[So there are infinite... alternative universes?] Ember mulled mentally. [Why the hell don't the heroes know about this?]

[Cus they're not allowed to know,] Alexa shot back. [The supersymmetry theory predicts Higgs boson to have a mass of 115, while the multiverse theory predicts it to have a mass of 140. The heroes determined it to be 125.35±0.15 GeV/c2.]

[Meaning what?] Ember squinted at Alexa.

[Meaning that someone is kittening with reality,] Alexa shot back. [Meaning that alternative universes exist, but we're not allowed to go to them.]

[What? Not allowed to go to them by whom?!] Ember demanded.

[By them,] Alexa pointed up.

[Them?] The ex-hero arched an eyebrow.

[Reality benders,] Alexa said. [...Wizards. They're to blame for everything!]

Ember simply stared at the supervillain, wondering if Alexa was simply mad.

[Hey! I'm not crazy,] Alexa shot back. [I simply know more... cus I've seen them working from afar.]

"Um. Yes. Hello." Dean Otter said with a small pause as he slowly approached the trio, leaning on his fancy wood and bone cane. "I am here to discuss your attendance at Hero Academy."

"Less discussion, more owl please." Alexa extended out her hand, waving it as if she was expecting an owl deposit.

"Ummm. We don't give out owls." The Dean shook his head.

"Laaame. Let's go home guys, there's no owls!" Alexa turned around with a deep sigh, waving Dean Otter away. “We’ll see you in college of heroism or whatever and you better have an owl ready by then. No. One and a half owls, cus you know, interest rates!”

"Wait. Look, I… uh." The Dean wiggled his otter-like fingers.

"Don't cut my owl in half. One big owl and one little adorable one pls." Alexa winked.

"Uhhh... erm," the Dean mumbled, looking stumped.

"Can I please talk to the boss? You're obviously not the real baws," Alexa yawned, glancing up.

"The boss?" The Dean muttered. "Why would there be a boss?"

"Look Dean, you're a figurehead for clueless patsies like Martin here. I want to talk to the people in charge!" Alexa looked up at the sky now with far more determination in her eyes. "That cruiser of yours went around... something. There's something very big up there." Alexa squinted at the clouds. "Watching me... judging me."

“Went around something? What’s she talking about?” The Multiplier looked at Knight Chalice who shrugged.

[Holy shit, she is right!] Cottie suddenly snapped her gun up at the sky. [How did I not notice that... thing?!]

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Martin looked up at the sky in confusion. He didn't see anything up there, but he felt it through Cottie and Alexa. Something was indeed up there. Something enormous and incomprehensibly complex.

It was indeed watching them. It had to be incredibly dangerous. Cottie wouldn't swear for no reason at all.

[What are you guys looking at?] Ember looked up. She didn't see anything out of the ordinary up there, but felt something wrong, a threat... a rising sense of dread emanating from Alexa.

"I see you. Come down here and give me an owl! This idiot doesn't even have owls!" Alexa yelled at the sky.

The air in front of her shimmered, folding in complex patterns, weaving a human figure from nothing at all.

"Clever girl." A woman stood in front of Alexa clad in a red robe. She looked like a female, black red and white version of Che Guevara, a white star shimmering on her beret.

"Good tomorrow. I am Wizard Revolution." The woman smiled, offering Alexa a hand.

Alexa suspiciously looked at her hand. There was a very poorly drawn sketch of an owl there on a yellow sticky note.

[Who the fuck is that?!] Ember stared, blinking. [I've been to Hero's Academy for two years and I've never seen her before!]

"Poor NPC, you don't have the necessary imagination to observe me, I am afraid." Wizard Revolution said. “Even now you’re seeing me because you’re tied to Alexa by itty bitty strings of infomatic virus patterns.”

Ember covered up her mouth stepping back. She felt a sense of pure panic, terror, hostility and dread now pouring from Alexa's mind like a tidal wave, like an ocean of black molasses formed from pure void from darkness, hate and pain.

Cottie turned her gun towards the head of Wizard Revolution. "What are you? How have you done this?" She barked.

Martin wondered what Katherine was yelling about and then he noticed that the three heroes and Dean Otter were frozen, as if they were simply suspended in time. They stood there, unblinking, unbreathing.

Cottie pressed the trigger and colors faded from the world. All of the colors vanished, except for the red on Revolution.

The Wizard smiled at Cottie, unchanged, seemingly unaffected by the void weapon. Her image was akin to a painting that didn’t fit into the world, a living splash of impossibly vibrant something that was suspended in the air. The way she moved, crossed her hands was giving Martin the heebie jeebies. There was something uncanny valley, something eerily unnatural about her.

Everyone present noticed that Revolution wasn’t entirely human. She came into being as if she was embossed onto the world by a giant, invisible printer that remade her every time she moved.

"Kitteny kittens on a pile of kittens!" Alexa swore. "You're ink dots! Well kitten-me... kittens. I..."

"You don't want your owl, girl?" Revolution asked, offering Alexa the sticky note.

[What is she?!] Martin didn't know what to do.

[Not a super, clearly! She's a thing like... Three!] Alexa shot back.

"The correct term is a System Wizard, young lady." Revolution shrugged. "Take the damn owl already. I have places to be."

[Wait, she can read our spidernet?!] Martin gasped.

Alexa nodded. [So it seems. Also, nice name. Go take the owl, M.]

Martin looked at the drawing of the owl. He didn't feel like taking it. Through Alexa he felt that there was something incomprehensible and horrible about Revolution and he didn't like it one bit.

“Ember, take the owl.” He commanded.

“Why?” Ember blinked.

“Ember. Go take the fucking owl or I will force you to take it!” Martin snapped.

The ex-hero suddenly felt like an expendable character, one that was doomed, no... nominated to step on a landmine by her companions.

Ember took a step forward, then another, then a few more. Revolution didn’t seem like a threat, didn't directly attack anyone... yet Alexa feared her. Alexa didn’t seem to fear very many things. Ember extended a hand and grabbed the square yellow paper, feeling as if she was about to explode. Nothing happened. She looked at the sticky note. It looked perfectly mundane.

"Why are you here, Wizard?" Alexa asked, her voice cold.

"Because you broke everything," Revolution said with a smile that didn't reach her eyes.

"Are you going to kill me?" the supervillain girl demanded, her hands holding tightly onto the pink skinwalker-stopping hair dryer death-ray.

"No," Revolution said simply.

"Why not?" Alexa demanded. "I broke your precious rules. I took down your precious hero."

"It happens," Revolution shrugged. "The client will get over it."

"What is that?" Alexa pointed at the yellow sticky note in Ember's hands.

"A ticket out," Revolution said. "Stick it to a door and then you can leave."

"You want me to... leave?" Alexa's eyebrows went up.

"This is a subscribed world," Revolution nodded. "I want you to stop breaking the narrative."