Path to Living 2

The man sat at the bar next to her, and he was large, hunched over. While it was possible that this was an ordinary man with a posture condition… it was unlikely. One of the deviations, then. Worrisome, because the Path… had no information on this entity.

"You know, amiga." The man said, sprinkling his language with Spanish for some reason that Fortuna couldn't understand, as she could understand him anyway, "I don't usually do this, but… could I have your autograph?" His snout came out of his hood as he grinned widely. He had the features of a wolf, something that always tickled the back of Fortuna's mind with fear. They didn't have dogs in her original world, only wolves, and they were horrible.

The wolf-man took out a poster, a very specific poster. About eight years ago, Fortuna had gotten annoyed with Rebecca over… something. She doesn't even remember any more, and she's not going to bother asking the Path over it. So she photobombed one of Alexandria's shoots, just posing in a way to upstage her while also ensuring the camera jerked in just the right way to put Fortuna as the focus of the shot, making Alexandria look like Fortuna's sidekick. It was never published, but a few were printed, and they made their way throughout Earth Bet as a very rare collector's item as a 'blooper' poster, where some 'oddly photogenic office worker' upstaged Alexandria 'on a bet'. It was the closest thing Fortuna had to having merchandise.

Where did he get this? Oh, right. The Path is blind here. How annoying. She had already set it on building a model of this entity, so keeping him talking would be useful. "Where did you get this?" She asked.

"Oh, I have my ways." The wolf man said genially. "People own things, they die, and then sometimes their stuff doesn't have a proper heir to go to. There's been a lot of that recently. Which is where my fingers get awfully sticky." He tapped the poster with a claw. His hands were humanoid, articulated like a man's, but with canine claws which served little to no practical purpose, dull and poorly anchored to the rest of the hand. If this came to violence, he would not be using them. "Now, I am a bit of a fan, I'll admit. Contessa, the Cape Boogeyman. To oppose her was to put your life in her hands, you live or die by her say so alone." He tapped the poster again. "Now this, it wouldn't be your best work, of course, but it has character in a way that your impersonal murder sprees just didn't. Now, about that autograph?"

This was… unprecedented. Contessa has lived a life surrounded by capes, she's lived through the entirety of cape culture observing it. But… despite seeing Rebecca, David, and Keith get asked for such a thing repeatedly enough that David had used a power to create thousands so he could just carry a few and pass them out when needed.

…She had a pen. Fortuna plucked the writing implement, a simple ballpoint pen worth maybe two cents on Earth Resh-Lamed. She almost Pathed a way to make a good autograph… but it was too close to the wolf-man. She could prod it a bit more, create a model of Kurt to judge the quality standards, but… she could handle this.

What should she sign it as? Well, he addressed her as 'Contessa'... sort of. She had written enough English through the path that she'd need to have paid absolutely no attention to not learn, so she used that one. Right next to it, she added a few extra characters. She never really learned to read and write properly in her original tongue, but she knew enough for this.

'Forta'. It was her nickname that her uncle called her. They were foreign enough and written sloppily enough that it could be mistaken as just some extra scribbles, but she wanted her first autograph to be special.

"Ah, thank you, amiga." The wolf-man said, putting the poster away casually. Wait… where did he put it in? Just… his cloak? "Now, for my usual business."

Alarm bells blared in her head, metaphorically. It was not the Path, but instead her own human instincts that she had forgotten that she possessed. The Path to drawing her knife: two steps. The wolf-man brought out a sickle and hooked her knife's guard, tossing it into the air without giving her a scratch. Path to getting ready to shoot: five steps.

The Path was uncertain, guessing, but it still guided her steps against this invisible enemy as she vaulted backwards, rolling onto her feet and drawing her pistol. He deflected her shot with a second sickle, and in an instant, he had disarmed her of her gun as well before retreating. Why didn't he follow up? Her knife clattered to the floor.

"Oh, that was good." He said happily, bouncing on his feet. "You were on me like that!" His grin turned sinister as he kicked her knife in her direction. "Pick it up." He demanded.

Fortuna's exit portal opened up, right on time. She leapt through it, escaping the jaws of Death.

-------------------------

Kurt frowned as he saw Fortuna emerge from the portal head-first, clumsily rolling to her feet. "...Is something the matter?" He asked carefully.

"One of the deviations." Fortuna explained at her customary clipped tone, "They're a blindspot, attacked me." Path to calming down. Step 1: take deep breaths.

"Hm." Kurt said, thinking about it. "Well, I guess you'll have to avoid going to Earth… which was it again?"

"Samech-Pe." Step 2: Pour tea.

"Right. It wouldn't be the first time you've had to work at a remove to ensure safety." He grimaced. "But it looks like I'll be stuck with the duty."

"Yes." Fortuna agreed. "Our resources are limited." Step 3: Drink tea.

"I'll see if I can kill that assassin while I'm there. When will that be and what does it look like?" Kurt said, more bored than anything else.

"In four days." Fortuna said, sipping her tea. "It looks like a wolf that walks and talks like a man. Fights with sickles, wears a black cloak." Step 4: Exhale. Path complete. Resume primary path. Check adjustments. Acceptable without further deviation. Immediately, Fortuna took the paper that Doormaker's instructions were written on and adjusted the schedule. After the shade read the altered paper, a portal opened in front of her.

Back to putting out all those metaphorical fires.

-------------------------

Next step: Grind down the now-broken rail. This particular Tinker's lab was absolutely massive, a flying aircraft carrier that was absolutely field with killer robots… and also had a powr plant that, as a side-effect of its operation, created a chaotic interference field that destroyed Doormaker's portals before they could fully form.

But he wished to literally conquer Earth Shin-He, so as to exploit its abundant natural resources for himself, creating an entire fleet of ships like this. So he had to go.

The Path has been… strange lately. Next step: Jump, land on the security robot with left foot. Next step: Kick security robot bot in the shoulder. Gun will misfire and destroy the other security robot, while also straining the first one beyond the point of its range of motion, severing important connective wires. Land safely. Next step: Input the following into the computer terminal.

Sure, the Path had been doing what she asked, letting her keep human civilization going long term… but before, it included quite a bit of intimidation, theft, and even bribery. Now? It seemed to be exclusively a list of murders.

Next step: draw pistol, shoot the man who opened the door to the room. His head exploded like a rotten egg, never even realizing that she was armed, dead with a grin of anticipation and a bombastic speech on his lips. Next step: Enter portal before ship finishes crashing.

Wait, what was that whistling? As she waited the heartbeats for Doormaker's portal to appear, she looked around. It was the deviation! He was holding a sickle above the dead man, flashing a wolfish grin at her. Still, he couldn't stop her from entering the portal, so she did.

How did he change worlds like that? Did she really see him, or was he merely a hallucination?

…No, she was just seeing things. She needs to take a break.

-------------------------

Cauldron may be lesser than it used to be, but it still retained certain resources. Like the most comprehensive map of the various Earths that exists.

Fortuna liked Earth Resh-Resh. It used to be just Earth Resh, but once another Earth got that designation, Kurt agreed that they should just add a second Resh instead of telling everyone about their vacation destination. It's what they did to all of their secret worlds that remained secret, all three of them. It was a worthy sacrifice for their victory over the Adversary, but it was still harsh.

The Path predicted that they would need to add a third Resh in about four years.

Anyway, Earth Resh-Resh was a place where humans never evolved, and as such there was plenty of scenic vistas that one could take a break. Hero had long built some small structures in about twenty locations that were particularly pleasant, with very little that could bother a human around and ample food. After his death, they had made the necessary adjustments to keep things operating in his absence without relying on the Path.

This beach in particular had about five different fruit trees that fruited year-round, desperate to be eaten by passing birds so they could spread their seeds all around the archipelago. Fortuna liked all of them.

But… something was nagging at her. She dealt with the restlessness in her usual way, by using a path-guided exercise regimen. Except that this time, she decided to just do what she remembered of the regimen instead of having the Path guide her through it. It was… surprisingly engaging.

"...Ciara." Foruna eventually said. The aforementioned parahuman was sunbathing nude, being fanned by her most handsome shades.

"I agree." Ciara said, pre-empting her actual question. "You've had those doubts as long as I've known you. The Eye is powerful, but we are more than our faeries."

So that's what it's like on the other side of that. Resisting the impulse to Path the rest of the conversation, Fortuna sighed. "It's just… this deviation, the Path can't see him at all. That's worse than a blind spot." With David, the Endbringers, and the Adversary, the Path just stopped whenever they were involved, and Fortuna could sort of compensate with the shape of their absence by modeling them with her human mind and using that as a basis for the Path to work from.

That wasn't to say that Fortuna didn't have a model of the deviation, it's just that as far as the Path was concerned, the deviation did not exist. It was unsettling.

"It might be an illusion, fooling your perception." Ciara proposed. "The Eye treats it as if it doesn't exist because it doesn't."

That sounded likely. But… Path to never seeing that wolf-man-thing again. Step 1: Draw knife. Skip ahead… Nope. Still nothing but blinding herself and surgically lobotomizing the relevant parts. Path to killing whatever's responsible for her perceiving that wolf-man-thing. Path not found. "We're not that lucky." Fortuna said instead of anything contestable.

Ciara chuckled. "I thought I was supposed to be the superstitious one."

"Just pessimistic." Fortuna countered. What can she do about this problem?

Who is that deviation?