Mine 21 ( Stick around)

“So what information do you have?” Cole asked as he leaned against the window. Lisa was positively vibrating from the mood that she was going through. His question seemed to knock her out of her happy mood as she thought it over and grimaced.

“Not as much as I wish.” She muttered out as she bit her lip and thought things over. She was winching occasionally, so he assumed she was using her power.

Before she could overwhelm herself by trying to piece together minor clues to get something Cole stepped in.

“Well, you now know his power, Beyond that I can tell you that his name is Thomas Calvert and he works as a PRT consultant. He has ties to Accord. I know he has an underground base that was remodeled from an abandoned End-Bringer shelter.” Cole listed what he knew about the prick.

He listed most of the things he could recall but there were some things that were better left unsaid. Like the fact that he bought his Power from Cauldron and he still had ties to them. However, those ties rolled down to him owing them so there was no need to worry about the superhero Illuminati.

Lisa seemed startled about the information being thrown at her but judging from the light building in her eyes she was piecing together some information. She shook her head and let out a laugh.

“Figures the PRT was incompetent enough to literally hire a Supervillian to ‘consult’ with them. I thought the infiltration of the PRT by the gangs was darring enough but Coil might as well be asking them to count the money as he sells them. God, that explains how he was able to get those access codes so easily.” Lisa shot out with a shake of her head. Clearly baffled that the PRT was caught off guard like this.

“Not to defend them too much but Thomas had a career as a PRT Trooper long before he became Coil. He was one of the ground troopers sent into Ellisburg when Nilbog first started up.” Cole spoke out with a wry smile on his face. She blinked at his words with an utterly confused look on her face.

“Really? Did not figure the coward had it in him to go into a hell hole like that.” She spat out with an odd look on her face. She seemed impressed by Thomas’s history but was seemingly disgusted by the fact that she was impressed.

Cole let out a chuckle at the look on her face before cutting in. “He did not exactly know how bad it was going to be when he signed up. He wanted to get his name out there to his superiors by volunteering constantly and the team was only supposed to scope things out and they had a fairly impressive load out.” Cole finished explaining as Lisa nodded along as that fit her worldview better.

“Figures.” She muttered as she started to search for things on her laptop. Several screens flashed by as she was going over information. Again most of it nonsensical to him but Coil’s name was mentioned more than once.

“Well, I got his home address but knowing that you shut down his power tonight he is probably not there right now. The guy would not feel secure in a house in the suburbs not when he had other options.” Lisa spoke out as she listed out an address for him to check out later. 

“Yeah, the snake is probably hiding away in his base. That’s why I brought it up in the first place. He may have erased most traces on the location but knowing you I figured you would still be able to find it.” Cole admitted as he watched her break into a government website with practiced ease.

“Your confidence is appreciated. Most of the Endbringer Shelters were commissioned by taxpayer money for obvious reasons so even if he bought over the company that won the bid, a record of them winning should still be somewhere. Even if it got shuffled away due to a sudden ‘lack’ of funds.” She spoke out as she went through more and more pages quickly dismissing some and holding onto others.

She paused bit her lip and looked over the pages in front of her intensely. Cole gave her a moment but decided to pipe in as she looked indecisive and she started to cradle her skull to stop the pain from her power.

“You got something? You look like you can’t decide between an apple or a cherry in a red contest.” Cole spoke out trying to nudge her out of an information loop. She blinked and looked over at him with a flat look about his nonsensical comparison but he saw her lips twitch in mild amusement so a point for Cole.

“I did find several bids for Endbringer Shelters that were canceled from a lack of funds. I can even see Coil’s involvement in this even if he decided to hide behind proxies. The issue I am having is there were at least four shelters that might be the place we are looking for. I was trying to narrow it done further but maybe you got something to share my fellow Thinker.” She spoke out to him even as she rubbed at her temple.

Seeing her push herself for their goal Cole decided to give her a break. He took a step forward and reached his hand towards her temple. Again she looked like a startled Rabbit that was not sure if it should run or if it should lay down with its belly up.

That imagery had his lips twitch into an amused smile but he took the choice out of her hands by pressing his fingers into her temple and flooding her with RCT.

She froze completely stock-still but she let out a low sultry moan of pleasure from the energies flooding her body. This time it was his turn to freeze from the sounds coming from her as he took back his hand like her skin was a hot stove.

There was a moment where Cole was looking at Lisa with a mortified look on his face and Lisa was looking back at him completely red. Both of them were trying to figure out how to respond to the off moment but they were not sure how to handle it.

“Right, uh sorry. I thought healing you would be helpful. I did not think the energy would do…that.” Cole spoke out quickly as he tried to figure out why that was the case. He knew that RCT flooded a person with Positive Energy but at most, they should feel a strange sort of happiness.

“Wait it’s not like that!” Lisa shoued out with a bright red face as her gaze danced across the room trying to avoid looking at him. “You have no idea how bad my headache gets when I use my power. When you healed it the relief was…a bit much.” Lisa quickly explained as she finally looked over at Cole a little mortified but something else dancing in her eyes as well.

Cole rubbed the back of his head and accepted her words even if he felt awkward about what just happened.

“Right, well there is no need to be stressed about not knowing the right place. I can send clones to all the locations and raid them at the same time.” Cole spoke out as he thought over what she told him. She blinked at that and looked at him intently but eventually, she shifted to an amused smile.

“Well, you are certainly a bag of tricks. Every time I think I got a handle on you some new thing pops up.” She spoke out with a smile and a glint in her eyes. “The four spots that have recorded permits are by the docks, Boardwalk, Captain’s Hill, and Downtown. Considering Coil’s ego I would bet on either the Boardwalk or Downtown.” She spoke out slowly with a frown as she tried to narrow it down again.

At least this time she was not wincing in pain every couple of seconds. Cole thought over the locations for a moment but then a fact bubbled up from his memory.

Coil’s base seemed to be situated in a populated city center as he threatened to blow up the base killing massive amounts of people. So his base should be the Downtown location. The Docks were nearly abandoned and Captain’s Hill was pretty clear of anything. The Boardwalk had the population but it was too spread out to really hit the population.

Or was that something he read from fanfiction? Fuck, trying to figure out what was real and proper when he barely recalled the source is a pain in the ass.

“Got it, I’ll head out right now. Do you have a place I can stash Coil that will have no one asking any questions? I know you want to take a more personal hand in his death so I need a place to drag his comatose body to.” Cole asked with a wry smile on his face. Even if the Downtown location was wrong he still had his clones to offset that problem.

Several expressions flashed across her face before settling on vindication and a resolute determination. 

“The Undersider’s base should be good, Give me a chance to go talk to them and you should be able to have them working for you as well.” She spoke out absently seemingly focused on what she was going to do with Coil after this.

Cole raised an eyebrow at her words and let out an awkward laugh that had her looking over at him.

“Well, I may have messed around with them when I picked up your things….So they might not be in a talking mood.” Cole spoke out with a guileless smile but shifted his expression to look over at her. She gave him a flat look at that. “You planning on sticking around? I figured with Coil out of the picture you would pack up and leave.” Cole finished with an interested look on his face.

He may have wanted to let Lisa bond with Tammi but that changed when he decided to take care of Coil. He was going to leave him alone at first to have her under his thumb to help out but Coil really was going to be a pain in the ass if left alone. Sure, he was turtling up because of Blank but how long would that last?

Lisa again bit her lip while looking over at Cole with emotions flashing across her face. Clearly, she was conflicted but there was something here that was keeping this self-interested girl here.

“I want to. I really do but I’m not that naive. Coil slipped a collar around my neck there is no telling when someone else is going to do the same. Here I can use Coil’s resources to protect myself a whole lot better….I can’t really read you all that well but from the pieces I was able to gather from Tammi I think I can trust that you would not slip another collar around my neck.” She spoke out after a moment of hesitation. Her gaze locked onto him as if searching for the answer she wanted to be in his soul.

Cole looked over at her seriously for a moment. He would not say his motives were completely selfless when he picked up Lisa. He saw an opportunity to get a useful person by his side and he was playing games to ensure that. Coil becoming a bitter problem changed that but that did not change his initial plan.

Did he really deserve such trust from her? Cole was not sure but when faced with these words his heart softened to her. It was not like he had a truly negative opinion of her. So he let out a sigh and a dry chuckle.

She looked over with some trepidation at his reaction but she still seemed firm in her actions.

“You really know how to pick the winning side,” Cole spoke out wryly and that shifted Lisa’s focus and it let her relax from the intense mood brewing. Again several things flashed in her eyes but she settled on a relieved sigh and a fox like smile.

“That I do, so what did you do to my teammates?” She asked with that smile that seemed to enjoy encroaching on awkward subjects.

“....I may have gotten Alec mauled by Rachel’s dogs and tased him. The other two might be annoyed that I knocked them out.” Cole spoke out deciding to just cut to the chase. Lisa paused for a moment before she giggled at the image being played in her head.

Cole raised an eyebrow at her being so light in the face of one of her friends being mauled by dogs. Then again he did not really have a handle on their relationship just yet.

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There is more to Lisa’s thoughts but that will be revealed in an interlude. The next chapter is breaking into Coil’s base and kidnapping the guy.