“I’m letting you go,” Regent lied.
Looks like we’re getting Regent! Wildbow is generally good about establishing which character is the POV immediately, by mentioning that character first, or at least very close to first.
And yeah, I suppose that does qualify as a lie, in the sense that he’s about to go into how he’s not actually letting Sophia go. Although you could count it as a deceptive truth – he is letting her go… to the other side of town.
He made Shadow Stalker drop to all fours on the ground and forced a grunt from her mouth.
Wait, he wasn’t letting her go at all?? So is he about to make her try to attack him?
With the same ease as he moved his own body, he made her load her bolt and spin to point her crossbow at him. There was no danger of her shooting him; he was fully in control from start to finish.
Wow.
So does that mean he doesn’t have the ability to pick the control back up later, and was just making a show for the other Undersiders?
Does he have the ability to let someone go? Without sleeping? Or was the sleeping thing a lie too? Is he still in control of the other people he’s dominated before?? But then again, we’ve seen how using this power puts him at risk of backfire…
This raises so many questions.
He could feel her striving and straining to move her finger, to pull the trigger and plant an arrow just above his collarbone. Every iota of her willpower must have been focused on the task.
Sorry, Sophia, not gonna work.
“There’s a catch,” he spoke. “My power? Once I’ve figured someone out? It’s a lot easier to control them, after. Any time you come near me, I can do this. I can use my power and retake control in the blink of an eye.”
He had her raise her crossbow and point it at her temple.
“Next time I get control? I’m keeping you for a full day. Maybe two, if I feel like pulling an all-nighter. And here’s the funny part,” there was no humor in his voice, “I’m going to do it even if I’m in civilian clothes, if my power tells me you’re in range. You won’t even know when it’s coming. You’re now a liability to the Wards, and you won’t ever know when or where I’m going to get control again…
“Unless you leave. Skip town. Join another team.”
This is all stuff we’ve seen before, so there’s not much to say. Other than that some of this seems like it might be a lie now… but why? Of course Sophia would be the only one here who could tell that he was lying, so who is he trying to fool?
I suppose the nod might’ve been Regent too.
He had her nod, stiffly, awkwardly.
Yeah.
He felt her rising heartbeat, the slight increase in her breathing, which he managed, controlled. Her muscles clenched, an involuntary reaction just beyond the scope of his control. She’d realized what he was doing. Rather, she knew what he wasn’t doing.
He wasn’t letting her go.
He wasn’t letting her go, despite making a show for the Undersiders to convince them he did…
…and, assuming the sleep thing was a lie too, the whole thing about being able to retake control is a way to have the Undersiders not question it if they catch him still controlling her later.
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