"Are you ready to begin?" asked the armored woman in front of him, hands folded on the table as she waited.

Finn wasn't sure when he'd begun to believe that he could believe that this hero wouldn't betray him somehow, but now, confronted with the choice of disclosing very personal information, he realized that he did to a small extent.

The reason behind it might have been one of multiple things. Or all of them. The fact that he was able to observe her emotional profile at all times definitely helped assuage suspicions he had about her motives, at least if he was interpreting the things she was feeling correctly.

Come to think of it, this was actually the first time he was negotiating with someone whose aura he was able to observe without their knowing while not arguing from a position of power. In personal power, he was likely superior. That wasn't a statement made out of arrogance—he was far past the point of getting sensitive about admitting to himself who was and wasn't stronger than him. If he thought she was capable of defeating him, he would approach this dialogue from that angle. He simply didn't believe she was.

Except, personal power wasn't the main issue here. Instead, it was political power. She was offering to pull some strings to get out of this country back to his home in a relatively short amount of time. In exchange, she wanted information about the things he had experienced. The last year and a half of his journey. He couldn't tell if she had an idea of what she was asking for.

On the one hand, it was possible that she did. The favor she was doing him could be huge or costly, and she expected to receive vital information to leverage for her own purposes or the national government's. On the other hand, maybe she was just curious or wary about who he was and sought an explanation for how he ended up here in her city of all places.

Or perhaps she just wanted to help him and this proposed deal was an excuse to get him to open up to her before she felt comfortable letting him go. In other words, he was sitting across from a genuinely good person who was doing her best for someone she had met not even two hours ago.

He sighed.

"Alright, I guess I'll do it. What do you want to know?" he asked. He was absolutely going to admit some of the most vital things, but others he was fine exposing since he was sure they would be found out soon anyway.

Automique leaned forward. "How about we start from the beginning? What happened after you fell off the map?"

She had no idea how accurate that second question was, Finn thought. He had, in fact, fallen off the map in a lot of ways. What with him being transported to another dimension that persisted after the death of its creator.

Did he want to tell her that? He didn't know whether that was appropriate or wise in any way. What she knew and what she might find out about later were two different things. If he lied to her, she could easily call the whole thing off and decide to leave him to his fate. Because he severely doubted that the US government itself would make similar offers to deal with the Global Accords on his behalf.

Aside from that, did he want to take advantage of her offer by not upholding his end of the bargain? He was already showing her a fake face, so how much more did he want to deceive her? She might be asking for something that wasn't as reasonable as she thought, but he had to give her more than falsehoods.

Not to mention that even if he did lie the whole way through, there was always the possibility that there was a person with a power or artifact out there that possessed the capability to expose him. Postcognition was as rare as it was useful, though that didn't exclude the eventuality of someone finding out how he landed in South America in a vision. Or alternatively, they had found out ahead of time with the power of precognition. The thought irked him, and it was unlikely given the lack of preparation for his arrival, but he still considered it.

Furthermore, he was unaware of how aware the rest of the world was of Wanderlust's dimension and how limited their ability to communicate with Amalgam was. Was Amalgam really running all of Aegis' transportation operations, or were there systems in place on Earth to take care of the lion's share? There was no way to know for certain, just that he had a good chance of finding out that people were aware of his unintended absence from this planet.

And what about Omega, if they investigated him, the trail could lead to Finn one way or another due to them crossing paths once. Too many variables, too many ways lies could backfire.

"I got teleported by an accidental power interaction at the end of the Viperia fight," he admitted, leaving plenty of room for interpretation.

"Where to?"

"At first I didn't realize what sort of place I was in, I just ended up getting pulled out of the water by some guy I didn't know. He…" Finn paused, in disgust at acknowledging how it seemed at the time and carefully omitting the part about the poison. "He saved me, and told me we were in another dimension."

She threw him a confused look. "Another dimension? Like a parallel Earth?"

He shook his head. "No, a dimension created by Wanderlust."

The heroine fell silent, leaning back in her seat. She didn't have an immediate response to that, it looked like.

Refraining from talking more, he gave her time to process.

Her brows scrunched together. "Wanderlust's dimension, you say. And you got out. I don't think you understand how extraordinary that is. I- actually no, continue." She gestured for him to proceed.

"We went through the building, most of the hallways were trapped. It was bigger than anything built in this world. He told me about the security system protecting the items we found," he explained.

"Were there other people? Did you have the building to yourselves? How did this other individual survive for that long?" Automique fired question after question.

"He hadn't been there for long. And no, according to him there weren't. He just led the way to the last room, transformed, used me as a distraction. Escaped." He stared down at the table, remembering how livid and helpless he felt in those moments.

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"...Can you give me a name?"

"Omega."

Automique fell quiet.

"Did he use a gatekey?" she inquired after a beat. Then she elaborated, "A geometric crystal, prismatic, multicolored. Did you see him use anything like that?"

Surprising. To think she knew about the gatekeys, he hadn't been expecting that. "No."

In the following thirty seconds, Automique sat deep in thought. Running a hand through her head, she made eye contact again. "I think," she breathed, "some people have a lot to answer for. But that's out of your hands. Back on topic. Clearly you survived; I would like to know how."

No way in hell was he going to tell her about the prototype nanite colony. "I used my power in ways I didn't know were possible. Eventually I found the exit and went out looking for food, found it, started training until I could figure out a way to get back."

A heavily edited version of his story, and Automique could tell he was leaving a lot of details out. She pressed him for more, and it soon became clear what he was willing to elaborate on. Some things he had to leave out because they would give his other secrets away, but overall she ended up with a fairly good picture of the situation.

"So you figured out how to operate the gatekey yourself?" she summarized.

He shrugged. "Not really. I just asked the guardian to let me out."

Automique crossed her arms. "You figured out how to communicate with it?"

"Sure."

Rather than pushing for more details, she moved on. "Where did you come out? South Florida?"

That would be a very convenient way for him to avoid talking about his adventures over the past few months, if he weren't confident that those would be connected to him sooner or later. "South America."

His admission elicited a gasp from the woman, who proceeded to look at the time display on her wrist. "As of now, we're in the middle of June. You didn't happen to get there around, say, March?"

"It was March, yeah," he said. He had to admit he didn't like her tone of voice. Did she know? March coincided with the date Ernesto had told him when he came to the refugee camp.

Automique threw up her hands. "I suppose I should come right out and ask. Are you the Ghost?"

"The what?" He was confused.

"The Ghost, our army's moniker for a random super that showed up to one battle deep in enemy territory, beat both sides black and blue, forced a mutual retreat, and left? Light powers, camouflage, high physical prowess. Sound familiar to you at all?"

"Your side shot missiles at me even after I signaled to them that I wasn't the enemy," he defended himself.

She winced. "So… about that, those men haven't been held in high regard ever since your last battle there. It's been- let me see." Her eyes fell back to the time again. "Geez, it's barely been a day."

"A day?" How much had they pieced together about him?

"Satellite imaging investigated the weather anomaly. Imagine our shock when we caught signs of an unknown power and snippets of Pesante getting his face kicked in." That last part made her grin a bit.

Finn didn't even want to reply for a good while, truth be told. He was still soaking up the ridiculousness of how well-documented his career as Shade truly was. He couldn't think of a highlight in his hero days that hadn't been caught on camera or witnessed in some major way. At most, there were maybe one or two exceptions. It felt surreal.

"I won't deny it," he offered at length.

"Suffice to say, a lot of us have been singing your praises. Many brave soldiers have lost their lives to that man, Shade. That includes some old friends I myself have known. It inspires hope when a total stranger comes along and goes toe to toe with an Unbound," she complimented.

"It was nothing," he said. And he really did feel that way. He hadn't defeated Pesante after all, merely given him slip in the wake of a quick brawl that had proven how lacking his offense was.

The smile on Automique's lips faltered. "You're just a kid," she whispered, a pained expression on her face.

A younger, more hot-headed version of him might have denied it, but currently he just felt too tired to say anything to the contrary.

"Were you forced to kill over there?" She took his silence as confirmation and rested her forehead in her palm. "My God…"

In his eyes, the pity felt unwarranted. Some people had it way worse than he did. Kids like Paloma, who would never get the opportunity to live normal lives unless someone like him came along to save them. Broken soldiers throwing themselves into the meat grinder that was war in order to find some tiny sliver of meaning. He was glad to put all of that behind him, of course. It was just a stretch to say his circumstances were that bad.

But one thing stuck out to him. If the military knew about his exploits and had come up with a nickname for him, did that mean there was a chance that Madeline had died knowing it was him?

"I was sure when I walked out here, Ghostie."

Yes. More than a chance, really.

Automique went over the rest of the story with him. Stuff like how he managed to get into her state, the dates, his observations of the places he'd seen, and so on. Soon, they got up and he shook the hand she stuck out.

"Meet me in forty-eight hours. It won't take longer than that, I promise," she said.

With a nod, Finn headed for the door.

The heroine held up a finger. "Oh, one more thing."

He looked at her over his shoulder.

"You know what Omega's civilian identity looks like, don't you? Can you tell me what you remember? If there's any advantage we have against him, it's that."

Indeed he did, and yet, he hesitated. Why? Why didn't he want to screw Omega over at the first opportunity he got…?

No, he knew why. It was because he had never stopped envisioning that he would be the one to take that monster down. Faced with a potential way to give other heroes an opening to destroy the bastard forever, he hesitated. Some inner part of him screamed that it was his duty alone, that everyone else had no right to interfere.

He mercilessly squashed it.

Responsibility. That was what he'd resolved himself for.

Flicking his wrist at the wall, Finn created a perfect color-based rendering of Gunther's face from every angle, ideal for Automique to take pictures of.

"Thank you," she said, and he left.

Two days to do whatever he needed to in this city. Fortunately, he was one of the foremost tech-producing settlements in the world. In addition to that, he happened to be in dire need of a weapon.

He wouldn't be at peace until Omega was dead and buried. If the heroes failed to do anything with the information he'd given them, he would make sure he was equipped to handle the job on his own.

Luckily, he knew what to do. It had been quite some time since Shade had last taken a mission.

Until today.

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