“You know what, I think I actually hate people.” Isaac mused, chin resting on the table, hand gripping the top of the beer glass.

“I mean, I like individuals. Or I hate them, I’ve met some really vile humans, and not just cultists. You know, people who take both their shoes and socks off on public flights and shit.

“But all people, you know, the totality of all humanity, I think I can genuinely say I hate that. Why do I even try? No matter what I do, sorry, we do, people will always figure out a way to do something so dumb that it’ll cause a disaster.

“I mean, look at what we’ve accomplished: all of the big disasters I know about have been stopped, all of the big bads are dead, in jail, or they had the trajectory of their life altered to the point where they will never become what they were in the other timeline.

“And what do people do? They figure out a new way to do something terribly stupid. I mean, just look at what we know about that Chief Constable. He made it to his current rank while stupid enough to come up with a plan so idiotic it was assumed it had to have been treason, but do you know why he went through with it? He talked about it to someone else, who was apparently a cop, but he can’t name that person, and that random person apparently thought the teleport-trap plan was fantastic and it was a-okay to go ahead with it. Like … why on earth didn’t Cara-crap not immediately pick up on how wrong everything was?

“Seriously, why do I do this? No matter how much we fix, people always come up with new ways to end the world who fixes that? Them? Of course, they don’t, because they’re stupid. So we have to fix that new mess and we can’t even beat some sense into the idiots responsible.

“Tell me, Arthur, how much easier would it be if you could just beat the world into good behavior?” Isaac asked, sat up straight, drained the beer in one gulp, and ordered another one.

Arthur sighed and patted him on the back, probably glad no one could eavesdrop in the Starhail. The [Bartender] had recently evolved her [Class] and gained the ability [Portal Franchising].

Basically, her bar now had locations all over the world, all of which led to the original bar, which was now bigger on the inside. Unfortunately, you always came out the door where you came in, so using it for fast traveling wouldn’t work, but it was still useful. For example, he could meet a friend for a drink in another nation without ever having to get on a plane or using up any of the [Portal Mage’s] time.

Although Arthur was probably wishing the meeting had gone better.

“Had a bit to drink, haven’t you?” he asked.

“Yeah, but I’m not drunk.” Isaac groaned and laid his head back on the table “I didn’t use the [Skill] that lets people get drunk here because the situation is so volatile. But that rant felt like something I should have beer for.”

Arthur raised an eyebrow.

“Sorry.” Isaac apologized “That’s been building for a long time and that mess … did you know people are already saying that we should leave the nihilists alone because they’ve ‘only done bad things’ when they got attacked? Like all the preparations they’ve made to end the world doesn’t matter because they haven’t gone through with it yet? Where do they think all those bodies that got swept up in the Elemental Lands came from?”

“You know, one could argue that you’ve done your job.” Arthur pointed out “You used your knowledge to stop all the threats you knew about, and now, you can leave the rest to everyone else.”

“All threats except the [System].” Isaac sighed, head still lying on the table as he flicked a peanut into his mouth from a nearby bowl of snacks.

“And? You prevented half a dozen apocalypse triggers. And you still have more time to get the full sweep.” Arthur said, then added after a long pause “And you leave your head on the table for much longer, I might pour your new beer over you. Come on, don’t mope, do something else. Literally anything else?”

“… like something productive?” Isaac sat up straight and for the first time since the start of the conversation, he revealed his left hand, along with the cell phone he held there.

“I haven’t stopped working for more than a few seconds since you told me what happened. Messaging politicians, revamping contingency plans based on the fact that they’ve been creating counter builds, and so on, and so forth.” He paused, suddenly feeling very guilty “I’m really sorry I unloaded on you like that, you’ve had a worse day than me. No excuse, I just …”

Isaac trailed off, still looking for the right thing to say, something that wasn’t “I’m an overworked workaholic and lost all social graces” when Arthur cut him off.

“Yeah, yeah, apology accepted. Now what was that about the counter builds?”

Ah, yeah, those. He hadn’t explained those before?

“A counter build is pretty self-explanatory. It’s a build created to counter a specific person. A person with AOE strikes to force close-quarters combat, combined with an unblockable, unavoidable counterattack every time they’re hit is the perfect counter for me, for example. Well, it would have been 10 Levels and one Evolution ago, but that’s beside the point.”

“When were you planning to tell us about that?” Arthur asked.

“Once I’d worked out what those counter builds would be and what Aspects or other dirty tricks to hand out to prevent those from working.” Isaac said, “You’re basically uncounterable, but everyone else isn’t.”

“Does that mean they’re not that big of a threat?” Arthur said hopefully “Because if they’ve created a counter build to you since Hamburg, that would have made them very dangerous.”

Isaac shook his head “That has to have been a long-term piece of preparation. An unblockable counter isn’t common or uncommon and probably not rare either. This was no rushed upgrade, this had to have been in the works since I became famous.”

He sighed and created a small hologram over the table using [Lesser Illusion]. It showed the two [Aspirants] from Hamburg, as well as two generic spandex-clad individuals that just screamed “speedster superhero” and an image of a giant armor-clad warrior.

“Sorry, those images are stand-ins, I haven’t gotten my hands on the casefiles yet.” He said, then added a few more figures around it. Some were clearly him, Arthur, and several of their allies, while others were [Class]-cliches that likewise served as stand-ins.

“Both of the twerps at Hamburg would have been seriously bad for you without your fourth Evolution. Those speedsters would have slaughtered a lot of the more power-focused warriors and any magic-user without automatic defenses. That plague mage was just … death against all these [Classes]. And so on, and so forth.”

As Isaac spoke, he made the relevant figures in the hologram light up.

“Basically, if they’d sent the right people to face us, we’d have been screwed,” Arthur observed.

“Yep.” Isaac nodded “Our infosec was good enough that they couldn’t really prepare for either raid, thankfully, but this could get really dangerous.”

“But no matter what, the plan for countering counter builds … there has to be a better way to say that.” Arthur grumbled “Countering those means either having something properly out-of-character up your sleeve or making sure someone else meets your ‘counter’. I’m guessing. They probably don’t do too well against people whom they don’t counter.”

Isaac nodded “Counter-builds are one trick ponies, pretty much. You and I both fall in the general category of ‘fast melee fighters’, but you beat someone who would have hard-countered me just by hitting him until he dropped. Those people can’t have too many more high-Level people left. We need to strike while the iron is hot, stomp flat as many bases as we can before they can replenish their fast response teams …”

Arthur glanced down at the table and realized that both Isaac’s left hand and his phone had disappeared once more.

“Isaac, buddy, let’s do something else. Anything else. You already said you’re overworked, you’ve already spent several minutes ranting at me because you’re overworked, you need to take a break.”

Isaac shook his head “Things are getting really crazy now. Hamburg was bad enough, but this mess with the ‘zombie plague’ prepared in case the place got raided … people are scared, people are lashing out, and they’re calling for really crazy measures to be taken.”

“And you’re going to start making crazy mistakes if you don’t stop right this second,” Arthur said sternly.

Isaac slumped right back onto the table. Arthur was right, he knew that, but … but Arthur was right. He needed to take a damn break.

***

“Close but no cigar!” Arthur laughed as Isaac’s fist whiffed past his face and he kicked out, sending Isaac tumbling away.

They’d been “fighting” for close to five minutes now, with the only rules being:

Don’t go for the head. If someone’s [Moment of Immortality] triggered, that was the end of things. Don’t break the arena.

Isaac had had Andre teleport him straight to Camelot and was so glad Arthur had convinced him to take a load off.

“Then try this on for size!” Isaac yelled back, fully aware of how cheesy the line was, removed gravity’s hold on himself, and lit his fists on fire. They weren’t using [Skills] to attack each other, but enhanced mobility was fine.

Although “enhanced” was a bit of an understatement. A rocket-engine-strength plume of flame bursting from his hands would have flung him forward at near-hypersonic speeds no matter what, but with Isaac’s mass reduced to near zero, he could achieve the same effect with a mere fraction of the effort.

Arthur only had the time to look startled before Isaac tackled him into the wall. Tried to, that was. This was one of the first times Isaac had used this trick and he messed up the timing of releasing [Flight of the Poltergeist], so when he collided with his friend, he just bounced off.

The attack worked perfectly regardless, though, as Arthur immediately started dying of laughter and Isaac couldn’t help but join in.

They were still lying on the floor of the room, chuckling, when Elena stormed in.

“What the hell do you two knuckleheads think you’re doing?” She growled.

“Training?” Arthur suggested.

“Newsflash, it isn’t training if I can find you with a bloody seismograph!”

Arthur looked at Isaac.

Isaac looked at Arthur.

And they both burst out laughing once more.