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Tree branch: check. Assorted lightweight seed-bearing fruits and nuts: check. Other seeds: check. Water bottle, for when she has to veer away from the river: check.
Better not linger in her starting place too much longer. Yellow's faster than her and may have already come home to a wreck. Thorn might have a habit of checking up on the place, even, just in case. She's invisible, inaudible, unsmellable - that won't help if he sends someone thorough. Or comes in person.
She sets out.
She's been flying for about thirty minutes after her shopping trip when she falls through a tear and squeaks inaudibly and lands in the middle of -
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imeanforever
imeanforever
"Okay. Are there any other major details about what Contessa's aiming at that I'm missing?"
whole_new_can
"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."
imeanforever
"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?"
whole_new_can
"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."
imeanforever
"Given tactical free rein but obliged to put forth your genuine best effort, what would your plan be?"
whole_new_can
"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."
whole_new_can
"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."
whole_new_can
"I doubt any of your current vassals would seriously affect this fight. The Siberian if you were fighting to kill or maim instead of capture."
Eidolon is either poorly informed or unimaginative.
Eidolon is either poorly informed or unimaginative.
imeanforever
"...What, really? I have a variety and most of them would love the project from what I've derived of their tastes. I'd have to go through my notes but there might easily be something. I have a combat anesthetist who helped with the Fallen who might not work on Alexandria but I don't think it's known that he wouldn't, for instance."
whole_new_can
"OK, there's probably some of them that wouldn't be useless. Maybe there are some good masters. I don't know which of your Kept would be candidates."
imeanforever
They continue to talk tactics. Eventually it is decided that no Kept are necessary; they'd compromise Eidolon's blind spot status and Eidolon himself is already like several capes.
They hack together a power set for Eidolon to bring along for the ride. Promise brings him to the gate between Peak's court and Hawthorn, double-checks his order set, turns him invisible so he won't alarm too many Kept, opens the gate, and waves him through.
She talks to Peak in the meanwhile, lets her reestablish most of the court structure with some rules about humane vassal treatment (Peak was already well above average on that front, and the most salient thing her vassals might want - letting people leave - is not viable for infosec reasons; but there is room for improvement), sends everyone indoors, lets the broadear choose between temporary deafness and continuing to cover his ears and hum (he chooses to be deafened), and engages her in small talk about her order code system. It's very clever; she makes plans to adopt it for Kept.
whole_new_can
You simply must meet Promise, Promise!
As soon as Eidolon is on Hawthorn, he teleports to his victims. This is a matter of saying "door to Contessa" and stepping through. She (like the Number Man after her) flees as soon as someone she can't see disturbs the air, but she can't get far. She is still human, physically, and losing all voluntary control of her major muscles is almost as much of a detriment to her as to anyone else. The Doctor is even easier than the last two.
Alexandria and Legend can resist, but with the right master power and the element of surprise they end up just as stuck.
Promise gets all her masters lined up and helpless.
As soon as Eidolon is on Hawthorn, he teleports to his victims. This is a matter of saying "door to Contessa" and stepping through. She (like the Number Man after her) flees as soon as someone she can't see disturbs the air, but she can't get far. She is still human, physically, and losing all voluntary control of her major muscles is almost as much of a detriment to her as to anyone else. The Doctor is even easier than the last two.
Alexandria and Legend can resist, but with the right master power and the element of surprise they end up just as stuck.
Promise gets all her masters lined up and helpless.
imeanforever
And she got their names during the tactics conversation, with Eidolon's cute fireworks power repurposed to display pictures of them for her to focus on.
"First things first. Do not communicate my name to anyone by any means. Without my express permission, which you have until I indicate otherwise such as by snapping my fingers, or until two hours are up, whichever comes first, do not occupy Fairyland. Never give me an order that I do not request of my own uncoerced will, except, when authorized by me saying so of my own uncoerced will, the reciprocal of that one or a strictly more flexible version of my ratification."
She looks them over. She sighs.
"Enforcing no orders and deploying no powers, you may, honestly and without misleading omissions, speak. You may interrupt yourselves to warn me if this is about to cause you to disclose personal information of no legitimate interest to me."
"First things first. Do not communicate my name to anyone by any means. Without my express permission, which you have until I indicate otherwise such as by snapping my fingers, or until two hours are up, whichever comes first, do not occupy Fairyland. Never give me an order that I do not request of my own uncoerced will, except, when authorized by me saying so of my own uncoerced will, the reciprocal of that one or a strictly more flexible version of my ratification."
She looks them over. She sighs.
"Enforcing no orders and deploying no powers, you may, honestly and without misleading omissions, speak. You may interrupt yourselves to warn me if this is about to cause you to disclose personal information of no legitimate interest to me."
whole_new_can
A dark-skinned woman in a lab coat answers. "One of the backup plans is to evacuate to Fairyland. Our opponent probably can't reach here, unlike every earth. May we assume that if that plan gets put into action you don't intend to leave us behind to face Scion alone?"
imeanforever
"At this moment I dislike all of you personally and would be very much inclined to prioritize you last in any evacuation for which you were not logistically essential. I do not intend to leave the human population to face Scion alone, if that's what you're asking."
wormcan
Everyone accepts this answer, including the one of the six who isn't already logistically essential for leaving last.
imeanforever
"Learning my name puts you in very bad company. I sort of liked Alexandria and had never me the rest of you, you didn't exactly have targets painted on your foreheads. I have no idea why a power that sounds as good as Contessa's thought it was a good idea to share it around. Even if had 133468 the walking blind spot over here not gone on his extremely idiotic Fairyland jaunt I would never have found out, never would have otherwise stepped on one of your feet or needed to rescue any of you from hostile fairy orders by giving you a berry or otherwise encountered the fact that you had my name, I don't see how it would help. I don't want the world to end, I am not stupid or reckless, and using fairy orders well is a skill - Eidolon for one is terrible at it - which it is generally a bad idea to start figuring out in an emergency situation and/or when trying to order more people at one remove."
wormcan
"You do have every right to object to us having that kind of power any time we're in earshot of you, even without us ever intending to use it. We wanted to avoid risking the same fate as Cherish, even without you having any reason to kill us. And if I recall correctly," which she does, "you were in Fairyland at the time. Contessa's power was unable to predict you from our world."
imeanforever
"I am sometimes not in Fairyland. These days I am only in Fairyland to eat and rescue Triumvirate home invaders. She couldn't wait fifteen minutes for me to finish lunch? Or, if this happened long enough ago, a few hours to wait for me to wake up?"
wormcan
"Earlier, when you were visible, we checked that you would not find out we existed. If not for Eidolon's blunder involving both Fairyland and an existing blind spot, yes, it would have been safer."
imeanforever
"Do any of the Kept know your organization exists?" wonders Promise.
imeanforever
"You should probably assume you are not moving from this spot without me knowing everything of more interest to me than your favorite colors," Promise says, "and that if I don't have to drag it out of you piecemeal it will be faster and bode much better for our ability to cooperate to your desired level of flexibility with respect to the end of the world. Should I let Contessa check up on that or is it sufficiently obvious?"