The fourteen-hour wait was a slow-motion grind. Shane spent the early evening conducting a quiet reconnaissance of the north-side suburbs, moving like a ghost through the winding streets and manicured lawns. He memorized every alleyway, every traffic light, and the exact layout of the private stables five miles from Loki's home. He needed his Teleportation to be surgical, and his Norn-Sight was already showing him the "Ghost Threads" of the timeline he had left—the way the streets would look once the panic hit.
He moved on foot for long stretches, keeping his hood up, his hands in his jacket pockets, walking with the same easy, forgettable gait he used when he wanted to vanish into the background. A dog barked once behind a cedar fence and then went silent. Automatic sprinklers clicked across perfect suburban grass. Porch lights came on one by one in houses where families were settling into ordinary evenings, unaware that one of the oldest monsters in the world was living among them in pressed slacks and false smiles.
At one corner, Shane stopped beneath the shadow of a trimmed oak and looked down the street toward the illusion-shrouded house. To a normal eye it was just another expensive home in a neighborhood built on quiet money and good school districts. To his sight it pulsed wrong. The edges of it bent inward. The warding was clean, subtle, and smug.
He memorized the side yard.
The neighboring fence lines.
The distance between the detached garage and the side gate.
He studied the stable approach the same way he would have studied the roofline of a damaged commercial building—entry points, blind angles, likely weaknesses, probable complications. That old contractor instinct still governed him. Divine war or not, he still solved problems by surveying the structure first.
By the time he returned to the convention center, the atmosphere was electric with a different kind of tension. Cory had delivered. The room was packed with venue security, police captains, EMT leads, and a swarm of media personalities.
The lobby outside the main hall was a storm of expensive cologne, clipped authority, camera bags, polished shoes, and mutual distrust. A pair of local anchors stood near the registration table speaking in lowered voices that weren't nearly as private as they thought.
"This better not be another publicity stunt," one of them muttered.
A battalion chief beside them, cup of stale coffee in hand, gave a sideways glance and said, "If it gets my people home alive tomorrow, he can stunt all he wants."
Across the room, one of the police captains recognized Shane the moment he came through the side entrance and straightened unconsciously, not in submission, but in the posture of a man deciding in real time that the person entering was now the center of gravity.
The media treated Shane with open contempt. Through his Synthesis Acuity, Shane could see the "Anchors" of their brainwashing—years of being fed Apex Negativa's binary narratives had turned them into biological parrots. To them, Shane was an upstart, a "glitch" in the political machine they were paid to maintain. The first responders, however, looked at him with the wary respect of men who recognized a leader, even if they didn't know his name.
One reporter with perfectly controlled hair and a network smile that never reached her eyes folded her arms the moment she saw him.
"So that's him," she said to the producer beside her.
The producer glanced up from his phone. "He looks younger in person."
A fire lieutenant nearby heard that and snorted. "Yeah, well, younger doesn't mean softer."
Shane felt a pang of guilt. He didn't like tricking people, but the Norns had made the stakes clear: Ragnarok was coming, and these people were the only ones who could prevent a total societal collapse when the lights went out.
He had never liked coercion, even dressed up as strategy. He had spent too much of his life around people who justified ugly things by saying they were necessary. But there was a difference between manipulation and triage, and the world was running out of time.
Olaf met him at the entrance, his massive frame silhouetted against the bright lobby lights. "Is it true? You're going after the Trickster's hoard tonight?"
There was no preamble in Olaf's tone. No greeting. Just direct movement toward the real problem. It was one of the things Shane respected most about him.
"Directly after this," Shane confirmed, his voice low.
Olaf's blue eyes darkened. "You must let me go for the steed, Shane. Sleipnir will not answer to a stranger, and even a Scion of the Present cannot outrun him. But Jessalyn should handle Sif. Loki has likely woven a cage of lies around her—telling her the world is a den of kidnappers. A familiar face will be less traumatic than a transformation."
Jessalyn, standing only a few steps away in dark tactical clothing that somehow still looked expensive, crossed one arm over the other and nodded once.
"He'll have made safety feel like a prison and the prison feel like safety," she said. "That's his style. If she's frightened, I talk first."
Olaf glanced toward her. "And if Loki appears?"
Jessalyn's mouth curved without warmth. "Then talking will have had its chance."
Shane nodded. "Agreed. But if Loki shows his face, he's mine."
Olaf studied him for a beat, then gave one slow nod of acceptance. "Then do not hesitate."
That phrase landed with more weight than the words themselves carried. Shane remembered the sparring, the warnings, the bodies, the timelines that had already split around his choices.
Ben appeared from the side hallway carrying a compact camera rig and whispered, "We're live to internal capture only right now. No external feed unless you say so."
Cory came up right behind him, tablet in hand, face set in that expression that meant he was running four scenarios at once. "Room's full. I've got maybe ten more city officials still trying to bluff their way in without clearance."
"Let them sweat," Shane said.
"Already doing it," Cory replied.
Shane stepped onto the stage. The murmur of the crowd was sharp, edged with the media's cynicism. He leaned toward Cory, whispering, "Just roll with it. Tell the team to agree with everything I say."
Cory didn't blink. "That was the plan even before you said it."
Amanda, off to the side with Gary, heard that and murmured, "I love when a conspiracy is for good."
Gary almost smiled. "Feels healthier than the old kind."
Shane took the microphone. The feedback whined for a second before his voice filled the hall—not with the booming authority of a god, but with the steady, undeniable weight of Common Sense.
"Thank you all for coming on such short notice," Shane began. "I wanted to give the media a tidbit of news before the rally tomorrow. Something to report on while the rest of the world is still guessing."
A few in the press actually leaned forward at that, reflex overriding contempt.
A veteran radio host with a face like dried leather narrowed his eyes and muttered, "There it is. Bait."
Next to him, an EMT supervisor quietly said, "Maybe. But I'm still listening."
The reporters leaned in, their digital recorders humming.
Shane turned to the police and firefighters first. "I have a new set of protocols for your communication systems. They will give you Renewed Clarity in the field." He then looked at the cameras. "And for the media, I have a perspective on this campaign that will change the way you see the world."
One of the younger reporters frowned. "That sentence doesn't mean anything."
The woman beside him answered under her breath, "It means he knows we'll come for anything that sounds exclusive."
Shane toggled his Master Tab. Celestial Power flared to 70%.
He could feel it building, not violently, but with immense internal pressure, like a reservoir gate preparing to open.
"If you want to see the world as it truly is—if you want to be free of the noise—say 'Yes.'"
The room hesitated. Then, the first responders—men and women used to seeking the truth in the middle of a fire or a crime scene—answered first. "Yes."
It started from the practical side of the room.
A police captain said it like he was agreeing to a risk assessment.
A paramedic said it softly but immediately.
A fire battalion chief said it with the hard impatience of a man who had buried too many people because other men lied.
The media followed, driven by the ego of being the first to "know." About 80% of the room gave their consent.
Some said it because they were curious.
Some because they were arrogant.
Some because they couldn't bear the thought that the person next to them might get access to a truth they did not.
Shane activated the skill.
The wave of white-gold light was silent, but the reaction was anything but. Half the media contingent collapsed into their seats. Some were physically ill, their bodies reacting to the sudden purging of decades of propaganda and manufactured hate. It was like upgrading a prehistoric computer to a quantum processor in a single second; the hardware struggled to keep up with the software.
One cameraman doubled over and vomited into a trash can.
A city editor sat down so abruptly his chair nearly tipped backward.
A female anchor clutched both temples and whispered, "Oh my God," over and over like she had just seen the architecture of every lie she had ever repeated.
The first responders fared better. They stood tall, their eyes widening as the "Fog" of systemic corruption dissolved. They looked at each other, then at Shane, with a look of profound, terrifying realization.
One firefighter took off his cap and just stared at it for a second as if remembering who he had once wanted to be when he first put it on.
A paramedic captain looked toward the media row and said with grim calm, "So that's why nothing ever made sense."
"I can see it," a veteran news anchor whispered, his voice trembling as he looked at his own teleprompter. "I can see the lie in every word I was going to say."
He looked like a man who had just discovered his own mouth had been rented out without his knowledge for twenty years.
The remaining 20% of the media—those who hadn't said yes—started shouting accusations, but they were quickly silenced by their colleagues. The "Purified" were already explaining the truth, their voices calm and resonant.
"This is coercion!"
"No," said the newly-cleared anchor, standing shakily. "It is the first honest thing that has happened to me in this business."
A younger political correspondent who had refused the gift backed away from her own coworkers. "You all sound insane."
A police chief near the aisle answered her, "Or maybe we just sound awake."
Shane didn't have time to wait for the stragglers. He caught Olaf's eye and gave a sharp nod. The city's mind was anchored. Now, it was time to raid the suburbs.
Jessalyn rose from her chair at the side wall and adjusted one of her gloves.
"Good," she said quietly, more to Shane than anyone else. "I was getting tired of the microphones."
Gary cracked his knuckles once and looked toward the exits. "Now we get to do the part I understand."
Amanda stepped up beside him. "Try not to sound too excited."
Ben, still filming, murmured, "No, let him. The contrast is useful."
Cory was already moving, intercepting newly-purified media figures and first responder leaders, pointing them toward breakout rooms, scribbling names, assigning rapid follow-up schedules.
"Anyone who said yes and is still upright, I need you in conference rooms B and C."
"If you're in charge of a department, don't leave yet."
"No, ma'am, you can cry in the hallway, but then I need you back in five minutes."
Shane stepped down from the stage and didn't look back.
He didn't need to.
The room behind him was no longer hostile.
It was waking up.
⸻
"If you enjoyed Shane's journey, please drop a Power Stone! It helps the Common Sense Party grow!"