Moments of Victory 33 (Patreon)

Watching Taylor and her boyfriend — or, whatever he was — climb the stairs, Lisa was trying to decide whether what had just happened was something good or bad.

On face value, it was certainly bad. She had failed a mission from her boss. Considering the way Coil acted when he was recruiting her, Lisa certainly didn’t want to see how he would react to failure, especially when it was easily classified as a betrayal by her paranoid boss.

She didn’t know how he would react, because it was the first time she failed. Ironically, that detail wasn’t part of the bad news. On the contrary, she was optimistic enough to think that it was good, for one simple reason.

It was the first time she failed since she started working for Coil … because, for the first time, there was no last-minute call from Coil to adjust the plan.

It meant, for the first time, Coil failed.

It was important for her because Coil clearly had some kind of procognitive power. Oh, he tried to make it look like he had some kind of probability manipulation ability, but after working for him for a while, Lisa was confident that it was a precognitive thinker power, probably with some kind of clairvoyance mixed in.

And, his power failed. Two of his villain agents were missing in action, while the other three were already captured by the Wards — something that was confirmed by Taylor thanks to her bugs. It was the exact kind of thing Coil’s power was supposed to prevent.

Lisa didn’t need her power to work correctly to guess that Marcus’ anti-thinker power was responsible for Coil’s catastrophic failure.

That was the main reason that discouraged her from trying to talk Taylor into getting away. The main reason, but not the only one.

After her photoshoot with Marcus, she actually managed to sleep comfortably. It was a first since her power had been awakened. That alone should have warned her about Marcus having power, but she had been too distracted by the prospect of pulling a daytime bank heist as a distraction.

Only when they were in the studio, Marcus spoke. “So, what am I going to do with you?” Marcus said.

Lisa paused, trying to think of an answer. For the first time, she had to ignore the suggestions of her power, knowing that they might be just misleading her — especially since she had no idea how Marcus’ power worked mechanically. Instead, she decided to lean onto the two facts that could help her.

Marcus was far more interested in keeping Taylor happy than helping Lisa … and Taylor had a very warped sense of responsibility due to her warped self-perception. “You’re going to help us take down Coil, of course,” Lisa said even as she took a small step.

It was not much, but it was enough to position it like it was two of them a team against Marcus. That effect was ruined by Taylor’s shocked expression, but Lisa didn’t care about it. Taylor was obsessive enough to focus on the offer, and Marcus’ exasperated expression showed that he knew that as well.

“Make your case,” he said, but his exasperated, defeated tone made Lisa smile. Even without her power, she was still the smartest person in the room and the superior Thinker.

“Simple. Coil likes to represent his power as some kind of striker effect with probability manipulation, but he has some kind of future sight or omniscience. I have never failed when I was working for him.”

“Really?” Taylor asked.

“Yes. For example, when we were running away from Lung, he gave us a few directions that should have ended up with our deaths. Instead, a new hero, who just made her debut, somehow interfered and took Lung down.”

“Until today,” Marcus said, but he didn’t sound panicked. Resignation was more dominant.

“Yes. Until today. He had arranged the details of the robbery with great detail, yet it somehow turned into a disaster, costing him a full team of capes. All because of you.”

Taylor took a step forward and grabbed his hand. “You have to help us,” she begged. “Coil is clearly a big threat. We can’t leave him alone.”

Lisa said nothing, more than happy to leave the task of convincing him to Taylor. He disliked Lisa openly, making the task of manipulating him harder than she was used to. Still, she had a convincing speech if Taylor couldn’t convince him to take the offensive. One explained to him that by foiling Coil’s plan and sabotaging his power, he was already a target.

“Of course. We can’t leave such a villain alone,” Marcus said, but Lisa caught his resigned tone. It confirmed that he was on the same page with Lisa, and accepted the condition. “But, I have my own conditions.”

“Of course,” Taylor said before Lisa could say anything.

“We’re going to talk with Vicky and make sure she’s here with us,” he said. “We need a heavy hitter if they arrive.”

“We can’t,” Taylor gasped. “I don’t want to reveal my identity to them.”

Lisa could see that it was a mistake. Taylor had pretty intense trust problems. Lisa was only able to bypass them due to her power, while Marcus took a shortcut.

“And, you don’t have to,” Marcus answered even as he patted her shoulder. “We can keep you in costume while we come up with a plan. You don’t want to risk my life because you want to take the glory alone, do you?”

Taylor froze, but the bugs around them started to buzz louder, showing just how hard his words had hit her. Lisa had to admit, it was not a bad manipulation attempt. Nowhere near as good as what she could do … but then, she was amazing. Not everyone could match the great Tattletale.

“Of course not,” Taylor answered a moment later.

“I know,” Marcus replied as he hugged her. “You just need a reminder. You can get a little obsessed once you commit to a plan.”

With that, they hugged in silence. While they did that, Lisa considered the benefits of the possible inclusion of Glory Girl. While she personally disliked Glory Girl, she was ready to admit that the existence of a powerful flying brick package would help.

Especially when said flying brick was a part of a large team of heroes that would have taken any attack personally. That meant, no sudden mercenary attacks. And, Taylor’s power was excellent against catching any covert operation. Add in Marcus’ anti-thinker power, and her own detection capabilities, and they actually had a chance against Coil.

She might actually get free. She needed to think about it more.

“Do you mind if I rest inside for a bit,” Lisa asked.

“Go ahead. You know where the couch is,” he said, still hugging Taylor. Lisa chuckled even as she went away, but it was a sound of frustration. From a practical standpoint, it was good that he trusted her enough to leave her alone where she could use her phone to alert Coil, not even bothering to ask for her phone.

He was either confident that he had managed to read her accurately, or he trusted Taylor to warn him.

Well, if it was the latter, he was not exactly wrong thinking that. Even with her power malfunctioning, Lisa could see that she had lost a lot of ground with Taylor. And, if it was the former, it meant that he was able to read her situation well enough to be confident of his conclusion.

It shouldn’t have mattered. After all, she had long decided that, as long as she could take down Coil, she was willing to do a lot.

Yet, she found it difficult to swallow the insult to her pride. She was a Thinker, one of the best, in fact. The only reason Coil was able to take her down was the fact that he had gained his power much earlier than her, which allowed him to hire enough mercenaries so she couldn’t resist.

The situation with Marcus was different. The fact that he was able to capture her with such ease rankled her something fierce. Especially since it was mostly luck that made him the victor, combined with his incredibly lucky draw of power.

It was practically a crime!

She bit her lips, doing her best to ignore her desire to act and make him pay back. Just because his power prevented her from reading him accurately didn’t mean she couldn’t ruin his life.

She was Tattletale. She could do anything she wished! Making him pay with a few messages was trivial to her.

She only stopped because it would have been a horrible decision to her real objective of taking down Coil.

“Glorious sleep, here I come,” Lisa said as she threw herself on it. It was not a good couch, lumpy and uncomfortable, but after a day of exhaustion, it felt like heaven. She was ready to take a refreshing nap …

One that had been ruined by a moan from Taylor. Followed by a spanking sound, and an even louder moan. She expected the usual disgust that would follow when she thought anything remotely sexual, triggered by a flood of information that was a literal TMI case.

Yet, her power continued to provide her with facts that had nothing to do with what was going on.

 Lisa’s eyes widened as she realized what was going on. It was his anti-thinker power interfering with the feedback of her power. An unexpected situation, one with a rather unfortunate side effect.

For the first time since she had received her powers, she started to feel a warm stirring affecting her body. She pulled the pillow over her ears, trying to suppress the sound. It failed, and she found herself listening to their private time.

It was not a comfortable feeling.

“It’ll end soon, right?” she muttered to herself. It did not.

And, as minutes turned into hours while she got tortured by their moans, Lisa found it harder and harder to resist the temptation to somehow make him pay.

She managed to resist it … barely. Until she couldn’t, and she pulled her phone to type a quick text. A classified ad, to be exact, one that had Marcus’ address, searching for a model.

She knew it was a bad move, but she couldn’t help it. She felt like a gambler at the casino, betting on her home despite knowing just how bad of a decision it was. A part of her was hoping that Taylor would catch her and stop her, but her moans indicated that Taylor was not in a position to pay attention to her.

The ad went live. She knew that what she had done was wrong. Their situation was too complicated to bring another cape to the mix, especially since the cape in question was actually an Empire cape.

Ex-Empire, according to her, but considering her targets once she turned heroic were exclusively the kind of people the Empire hunted, Lisa had a difficult time believing her transformation.

Somehow bringing Purity into an already complicated situation, even if it was in Purity’s civilian identity — one that Lisa knew because Coil asked her to discover it — was a terrible idea.

Yet, the moment she set that up, she felt like she finally made Marcus pay. The emotional rush of her success was enough to put her to sleep.

The consequences were for the future Lisa.