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[attr="class","skullbody"]The door opened. What should have been an empty hallway was, instead, a girl. But not just any girl. Miroru. This timelines first innocent victim of the mentat's actions. He knew this moment would come. Every mentat always made the same mistake despite knowing deep down that it was pointless to follow their heart. Every single iteration always found someone to grow close to. Of all the things that followed him through the ages, this was the one that hurt the most. No matter what he did to avoid it, there was always a heart, and it had to be broken. [break][break]

"I've been busy," he said in her voice. The words flat and devoid of any emotion or any hint to the connection she and Thea shared. In truth, the mentat hoped that would be enough.[break][break]

He stared into the girl's eyes with a vacant look. He didn't just see Miroru, her face worn with exhaustion. He saw the countless faces of every person the mentat had ever loved. He saw their tears as he was forced to ruin them again and again. Not with violence, not with his quirk, but with the cruelest tool he had access to: Words.[break][break]

He wanted to walk past her, but that wasn't an option. The fox was of the unfortunate type that had to be dealt with once confronted. Her quirk was too much trouble to counteract, and if she'd been following him, then there was no doubt she'd soon find herself on the receiving end of a Scales blade or the Melodist's music. He had to save her. It was the one kindness he could offer Thea. But to do that, she had to hate them. [break][break]

"Are you coming in?"[break][break]

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[attr="class","skullbody"]Thea's mind was like a razor, focused entirely on the task at hand. It's not that the mentat didn't suffer from stray thoughts or distractions. It was simply the fact that she could keep them in line through other more dedicated trains of thought, which she isolated from her main consciousness. As she let go of Mimi's hand, she noticed not the particulars of thought but the lack of any sense of self-preservation. [break][break]

She wanted to say something, but despite hypocrisy being her favorite pastime, she opted not to. What good was it for her to say, "Don't trade your health for power," when she did the very same thing? Visible scars of the body and invisible ones of the mind. She hated how similar they were despite being so different. [break][break]

The thought was relegated to its own train of thought and moved back to where she couldn't hear it anymore. There was work to be done. [break][break]

Civilians were the first order of business. Whether it was her hero training or the fact that she didn't want any witnesses for what was undoubtedly going to become an act of vigilante justice was anyone's guess. In either case, Thea wanted them gone. [break][break]

As she followed the prism hero through the art filled halls, the mentat would frequently call for her to stop, trading time for the chance to get people out. Any staff she saw was grabbed by the wrist unceremoniously. Their minds filled with the command to get people out quickly. It was wonderous what the belief that there was a gas leak could do to motivate someone. [break][break]

As they traveled upwards on the last staircase before their destination, Thea pulled two reams of cloth from her bag. They were black but clearly well worked with patchwork covering bullet holes and knife cuts. She removed her gloves and then proceeded to wrap them around her hands and forearms in the practiced manner of a boxer. She lacked Mimi's raw power, but the mentat wasn't without her own tricks.[break][break]

The pair stopped at the top of the stairs. Beyond this door was presumably a whole floor Greymourn dedicated to himself. Hidden on it, a forgotten room where the devil played with life. [break][break]

Thea put a hand on the redhead's back right between the shoulder blades. She didn't need words or her quirk to communicate. The gesture was enough. [break][break]

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Oblivion. The Melodist knew nothing of oblivion. The maddening darkness that exists between the end of life and the start of another. Somewhere in there, Mateo had touched god, or at least his madness led him to believe that. The truth didn't matter. He had one purpose in this Kalpa, To right the path they traveled. [break][break]

"Do you really think killing me will work? I'll come back again and again and again until god tears time itself apart!" As the third set of footsteps landed behind him, the mentat raced to find a solution to the puzzle of survival, a thousand routs played out in his mind leading only to a thousand dead ends. The mentat was never meant to be a fighter, he'd learned that long ago. They were only ever meant to get the pieces in the right place.[break][break]

The three agents pressed forward, knives in hand. There was no blind spot, no opening, and by now, they had were ready for any changes the mentat could bring. He sighed, "You know this isn't the first time I've died here. But now I can leave you with something to remember me by Melodist." He walked forward slowly, each step echoing in the alleyway. There was an odd peace in knowing there was nothing you could do. It was freeing in a way the mentat found hard to describe. Countless lifetimes spent flipping the coin of fate. The few times he knew it was too late were his favorite. They were the only times he was allowed to live. He would live these next few moments to the fullest. [break][break]

The agents stepped forward, swinging their blades in tandem to give the mentat no escape. He singled one out, the one he'd already punched, and rushed him, using the tape to guard against the blade and tackle the man to the ground. The other two agents turned and plunged their blades in the mentat's back as he broke the arm of the one he'd downed and tore the knife from his fingers before plunging it in his femoral artery and turning it before withdrawing the blade. [break][break]

"Oh, I'm sorry, that was supposed to hurt now wasn't it?" He said, turning back towards his assailants. "You heard the man. Regicide," he stood, pointing a finger to the center of his forhead, "Shoot me, right here. You already know I don't have to feel pain if I don't want to." his mouth warped into a wicked grin as the agents stepped back and drew their smg's. The mentat rushed forward, blood seeping from wounds he didn't feel trailed behind him as the rattle of guns filled the alleyway. [break][break]

Her flesh was riddled with holes, and his consciousness began to fade. But not before he cut the throat of a second agent. It was swift, and methodical. No motion was wasted in the act. The sharpness of the blades lent itself well for the mentat to carry the swing into the arn of the next agent and expose now bloodied flesh. Fear filled the agent's eyes, not that the mentat could see it, but given their covering, he knew they were defending against his quirk.[break][break]

Another round of SMG fire hit the walls, and the mentat grabbed hold of the agent's arm. He filled their mind with the total sum of all the pain he'd felt for millennia and an equal measure of the oblivion he'd felt. It was only a moment, but it was enough.[break][break]

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[attr="class","skullbody"]"I took the truth from you." She said casually. There was no point in lying with her hunger at least temporarily satisfied. "I can kinda read minds by touch." There was no point in saying the whole truth either. [break][break]

She watched as the duality curled up in an instinctive bid for self-protection. While it was what Thea had intended, it was no longer what she wanted. The person before her was changing in a way Thea was all too familiar with, a where many minds became one. "You're not dead, Elias. But I can call you Freja if you like since I guess neither is she."[break][break]

"If I wanted to do that again, I wouldn't have let go. You're lucky I even did. I don't remember the last time that happened." It was her way of saying she never did. "Now get your shit together. Aren't you trying to be a hero or whatever? Can't let something like this be what breaks you. Trust me. I could have done much worse." Something about how Freja responded kept pissing the mentat off. Even more so, Thea was mad that somewhere in this mess, she'd started to feel soft for her. [break][break]

"I only know what you know. Well, I might see more than you, but it's not like I'm clairvoyant or whatever. I know your quirk kept you alive. I know you and your sister were very different people. I know you're," she paused. A first conversation wasn't exactly the time to tell someone they were slowly becoming someone else. But who else would say it? Would they even notice the change? Was it worth drawing attention to? "You're like, melding. The space in your mind is two people stacked on top of each other. The mind likes to figure itself out and do away with things like that. Well, most minds do." She took a step back, giving Freja space to think but also moving away from her in case she decided that now was the time for bat.[break][break]

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[attr="class","skullbody"]Time was never on his side. Already, he could feel himself being rejected by the body he inhabited, her body. It wasn't the first time the mentat's host had been different, and it rarely took long for him to overcome those discrepancies. But this host, Thea, was entirely different despite the temporal lineage they shared, made as they were from the same broken fragments of worlds before. Mateo had to dedicate effort to keeping her at bay. Not much, a fraction of a percent at most, but some resistance was more than the absolute nihility he expected when he absorbed the new mentat's mind.[break][break]

It had been weeks now. Fortunately, their delinquency ran constant through the ages, and it was easy to slip away from the school for long enough to set their tasks in motion. Infrequent and erratic stops to what was once Thea's room allowed for him to get by with minimal interaction that inevitably followed the sudden shift in behavior. By then, it was always too late, Something other always went wrong and by the time he knew it, he'd been placed in check by his unseen foe. [break][break]

The mentat stood outside the school grounds once more. Another quick jaunt in and out. A change of clothes and an unwelcome shower. Strange how even the simplest necessities in this timeline felt wrong. The vessel was a necessity too, nothing more.[break][break]

He entered her room. It was dark. Their room was always dark, always empty at this point. Noone truly lived here, not in any sense that mattered. The mentat's had a way of simply existing in what was a sort of half-life before their eventual demise. Oftentimes Mateo had wondered if he was even truly alive. He searched Thea's memories and found solace in knowing she often felt the same way. Or at least she used to. [break][break]

It had been about thirty minutes. Mateo was drying off and scrambling through the pile of clothes that, while technically his, felt strange. Partly because of their shape but more because he liked them. Thea at least shared the same taste, or lack thereof, he had in his youth. Ultimately he settled on an old staple. A well-worn red tank top and black shorts. He liked how they looked in it, not that aesthetics mattered, not that he even should. [break][break]

Gathering the last of his belongings, the mentat approached the door, but not before turning back and eye the cactus that had born witness to their every coming and going. "You didn't see me." He said in her voice.[break][break]

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[attr="class","skullbody"]"We all have our faults," Mateo spat back in faux confidence. The taunt was mainly for his own satisfaction. Acknowledging that the Melodist was the first of many pieces that had to fall in this game of chess he played across the aeons with an opponent he'd never seen and yet could never escape. "So, you remember now, do you?" [break][break]
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Fear was an emotion Mateo had discarded so long ago and yet despite his best effort, he felt it now. His body was wrong, the Melodist was aware, and even the ages and context of the world had shifted far outside the margin of error he'd grown to expect. This wasn't just an outlier in the fabric of existence. This was a sign that it was falling apart at the seams. Time had been shattered and put together so many times that the fragments lost with each recursion began to show their marks. Soon, even god would not be able to suspend his disbelief. [break][break]

"I usually do, don't I?" He laughed in her voice. "The Mentat is always the first to leave, and we proclaim ourselves the mastermind for decades before dying. Do you know the wonderful thing about having a memory like mine that reaches through the ages?" Her eyes closed as he allowed their senses to expand. The compounding fragments of sensation build a picture as clear and bright as the sun. Their eyes opened. Her hollow orbs now the golden sheen of Mateo's will across the ages. "Even surprises can't surprise me anymore, and frankly, I've gone quite mad. In life, I was the mentat. In death, I became the mastermind..." Footsteps fell to the floor before him.[break][break]

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Simultaneous trigger pulls released a volley of bullets intent on ending this conflict before it could even begin. Ouroboros had done their homework. Range was his bane, but in preparing for Mateo, they'd failed to prepare for Thea. The mentat brought her arms up like a shield, sending reams of armored cloth along the trajectories of their bullets. He'd never used capture tape before but she was fond of it and so they had at least one way to defend themselves against these bullets.[break][break]

"Containment suits? Won't make this easy, will you?" He spat, closing the distance behind the cover of her capture tape. Ouroboros, unfortunately, trained their men well. Instead of taking action and countercharging, they waited, holding their position, forcing Mateo to make the first move. He was never one to set the pace, only ever one to outsmart it. Ouroboros knew that. Thea however, was not one to play second fiddle. From behind the tape, a fist found purchase against one of the figure's faces, though in turn, a round found its way into her side.[break][break]

"What? You didn't look into her?" He cooed. Knives flashed through the air as the figures pressed their counterattack. Two new wounds emerged on Her arms as he barely managed to pull away from what he presumed would be a lethal strike. He felt no pain as her nerves screamed. Their body was washed in memory and hallucination. His mind was racing with to formulate a plan as he fired another ream of captrue tape around the figures only to have the other respond by aiming their weapon. it was a game of cat and mouse played at the speed of thought. "Fucking speedsters," They thought. As another volly bullets fired and another would appeared on the girl's right thigh.[break][break]

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[attr="class","skullbody"]Before she could even act, Thea watched as Marlene arrived and dispatched the two robots with singular strikes. A feat the mentat knew she would never have been able to accomplish. To say she was envious was to put it lightly. The back of her mind raged at the indignation of being beaten against the wall only to be saved like any of the actors here was humiliating. The fact that she was the only one in any real danger added to the sentiment. In a room full of so called victims, she was the one really being rescued.[break][break]

"Yeah, I'm fine," she lied through her teeth. Her upper body was covered in freshly forming bruises. Her nervous system was flooded with pain signals that she struggled to drown out under a sea of memory and hallucination.[break][break]

"I already told you what I know," she spat. While she'd already unveiled their plan, she had omitted what little else she knew. "Well, I know at least one of them can change momentum and velocity. Not sure if it's the one with the spiked hair or the flat-top American." She had small glimmers of their abilities, actions reminiscent of a fighting game from one but zero context for the other. Either they were new heroes, or they weren't from around here.[break][break]

"This is probably when they're gonna show up. We should get to Jack before they pick him off." She ran off back towards where she last saw the dragon boy. "He's still where I left y'all, right?"[break][break]

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