108.1 Interlude Armstrong
(Author's Note: Due to a fairly stressful few weeks I've been behind on my writing schedule and ended up having to cut this interlude in half to avoid further delays. I didn't want to put off the chapter any longer, so I decided a half-chapter serving as a preamble to the larger interaction would be better than completely losing momentum. Apologies for the short chapter and hopefully I will be able to get back to my usual schedule for the next chapter.)
Kamil Armstrong felt every one of the increasingly long years of his life as he sat in the converted office in the center of the Army Reserve training camp. The camp that had been temporarily appropriated by his department for the purposes of housing and caring for Bakuda's hostages.
Moving the hostages in a single night had been a herculean task. A task that had been insane both in terms of scale and timeframe, but what truly stood out was how poorly the situation had been managed prior to him assuming responsibility.
Given the importance of maintaining a strong public image and presenting the impression of a united front it was rare for directors to speak poorly of each other. Every situation was unique when capes were concerned and no matter how straightforward something might appear from the outside, there were always hundreds of nuanced aspects that were not apparent at first glance. It took something truly extreme for open hostility between the leaders of PRT branches.
Something like losing a Ward you had been entrusted with less than a day after his transfer. When he'd learned about what happened to Weld he'd wanted to swoop in with all the resources at his disposal. Play the protective parent on every level he could, pull him out of that bay and make sure he knew that he was safe. That there were people that cared about him and would not abandon him.
But he hadn't. Hadn't been able to. The Cape Blackout, which was the name that had stuck no matter what national PR efforts were attempted, had stressed every city in the North East. Chaos like that hitting on a Saturday night was just about the worst time possible, even without the villains who had decided to take advantage of the situation.
He'd had to deal with Blasto's offensive. And Blasto's failed offensive, which was significantly more destructive than if the tinker had been able to recover what he had deployed before being defeated. And then the power vacuum caused by Blasto's absence.
And that was only one small corner of the city he was tasked to protect. The constant push and pull between villain groups didn't stop just because you had a personal obligation. He had needed to stay, needed to coordinate efforts, to act as a tactical manager and public face, reassuring the people of Boston that the situation was under control even as a gang that was confined to a single city in New Hampshire sent the entire Northeast into darkness.
Director Piggot had excuses for why she couldn't send a recovery team for Weld, and he could accept that. What he couldn't accept was the deployment of Weld into a conflict with Lung. That had been a decision made by Armsmaster, and the Protectorate Head was apparently heavily concussed at the time. Still, the fact that his first instinct had been to drag a Ward into combat rather than ensure their safety raised serious concerns.
Concerns that had been largely confirmed when national attention became directed at the way Brockton Bay ran its Ward team. In the wake of the initial attack the Ward's interim leader had been commended for coordinating the defense of trapped civilians in an art gallery. It sounded like an extraordinary event, but from what Armstrong had learned, the most extraordinary thing about it was the fact that the team was being held back with civilians rather than deployed in force at the first sign of trouble.
The public image cultivated by the Protectorate East North East was obviously far from reality. That image was the reason that Weld had been selected for the transfer. It was something that had been in the works even before the events of the start of the recent crisis had necessitated a transfer.
That felt like a lifetime ago. Back when he thought the most serious thing Weld would be facing would be the Undersiders and their new weapons. The viewpoint felt naïve even though it had been perfectly reasonable. No one could have predicted the insanity of Brockton Bay. He should know. He'd received a direct call from it.
He was far less inclined to speak poorly of Apeiron than many others in the PRT. The man had recovered Weld on his own initiative, something he would be eternally grateful for. Grateful as a parent rather than a PRT director, which was an important distinction. Experience in one role colored the views of the other, but couldn't take precedence. As much as he would have liked to have gone to bat for the man from the first moment, there were wider concerns, coupled with uncertainties and what now appeared to be deliberate obfuscation.
In retrospect, he wished he had put his foot down and called Director Piggot to task. At least beyond the chewing out he'd issued over the phone. Generally speaking Directors stayed out of each other's business lest some nuance of a situation be overlooked and lead to disaster. As bad as things looked, everyone was confident that Director Piggot was the best person to manage things in her own city. She wasn't some rookie untested director recently placed in command. She had nearly a decade in her position and a career of accomplishments, acclaim, and connections.
The fact that she was so well connected probably spoke poorly of the political aspects of the PRT. The factions that built up around certain approaches to problems and certain agendas that received coordinated pushes to make it into official policy. Director Piggot was part of the hardline faction and well regarded by them. While he preferred to take a more moderate approach, he could admit to the need for Directors who refused to compromise with capes, and no one would find it odd for one to be operating in the same city that housed the Empire Eighty-Eight. If there was ever a group that deserved no compromise, it was them.
Except there had been compromises. Hundreds of quiet compromises carried out in the background fueled by directorial mandate and played off like a nuanced approach to the dynamics of the city when all they were doing was perpetuating a nightmare that extended to every level but the surface one.
The clear use of the ABB to keep the Empire in check had all the logic of using a wolf to protect your chickens from foxes. The kinds of things Lung had been able to get away with unspeakable. Even in the fact of all the turmoil that had been wrought, the sheer scale of depravity that had been carried out on a near industrial level right under the nose of a major protectorate branch was sickening.
That was another point to thank Apeiron for, though there were many in the PRT who would have very much preferred to control the release of the details of the ABB's crimes in order to influence the perception of what had been happening in that city. Because that perception had very much gotten away from any hope of management.
To a certain extent the role and life of a villain was romanticized. It was something that was often encouraged by Protectorate branches. The spectacle of cape conflicts distracted from the often-grim reality of the world of parahuman crime. There was the impression that villains became involved in crimes that were part of the background of any large city, crimes that would have been managed by other gangs or criminal organizations in their absence. As such their involvement in larceny, extortion, narcotics, and even prostitution generally did nothing to diminish the romanticized impression that many people held of the villain lifestyle.
That impression did not extend to human trafficking, and certainly not on the scale that Lung had been operating. The full records of the scope of their operation dumped into the public sphere, complete with documentation of the 'Farms' was as damning an indictment of Director Piggot's tenure as head of the Brockton Bay PRT as the disastrous management of the events leading up to the Ungodly Hour.
The complete dismantling of ABB operations was one of the bright spots in the aftermath of the disaster, though care for the victims of the trafficking ring was being managed on the state level. The ABB's 'farms' had operated outside the city, with Brockton Bay serving as a coordination hub for the entire operation, the details of which would turn anyone's stomach. It was probably for the best that care for more displaced and abused souls hadn't been placed upon Brockton Bay's already overburdened emergency services.
Though in that respect, he had to admit that the care of the hostages had not been a complete failure. It was substandard, no mistake, but if one moderated their standards for the conditions in the aftermath of something that was an S-class event in all but name, the situation became somewhat more reasonable. Over seven hundred people had been cared for on at least a technical level for a full week. While their conditions were certainly far from comfortable, there were no critical gaps.
Considering that the hostages had been usually pulled directly from forced service as foot soldiers for the ABB gang offensive, there were a lot of potential gaps that could have been missed. When the ABB's conscripted forces had engaged other groups during the Ungodly Hour limited priority had been given to the safety of those who were forced to fight on behalf of the gang.
Or no priority, in the case of the city's other gangs. To the Merchants and Empire, conscripted civilians had been no different from any other gang member in the field.
Apeiron had been the only one capable of deploying large scale non-lethal ordnance, and in doing so he had made an incredible difference. Not just from the active conflicts that were neutralized in flybys, but in effectively giving the forced combatants a way to surrender that wouldn't get them killed for the attempt.
In cases where Apeiron hadn't been available conflicts were generally resolved through the overwhelming force. The hostages who had been moved into that holding camp were often seriously injured or highly traumatized, either from being forced to fight on behalf of the gang or from the violent loss of others who fought by their sides, also under the threat of explosive death.
Every shade of mental and physical battle trauma was on display, and had barely been managed, even in the best of cases. In the wake of the Ungodly Hour the city's hospitals were overwhelmed, to say nothing of the risk of treating people with implanted tinker tech explosives. Most of the emergency treatment for the hostages had been done by the city's biokinetic Ward, someone who apparently had less than a month of medical experience.
Browbeat's work wasn't pretty. The hostages walking around with masses of exposed collagen and scar tissue was evidence of that, but they were walking around. Some with evidence of what should have been critical injuries before they'd been patched up. Those hostages had a hollow look in their eyes that set them apart from the base level despair that he had seen. Whether it was lingering physical issues of simply mental trauma he couldn't say.
Literally couldn't say, at least in some cases. The language issue was an additional problem that he had been badly prepared for. The English skills among the hostages ranged from perfectly fluent English spoken as a first language to extremely limited. Trying to work through native languages was nearly impossible considering the gang and their forced recruits had included members from China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand.
It said something about the insanity of the situation in Brockton Bay that Lung had actually managed to hold together a gang composed of so many disparate elements. It was possible that may actually have worked in the man's favor. Forcing together people without common ground ensured they would be off balance and unlikely to challenge him. Or maybe that was giving the man too much credit. Given the amount of frustration the situation had created for him, he wasn't feeling particularly charitable.
Finding translators who also had security clearance and the skills necessary to address the challenges of managing the precarious situation that was the hostages was a lost cause, particularly on short notice. As much as he wanted to avoid entanglements or obligations towards Director Piggot, he had requested any bilingual agents or staff that had been assigned to the situation accompany the hostages on transfer. What he'd learned only lowered his opinion of the situation, and of Director Piggot herself.
They did not have any bilingual agents or staff assigned to the hostages. They were unable to provide an account of what the language situation was or what resources were available to address it. Most of the housing and containment had been handled through repurposed National Guard assets, with guardsmen being relied upon to supplement PRT staff in managing the situation.
Well, there had been an Agent Cohen who had some linguistic expertise, but the man was currently in forty-eight-hour confinement, probably on account of the ENE department's aggressively inflated information control policies. An infuriating combination of too little too late and active obstruction to department operation. Now was certainly not the time when you wanted someone with those kinds of communication skills out of action.
It may have been that the Asian communities of Brockton Bay were not fully represented in its emergency forces because of their association with Lung and the ABB, or it may have been that the lack of representation and support to those communities drove them towards Lung in the face of an indifferent administration and an actively hostile Neo-Nazi organization. Most likely it was a circular relationship that built upon itself while no one was looking until you reached the point where the people responsible for addressing parahuman crime in a city couldn't even communicate with the communities impacted most strongly by it.
The communication issues were something he was working to address. Working through the night, working nearly continuously since the matter had been presented to him. The means of communicating the details had been somewhat concerning, if just due to the implication that the Elite had succeeded in making overtures where the PRT had failed. It was easy to guess at the vector of those overtures, given Uppercrust's presence in Brockton Bay.
That had its own implications. It could be said that Armstrong had a greater appreciation for the full significance of Apeiron's medical technology than most people. He'd seen the impact on Weld from what Apeiron regarded as a partial and incomplete treatment. Hearing the boy talk about food with enthusiasm for the first time in his life, with the kind of passion and excitement he usually reserved for new album releases. Even setting aside the impact on his powers, that single fact had been life changing.
And in the wake of that, when Weld had convinced Apeiron to reach out, to speak with the authorities and attempt to bridge the gap that had developed in the early days of the building tragedy. To reach out to him, in a show of confidence that was honestly touching. It was Weld's belief in the system, in the people running it, and in Armstrong in particular. That he would be able to resolve matters and bring someone Weld regarded as a good and upstanding person into the fold.
And then Armstrong had screwed things up. Not irrevocably and compared to the actions of Director Piggot his mistake barely registered. He was the first member of the PRT that Apeiron had reached out to, and the only one to have a conversation with the man. To have the chance to actually weigh his intentions and take his measure. It was the kind of thing that distinguished a person, and probably would have if he hadn't chased him away by trying to trace the call.
To be fair, at that point no one had understood how broad the man's skills were. Identifying a trace wasn't a simple matter unless a tinker specialized in that kind of field, though the world had seen what Apeiron thought of the idea of being 'limited' to a specialization. Armstrong could have mandated an end to the trace, but he hadn't even considered it. He'd barely remembered that the trace was active. It had been flagged by the codes Weld used to call in from a civilian line. He hadn't even thought that it might cause a problem.
Though, with the conduct of the Brockton Bay office, few could blame Apeiron for being skittish about his interactions with authorities. The fact that Director Piggot's initial mandates were still officially in play was enough evidence of that. No one was seriously following them, though Dragon appeared to be paying lip service to the letter of the law in her public statements, but they hadn't been removed either.
That was the problem with the wide-reaching authority that was issued to directors. It was supposed to be used sparingly to address extraordinary circumstances. A decree could be redacted, but it required presenting a situation update and official explanation. Something that was easier to do if the mandate was used sparingly and in isolation. If mandates built on top of mandates you ended up with a Jenga tower of half measures all held up by what could be an erroneous use of authority. A literal snowball of executive privilege that grew out of control to the point where it had the potential to bring down the director or even the entire department.
There had been cases of overreach before, but nothing on this scale. Nothing that extended to this level on such a broad range and for such an extended period. Cracks papered over by means of unquestioned authority and centralization of power into a structure that could just barely hold against the unstable peace of the city, but would crumble the second things went out of control.
And they had. The Protectorate East North East was Boston's neighbor, but the two departments had almost nothing to do with each other. Beyond some publicity measures there was none of the coordination and collaboration that you saw between other departments. Boston was closer to New York or Chicago than the department that was a few hours' drive away.
Well, depending on the state of Boston's traffic.
The insular nature of that branch had seemed like a quirk of the city. After all, Brockton Bay was a tourist destination for cape enthusiasts, not some isolated outpost guarding one of the truly dangerous postings in the country. No one had suspected there was anything wrong.
Then again, no one had imagined the depth of horror that was being perpetrated by the ABB. Horror that extended even before the forced conscription of civilians by means of implanted bombs, followed by forcing them into an active cape war, then leaving them to wallow in PRT holding for nearly a week.
Armstrong hadn't been part of the collection team. He'd been too busy securing the site and obtaining supplies needed to house over seven hundred people on short notice. That at least was being facilitated to some extent by third parties. Parties not directly affiliated with the Elite. But even with that 'help' it was still a difficult situation.
A population equivalent to a major high school dropped on him with less than a day's notice. People from a half dozen different cultures and dozens of different backgrounds, ranging from teenagers still in high school to those close to or past retirement age.
The ABB had literally grabbed anyone they could get. No, worse than that. They had forced their conscripts to grab anyone they could get, on pain of death. To force them into the ranks and even help with surgeries, providing they had any applicable skills. Apparently most of the implantation had been handed off to a team composed of a general practitioner, a veterinarian, and a nursing student. None of the three were particularly popular and had to be isolated from the rest of the group, though given the level of guilt they seemed to be carrying, that isolation was probably for the best.
The same couldn't be said for anyone who had been a member of the ABB prior to their conscription efforts. All former gang members had been cordoned off, but not of their own volition or because of their criminal history or some threat they represented. Without the threat posed by Bakuda's direct oversight or the difference in armaments that had been maintained between career members and conscripts, there was nothing stopping the masses from venting their fury on the much smaller group of official ABB members.
All dynamics that Armstrong had needed to learn about in the hours leading up to the transfer. At least he had actually received confirmation from Apeiron himself, though the mechanism used was more than a little concerning. After the last time, he couldn't fault the man for taking precautions, though he seemed to have gone beyond secure phone lines into the range of calls that, as far as every system at his disposal could discern, didn't seem to actually be happening.
At least he had agreed to delay the extraction of the bombs until the following day. Armstrong could agree that the situation needed to be dealt with, but immediately after rehousing hundreds of people who hadn't seen a hot shower or clean laundry in nearly a week, who had been dumped into a holding camp straight out of a combat zone with only the most superficial measures taken to ensure their comfort and safety, it wasn't going to happen.
He had been on site since the first vans arrived. He'd seen people nearly collapse in relief at the simple fact that they would be able to sleep inside and have some measure of privacy and dignity. The supplies provided were basic in the extreme and army bases weren't known for comfort, but compared to the conditions in the camp it was regarded as positively luxurious.
It had been an optimistic note, before the breakdowns started. That modicum of comfort, stability and privacy had meant the stress holding so many of the people up had collapsed out from under them. Even before they began informing the hostages, many of them were near wrecks. Given what they had gone through he couldn't blame them.
With respect to their announcements, the reception was mixed. Some people didn't believe it, thinking it was a PRT trick to keep them calm while they were hidden away from the public eye so no one could see what would happen to them when Bakuda became frustrated with the negotiations. Or when she died from her self-inflicted cancer. Others had practically demanded immediate surgery, with one unfortunate and thankfully prevented attempt and an extraction using broken glass. Others had put two and two together and attributed their 'salvation' to Apeiron.
That kind of reaction was a little disturbing, even for someone who had as much experience with cape culture as he did. Fascination and hero worship were incredibly common, but there were always some people who took things further. Sometimes quite a lot further. Occasionally on their own, sometimes under the direction of a particular cape trying to cultivate a specific kind of following. It was something to watch out for and most people knew how to recognize concerning behaviors.
You didn't see those behaviors from Apeiron. No, it was everything else you saw from Apeiron. He wasn't trying to make himself an object of awe and grandeur, which probably made it all the more impressive when he so easily accomplished just that. The assorted stranger effects and the feats demonstrated during the Ungodly Hour were enough to serve as the foundation for the most devoted and often deranged of followers.
But most cape fans hadn't been held in a state of constant fear of death with their only hope of salvation being an impossible cape with powers that literally forced his title into your head whenever you thought his name. It was no wonder why the hostages had been focused on what they probably considered their only hope of survival and no wonder why some of them came across as more than a little fanatical when they were informed of their new situation.
Thankfully, the hard-liner reactions were in a minority, though the phrase 'vocal minority' was definitely appropriate. Armstrong had witnessed debates and arguments in languages he couldn't even recognize, much less speak, between desperate and sleep deprived hostages that they were doing their best to direct into their assigned barracks. He really needed to get ahead of the mess of language issues just to head off any potential conflicts.
It had taken a half dozen trips to get everyone moved from the camp and relocated to the base. Armstrong had been on site and on duty for the entire time, personally overseeing the transfer and officially taking responsibility for the safety and care of the hostages. There was no great formal transfer of authority from the Brockton Bay branch, just an acknowledgement of the program and a general sense that they were glad to see the back of at least one of their pressing problems.
He had gotten only scattered rest overnight, with the final transfer technically happening in the morning. The Boston Office was being managed by his deputy director, but as much faith as he had in her, he still reviewed morning briefings as he simultaneously saw to the issues of the camp. A camp that was not designed for containment or isolation. A camp that needed to be staffed to ensure that the hostages were fed and cared for. A camp that, while a massive step up, was only barely sufficient for their needs.
If the situation was going to last for more than a few days he would have needed to set up a special task force to manage the program independently, but there would be no way to keep the information secure at that point. The chance to finally stop Bakuda, and the involvement of Apeiron, both justified his full attention. He would likely be on site until the matter was completely resolved.
Armstrong just hoped that Accord wouldn't take over ALL of Boston while he was out of the city. The thinker had been unusually focused and determined ever since Blasto had been driven from the city. Most people would have seen the departure of the plant tinker as a blessing, but it seemed that the man's antics may have been the only thing keeping Accord distracted enough to prevent him from rolling over the rest of the city.
Already, the Chain Gang had come up short in three confrontations that would normally have resulted in a close draw at best. Accord wasn't the worst villain to have in your city, but he was a dangerous and exceptionally brutal man. Armstrong had been willing to work with the Ambassadors on occasion, but he never lost sight of exactly who he was dealing with. The ascent of Accord was a point of concern that would need to be addressed, and soon.
But not now. Not when he was managing food shipments and trying to find someone with level three PRT security clearance who also spoke Laotian. And wasn't currently in isolation in the Brockton PRT headquarters.
He had almost lost track of time. Almost. The morning had both crawled and flown by. It had taken forever, but every time sensitive matter had sprung up when he was sure he'd had hours more to deal with them. He was blessed with a competent and professional staff, which was probably the only reason why this project had come together in a manner that could technically be defined as 'successfully', but they still had so many balls in the air that he couldn't spare a single moment.
And if any of those balls happened to drop, the entire initiative could come crashing down. A single leak, a single point of failure, and it could all turn to disaster. He couldn't take his eyes off the situation for a single minute.
So it was understandable that he was startled when he heard the same ring that had echoed from his phone the previous day. The call that wasn't a call, though hell if he could guess at the actual effect. Whatever it was, it meant that it was time.
"I need the room." He said, more gruffly than he usually would. The assembled officers set down their work and quickly departed. They had been briefed. Everyone knew what was coming.
He took out his PRT phone, a phone that it shouldn't be possible to arbitrarily call from an outside line, and certainly not anonymously. The caller ID read "APEIRON" in all caps, with nothing else. He doubted it was even an actual function of the phone. There had been no log of the previous call on any system. The effect was a little frightening, but also in line with everything else Apeiron was known for.
"Hello, Apeiron?" He said, doing his best to keep his voice clear and level. A night of limited sleep and a morning fueled by coffee and frustration didn't lead to great oration.
"Hello Director Armstrong." Apeiron's voice came through the line. Calm, confident, and with that smoothness that was iconic to him, and could somehow come across even through a call. "I was wondering if this would be a good time for me to stop by. I understand you have a situation I would be able to assist with."
His downplaying of their current circumstances was almost funny, and probably would have been a lot more amusing from a distance, rather than for someone who was deep in the thick of things. Still, there was an undeniable sense of relief. Just the confirmation, the promised offer actually coming through when he said it would.
Armstrong wasn't sure he bought the official theory regarding Apeiron. A power specialized mad scientist neatly explained the man's actions, but that was it. The theory neatly explained all of the man's actions. It had been tailored to justify everything that had been done, but was vague on what might be done in the future. In fact, the proposed specialization and methodology was so broad that it could be used to justify anything.
The only possible helpful point was a potential commitment to contracts, and even that was nebulous. The man could very easily just be committed to upholding his word, but the national office seemed enamored with the idea that his Mad Scientist expression demanded strict adherence to agreements.
Probably because it suggested a level of control and consistency, something that was in rare supply around Apeiron. But a theory that neatly explained everything in a way immensely favorable to your hopes and needs was something Armstrong found inherently suspicious, even if his was a minority opinion.
"Yes, I would very much appreciate that." He said as he leaned back in his chair, slumping slightly. Tension of a night without proper sleep and fatigue from prolonged stress was catching up with him, but he wasn't going to let that slow him down. Not now. "How soon can you arrive?" He asked.
"Fairly soon." Apeiron replied. Armstrong swore he could hear a smile in the man's voice. "Tell me, is that office secure?"
He sat up and looked around the room that had been serving as his command center. His head craned back and forth, searching the room as if he would see some member of the Celestial Forge watching him. As if he would be able to see anything. He calmed himself and straightened in his chair. It had sounded flippant, but obviously was a serious question, and the mover abilities of Apeiron and his team were now well documented.
"It's centrally located and isolated from any of the surrounding barracks. The only people in the rest of the building are staff I have personally vetted or worked with for years. The room is secure." He said. Somehow he doubted his assessment was really necessary, but it seemed like a peace offering for Apeiron to ask. "Will you be arriving directly in this room?"
Cautiously, he rose to his feet, remembering the displays that had accompanied Survey and Kataklyzein when they had teleported. His eyes dropped to the table where scattered papers representing the work of the morning stood unsecured against even a light breeze, much less explosions of lightning or fire.
"If that's alright with you, we'll be along shortly." The man replied.
Armstrong blinked "Of course, but… I'm sorry, did you say 'we'?"
But even as he spoke, a glowing rectangle began to open in the center of the office. An aperture that opened and Armstrong could see Apeiron standing in another space. The surface of the portal caused colors to appear dim and washed out, but that faded as Apeiron stepped through into the office.
He was wearing a costume superficially similar to what he had worn to Somer's rock. Grey hair with a glowing red lock in the front, a high-tech version of a metal visor over his eyes, the rest of his face mostly open, and a military cut jacket with scattered armored plates, each glowing with active technical elements.
The design was superficially the same, but there was a refinement to it. Possibly that was the lack of the cape. That had billowed like a living thing and its absence made Apeiron's form less dynamic, though no less impressive. The rest of his costume had increased in quality and workmanship, something Armstrong wouldn't have thought possible, but the evidence spoke for itself. The man's statements about three-day old technology apparently ran true, and he could only guess at the current capabilities of Apeiron's equipment.
Next a towering golden figure stepped through the portal. Over seven feet of golden armor with a white scarf wrapped around the neck as its only accessory. The figure was imposing and dynamic when seen in person, despite the undeniable reference to that specific Japanese robot series. Tinkers were often known for integrating their hobbies and interests into their work and some people took it as a sign of immaturity, but there was nothing juvenile about the armored form of the Matrix staring down at you.
Then the third member of Apeiron's team appeared, not through the portal which was currently closing behind them, but flickering in at Apeiron's side. A young teen girl with glowing red hair and a matching costume, both of which pulsed with internal energy in the same pattern, as if they were inexorably linked. A glow that was very familiar, and one that matched the forelock on Apeiron's own head. A glow that had previously only been seen from a member of Apeiron's team who had a very different form from what was standing before him.
Armstrong was just glad he had enough connections to be informed of developments that weren't fully circulated through the PRT. Developments like Dauntless's meeting with Apeiron the previous morning where the man had apparently been performing some morning ritual in honor of the fallen heroic Butchers, Caydancil and War Seer. An act that had plenty of concerns and raised plenty of questions, though there were more than enough of those raised by the report.
Questions like the nature of Apeiron's supposed enhancement of Dauntless's spear and a potential contract involving an overworked hero getting sufficient rest, though that seemed a bit farfetched to him. And questions like what exactly had happened to Proto Aima that turned her from a barely humanoid glowing red weasel-like creature to someone who could pass for human in the absence of her glowing hair.
That was a question particularly relevant to Armstrong, or more specifically to the boy he was acting as guardian of. Questions he hoped he'd get to explore, but first they had more pressing business.
"Apeiron, Matrix," He deliberately turned to the third member of the team. "And Proto Aima." The girl beamed, her tiny red domino mask doing nothing to conceal her expression, though there was the clear sense it had been included for aesthetic purposes rather than out of concern for her identity. "It's nice to meet you all. Welcome to Camp Danvers."
And suddenly the girl was right in front of him, shaking his hand. "It's nice to meet you as well." She said looking up at him. "You did a really good job moving everyone last night. I can tell they're much more comfortable here, but that should be even better once we deal with those bombs."
"Thank you." He said, unable to keep the amusement out of his voce. At a glance from Apeiron, Proto Aima broke away and then was back at his side. No movement through the intervening space, just a flicker form one place to another. Apparently the teleportation was exactly as strong as Dauntless's report suggested. "In that case, should we get started?"
"Absolutely." Apeiron replied. "I think we can all agree, this has gone on more than long enough."
