Andrea really doubts that he would be in good hands, the Protectorate is a mess, even by government agency standards. Not to mention being an arm of the interuniversal secret conspiracy organisation that is Cauldron.

Oh fuck, Cauldron! Contessa! Probably other thinkers that belong to them! He has no idea why Cauldron might be interested in him right now, but they might in the future. Andrea is now in Brockton bay, before Leviathan (maybe), there are things he could change in the canon timeline. He doesn’t currently have any plans to change anything but he probably should right? The canon future sucks, it does prevent a complete genocide of humanity, but there is still a massive apocalypse coming that could maybe be ameliorated right? The sudden terror at the idea of Contessa coming out of nowhere and murdering him just to keep Cauldrons plans stable is intense and overwhelming.

He begs the weird brain feeling (that he still definitely doesn't believe is there to help, of course a passenger would lie about that) for protection against precogs.

Save me from precogs, please save me from precogs. He chants to himself mentally as soon as Armsmaster is out of view. He wishes with a sincerity that surpasses the few times he desperately tried praying to god as a kid during his darkest moments. He has never needed anything as intensely as this. The boogyman was real and she could basically predict the future and just decide to kill you at any time, even other villains at least had to be in geographical proximity with you to kill you, Contessa could find you anywhere. He needs to not be timefucked by precognitives, at least let there be a chance to survive if people want to kill him.

Um.

It wants to be able to do that, but "protection from precogs" is kind of ... big. Can he break it down? Does he want ... to not be perceptible by non-mundane senses? Does he want to be able to jitter randomly? Or be opaque to xrays?

There's a sense that "immune to precogs" is a possibility for him, but it isn't an atomic action that he can just take.

Not perceptible to non mundane senses seems like a lot bigger scope for a power to Andrea than just dont let precognitives predict him? He feels like non mundane covers more stuff than just that. He just doesn't want Contessa to have a path to victory that includes exactly how to kill him. He doesn't want Coil to be able to spam alternate timelines to know exactly how to manipulate him. He probably doesn't even want to come up in Dinah Alcotts number predictions. Does non mundane sense cover whatever predictive software the Passengers use to predict likely futures? There are already capes who defeat thinker powers, hell the Endbringers can do it. Can't he just have the same thing they do? Whatever is stopping the passangers from predicting them, do that please. Being killed by some random accident is not nearly as scary as someone simply knowing everything he will possibly do in advance and leaving him no options other than to just die.

Set up whatever flag in the passenger network thats needed for him not to get timefucked. Or put a thinker precog tailored somebody elses problem field on him. Or at least make the predictions unreliable. He just desperately craves to be free of time fuckery, prophecy is fucked up, It triggers some deep existential fear probably related to determinism, a fear that doesn't even make that much sense when there are certainly worse powers in Worm to be scared of.

Thinker powers in general are less scary (even if still scary) than full on future knowledge of you. Something like Tattletail being able to pull you apart as a person and make very educated guesses about your behaviour is not the same as Contessa knowing in advance every action she needs to take to make sure you die and there being nothing at all you can do about it.

Oh! So he doesn't want to be immune to precogs, he wants to be able to politely ask precogs not to think about him.

'Set a flag on the passenger network' still feels too big. There's a sense that there are multiple steps that go into that. But 'broadcast a message to nearby precogs asking them not to model him' is doable. Does he want that?

Would the precogs know about Andrea due to it? Is it going to be the equivalent of a big flashing sign that goes 'Someone here who doesnt want you thinking about them!'. Would the passengers even care about that message? And that still doesn't save him from death by Contessa because she makes her future knowledge based plans to murder you in another world entirely before she steps through one of the Doormans doorways to kill you. Them having to be nearby doesn't help at all.

When Contessa plans to murder him attempts to get every single step on how to kill him in advance. He wants that power to either to return no results like the endbringers, or at least give her wrong information. If he can't stop it on the passenger end, can he become unpredictable? Can he get a RNG machine equivalent that is so RNG that not even passengers can predict it and take actions based on that? So the precogs at least have to recalculate all the time? Can he get the opposite of the path to Victory and have a power that gives him the steps to take to fuck up precog predictions?

Please, he will take anything as long as he's safe from impossible to beat time fuckery.

He gets a faint sense of confusion and worry. He could get a power for intuitively understanding what messages would or would not draw attention to him?

Yes, he can get a source of true randomness that can't be predicted from outside. No, an 'opposite path to victory' is still too big. But he could get ... a power that lets him tell which actions will have lots of chaotic knock-on effects? Does he want that?

Yes, that! To be the most unpredictable butterfly to the future. Adding impossible to predict effects regularly enough that trying to see his future is not very useful. He probably wouldn't even need to take very big actions. The butterfly effect probably doesn't need all that much in the form of actions to change the future enough to make assasinating him via time fuckery considerably harder. Just needs not to be standing where Contessa predicted the bullet would go before she even pulls her gun. Making her have to aim like a normal person is good enough for her to not be pants wettingly terrifying anymore.

Two sparks bloom to life in his chest in response to his need. They seem to like each other, swirling tightly around each other. They also bring with them a sense of ... fullness, perhaps?

When one spark blooms, another choice opens in his mind: any time he could make a decision, he could also pick 'random', and it would truly be random. When the other spark blooms, he starts getting another source of intuitions along with his danger sense, but these ones are a lot more chaotic and hazy.

Spilling coffee there could have lots of diverse effects. Killing the barista could have lots of effects. Telling Armsmaster that he wants to join the Wards could have lots of effects. Waving his arms does not have many effects. Punching the wall has some effects, but not as many as spilling that coffee.

That's an even weirder feeling than his danger sense. Lets... just... pace around the coffee shop randomly. Probably a good habit to have even against mundane snipers rather than just precog assisted assasins. Armsmaster or whoever else the PRT sends should be back soon anyway.

The Barista gives him a weird look for his erratic movements, but they're not her problem.

Armsmaster returns from across the street, the bell chiming again.

"I can confirm a stronger spatial flux reading across the alley," he announces. "The P.R.T. has a protocol for dimensionally displaced people, although it doesn't see much use. Will you agree to come to the P.R.T. headquarters to process some immigration paperwork?"

This choice will have diverse effects. So will the choice of whether to duck in the next few seconds.

Oh shit! Is this a precog power itself?!?! Andrea ducks.

Armsmaster stares at him for a long moment.

Nothing else appears to happen.

"You may have hit your head when you fell," Armsmaster cautions. He holds up a finger which glows brightly. "Please try to follow the light with your eyes."

Well. Now Andrea feels stupid. That'll teach him to blindly trust weird powers he is only kind of sure are real. It's Worm, he has no reason to doubt powers are real. But he hasn't really got anything from them except feelings and what seems like new senses. He's pretty sure his brain couldn't invent something that feels so... new, but maybe it could.

"I don't think I have a concussion. I just had a sudden feeling of being in danger. Sorry." More technical truths, he will let Armsmaster assume it's a shock or response to the earlier panic attack than a power thing. He follows the light with his eyes anyway just to reassure him.

"Hmm."

He dims his finger.

"You aren't showing signs of a concussion, either. Do you believe it is possible that you reflexively teleported yourself out of danger?"

"Uhhh.... Wouldn't I know if I'd triggered? I am pretty sure I can't teleport." Andrea keeps his reactions as close to baseline as he can manage, while sticking to technical truths. Wait... thats actually a good point he made. Wouldn't he know? Then what are these weird powers? Are they even actually real? He is pretty sure he actually is in Worm now and this isn't a brain damage hallucination, it seems too real, but he could be in Worm AND be brain damaged. Both can be true.

Armsmasters sensors would notice super obvious brain damage though right?

Maybe its stress, stress does weird things too. The powers seem real-ish, not like something his brain could just invent, but he is sure regular people on his earth who think they have powers feel that way too.

"The experience of receiving powers can sometimes be highly traumatic," he remarks. "It would not be totally unprecedented for you to have blocked it out or repressed it."

Armsmaster stands silently for a long moment.

"When did you become aware that you were not on Earth Aleph?"

"I knew I wasn't home from the cold and the cars being parked on the wrong side of the street. Then I came in here to be inside. But I realised I was on Bet when a guy at the counter mentioned Brockton bay after I asked where I was. I recognized it because I was... a cape nerd I guess? I asked again to confirm If this was the Brockton bay with the PRT and Kaiser and Lung. Then I hyperventilated and passed out. That's everything that's happened to me." All true things, Even with his maybe reaction control power he doesn't want the lie detector to ping any untruths or even any serious evasions. 

It's not like he can explain this universe Is fictional. Even if he could explain it it just seems like a bad idea to let the Brockton PRT know that, just on how badly they handle everything all the time. Okay maybe he is being uncharitable but the webnovel really doesn't paint them in a great light!

"So the man mentioned you were in Brockton Bay, and you immediately knew that you were potentially in proximity to Kaiser and Lung?" he clarifies. "Interesting."

He thumbs a button on his halberd, which makes a sort of thrumming sound. The area near Armsmaster becomes fractionally safer.

"I believe you may have powers related to sensing general danger, and potentially to avoiding it," he explains. "Is there anything else that you currently feel threatened by?"

"I mean I have low levels of Agoraphobia and social anxiety about talking to an authority figure but I know that's not what you meant. I mean what else is famous about Brockton Bay but its capes? I'm pretty sure thats not a power thing? It'd be like not knowing Legend is in New York or that the Teeth are in Boston." Still all technically true, knowing that wasn't even a power thing! Anyone who knew about the sword nazi and the rage dragon would be worried about being in the same state as them, much less the same city. Andrea also was prettttty sure the Teeth were in Boston during this part of the timeline. "I know who the Protectorate heroes are here too, well most of them I think, but you know, that's less worrying than the villains with civilian kill counts to their names."

Armsmaster was just bullshitting now, or stretching. He guessed close to correctly but for the entirely wrong reasons. Maybe correctly. He's not sure entirely sure these are real powers. He's not sure he would want the Protectorate to know about them even if they are real.

"But you specified that you knew you were in this Brockton Bay," Armsmaster presses. "Would it not have been more logical to assume that you were in the Brockton Bay on Earth Aleph?"

Responding to Armsmaster could potentially have many effects.

"Does Alpeh have one? I never heard of it back home, I feel like I'd have remembered it's name as a major-ish US city. Also I was suddenly in a different continent and kidnapping seemed really unlikely. Cape bullshit was on the mind. I did ask to confirm if it was the Brockton Bay with the famous capes. Maybe it could have been the Brockton Bay of a third earth or something. I didn't start hyperventilating until I checked and made sure." His thoughts were a lot less structured in the moment but those were all true statements. Andrea thought Aleph was closer to the real world, and had never developed a Brockton bay. Does Armsmaster know it does have one? or is he just as unsure about the geography of another world as Andrea is. The natives of Bet in the story seemed pretty unfamiliar with Aleph besides verrrrry little Aleph media that came through. Hopefully him being from not Aleph isn't too obvious.

Armsmaster nods.

"I see."

There's another uncomfortable pause.

"Would you be willing to come to the P.R.T. building to complete some paperwork related to your entrance to the United States?"

He doesn't make it sound like a question.

"Uhhh sure.... I had a valid student Visa for my local US if that helps..." It probably doesn't help. Andrea had come home for a visit during christmas and just.... stayed in australia, but he could have gone back. He thought about it at least, studying in America had been nice except for whole the failing some of his classes due to panic attacks thing. If not for being in a fictional setting with cosmic horrors in it, being back in the states would have been cool.

"Legally, the United States on each Earth are considered separate countries," Armsmaster informs him. "So your Visa would not be valid here. As you will be applying under the special asylum program, however, you will likely be issued a provisional extraordinary visa rather than a student one."

He leaves the shop, gesturing for Andrea to follow. His motorcycle deploys a terrifyingly minimalist sidecar at some unseen signal.