic she's read regarding Worm, that had sted long enough, would eventually write about the bank heist. All had their own renditions on it, different interpretations or just straight up different perspectives all together. Because the bank heist is truly what drove the plot forward. As much as Leviathan turned Brockton Bay into a third world city; it was the bank heist that led to Amy's downfall, the Kidnapping of a little girl, and the "meatballification" of Vicky.

  She could crash the party very easily. Fly in, break Kidwin's massive fucking cannon, whose presence only made sense due to Coil interference, grab the dynamic duo of escating idiots by the heads, to stop them from being idiots, possibly kidnap the smug fox, then use the smug fox to find Dinna Alcott before Thomas could shove the poor girl into his unmarked white van. Maybe throw a wild Rebecca to disrupt his mercenaries from using their tinker tech rifles.

  It was a perfect pn, the only question Xena had was: what form?

  -X-

  Lisa was not having a good time. Coil had been erratic all of st week, and despite his attempts at hiding it, she could SMELL the fear and frustration wafting off of him. Whenever the fool of a man decided to call her to give her another set of conflicting orders, her power vomited the man's insecurities into her head.

  At first, she wasn't sure what had the fucker acting like the Simurgh herself was plotting against him personally. But when more and more orders to investigate the incident involving the Bck Queen came, she finally put two and two together. Not to mention the massive hint as to the cause of his fear coming to her whenever she attempted to fulfill said orders. Her bottle of ibuprofen was getting dangerously low, and she feared she might be getting an ulcer with how many she had to take in one week alone.

  The video recordings of the changer gave her power some traction to work on, but the issue is that whenever it tried to dig deeper than her body nguage it was like running a high-end pc game with a photo editor in the background. Eventually her power bricked itself and the only way for it to work again was for her to take a long nap using some low proof alcohol and ibuprofen.

  Aside from an ulcer, she's likely to become an alcoholic by the end of the month!

  With how much his power was fucking up, Lisa honestly thought that she was going to be free from him for at least a month. Sadly, it seemed as if it wasn't that easy. Granted things weren't going too bad with his current asinine job.

  Not one of the adult PRT heroes have shown up to counter their current bank heist. That didn't mean her team of teenage misfits was being uncontested, however. The wards had come out in force, and somebody let Kidwin bring a fucking artillery piece to a hostage situation.

  She highly doubted that he was going to fire upon them while they had not only a bunch of civilians held captive. The issue, that Grue so helpfully pointed out, was that instead of the few numbers she predicted, there were in fact seven people out there waiting for her band of misfits to leave. One of which was waiting on the roof to ambush them. Likely Shadow Stalker, but for all she knew it was a member of New Wave. The fact that there was only Wards present led her to believe it was likely the former. The fact that Browbeat was here meant that the Wards also got a new recruit, unfortunately.

  "There’s not supposed to be six or seven!" Grue roared in his unearthly voice "There’s supposed to be three, four at most!"

  "I made an educated guess," She spoke in a low voice, "I was wrong. Sue me."

  "If we get out of this in one piece," Grue spoke, his tone low and menacing, "We’re going to have a long conversation."

  Taylor rested her forehead against the window. An armored section of the mask clinked against the gss, "Educated guess. It would have been nice if you had said it was an educated guess, way back when we were pnning this."

  Of our group, Bitch seemed the least daunted. "I can take them. Just let me go all out."

  Then Lisa noticed a shadow over them, Bitch's dogs started to growl, and some of the hostages let out surprised gasps. She froze as a rge bck carapaced hand cmped down on her shoulder.

  A smoky feminine voice came from behind them all, " I think that you will be doing no such thing.

  Her eyes gnced at Taylor and to some horror found an equally big, cwed hand holding the not so secret spy in pce.

  Grue froze, Regent leaned on the wall, and Bitch looked about ready to sick her dogs on their guest.

  In fact, she started to growl at The Bck Queen, as who else could the rge bck taloned hands belong to besides the resident non-endbringer?

  The woman-thing's breath tickled her ears as Xena let out a chastising tsk, "Now, now Rachel. No need to be aggressive. I'm just here to prevent these two lovely dies from causing untold amounts of damage through their collective sharing of a single neuron."

  A brief huff of indignation left her throat before she could stop herself as the asshole Regent let out a ugh.

  The towering bck bitch let out a soft chuckle of her own as she addressed the nominal leader of the Undersiders, "I mean, honestly Grue. How ever did you let Tattletale convince you and your gang to rob an actual city bank in broad daylight? Was it the money? that your oh so generous mysterious employer offered? Which, by the way, is none other than Coil-" Lisa's eyes widened in shock. "-So, you're free to join the wards now, Skitter. You got all the info you need-" She was cut off as Bitch let out a snarl as she turned towards Taylor Hebert, " You traitorous bitch! I knew you were bad news the moment you joined us."

  Bitch almost lunged for Skitter before a bck boney tail wrapped around the stout girl, halting her movement. "Oh behave! Skitter isn't the only one who was maniputing you, Ms. Lindt." With the number of surprises happening around Lisa, she honestly thought her eyes couldn't get wider in shock, yet dread crept down her back at hearing the monster's next words.

  "Tattletale here has known who your employer is for the whole time and has worked with him to keep you all together, gathering intel about each and every one of you. She was even pnning on ensuring you couldn't leave, Skitter."

  Lisa sagged in her hold, there was no getting out of it now, her power was informing her that all of her teammates-minus Alec as he was enjoying the dirty undry being aired out- would no longer trust anything she said. And some, like Bitch, wanted her dead for her betrayal.

  The Bck Queen, or Xena, went on revealing the truth about how they were all ensnared by Coil.

  "Bitch, you have the frankly absurd murder charge on you and your dogs to easily control you." Rachel Huffed at that.

  "Grue, you dumbass, your sister is known and nearly constantly monitored."

  She could feel the air leave Brian's throat.

  "Regent, Coil knows about your father."

  She finally saw Alec get serious.

  "Skitter, he also knows about your father."

  There was no outward show from Taylor, likely shoving her emotions to her swarm.

  "And Tattletale, His power allows him to torture you for all that you know without you ever knowing. He knows you plot against him, and he knows just about everything you know."

  Lisa stiffened once more as the thought of her own mind's sanctity had been compromised.

  "Even now, he pns to get you all repced with easier to manipute teenage capes. Though not likely for you Tattletale as he is likely pnning on turning you into his good little drugged up pet. The same treatment he is likely to do to a poor little girl after he kidnaps her. A little girl this whole heist was set up for."

  Gasps from the peanut gallery of hostages reached her ears at that. The image of a little girl being abducted and being forcefully addicted to narcotics and to do a mad man's bidding, Lisa could see it. And if the girl was a thinker on the same level as her, she could see herself in that same predicament.

  "As this is a time sensitive issue, and to have Tattletale atone for her crimes

  and betrayal. I, as a gracious royal, have taken it into my hands to properly punish her indiscretions. To facilitate this, I will be taking her with me to find Coil's target and."

  Lisa finally looked back as The Bck Queen made her decration, only to see the alien looking into the crowd of bank goers. One of her smaller hands pointed into the crowd at a single girl that looked vaguely familiar who let out a squeak at the attention.

  And then it dawned on her, and she realized she fucked up harder than she thought.

  "Amy Dallon, please come here. No need to escate the situation when you can expin to the PRT what has happened here while I, and my new hunting dog, go deal with Coil's machinations."

  Lisa bristled at the title.

  She was so much more than just a simple hunting dog.

  Right?