Chapter 188: The Master Plan
Selena blinked in total disbelief. "Go in as... hitmen?"
"Think about it." Nicholas pushed off the wall, and now that he had committed to the underlying shape of the operation, the words came out quick, sharp, and certain. "The moment we cross into that dome, we lose our abilities. All of them. My spatial copies, the Void, your techniques—everything. The exact same way they stripped away everyone else’s powers. So if we walk in there planning to fight like heroes, relying on supernatural abilities, we’ve already lost before we’ve taken a single step. We’d just be two more ordinary, helpless people kneeling in the rubble alongside the rest of them."
"So we don’t rely on abilities at all," Selena said slowly, her mind working through the tactical logic.
"We don’t rely on abilities," Nicholas agreed, nodding flatly. "Inside that dome, supernatural powers mean absolutely nothing. Everyone is reset to equal ground. Which means the only things that carry over across that boundary line are the things that were never abilities to begin with." He held up a bloodied hand, counting the points off on his fingers one by one. "Weapons. Preparation. Environmental awareness. And knowing far more than the other side does. That isn’t a hero’s toolkit, Selena. That’s a hitman’s." His voice dropped, cold, level, and devoid of emotion. "So we don’t go in there trying to overpower him. We go in to execute a contract and outsmart him."
Julie gasped in sheer delight, her eyes going wide. She immediately swung her smartphone up as if to film the moment before remembering she wasn’t allowed to, painfully lowering the camera with a pathetic whine.
"Which is going to be SO EASY!" she announced loudly, buzzing with excitement. "Because obviously this Master guy is a total idiot! You saw right through his whole elaborate trap in like two minutes! He built this big, terrifying dome plan, and you cracked the entire thing standing in a hallway while getting your broken ribs fixed! He’s dumb and you’re a genius—it’s not even a contest! I should totally stream thi—"
"Don’t."
"Right, right, sorry."
"And don’t ever underestimate an target like him." Nicholas’s expression stayed dead serious, a cold wall that instantly wiped the goofy grin right off Julie’s face. "That’s the fastest way to end up dead on a job. I saw through the initial trap, yes. But I only saw that it is a trap. I don’t yet know how deep the pit actually goes." He shook his head grimly. "This isn’t some mindless brute who kicked in a front door. He waited for the single night the entire planet was looking away. He broke into the most heavily fortified prison on Earth to reach that girl, and he timed every second of this operation down to the hour—around the global tournament, and around all of us being gathered in one place." His one good eye narrowed. "A man who plans like that doesn’t just forget details. Whatever move we’re currently thinking of trying, he’s probably already thought of it too. He’ll have prepared a contingency for it."
Julie deflated slightly, her pink hair drooping. "...Oh."
"Which is precisely why we don’t rush in blind." Nicholas began to pace across the small space, his movement slow, calculated, and thoughtful. "The very first rule of the trade isn’t ’be the strongest guy in the room.’ It’s ’know your target completely.’ Before you ever make a move on someone, you learn everything there is to learn about them. Where they are standing. How many guards they have. What weapons they’re holding. Where the exits are located. What their blind spots are. You spend a hundred hours studying the setup so the actual execution takes ten seconds." He paused, coming to a halt. "We don’t have a hundred hours tonight. But we’re not walking into that dome until we know exactly what’s waiting inside it. What kind of perimeter security they’ve established. How many villains are on site. Where they’ve put the hostages, where they’ve secured the girl, and what nasty little surprises are waiting past the boundary wall."
"So we need eyes on the inside," Selena said, catching on. "Reconnaissance. Someone to slip past the boundary, map out the layout, and report back before we commit to a push."
"Someone who can get in, see everything, and get back out with the full picture intact," Nicholas confirmed with a nod. "That’s step one. Everything else we do depends entirely on it."
Then he frowned.
Because it was one thing to name the tactical requirement, and quite another to solve the blatant logistical nightmare sitting at the very center of it.
"The trouble is choosing who," Nicholas said, his brow creasing. "Whoever crosses that boundary loses their abilities the split second they step over the line, exactly like everyone else. So it can’t be a hero—they’d just be walking straight into the same trap and getting captured alongside the rest. And it needs to be someone who won’t draw immediate attention. Someone the Master and his crew won’t think twice about. Someone forgettable enough to move around in the middle of a high-stakes hostage situation without raising an alarm." He crossed his arms tightly over his chest, mentally scanning through the roster of every combatant he knew and discarding them one by one. "It has to be a nobody. Somebody so utterly unimportant that six killers standing over the strongest heroes on Earth wouldn’t spare them a second glance."
A heavy silence settled over the alcove as the three of them chewed on the problem.
And then, Julie’s entire face lit up like a match struck in the dark.
"OH!" She sat bolt upright, her eyes massive, practically vibrating on the spot. "Oh, oh, oh! I know someone! I know the EXACT person for this!"
Selena turned to face her, her expression instant, dawning dread. "Julie. No."
"Someone completely harmless! Someone nobody in their right mind would ever suspect of being a threat! Someone who is a literal genius at getting into places they’re definitely not supposed to be and getting footage nobody else can get!" Julie was beaming now, thumping her own chest with absolute pride. "Someone whose entire professional career is built on sneaking into high-risk, dangerous situations just to get the perfect shot!"
Selena’s stomach dropped into her shoes. "Julie, absolutely not."
"It’s ME!" Julie declared loudly, throwing both her arms into the air. "It’s obviously me! I’m the nobody! I’m perfect for the job!"
"Absolutely not."
"Think about it! I have zero combat abilities, so losing my powers changes literally nothing about my physical state! I’m already useless in a fight, which means I’m the ONLY person who walks into that dome exactly as strong as I walk out!" Julie jabbed a triumphant, pointing finger right at Nicholas. "You said it yourself—you need someone forgettable! Someone nobody looks at twice! Do you have any idea how many active war zones I’ve filmed my way into over the years? How many classified crime scenes? I once got a full, exclusive interview inside a hostage barricade ten minutes before the swat team even arrived! Sneaking into places I’m not supposed to be IS MY ENTIRE PERSONALITY!"
Selena opened her mouth to completely shut the insane idea down.
And then, slowly, she closed her mouth again. Because the horrible, infuriating, unbearable truth was that Julie wasn’t wrong at all.
Nicholas stood quietly, studying the pink-haired streamer for a long, calculating moment. He gave her the exact same flat, cold assessment he gave every weapon or tool he was considering using for a contract.
"...She has no powers to lose," Nicholas said slowly, analyzing the variables out loud. "No combat energy signature to detect. Zero reason for a tactical planner like the Master to see her as an actual threat. If she gets spotted, she just looks like an idiot streamer chasing clout for a story. And men like him don’t waste time or energy executing foolish streamers." His single good eye sharpened. "She’s completely beneath notice. Which, right now, is the single most valuable asset a person can possess."
"See! SEE! He gets it!" Julie crowed triumphantly.
"Nicholas, she will get herself killed in four seconds," Selena hissed under her breath.
"She might," Nicholas admitted bluntly. "Which is why she isn’t going in there to fight, or to play the hero, or to save a single person." He turned directly to Julie, his voice dropping into the cold, level tone he used when the talking stopped and the job began. "You go in. You look around. You film everything as quietly as possible, and you touch absolutely nothing. You map out the number of guards, their weapons, where the hostages are kneeling, where the girl is being kept, where they are standing, and what angles they are watching. Then you come straight back out to us. That’s it. If you deviate from those instructions by a single inch, you die, and you take our only tactical advantage with you. Do you understand me?"
Julie’s wide grin didn’t entirely fade, but something much steadier and focused settled beneath it—the quiet focus of a professional woman who had, in factual reality, stepped into extreme danger for a shot more times than anyone gave her credit for.
"Get in, get the footage, get out," Julie repeated smoothly. "Touch nothing. Be nobody." She gently patted her smartphone like an old, trusted friend. "Trust me, Phantom. Being completely underestimated by dangerous people is the one thing I’m the absolute best in the world at."
Selena dragged both her hands down her face, letting out the longest, most painful sigh of her entire life.
"...I cannot believe," she muttered into her palms, "that our master plan to save the world hinges entirely on the Peach Fairy."