"Chiefs versus Eagles," Akane murmured. "Man, am I glad I don't give a shit about these teams at all."

"The offer to temporarily disable your ability to give a shit about sports in general still stands," Silas said.

We were gathered in our hotel room, out of 'uniform,' and just amiably shooting the shit to get ourselves ready, and calm our nerves a little. It was Sunday, February 12th, 12:03 PM Mountain Standard Time, and the kickoff was in three and a half hours.

"I have a bet going with Annie-" Nicky began.

"Who?" I asked, skritch skritch skritching at Lisa's fluffy ears.

"My sister, who is upset with you because she could've started using Nessa and alliterated with me in the process, but then you made a joke about how Nessie would be a reference to the vampire baby in Twilight whose name was some Pokemon bullshit."

"How did you housebreak another Vegan this quickly?" Silas asked.

"Practice makes perfect," I said with a shrug. "Also, it was a half-vampire baby and her name was Renesmee. If I have to remember this, then so do you."

"Anyway," Nicky said strenuously. "I have a bet going with my sister Annie for twenty dollars over who's going to win. She's going to be recording the game without actually watching it- for all of today, she'll be sitting in her hotel room and watching some VTuber compilations instead."

"I bet you ten dollars that Gretzky scores a home run," I said.

"That's hockey and baseball," Akane said.

"Ah, shit, now I know how Beckham feels every time he knocks over a wicket."

"Soccer and cricket."

"Look, I'm no Usain Bolt superfan, okay? I can't stay perfectly up to date on the little brother of war."

"Sprinting and lacrosse. Also, I am going to stuff you into a locker if you keep making fun of the idea of liking sports."

"I'm out of references, anyway," I admitted. "It's been a while since I watched Cool Runnings."

"Are all your preparations in place?" Silas asked.

"They are, yes," I said, nodding. "Checked 'em this morning, but I should check 'em again just to be sure." I put a finger to my ear, and toggled the speakerphone mode that'd make sure everyone in the room heard what I did. "Antlion, report."

"The Stopwatch is online, with no signs of tampering," Antlion said. "Effective range is all the way to the other side of the mountains."

"Good work. Be sure it stays that way. Columbo, report."

"The Eye Of God is online, and scanning regularly," Columbo said. "I know exactly how many people are in this Valley, and who they are. Princess Vega is at the stadium herself, schmoozing with officials right now."

"Remember when you said the only way the halftime show would live up to the hype is if your mom did a striptease?" Lisa said, sprawled across my lap.

"I think we should see other people," Nicky told her.

"Is Doctor Skinner in this valley yet?" I asked.

"She is not," Columbo said.

"Fair. Keep your eyes peeled, Columbo. If you need a break, tap Argus to relieve you. That's what he's there for."

"Got it, boss."

"And Akane, you ran the diagnostics on our flight modules, right?" I asked.

"Mhm!" Akane said. "All of us are good to go, on that front. We can get to the stadium without worrying about traffic. That part of the city is designed for it, but... well. Traffic sucks no matter what, so..."

"In that case," Silas said as a timer dinged, before pulling a disposable aluminum pan from our oversized toaster oven (which we would be giving to someone who lived here before we left, having bought it specifically because a kitchenette did not contain a real oven) and setting it on our tiny little table before removing the top foil cover. "The Phoenix is an old protegee of mine, and was perfectly happy to let me spend Shabbat in her backyard, teaching her how to make barbecue mutton. She had a hard time holding up her end of the bargain, but I did manage to part her from enough leftovers to furnish a good lunch for us all."

"I'm writing you into my will," I said.

"You're the best uncle ever," Akane said.

"Hrmphl," Lisa said around a mouthful of barbecue.

----------------------------------------

"She's here."

I had forced myself- and the others, upon request- into a state of meditative calm, upon getting the news, four hours later.

We geared up by the numbers, with zero mistakes or forgotten items from our checklists.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

We headed quickly, discreetly, and efficiently to the back halls of the stadium- where we had been waiting patiently for this moment- and began to move towards our target.

In the corner of my mind, I had a map of the city with Doctor Skinner's location marked on it- in one of the stadium's outbuildings, skulking around and futzing with gear she'd planted (and we'd subtly sabotaged because of course we found it right next to the stadium before now), putting on the finishing touches.

I've been thinking about this moment for a long while. My actual, final confrontation with Doctor Skinner. My journey started with her; it seemed, inexorably, like it should end with her.

I felt many different ways about that idea, really. Mostly, I thought about the different things that could constitute 'my journey.' My journey as a bounty hunter, as a mildly-legitimized quasi-hitman, as a hero? Well, I did plan to retire after this. But then, I'd planned to retire after the previous job, too- the last job I ever did with Jason Thronebreaker, disrupting a blood magic ritual and breaking the back of the most powerful vampire faction in Texas. And, well... look how well that worked out.

I flashed my badge at the security guards, who stepped aside and let us pass into the outbuilding without so much as a break in our stride.

Skinner had portaled directly into this building from another universe, and had set up a little command center, strewn with various panel screens showing various camera feeds and sensor readings. The portal gun sat, useless and abandoned, on a table near the corner, a small stack of paper already haphazardly set atop it, its purpose having been served for now.

"Hello, Roxanne," Beatrice Faith Skinner said, having known I was coming.

She was, in the end, an unremarkable-looking woman. Average height, average-to-slender build, mid-to-late forties. White, with dark brown hair, and brown-hazel eyes.

We shared a few similarities in coloration, but from her small, rounded nose, to her unobtrusive jaw, to her fairly straight and uncurled hair, she really did look nothing like me, or even that Gideon loser who looked a lot like I would by this point if I had been cis.

"Hi, Beatrice," I said.

What other words were necessary at this point? We each had each other's measure- she knew I'd shoot her if she spent too long talking, and I knew she didn't tolerate other people stealing her thunder.

All of the screens strewn about the room flashed a common image- that of Skinner's masterwork, the technosorcerous idol meant to permanently enslave everyone who gazed upon it to her will.

The idol hadn't been kept here, unfortunately, and so it did still work just fine. But Skinner had installed it in a hidden chamber under the floor, where lights and cameras would generate a good visual feed for the show.

The thing she didn't quite realize was, we'd painstakingly built a second, identical chamber, and placed in there our own mind control idol, before painstakingly rerouting all the camera feeds. What ended up happening was the real idol's chamber simply told the fake idol what it was supposed to look like- through an automated system too fundamentally unintelligent to be mind-controlled- before the fake idol transformed to look precisely like the real idol, so that the cameras pointed at it would be fed into Skinner's system. And after Skinner did her last-day diagnostics and testing... it would shut itself off, before it could actually be used.

"Hrm," Skinner hummed. "That didn't quite work, did it?"

"It did not," I said, nodding.

"Rerouted the cameras to a self-correcting counterfeit?"

"It's a simple trick, but clearly, it works."

"Bravo, Doctor," Skinner said, clapping a few times. "I'll get you next time, Gadget, exit stage left, pursued by bear."

"I've been meaning to talk to you, actually," I said.

"Oh?" Skinner asked. "Regarding what?"

"Our history together, and your history without me," I said, casually strolling forward, unhurried and unbothered. "Six years ago, you were simply another demiurgic cult leader, after all. Sometimes fighting other cult leaders and a few vigilantes in battles over a thousand people at the most. But something changed, didn't it?"

"Well, yes," Skinner said with a shrug. "When my abilities grew, so did my ambitions. That's hardly inexplicable, is it?"

"Not at all," I said. "It's just... something I recently had to remind myself of, when I was working through how to feel about all of this."

"Might I suggest mercifully, or possibly even grateful to your old teacher who put you in a prime position to acquire yourself a triad of girlfriends?" Skinner suggested.

I ignored her. "Because you see, I've been struggling with how to feel about myself, and the person I am, the person I've become as I've grown up. And how you fit into all that."

"Ahhh, I believe I see, now," Skinner said. "You know, ordinarily it's the villain who says that everything they've done is the hero's fault."

"Indeed it is," I said, nodding. "And were I a different person, then 'I am responsible for what you've done, therefore I am responsible for stopping you' would be the sentiment I'm trying to express, here." I stepped close enough to reach out and touch her, the little desk being all that was between us. "But I'm not a different person, Beatrice. I'm me."

I reached out, cupping her chin in my hand. Her skin was a touch soft, and a touch worn. She'd known little work or hardship, yet had also known little care.

"For the longest time, I hated myself, because I thought you made me," I said. "I saw your fingerprints in every harsh facet of my person. But I was wrong about that, Beatrice."

I shot her through the heart, with the gun in my other hand.

"You didn't make me," I said, my eyes glowing as I invaded the crumbling fortress of her mind. "I made you."

I took everything from her mind- the original brain scan of Burrhus Skinner, every little trick of mad science Beatrice had ever figured out, and most importantly...

"You may have held the reins," I whispered to a dying woman, before I let her drop from my hand. "But I was always the one in control."

Final, ultimate, truly complete mastery blossomed through my mind, like a chaotic jumble of assorted burning fireworks jostling around until they finally landed in the perfect place to form a pattern, and exploded in perfect unison.

I could admit that, perhaps, it was a bit of an overstatement to say that I had always been the one in control. She'd done rather a lot of things I would've preferred she didn't. But I was in enough control that she couldn't contradict me.

And part of being in control was understanding when good enough was good enough.

"Now," I said, holstering my revolver as the security guards rushed into the room, taking in the scene with horror. "Let's finish this up so we can go home, shall we?"