"What's her overarching goal?"

"Save the world. There's a, a threat coming. We're trying to build up as much of a defense as we can, and hoping for a weapon that will work. Most orders from you would interfere with the number of capes available to fight; this one wouldn't."

"...What would possibly make her or anyone think I would object to saving the world and issue orders to prevent it?"

"Not with the purpose of preventing it, just the effect. If you had ordered our group to do everything in our power to stop the Endbringers while they were still active, to take something completely unobjectionable, it would have decreased our ability to prepare for the worse threat. Even this one is saying protect against the end of the world as effectively as possible unless it involves ordering Promise and gambling that the current most effective plan doesn't. It's probably a safe bet, but any given order could cause that problem."

"This is the same plan-generating power that thought producing my name was a great idea and didn't have anyone intercept you before you broke into my house to do stupid things in Fairyland," Promise points out. "Which means that Contessa is bad at compensating for her gaps or it is for some reason extremely useful for me to hate her personally in spite of the fact that I have every sympathy with her cause. I am not in the least sure I trust this power."

"You're a gap; I, I assume, am not; if she doesn't want your cabal ordered you will turn up to find them all deaf. Am I wrong?"

"She can know almost anything about Earths, but her power hasn't been giving her information about Fairyland. It's not a block on it the way her blind spots are, but it doesn't seem to be able to reach across to here. You can plan anything you like from here and she won't react until you gate back."

"Phone won't work, though, unless I do come through. I have service in Hawthorn but not Fairyland. What even is going to destroy the world? I talked Scion into killing the Endbringers, maybe I should just talk to him again."

"Scion destroys the world. There are survivors if he isn't stopped, but he's what we've got to fight."

"Has Contessa re-checked the prediction since plain speaking proved to get unusual reactions out of him?"

"It didn't help. She can't model him directly, any more than she can model me. She has to fill in what we know about him, and it's little enough that the ability to get his attention doesn't give an actionable path."

"So you're just accumulating power in the hopes that if you fling enough of it at him whenever he snaps, he'll die?"

"Also creating power. Making the Protectorate and its counterparts. Planning evacuation to other worlds in case we lose; he's likely to focus his destruction on Bet. Mostly, we're accumulating power hoping for the ability to kill him."

"No. There's secrecy, we can't tell the world we're hoping to kill the world's greatest hero, but stopping Scion is the ultimate goal."

"Based on that, my tentative plan is to get their names, send you to bring them all to me, prevent them from distributing my name or giving me orders or occupying Fairyland without my express uncommanded permission, possibly yell at them for a while, permit them to forbid me to give them further orders, and send them home. Am I correct in thinking that if you get the drop on them you could get them all?"

"Some more easily than others. Legend or Alexandria might be able to get away. In an extreme case one of them might try to kill Contessa rather than let her fall into a fairy's hands; they won't necessarily know it's you with prearranged orders. Both those results are unlikely."

"Given tactical free rein but obliged to put forth your genuine best effort, what would your plan be?"

"Teleport to Contessa and disable her with area effect attacks. Something, probably force fields, to hold the others separate if they're present. If they get away they can go. There's no one they'd warn and once you've got Contessa it becomes trivial to find them wherever they flee. That is likely to be necessary; Alexandria and Legend are hard to contain even if the Number Man and the Doctor aren't, and the same offensive powers wouldn't be useful against them. Alternatively, you could simply ask Contessa for how to safely order any who get away. I can beat them, she can beat them easily."

"You can't knock them unconscious?"

"Not safely. There are powers that can get past their invulnerability, but powers that dangerous are ones I'd rather avoid. I'd try messing with time instead. But unnecessarily fighting all of them at once when I could do it sequentially wouldn't be my best effort."