Plans always sounded cleaner in Adrian's head than they ever executed in practice.
"So walk me through it again," Sophia said, arms crossed against the kitchen counter while he laid out three days of surveillance notes—patrol routes, shift changes, and the unmarked black sedan trailing their block. "You're going to let a federal agent catch you doing something mildly superhuman on purpose so he writes down the wrong explanation?"
"Essentially."
"That's either genius or the dumbest thing you've said since 'the walk home is going to be brutal.'"
"It can be both."
She didn't stop him from grabbing his jacket twenty minutes later, which he took as a reluctant blessing.
He needed a stage. Somewhere public enough for an incident, but isolated enough to control. He picked a half-collapsed pedestrian bridge overlooking a wrecked intersection at the edge of the hazard zone.
He didn't have to wait long.
Six Eyes flared, picking up the violet static of a mist-mob two blocks out. It shambled through a ruined parking lot, hungry and mindless.
Perfect. Exhibit A.
Adrian timed the black sedan's patrol to the second. Todo's instincts made reading the agent's rhythm ridiculously easy. As the car approached, Adrian stepped into the open and met the spirit head-on.
Cursed energy crackled blue along his forearm.
One clean, deliberate strike shattered its core. The spirit shrieked and dissolved into black mist.
[ +9 EXP ]
[ LEVEL UP!
[ HOST IS NOW: LEVEL 3 (GRADE 3 SORCERER) ]
There it is.
Tires screeched. The black sedan slammed to a stop.
A gray-suited agent stepped out, hand resting on his holster. "Hands where I can see them! Federal agent. Don't move!"
Adrian raised his palms, keeping a faint glow of cursed energy lingering on his fingertips. Sell it.
"I-I'm not armed!" Adrian stammered, threading fake panic into his voice. "I don't know what that was! It just came at me—my hands got hot and—"
"What came at you?" The agent scanned the empty street, finding only drifting black mist and the smell of ozone.
"Some creature from the wreckage! Is it Chitauri radiation? Mutations?" Adrian let his voice crack, pointing wide-eyed at his face. "Are my eyes glowing? People keep staring at my eyes!"
The agent's expression shifted from suspicion to rigid protocol. Hook, line, and sinker.
"Sir, you're coming with me for an evaluation," the agent said, unhooking his radio. "We have a facility processing invasion-exposure cases. It's medical, not detention."
Wait. What?
Adrian's stomach dropped. He wanted a fake file opened, not a one-way trip to a government lab.
Abort.
"Can I call my roommate first?" Adrian stalled.
"You can call from the facility. Step forward."
New plan: don't get dissected.
Adrian let his knees buckle, dropping hard to the asphalt while clutching his head.
"Sir?" The agent instinctively stepped forward, splitting his focus between Adrian and his radio.
That's the gap.
Adrian exploded sideways, using Todo's reflexes to vault into the bridge's collapsed scaffolding and vanish into the dust. By the time the agent looked up, the street was empty.
"Damn it!" The agent swept his flashlight over the ruins. "Control, Unit Seven. Subject from the blue-eyed file made contact. Subject evaded.
Requesting expanded surveillance."
Four blocks away, Adrian ducked into a dark alley, catching his breath against cold brick. He pulled up his interface.
[STATUS INTERFACE]
* Name: Adrian Hayes
* Level: 3 / 10 (Grade 3 Sorcerer)
* Attributes: STR 75 | AGI 78 | END 95 | PER 96
* Cursed Energy: 115 / 115
Steady gains.
He slipped into his apartment an hour later. Sophia was waiting on the couch and closed her book the second he walked in.
"It didn't go as planned," Adrian admitted, sinking onto the cushion.
"Clearly. You look like you sprinted away from your own bad decisions."
He laid it out—the fight, the lie, the unexpected medical transport, and the panic escape.
"So your plan worked," Sophia said slowly, "right up until you almost got kidnapped by the feds."
"Pretty much."
"You need better plans, Hayes."
"I need a partner," Adrian said. "I tried to solo this, but you caught the radiation cover story before I even thought of it. You're better at the strategy."
Sophia watched him for a long beat, then nodded.
"Partners. But if I get dragged to a black site, I'm quitting."
"Deal."
Miles away, a classified folder marked BLUE-EYED VIGILANTE received another incident report, and the surveillance grid around Adrian's block silently expanded.