"Thanks," Thomas said. His voice was barely a whisper, a raspy sound lost in the groan of the train's iron skeleton.
He wasn't addressing the superhero, nor the train, nor the strange world outside. He was thanking the pendulum—the small, bronze weight that had just acted as the final arbiter of his existence.
The lightning-lord seemed to intuit Thomas's meaning. He paused, his gloved hand lingering on the chain for a brief second before he pulled the seeker away.
He gave Thomas—whom he still seemed to view as little more than a stray dog—a long, glaring look that felt like a physical weight.
"I will get one," Thomas added, his resolve hardening. He had never been a man of faith, but in a world where the laws of physics were replaced by the whims of energy and intent, he wanted a compass that pointed toward survival.
"You'd have to be exceptionally lucky just to find a craftsman selling a true seeker," the man scoffed, stowing the bronze weight deep in his coat. "Not to mention the price. Most cubs like you would have to work a decade in the mines just to afford the chain. Your best bet is to find a professional diviner and pay for a reading. It's cheaper, though far less reliable."
"Good suggestion," Thomas replied, though the concept of 'money' was still an abstract problem for him. His thoughts drifted back to the moment his life had changed—the grimy, crowded subway car back on Earth and the mysterious old woman who had held a sign promising a future.
"Just..." The man paused, and for the first time, Thomas saw a flicker of genuine apprehension cross the superhero's face. It wasn't the heat of battle or the tension of the pendulum; it was a cold, superstitious dread.
"Don't ever get near a lady reading fate. If you see a woman peddling the future on a street corner, don't look her in the eye. Or else, who knows? You might pop into one of them."
"Them?" Thomas asked. The way the man's voice dropped made the hair on Thomas's arms stand up.
"The Witches," the man said, the word sounding like a taboo. He leaned in closer, his mechanical oculus clicking rapidly. "If you ever hear a rumour of a Witch being in a sector, turn around. Walk the other way. Don't run—you don't want to draw their focus. Just vanish."
"Why?" Thomas asked, infected by the man's sudden gravity. "Are they like the villains?"
"They are beyond that," the man sighed, leaning back into his seat. "The Witches... they have ways. Powers that don't follow the grades or the laws of Qi. Ways that no one can see coming and no one can defend against. If they decide they want you dead, you're dead. If they decide they want your soul, you won't even realise you've lost it until it's far too late."
Thomas's mind spun. He recalled the old woman back in New York. She hadn't looked like a monster. She had looked like a beggar, weary and overlooked. "I believe... such ladies wouldn't exactly advertise their identity, right? How would you even know?"
"Just pray your luck holds," the man said, looking at Thomas for a long time. "However, there is a mark. They usually carry a tattoo on the side of the neck. It's a trick of the eye—it looks like a serpent, but it isn't. It looks like a dragon, but it isn't. It's an ancient symbol that represents their coven. A mark of the void."
Thomas felt his blood run cold. He didn't just stand; he nearly bolted from his seat. The memory he had been suppressing surged forward with terrifying clarity.
He saw the old woman's neck, the way the grime of the city couldn't quite hide a faint, shifting ink mark. It had been a coiled, serpentine shape that seemed to change every time he glanced at it.
"Are you saying they are... bad?" Thomas asked. He felt a strange conflict. If that woman was a "Witch," and Witches were monsters, then why had she saved him? Why had she given him a second chance instead of simply consuming him? To him, she had been an angel of the underground.
"They are the worst of the worst," the man insisted, misinterpreting Thomas's shock as pure terror. "Real monsters. Demons in silk and rags."
Thomas forced his face to relax. He didn't want this lethal stranger to know he had already been touched by one of these "monsters." He felt a bizarre sense of comfort instead of fear; if a Witch was powerful enough to scare a C-grade lightning-user, then the protection she had inadvertently granted him by sending him here must be substantial.
"As fate decided," the man said, shifting the subject abruptly, "we need to talk about what happens when this train reaches the station."
"I won't say anything," Thomas said, his detective instincts resurfacing. "I'll take your secret to the grave. I know how to keep my mouth shut."
"Bullsh*t!" the man laughed, though there was no humour in it. "That's not how it works here, kiddo. What happened on this train—the Qi fluctuations, the localised atmospheric disturbances—it was like lighting a flare in a dark room. The agents at the nearest SA, the Superpower Authority, will have felt it for miles. We're going to be met by a swarm of investigators at the next stop."
Thomas felt a familiar sinking feeling. "Investigators?"
"They'll do a routine check. I'm the one who will have to shoulder the heat and the paperwork, but they're going to question every witness. That includes you. They'll dig into your background, check your ID, and look for any connection to the Villains."
"Villains?" Thomas repeated, his mind snagging on the word.
"Yes," the man said, his eyes narrowing. "The Authority doesn't like it when C-grade battles break out on public transport. They'll want to know if those two were part of a cell, and if you—the boy with the tree—are a victim or a plant."
Thomas looked down at his tree pot. He had just survived a battle and a pendulum execution, only to face a formal interrogation by a government he didn't understand. He was back in the system.
"Who else but Villains?" the man said with a light shrug, his voice taking on the practised tone of a stage actor. "They are the ones who assaulted a public transport vessel, attempted a high-altitude hijack, and created a scene of terror.
It was simply the poor passengers' lucky day that we happened to be aboard to intervene. We did our duty, neutralised the threat, protected the innocent, and assisted the local authorities in avoiding a much larger disaster."
Thomas stared at him, the silence between them heavy with the unsaid truth. He understood perfectly what was happening: he was being coached. This was the "official" version of the story, the one that would be filed in reports and told to the men with badges.
Thomas couldn't help but admire the sheer, shameless efficiency with which the superhero twisted the facts. There were no "villains" in the traditional sense; this had been a targeted hit, an internal feud between powerful men who clearly shared a history.
The "lightning-lord" knew exactly who those two were—he likely knew their names, their families, and the colour of their blood.
"This is the story you are going to stick to. Got it?" the man said. When Thomas remained silent for a beat too long, the superhero offered a sharp, knowing wink.
"Sure," Thomas replied. He had no other choice. In any world, the word of a decorated C-grade hero would outweigh the testimony of a nameless "cub" with a plant. To disagree was to court the very death he had just avoided by the swing of a pendulum.
"Good lad," the man chuckled, his posture relaxing into the seat. He glanced at the bundle on Thomas's back. "If I didn't know you were a developing hero, I'd mistake that thing for a particularly strange pet."
"The people back there gave me this," Thomas said, indicating the leather harness. "They mistook the pot for a pet as well."
"Can't blame them. People in the Outer Zones are obsessed with magical pets. Little monsters that can harness the ambient Qi of the world. They're quite handy—help with the chores, sniff out mines. If you train them well enough, they'll even tear a man's throat out to save yours."
"That sounds useful," Thomas admitted. "I wouldn't mind one."