Everett took a deep breath to calm himself. He had to relax, he could do this. He was Tecton. He was the leader of the Chicago Wards. This was his time to shine. He and his team were going to take a stand and drive the Guild of Calamitous Intent out of Chicago. Their reign of tyranny would come to an end. His interesting and likable team would show that they had what it takes to go the distance and-

SUDDEN TWO-YEAR TIME SKIP OUT NOWHERE

"…I always hated the blank… slates," echoed out Broadcast.

The Entity paused to listen to the message Broadcast was sending out. Broadcast always gave such good life advice, such as 'murder everyone' or 'torture and then murder everyone'. What a swell shard! The Entity was prepared to take in its sage wisdom when Queen Administrator's host started screaming at it. "YOU! Yes, you!" The Entity turned around to face the host. "Yeah, I'm talking to you; you giant gold turd! If there's one person in the world I hate the most, it would be you!"

This wasn't the first time the Entity had been railed at by one of the humans. 'Scion, why did you spend ten hours picking up trash while the city was on fire?' 'Scion, stop saving that cat from a tree, this mugger is stabbing me!' 'Scion, put on pants!' Humans could be so needy.

It found that the optimal strategy was just to let the humans wear themselves out with the screaming and flailing. They usually got bored or died after a few minutes. After Queen Administrator's host was done, it could go back to listening to Broadcast's undoubtedly life-changing message.

When the Entity gave the Queen Administrator's host a cursory examination — she appeared to be some sort of human-frog hybrid — it noticed that Queen Administrator appeared to be broken. It was currently lying down and gently weeping shard tears in despair. 'How in the universes had that happened?' Now the frog person had piqued the Entity's curiosity, so it decided to pay more attention to what it had to say. If she had the ability to destroy a shard's will to live, then she clearly was somebody to learn from.

"You're the evilest, sickest fuck that has ever had the misfortune of being born! You bastard! What kind of monster just does things twenty-four seven without pause!? You're the worst kind of person that could ever exist: a workaholic!" She spat out the last word with so much venom that the Entity was taken aback. What was wrong with doing things? The Entity liked doing things!

…Didn't it? It had been doing things for years now and yet it still felt empty…

"You're the culmination of everything that is wrong with humanity! Humans have spent millennia developing technology so that we could do nothing! We invented chairs so we wouldn't have to stand! We enslaved horses so we would be free of the tyranny of walking. We created porn so we wouldn't have to talk to each other!"

The girl paused in her wailing, panting for breath. After a few moments, she continued. "But oh no, you just like to go out and save peoples' lives constantly, you son of a bitch. You've inspired millions to go out try to make the world a better place when instead they could be taking a nap! You've corrupted humanity! When I was a kid, my parents were always nagging me to do my chores! A-And… you know what they said?!" She was nearly in tears now. "They said things like: 'Scion would do his homework Taylor!' 'Scion would wash the dishes Taylor!' 'Don't be lazy Taylor! Be more like Scion!' You did this to me! You've ruined my life!"

"No wonder why you're always alone while you're out saving people! Everybody's so disgusted by you that they can't even stand your presence! I bet you don't have any friends! Nobody could ever love you! If I was your wife, I would fling myself towards the ground and splatter myself all over the place just to get away from you!"

Well that was just uncalled for! The Counterpart had liked the Entity! They had splattered themselves on the surface of Earth, but it hadn't been out of spite! It had been an accident! Sure, the Counterpart had been the mastermind of the pair, but she could have totally failed to notice that planet in its way. Yep, totally plausible. The Entity wasn't crying at all.

No. The Entity didn't have to take this insult lying down! Not from a human! It raised its hand into the air, prepared to blast the host into smithereens, when they muttered out four words that barely reached its ears. The Entity paused as the words sunk in. Its arm dropped to its side. It was shocked to the core, feeling numb as the words reverberated through its skull.

"You Needed To Chillax."

The Entity floated there in the void of space, stunned. Its mind tried to grasp what it had just heard. The last thirty planetary revolutions of doing things hadn't ever made its life fulfilling. It had never occurred to it to just not do things. Now that it thought about it the whole cycle thing had gone nowhere. Had it actually wasted its entire life?

When was the last time the Entity had taken a nap? It had to have been within the last century, right? It couldn't remember. The Queen's host was right. Doing things was pointless. A couple century long nap sounded like the thing to do. The Entity couldn't be bothered to maintain its avatar any longer as it drifted off to sleep.

…

Fortuna blinked as she got a text from Dinah Alcott. 'End of the world averted! \ ._. /' it said. Fortuna let out a sigh of relief. Dinah Alcott's plan to dump Tailor, the conqueror of North America, into the middle of Jack Slash's army of clones to save the world from Scion's rampage had somehow worked.

Curiosity picked at Fortuna. She needed to know what had happened. She could, of course, use her power to discover how Tailor had done it, but she hesitated. No. Fortuna would speak to her, face to face. She needed to do this herself without the Path guiding her hand. "Door."

Fortuna stepped through the portal and looked upon the savior of the human race. She was lying down on the ground, surrounded by dozens of broken and dead clones. Jack Slash's shattered and crying form gurgled out, "K…Kill me. Please, before she rem…embers that I'm here." Fortuna shrugged to herself and blew his brains out. She had been wanting to do that for years.

Fortuna was mildly interested in how Tailor had pulled that off but decided it really didn't matter how. She had a far more pressing question that needed to be answered.

"Hello Tailor," greeted Fortuna.

"Sup," Tailor said with an eerily large smile on her face. It just went on for miles. Fortuna didn't know that mouths could even be that wide.

"First, I wanted to thank you for saving the world," said Fortuna. "I can only imagine the great personal cost it took to achieve this. The ugly things you had to do along the way."

Tailor gave an exhausted nod, "It was the worst. The sacrifices I had to make… I even had to get out of bed and everything!"

Fortuna understood; there were often days where she too didn't want to get up, what with the weight of all the earths pressing down on her. "Second, I was wondering if you were willing to answer some of my questions?"

"Sure," she said with a shrug. "I'm in a good mood. I just got to kill the symbol of all humanity's sins. But if I do answer all of your questions, could you do me a favor and carry me back to my base? I'm outside of my body jacker's range and I haven't walked in the last couple years, so I've kinda forgotten how."

"Very well, I will bring you back once we are done talking. Speaking of Scion, how did you kill him?" she asked.

"I burned his ass so bad that he died of shame," she replied smugly. "The little bitch was crying at the end, unlike me. I totally kept my composure."

Fortuna stared. Was that all it took to defeat humanity's greatest foe? Some nasty words? Fortuna felt strangely numb. "I spent decades of my life making moral compromise after moral compromise to destroy him…" she muttered blankly. "I threw away my name. My sense of self."

"Can't compromise your morals if you don't have any," said Tailor as she tapped her nose knowingly.

"Was it worth it in the end?" asked Fortuna. "All the sacrifices that you had to make along the way? Would you have done it all over again if you had to? Knowing what you know now?"

Tailor considered the question deeply. "Part of me wants to say no, since I did have to do a lot of awful things. Namely just doing things… but I guess I did make some friends along the way and got sweet vengeance on Scion. So I guess I would do it all again but spend way less effort the next time around," answered Taylor. "I mean, sure, I half assed everything, but I'll bet I could have quarter assed it if I really put my mind to it."

"Half assed?" repeated Fortuna, feeling baffled. She couldn't imagine not throwing her full effort behind her task to save the world. Is that why she had been unable to defeat Scion herself? Had she been trying too hard?

"Yeah, like, do you know how much time I spent walking before I got Alec to do it for me? So many unneeded steps taken," she said sadly. That was weirdly relatable to Fortuna. "You seem like one of those people that went full ass. Never go full ass."

"Sure," muttered Fortuna. "You seem to have accomplished my life's work in what seems to be a total accident, so clearly I have been doing something wrong. Asking the wrong questions probably." At Tailor's puzzled look, Fortuna elaborated. "My power allows me to ask how to accomplish something, and it gives me a path to achieve my goal."

"I see… did you remember to tack on 'with the least effort possible' to all of your paths?" asked Tailor.

Fortuna paused. "Wolf-fucking horseballs!" she cursed. She had been such a fool! If only she had been as wise as Tailor. From this point onward, she would always ask herself: 'What would Tailor do?'

Tailor gave her a knowing look, "Yeah, hindsight is a bitch isn't it?"

Fortuna nodded absently to herself, "Thank you for showing me the errors of my ways."

"You're welcome," said Tailor imperiously. "Always remember this: if something is worth doing, get somebody else to do it."

Fortuna was humbled by Tailor's wisdom. "Again, thank you for all the advice you have given me. I understand where I went wrong and won't make the same mistakes again. I have no more questions."

"Great, so are we doing that piggyback ride back to Brockton Bay or what?"

"Door," said Fortuna, and a door to Brockton Bay opened up.

"Wait, you can just open doors to just, like, anywhere?" asked Tailor with wide eyes.

Fortuna nodded to Tailor. An idea occurred to her. "Since you have destroyed Scion, I think rewarding you with access to Doormaker is more than fair."

Tailor started openly drooling. "Marry me!" she said.

"Surprise motherfucker!" yelled a red headed girl as she leapt out from the portal, landing on top of Tailor. She wrapped her hands around Tailor's throat and started to squeeze. She seemed vaguely familiar for some reason. Fortuna's power informed her that the girl's name was Emma Barnes, and that she had given her a vial last week. "You may have avoided my last five hundred and forty-six assassination attempts, but I've got you this time!"

"What?" gurgled out Tailor in confusion.

"That's right Tailor! I have been training and preparing for this moment for the past two years! I worked myself to the bone day and night! I stole and sold all of my family's kidneys so I could afford my superhero vial! Nothing is going to stop my vengeance! But before I spell out your eternal doom… Say! My! Name!"

"C-Cherish?" gasped Tailor.

Emma let out a primal scream, her eyes filled with manic bloodlust, and she started to throttle the life out of Tailor's limp form. "I am going to kill you! This is me killing you right here and now! You motherfucker!"

As she looked over at the screaming and shouting redhead, Fortuna considered helping to save the savior of all Earths ever, but then paused to consider. What Would Tailor Do? she thought. Fortuna shrugged her shoulders and, with a barely audible "door", flopped through a portal onto her bed, fast asleep. That sounds like work.