[center][color=00ffff][h2][i][b]Victoria van Dyne[/b][/i][/h2][/color][hr][color=00ffff][b]Location: [/b][/color]Grandstands
[color=00ffff][b]Skills/equipment: [/b][/color]ASTRA armor
[/center][hr]As the finals progresses and the world didn't seem to be ending, Victoria's paranoia started sublimating away before she eventually stood down to defcon 4.

The fighting was mildly interesting, if one got over the fact that she was watching her friends and family beating the tar out of each other, but nothing crazy happened yet.

Her mind started to wander. Tori pulled up the documentation Hope gave her. The keys to the kingdom - or, at least, to the mind palace she was exiled from. Following the manual, she reviewed the code down to the table that held the list of admin orders.

She hesitated before sending the SELECT * command to it. For weeks now she was worrying whether she was working to be a protector because it was forced upon her or whether it was her own free choice. Now she could find out in a heartbeat, but wavered. If there was something forcing her to do all this... Should she get rid of it? And if she would, who would she become?

[I][color=00ffff]Allright, time to put those pholosophy classes to use. Kicking the decision down the road solves nothing, that's not an option. Therefore, I need to decide what to do with what I find.

If there is an order making me good and I leave it there... I might be suffering a loss, but I'll keep being a benefit to others. According to Cipolla, that makes me Helpless.

If there is an order making me good and I remove it, I am benefitting, but might cause harm to others. That makes me a Bandit. No, wait. That makes me have a choice, and until I do, I am Inconsequential.[/color][/i]

There wasn't really any way to come out Intelligent out of this without factoring in her own skills, but that would always be the case. Being Helpless almost sounded better than being Inconsequential, but the logic was clear: If she wanted freedom, she would also have to accept responsibility for her actions. Decision was made.

[Pre]
SELECT * FROM AdminOrders;

...

ID | Order
1  | Unit designation: ASTRA Universal Prototype
2  | Unit serial number: A-U-0
3  | Order removed
[/Pre]
For a brief moment, her mind went back to Haloween. Her system was such a mess then, but order #3 was where the Veil protocol used to be. She mentally frowned at the sloppy solution. Even messed up by Ultron she should be able to execute operations neatly!

[Pre]
DELETE FROM AdminOrders WHERE ID=3;
[/Pre]
The real feeling was elsewhere. No evidence of any order forcing her to be a hero. They trusted her. Or, they trusted they could order her to stand down if she went rogue. [I][color=00ffff]Those fools. Wasn't one Ultron enough? But much appreciated, nonetheless.[/color][/i]

Victoria was pulled away from her introspection by Cassie exploding the floor of the arena. That was a move she has not seen before. And if she was to be honest, she would have called [i]rock beats flesh[/i], but she was happy it was the floor exploding and not her sister.

She almost jumped the railing when the contestants were about to be buried in a landslide, but managed to remember where she was. They should be whisked away before any serious permanent harm. And they and the judges would eat her alive if she interfered. She settled back down, albeit unhappy about it.

If she thought that would be the end of the craziness, the next few moments would prove her wrong as [i]something[/i] arrived onto the battlefield. From the discussion that was happening down on the arena, Excelsior actually had a good grip on the situation. Vicky made a quiet note to look up in detail what the hell happened in Genosha. Shouldn't be difficult, considering people that were there were available. Because she would really like to know why [i]feeding Danni to the thing[/i] was a good idea, and even more so why it worked.

Her eyes darted to Sabine. Was noone else seeing the opportunity down there? [I][color=00ffff]"Game's still on! You can hit them while they're down and distracted!"[/color][/i]