“I’m listening,” Isaac said, tapping his fingers against Shay’s sapphire saddle as he looked out at Mechaniacal’s tower. He didn’t have high hopes for whatever offer the tinker was about to present, but it seemed a good idea to at least listen. It was one thing to deal with the drones as some kind of faceless, persistent adversary, and another to have the direct attention of a supervillain. Another supervillain, given that Sarah had miraculously managed to bamboozle Blacktime with her illusions. Ones that he’d put every last bit of power into, true, but it still was her doing.He was pretty sure that wouldn’t work for Mechaniacal. The little stunt with the crystalline entity had made it clear that the old tinker was on a completely different level. Blacktime was terrifying personally, but he didn’t have the power to wipe away a near sovereign level threat like it was nothing. At the same time, Mechanical wasn’t issuing personal threats or even implying something sinister.Of course, Isaac wasn’t naïve enough to think that Mechaniacal actually had Isaac’s interests at heart. Just like everyone else, he wanted something, but at least talking about fixing problems was an improvement. Probably a purposeful choice, given how often the tinker or genius type supervillains played mind games in comics, but still more reasonable than anyone else he’d run into of late. The only reason he was even entertaining the supervillain was that he absolutely did not want to be responsible for some sort of civil war in the Deep Kingdoms. Not that he owed Great King Zys anything, or Iy for that matter, but his attempt to stop the catastrophic violence had only gone halfway. He’d stopped anything from going too far for now, but he had to stick the landing if he wanted to avoid a terrible tragedy. If he wanted to rub it in Zys’s face he’d point out that this was why he’d been circumspect with his power.“Honesty (...)