Interlude: Ellisburg Survivors
Reactions: Thomas Calvert
Thomas Calvert was not used to this level of interference. He had been content to deal with Emily's usual pigheadedness when it cropped up, which it did, frequently. But he'd had her under control, alongside a slowly growing cadre of loyal and dedicated PRT operatives. His decision to operate more directly was not one he regretted as much, but there had been too many circumstances as of late linking together.
Yes, he had obtained Dinah Alcott, which was a boon to his operations across the board. Ostensibly, at least, this was supposed to be a boon, and yet in practice it was not what Coil had expected it to be. Firstly, entire chunks of the city seemed to be under roving "blackouts" where even his pet's power was unable to pierce the screens. He'd overheard and been present for briefings wherein Armsmaster, using some of the Watchdog's resources, had run tests.
Each blackout seemed to be locally tied to a person, but who that person was hadn't been clear, with thousands of potential suspects. It was even more frustrating that whenever one of those blackouts happened to pass over the area, he couldn't ask the girl any questions because she slipped into a near coma until whatever was causing the blackout moved away from the area.
With limited resources, especially procognitives, Armsmaster couldn't run further testing, and the man had more or less shrugged his shoulders as he'd finished the briefing. It must have rankled him that he was unable to think up an answer for them.
Coil was fairly sure that at least one of the blackouts was Lisa Wilbourne, but how she was doing it wasn't certain. He'd orchestrated kidnappings and attacks on her in alternate timelines as a form of test, and yet they'd never brought anything up, and bizarrely… they seemed to fail more than succeed. On the few occasions that he'd managed to actually interrogate and harm her, always in a far location, she'd steadfastly either refused to tell him anything of value, and when he'd managed to break her she'd not even known what was causing it.
What had been more disturbing were the collapsed realities where she'd mutated into some kind of killing machine, swarming the remote location and killing everything that moved before branching outwards.
Those realities had to be closed without fail, after containment from the Protectorate inevitably failed and she threatened the continental United States. They responded with nuclear fire in almost every single reality, and in the one where they hadn't, a beautiful woman alight in fire lay waste to Brockton Bay and everything within.
To say that Coil was furious was an understatement, years of work had been threatened simply because of circumstances linked to one woman.
Outwardly, the man known as Coil was calm, facing the briefings of major protectorate staff, with Emily Piggot writing notes as Miss Militia spoke on force distributions and the positions of the incumbent Merchants after their sudden and surprising loss.
A new cape had intervened, and Assault would be speaking about her next, given the bastard man's presence at the far end of the table.
"Assault, you stated you had preliminary ratings for the new cape?"
The man stood up and ran a hand through his shock of red hair, and Calvert stopped fantasizing about how it would feel to shoot everyone in this room in favor of watching him.
"Her name is Hotaru, which I'm told means something like "flame", I thought tinker initially but now I'm not so sure, given her apparent performance."
The man paused, turning to the board and beginning to mark down keywords as he spoke.
"First, she glows, brightly, too, not like Purity, but it's difficult to make out any facial expressions or the like, secondly, while she wears only half a helmet, with the lower part of her jaw uncovered alongside her mouth, it seems to be wrought of some sort of metal that glows brighter than the rest of her. Initially I thought Tinker with some sort of light armor construct, akin to what Dragon pulled off that Tinker in South America last year, but on a much more cohesive scale, now I'm not so sure."
Armsmaster, taking notes, paused as Assault began flinging still screenshots from his helmet camera footage onto the board, shots of a woman who was short but strong looking, clad in thick armor and carrying a mace and shield.
"What makes me unsure is the sheer efficacy of her actions if the Dockworker who called us is to be believed."
It was Piggot that finally broke in, firmly asking.
"The escalation of Tinkers, you mean?"
Assault nodded.
"I'll start with the facts, as I understand and was made to see them when I arrived on scene this morning."
Footage from official PRT and BBPD CSI filled the screen next to him, photos of shattered teeth and blood stains.
"I met Hotaru observing the docks district and the few slipways that were still operational, I was worried she was a villain and I stepped in to speak with her. She's mute, at least, or prefers not to speak, instead communicating on a pad of paper and pen. Which was how she told me her name was Hotaru."
He paused, plastic crackling as he sipped from one of the bottles of water near to the speaking podium. Calvert contemplated how easy it would be to grind his head to dust between his hands. Before Assault continued.
"She did not seem to be a villain, and I gave her the card for the Protectorate before leaving the area as Console had informed me of a fight between some Merchants and a group of the ABB only a few blocks away."
"Which was where you were when the fight began in the docks, correct?" Piggot asked once more, eyes focused hard on him.
"Yes. I met up with Challenger en route and we interfered with the fight before it could spill into a civilian neighborhood, but our PRT support was delayed because the Empire were moving through Merchant territory and they had to be on standby if the capes from either side found each other."
"Which was when you spotted Skidmark and Squealer heading for the docks and tried to disengage."
"Yes Ma'am, but I was unsuccessful in extricating myself from the combat zone and to pursue farther than I had would have left Challenger alone and exposed to combat, she's not as tough as I am."
The woman in question raised her hand and stood, before she spoke.
"He helped me to resolve the situation, and by the time we were finished with clean up and our support had actually arrived, the fight was already over and we were being dispatched to the boat graveyard for the other anomaly of that night."
Armsmaster stood and joined Assault, wordlessly, he nodded to the other hero and he took his seat as Armsmaster began.
"At approximately 2:30 AM this morning the PRT received a call from a dockworker stating that a new cape had shut down an attempted attack by the merchants on the central docks. With PRT support and capes nearby, I was dispatched to the scene, but I was redirected soon after when a separate call came in from the boat graveyard reporting the mass disappearance of every ship hull in the graveyard and glowing water."
He paused.
"By the time we arrived to the docks, hours later, any traces of the new hero were gone, and we were left simply examining the crime scene. In my opinion and backed up by my analysis of the scene I agree with Assaults hypothesis that the new cape is a changer or breaker, rather than a tinker."
He paused, and when Piggot nodded, began to explain.
"The escalation of Tinkers is well known, if this were a Tinker's first outing there would be evidence of such a thing, discarded or broken equipment, fragments of technology, strange reactions with their technology on the area, instead we found no evidence other than the unconscious Merchant members at the scene. Additionally, I think it is more beneficial to addend one further rating to Hotaru, that being Master."
Murmurs moved through the assembled heroes, and Piggot's gaze hardened as Armsmaster waited for the noise to die down.
"There are two reasons for this, when interviewing the dockworkers who witnessed Hotaru's defense, they stated a low level merchant cape, an unknown brute suddenly lost control of themselves and attacked their allies, while this was something I was hesitant to believe at first, recorded mutterings from the Merchants insist that none of them were high, and he attacked out of nowhere."
A pause as Armsmaster wrote down "Master" under Hotaru's name, below Changer.
"Furthermore, unconsciousness in humans as a result of blunt force trauma is short lived for reason, it's a traumatic brain injury for it to last longer than a few seconds, and yet every member of the Merchants remained unconscious for hours afterwards, and yet checkovers by doctors and staff have asserted that there are no lingering injuries to the brain, an anomaly."
"Was Panacea not available?" Piggot asked, and eyes turned to Armsmaster.
"She was unavailable for an "emergency" of some kind, although her sister did not state what that emergency is."
"And has her mother been reached for contact?"
Armsmaster shook his head.
"No, she has been unavailable to our probes for the morning, her receptionist and secretary told us she'll be unreachable until the weekend and unless we're family to wait."
"Hmm. Reach out to some of our contacts in the civilian world, lets see if we can find her, I am a little worried." Piggot said, before motioning for Armsmaster to continue.
"Thus, something in Hotaru's equipment or changer form seems to aid in knocking those she attacks unconscious, and harmlessly so, at least for the most part. Her weapons are still capable of severely damaging people she wishes to harm, as the litany of injuries that were reported clearly shows."
Finished with his hypothesis, Armsmaster turned to the board and began writing numbers next to the two statements.
"From statements with the gang, she is able to take punishing amounts of damage, fights like a human, albeit one very experienced, and her mace is wielded with enough casual strength to splinter and shatter bones even on light hits."
An image of one of Squealer's trucks, the front shattered into composite pieces, appeared on the board, and Calvert leaned forwards slightly.
"We estimate Hotaru to be a Brute 5 in her changer or breaker state, and alongside her master abilities, likely a Master 4 for the moment. If forcing someone to see everyone around them as an enemy and her strange sleep field is the only thing she's capable of, that will be a relief, but I caution everyone in this room to remember that until she comes in for testing, this information is secondhand at best and should be treated with a grain of salt."
As he finished the briefing on the scene of Hotaru's emergence, Calvert focused on the information he could verify, the Undersiders were within that area, and they could independently verify much of what occurred if any had happened to be around, whether or not this would be useful largely depended on Laborne and information from his team, if they'd seen anything. If he could co-opt this cape to his side he would have another powerful servant, and one that could handle several groups of merchants and then escape without leaving a trace was important, full stop.
More actors were always important for this city, and especially if Emily's continued interference swayed Vermillion Knight to her, he'd need whoever he could get his hands on, and preferably fast.
That woman was dangerous, his pet's threat dossier had been enlightening in it's bluntness, the practiced "threat level yes" a childish display, but one of use. If Lisa Wilbourne's powers were screaming that the woman was a serious threat, then he would trust that. She had tried to lead him wrong before, but the dossier read like a panicked attempt to close off any attempts to communicate with Vermillion Knight, alongside constant reassurances of her incredible power and strong moral compass.
How Tattletale had gotten that information didn't matter to Coil, only that she had obtained it and used it to try and dissuade any attempts to communicate.
He would reach out through an intermediary, and communicate with her as directly as he ever did, assess her mentality and morals for himself, and then he would decide what to do with Tattletale.
As he refocused on the briefing, he observed Armsmaster prattling on about the Boat Graveyard, and it's shift from useless into something potentially worth considering. With the loss of the salvage, and the purification of the waters around the bay at a heretofore unheard of level things would shift dramatically in favor of the vast dockyards.
Coil frowned, observing aerial pictures alongside soil and water readings taken from the surroundings and the picture they painted. It wasn't exactly an enlightening picture, either.
It pointed to the existence of a monstrously powerful shaker, and one who could manipulate terrain and materials at an unheard of level. One that had most of the room worrying at lips and sweating, and one that had Thomas Calvert alight with the potential and possibilities therein.
A shaker on that scale would likely be considered a near strategic asset, even if they were just capable of that wide scale purification.
How could he get ahold of them?
And who were they, because unlike with Hotaru, no one had seen anyone in the water, not that anyone would willingly have touched that water priorly.
Much of the remainder of the briefing was irrelevant information, or information that Coil had already known, and he was itching to escape it. He had several mercenary cape teams to contact, and meetings to arrange. Alongside a decision to reach about Tattletale, normally he'd have kept her until the very last amount of her usefulness was gone, but with her apparent inability to be interrogated, something that had quickly begun to erode Coil's sense of safety around her. Lisa Wilbourne had been recruited at gunpoint, he held no illusions to the fact that she would and had tried to buck his leash before. He'd held her ever tighter afterwards, but she was… becoming difficult and irritating to manage.
But she did have that new potential teammate… her name… Cherish.
Another of Vasil's wayward children had arrived in Brockton Bay, and then had disappeared. Either she'd fallen in with Faultline, which was unlikely, or she'd joined the Undersiders and they hadn't told him.
She was an unknown, but if she could fill in for Tattletale, who served predominantly as a researcher… then she could be potentially convinced to join using any of a number of tactics.
As the briefing concluded, Calvert stayed behind, making small talk and asking a few more questions, acting as his role demanded, before he stepped free of the building's conference room and moved towards the halls.
His secondary reality began reaching out, redistributing soldiers across the city, alongside with pulling on some favors owed by influential people for information.
It was a petty use of his power, but a useful one, calling on those who owed him, farming them for any and all information, and simply collapsing the realities they had given the favor to him within.
It was how he extracted the names and contact information for several groups of paramilitary mercenaries, and two teams of parahumans, one aligned with white supremacists, calling themselves the Rockers, and the other aligned with Accord, in Boston, called the Travelers.
With those teams information and expected rates, Coil couldn't help himself but grin as his car made its way from the basement of the PRT building to the streets of Brockton bay.
PRT: Emily Piggot
It would be easy to say that Ellisburg had hurt Emily Piggot, it would be easier to say that she hated capes because of it. In truth, she did not hate them as much as she let rumors say, and had, throughout her tenure as the director of the PRT ENE, come to an understanding with the capes under her command.
Her city was unstable, and in many ways it had been dying, but recent events hinted to Emily that her mutual friend, the new Cape Vermillion Knight was planning something. Something large scale, if the woman was also a Shaker, based simply on what had happened to the boat graveyard.
But it didn't quite fit with the image and interactions she'd had with Himeko so far. The woman was cautious, and incredibly so, she trusted almost no one, beyond even really Emily, instead sticking to her own morals, arresting common criminals, and putting anyone who got in her way down, albeit nonlethally.
Stormtiger's sudden arrest had been a shock, especially after the sheer damage done to the man in such a short period of time. Footage was limited, but a smear of red had colored it, and he'd started screaming and flopping bonelessly about shortly afterwards. It was a surprisingly vicious takedown for someone who generally played with a softer hand, and Emily wondered if it was because she hated Nazis, or if she had some connection to Stormtiger, as unlikely as the latter explanation would have been.
She observed the bay from her desk and wondered, a glass of water in one hand.
What would it mean if Himeko's arrival had released two powerful new capes into the game? This heretofore unheard of Shaker, and the Breaker/Changer that was Hotaru. In some ways she was surprised none of the capes at the table had mentioned that Hotaru seemed to draw some elements of her armor from Himeko's own costuming. With bright lights and flowing, skintight lines, albeit heavier cuirass and armor pieces crossing over it.
Piggot frowned, perusing the preliminary reports assembled from Armsmaster and others, shifting them until she got to the Bay Shaker incident.
Just the clearing of the bay's wrecks was enormous in it's scope and impact, with the vast majority of Brockton Bay's shipping lanes now reopened, the city's industry could experience a flood of incoming industry, and while Boston had been the preferred option for a long time, recent cape actions had destabilized the docks district of that city, and if companies were looking at a loss in business regardless of their locations…
She groaned, yes, most of the terminology went over her head, but if Brockton Bay's industry and dockworkers were smart, and with Hebert in charge they absolutely were, then her city might be facing an enormous amount of growth headed it's way, along with a commensurate increase in population, capes, and business enterprises.
Piggot sipped her water again, and let a wry smile carve its way across her face as she muttered.
"If this is your fault Himeko… I'll have to thank you, and then call you a bastard for making my job 10 times harder."
A knock on her door startled her slightly, and the woman turned to face it as a pair of people entered her office.
The first was Deputy Director Renick, her faithful, loyal, and logistically talented second in command, and the second was Miss Militia, the only hero that Emily would ever admit to liking in any public facing capacity.
"Director… updates from Militia and myself on the Shadow Stalker situation."
Emily nodded, and turned to face Miss Militia first, with the kurdish woman immediately speaking.
"Ma'am, we've located a few traces of Stalker's presence, but she's frustratingly difficult to track down more than she has been. We have no idea if she's gotten better at evading us or something else, but we know she's raided several of her caches already."
Pictures were passed to Emily, holes in the ground, in buildings ripped open, nondescript black bags and foam lined cases ransacked, everything stripped out of them.
"How badly did we fumble this… what does her psych profile say?"
Renick answered her first question in the honest, gentle way he always had.
"Bad. She was mastered as long as years from what we're able to tell, and potentially, she was one of the first victims of Barnes' powers, depending on when she was first exposed. It's frustrating that Vermillion Knight slew her so readily and left us with the pieces, not that I would ever blame her for taking the necessary course of action she did, but it is frustrating to lack so much of the larger picture because of it. Our fumble means that we only have the first victim, namely her father, who isn't helpful given his catatonic state in a mental hospital."
Emily winced, it was easy to despise most capes for her, but Masters… a special place in her heart was held for them. A special place full of hatred and vitriol, the monstrosities they were capable of… the things they all felt compelled to do because of such powers.
Those? Unleashed upon a teenage girl who's worldview was dangerously drunk on her own strength?
It was a miracle Stalker hadn't started nailing people to walls with crossbow bolts again.
It was Hana, Miss Militia, who stepped forwards to answer the question about her psych profile.
"Her psych profile states nothing about this course of action, she should be collapsed, likely near catatonic if we were lucky, and she absolutely should not be vanishing better than most of Coil's people."
A dark look crossed over her face and she continued.
"Regardless, I am very worried, this is atypical behavior at best, and I fear that she may start something akin to a rampage, but her intended targets are… not exactly the most obvious."
Piggot frowned for a moment.
"We were observing her stashes, right?"
"All that we knew of, and yet she seems to have punched through all of them, collecting and collating her supplies. We do not know what she's intending to do, or who… if she blames the Barnes' we should expect her to attempt to kill them, but if she's seen the footage of what Himeko's done already, then she knows that they were victims, and that the object of her revenge is already dead. It's not a certain thing, but she might be attempting to leave the city?"
Piggot pinched the bridge of her nose.
"It doesn't make sense, cameras should have picked her up, especially with the focused angles, and yet they didn't, do we think she sabotaged them?"
She frowned.
"Alert the other branches of the PRT, and especially those around the containment sites for our S-Class threats, the damage she could cause is enormous if left unchecked."
Renick nodded and exited the room promptly, sensing that his orders were given, before Piggot turned to face Hana.
"Hana… tell me what you think she's doing…"
Miss Militia paused, before she turned to the map of the United States and placed one finger on Washington D.C.
"Canary."
Her voice was flat and she traced it, before turning back to Emily.
"Shadow Stalker is a girl driven by pride in her own abilities, with her faith in those abilities shattered she will try to prove to herself that she is still the "predator". If she had a target to focus on, such as Emma Barnes, she would attempt to do so, in this case, her target was removed conveniently, meaning that she has to do something else."
Hana pointed to the board.
"It's widely known that Canary's trial is a sham, and the convoy transporting her to her hearing has suffered protests and attacks by civilians, if I were Shadow Stalker, I would break Canary out using my abilities."
Piggot snorted.
"The girl was near psychotic, a terrible influence and a bully to her teammates."
Militia raised an eyebrow.
"Was she? Or was she controlled and dominated by another into being the stereotype of that girl's darkest fears, pointed and controlled as if to tell her she was over it while reminding her of the trauma she went through?"
Piggot frowned, Militia made entirely too much sense, and the woman's opinion of Shadow Stalker shifted.
"Meaning that if she wants to be taken seriously as a hero, and expects the Barnes case to go public… she'd have to come to the public with every single iota of support she could possibly drum up, which isn't going to be easy for her if she's indicted in the bullying campaign against Taylor Hebert…"
They both reached the same conclusion.
"If she earns enough favor in the court of public opinion, if she wants to be a hero, she'll do something outlandish enough to make her the PR darling of the day, whilst also making certain her career isn't completely scrapped as a side effect of the damage she herself committed under the effects of the Master…"
Piggot grimaced as she spoke.
"What is the update on Canary?"
Hana's mouth set in a frown, the thin line betraying her disapproval at the entire process.
"Permission to speak freely, Ma'am?"
At Piggot's nod, she continued. "She's a terrified child getting the book thrown at her for no reason, and we all know it, she didn't do any of what she's been accused of, and everyone knows it, but this inane stunt is simply meant to serve an example for Human masters."
Hana stopped as Piggot raised her hand.
"An update, please."
The woman nodded.
"All trial and hearing preceedings are as normal, and the justice department has refused to offer her any differences as far as I am aware. She's been kept in level 5 brute restraints, and gagged to prevent any use of her power. Despite all of this, her own lawyer is a failure of a defense attorny thrown into a role by the state. It is a gross miscarriage of the justice system I loved the most about this country."
She wrinkled her nose, lips flaring in a growl.
"It reminds me of the way justice was dispensed in my former village."
Piggot felt her anger, felt the rage against what had happened to her suffuse her words as Miss Militia recomposed herself.
"The sham trial is exactly that, and the kangaroo court they'll construct will doom this young woman to the birdcage. The place where actual monsters go."
"Thank you, Miss Militia. I will take this into consideration."
The Kurdish woman nodded, tugged her bandanna up on her mouth and marched out of Piggot's office.
Turning back to the view over Brockton Bay, Piggot thought.
One the one hand, if Shadow Stalker was targeting the convoy, she owed it to her superiors to try and stop the girl. Simply because she could get herself hurt or killed, and others as well.
On the other hand… while she'd ransacked her equipment caches throughout the city… and while it had been missed in the initial foray, Piggot calmly noted that lethal bolts, stored in each cache, hadn't been taken, only the tranquilizer arrows, and spare equipment, rather than the heavy caches of lethal bolts.
If Stalker was truly trying to turn over a new leaf… would it not be fitting to allow her one single shot at it?
She looked out to the city and thought about her conversation with Himeko, she was allowing that woman one chance to manage her group of teenage apocalypses… and if she failed chances are that the world would go tits up and her city might explode.
Also, it would shove a fat fucking middle finger in the face of Rebecca Costa Brown, the uptight, conniving bitch.
Was Piggot political enough to get egg on the face of her largest pain in the ass in the PRT? No.
Was she petty enough to let a girl have her shot at playing teenage Madcap again on the off chance that she truly meant to be a hero?
Not entirely.
She'd give marching orders to her capes, and attempt to assess the information network that they all lived in, if it was satisfactory, if the case against Canary was going poorly… then she'd see about setting up Stalker.
Canary did not deserve what was being done to her, and for once, Piggot was in a position to do something about it, with an entirely deniable asset.
She couldn't lie, as she sipped her water and chuckled, a part of her wondered if this was how a supervillain felt when they plotted their large scale schemes.
She raised her glass of water and muttered.
"I hope you make the right decision, Sophia."
A/N: I don't have too much to say here, just that this was hopefully entertaining and enjoyable to read.
From an authorial standpoint, I like exploring this slightly… dare I say sunnier Emily Piggot? She's better off here partially because she didn't let herself go as much after Ellisburg, and also because she's not had the crippling injury of canon. As for Sophia, several of you have been clamoring to know what's happened with her, do I have plans for her? Absolutely, are they going to be center stage while we're focused on the crew in Brockton? Not really, maybe you'll get an interlude at the end of Calm, when that airs. But it might not fit to show her part there!
From an IRL standpoint, in 3 days, the anniversary of the date I lost my sister will happen, coincidentally, it happens to be my birthday, I'm not sure how long it'll be until I return with another chapter, I want to believe it'll be as soon as next week, but I just don't know. I'm sorry, folks.
Thank you, as always, to my wonderful patrons.
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Thomas Calvert was not used to this level of interference. He had been content to deal with Emily's usual pigheadedness when it cropped up, which it did, frequently. But he'd had her under control, alongside a slowly growing cadre of loyal and dedicated PRT operatives. His decision to operate more directly was not one he regretted as much, but there had been too many circumstances as of late linking together.
Yes, he had obtained Dinah Alcott, which was a boon to his operations across the board. Ostensibly, at least, this was supposed to be a boon, and yet in practice it was not what Coil had expected it to be. Firstly, entire chunks of the city seemed to be under roving "blackouts" where even his pet's power was unable to pierce the screens. He'd overheard and been present for briefings wherein Armsmaster, using some of the Watchdog's resources, had run tests.
Each blackout seemed to be locally tied to a person, but who that person was hadn't been clear, with thousands of potential suspects. It was even more frustrating that whenever one of those blackouts happened to pass over the area, he couldn't ask the girl any questions because she slipped into a near coma until whatever was causing the blackout moved away from the area.
With limited resources, especially procognitives, Armsmaster couldn't run further testing, and the man had more or less shrugged his shoulders as he'd finished the briefing. It must have rankled him that he was unable to think up an answer for them.
Coil was fairly sure that at least one of the blackouts was Lisa Wilbourne, but how she was doing it wasn't certain. He'd orchestrated kidnappings and attacks on her in alternate timelines as a form of test, and yet they'd never brought anything up, and bizarrely… they seemed to fail more than succeed. On the few occasions that he'd managed to actually interrogate and harm her, always in a far location, she'd steadfastly either refused to tell him anything of value, and when he'd managed to break her she'd not even known what was causing it.
What had been more disturbing were the collapsed realities where she'd mutated into some kind of killing machine, swarming the remote location and killing everything that moved before branching outwards.
Those realities had to be closed without fail, after containment from the Protectorate inevitably failed and she threatened the continental United States. They responded with nuclear fire in almost every single reality, and in the one where they hadn't, a beautiful woman alight in fire lay waste to Brockton Bay and everything within.
To say that Coil was furious was an understatement, years of work had been threatened simply because of circumstances linked to one woman.
Outwardly, the man known as Coil was calm, facing the briefings of major protectorate staff, with Emily Piggot writing notes as Miss Militia spoke on force distributions and the positions of the incumbent Merchants after their sudden and surprising loss.
A new cape had intervened, and Assault would be speaking about her next, given the bastard man's presence at the far end of the table.
"Assault, you stated you had preliminary ratings for the new cape?"
The man stood up and ran a hand through his shock of red hair, and Calvert stopped fantasizing about how it would feel to shoot everyone in this room in favor of watching him.
"Her name is Hotaru, which I'm told means something like "flame", I thought tinker initially but now I'm not so sure, given her apparent performance."
The man paused, turning to the board and beginning to mark down keywords as he spoke.
"First, she glows, brightly, too, not like Purity, but it's difficult to make out any facial expressions or the like, secondly, while she wears only half a helmet, with the lower part of her jaw uncovered alongside her mouth, it seems to be wrought of some sort of metal that glows brighter than the rest of her. Initially I thought Tinker with some sort of light armor construct, akin to what Dragon pulled off that Tinker in South America last year, but on a much more cohesive scale, now I'm not so sure."
Armsmaster, taking notes, paused as Assault began flinging still screenshots from his helmet camera footage onto the board, shots of a woman who was short but strong looking, clad in thick armor and carrying a mace and shield.
"What makes me unsure is the sheer efficacy of her actions if the Dockworker who called us is to be believed."
It was Piggot that finally broke in, firmly asking.
"The escalation of Tinkers, you mean?"
Assault nodded.
"I'll start with the facts, as I understand and was made to see them when I arrived on scene this morning."
Footage from official PRT and BBPD CSI filled the screen next to him, photos of shattered teeth and blood stains.
"I met Hotaru observing the docks district and the few slipways that were still operational, I was worried she was a villain and I stepped in to speak with her. She's mute, at least, or prefers not to speak, instead communicating on a pad of paper and pen. Which was how she told me her name was Hotaru."
He paused, plastic crackling as he sipped from one of the bottles of water near to the speaking podium. Calvert contemplated how easy it would be to grind his head to dust between his hands. Before Assault continued.
"She did not seem to be a villain, and I gave her the card for the Protectorate before leaving the area as Console had informed me of a fight between some Merchants and a group of the ABB only a few blocks away."
"Which was where you were when the fight began in the docks, correct?" Piggot asked once more, eyes focused hard on him.
"Yes. I met up with Challenger en route and we interfered with the fight before it could spill into a civilian neighborhood, but our PRT support was delayed because the Empire were moving through Merchant territory and they had to be on standby if the capes from either side found each other."
"Which was when you spotted Skidmark and Squealer heading for the docks and tried to disengage."
"Yes Ma'am, but I was unsuccessful in extricating myself from the combat zone and to pursue farther than I had would have left Challenger alone and exposed to combat, she's not as tough as I am."
The woman in question raised her hand and stood, before she spoke.
"He helped me to resolve the situation, and by the time we were finished with clean up and our support had actually arrived, the fight was already over and we were being dispatched to the boat graveyard for the other anomaly of that night."
Armsmaster stood and joined Assault, wordlessly, he nodded to the other hero and he took his seat as Armsmaster began.
"At approximately 2:30 AM this morning the PRT received a call from a dockworker stating that a new cape had shut down an attempted attack by the merchants on the central docks. With PRT support and capes nearby, I was dispatched to the scene, but I was redirected soon after when a separate call came in from the boat graveyard reporting the mass disappearance of every ship hull in the graveyard and glowing water."
He paused.
"By the time we arrived to the docks, hours later, any traces of the new hero were gone, and we were left simply examining the crime scene. In my opinion and backed up by my analysis of the scene I agree with Assaults hypothesis that the new cape is a changer or breaker, rather than a tinker."
He paused, and when Piggot nodded, began to explain.
"The escalation of Tinkers is well known, if this were a Tinker's first outing there would be evidence of such a thing, discarded or broken equipment, fragments of technology, strange reactions with their technology on the area, instead we found no evidence other than the unconscious Merchant members at the scene. Additionally, I think it is more beneficial to addend one further rating to Hotaru, that being Master."
Murmurs moved through the assembled heroes, and Piggot's gaze hardened as Armsmaster waited for the noise to die down.
"There are two reasons for this, when interviewing the dockworkers who witnessed Hotaru's defense, they stated a low level merchant cape, an unknown brute suddenly lost control of themselves and attacked their allies, while this was something I was hesitant to believe at first, recorded mutterings from the Merchants insist that none of them were high, and he attacked out of nowhere."
A pause as Armsmaster wrote down "Master" under Hotaru's name, below Changer.
"Furthermore, unconsciousness in humans as a result of blunt force trauma is short lived for reason, it's a traumatic brain injury for it to last longer than a few seconds, and yet every member of the Merchants remained unconscious for hours afterwards, and yet checkovers by doctors and staff have asserted that there are no lingering injuries to the brain, an anomaly."
"Was Panacea not available?" Piggot asked, and eyes turned to Armsmaster.
"She was unavailable for an "emergency" of some kind, although her sister did not state what that emergency is."
"And has her mother been reached for contact?"
Armsmaster shook his head.
"No, she has been unavailable to our probes for the morning, her receptionist and secretary told us she'll be unreachable until the weekend and unless we're family to wait."
"Hmm. Reach out to some of our contacts in the civilian world, lets see if we can find her, I am a little worried." Piggot said, before motioning for Armsmaster to continue.
"Thus, something in Hotaru's equipment or changer form seems to aid in knocking those she attacks unconscious, and harmlessly so, at least for the most part. Her weapons are still capable of severely damaging people she wishes to harm, as the litany of injuries that were reported clearly shows."
Finished with his hypothesis, Armsmaster turned to the board and began writing numbers next to the two statements.
"From statements with the gang, she is able to take punishing amounts of damage, fights like a human, albeit one very experienced, and her mace is wielded with enough casual strength to splinter and shatter bones even on light hits."
An image of one of Squealer's trucks, the front shattered into composite pieces, appeared on the board, and Calvert leaned forwards slightly.
"We estimate Hotaru to be a Brute 5 in her changer or breaker state, and alongside her master abilities, likely a Master 4 for the moment. If forcing someone to see everyone around them as an enemy and her strange sleep field is the only thing she's capable of, that will be a relief, but I caution everyone in this room to remember that until she comes in for testing, this information is secondhand at best and should be treated with a grain of salt."
As he finished the briefing on the scene of Hotaru's emergence, Calvert focused on the information he could verify, the Undersiders were within that area, and they could independently verify much of what occurred if any had happened to be around, whether or not this would be useful largely depended on Laborne and information from his team, if they'd seen anything. If he could co-opt this cape to his side he would have another powerful servant, and one that could handle several groups of merchants and then escape without leaving a trace was important, full stop.
More actors were always important for this city, and especially if Emily's continued interference swayed Vermillion Knight to her, he'd need whoever he could get his hands on, and preferably fast.
That woman was dangerous, his pet's threat dossier had been enlightening in it's bluntness, the practiced "threat level yes" a childish display, but one of use. If Lisa Wilbourne's powers were screaming that the woman was a serious threat, then he would trust that. She had tried to lead him wrong before, but the dossier read like a panicked attempt to close off any attempts to communicate with Vermillion Knight, alongside constant reassurances of her incredible power and strong moral compass.
How Tattletale had gotten that information didn't matter to Coil, only that she had obtained it and used it to try and dissuade any attempts to communicate.
He would reach out through an intermediary, and communicate with her as directly as he ever did, assess her mentality and morals for himself, and then he would decide what to do with Tattletale.
As he refocused on the briefing, he observed Armsmaster prattling on about the Boat Graveyard, and it's shift from useless into something potentially worth considering. With the loss of the salvage, and the purification of the waters around the bay at a heretofore unheard of level things would shift dramatically in favor of the vast dockyards.
Coil frowned, observing aerial pictures alongside soil and water readings taken from the surroundings and the picture they painted. It wasn't exactly an enlightening picture, either.
It pointed to the existence of a monstrously powerful shaker, and one who could manipulate terrain and materials at an unheard of level. One that had most of the room worrying at lips and sweating, and one that had Thomas Calvert alight with the potential and possibilities therein.
A shaker on that scale would likely be considered a near strategic asset, even if they were just capable of that wide scale purification.
How could he get ahold of them?
And who were they, because unlike with Hotaru, no one had seen anyone in the water, not that anyone would willingly have touched that water priorly.
Much of the remainder of the briefing was irrelevant information, or information that Coil had already known, and he was itching to escape it. He had several mercenary cape teams to contact, and meetings to arrange. Alongside a decision to reach about Tattletale, normally he'd have kept her until the very last amount of her usefulness was gone, but with her apparent inability to be interrogated, something that had quickly begun to erode Coil's sense of safety around her. Lisa Wilbourne had been recruited at gunpoint, he held no illusions to the fact that she would and had tried to buck his leash before. He'd held her ever tighter afterwards, but she was… becoming difficult and irritating to manage.
But she did have that new potential teammate… her name… Cherish.
Another of Vasil's wayward children had arrived in Brockton Bay, and then had disappeared. Either she'd fallen in with Faultline, which was unlikely, or she'd joined the Undersiders and they hadn't told him.
She was an unknown, but if she could fill in for Tattletale, who served predominantly as a researcher… then she could be potentially convinced to join using any of a number of tactics.
As the briefing concluded, Calvert stayed behind, making small talk and asking a few more questions, acting as his role demanded, before he stepped free of the building's conference room and moved towards the halls.
His secondary reality began reaching out, redistributing soldiers across the city, alongside with pulling on some favors owed by influential people for information.
It was a petty use of his power, but a useful one, calling on those who owed him, farming them for any and all information, and simply collapsing the realities they had given the favor to him within.
It was how he extracted the names and contact information for several groups of paramilitary mercenaries, and two teams of parahumans, one aligned with white supremacists, calling themselves the Rockers, and the other aligned with Accord, in Boston, called the Travelers.
With those teams information and expected rates, Coil couldn't help himself but grin as his car made its way from the basement of the PRT building to the streets of Brockton bay.
PRT: Emily Piggot
It would be easy to say that Ellisburg had hurt Emily Piggot, it would be easier to say that she hated capes because of it. In truth, she did not hate them as much as she let rumors say, and had, throughout her tenure as the director of the PRT ENE, come to an understanding with the capes under her command.
Her city was unstable, and in many ways it had been dying, but recent events hinted to Emily that her mutual friend, the new Cape Vermillion Knight was planning something. Something large scale, if the woman was also a Shaker, based simply on what had happened to the boat graveyard.
But it didn't quite fit with the image and interactions she'd had with Himeko so far. The woman was cautious, and incredibly so, she trusted almost no one, beyond even really Emily, instead sticking to her own morals, arresting common criminals, and putting anyone who got in her way down, albeit nonlethally.
Stormtiger's sudden arrest had been a shock, especially after the sheer damage done to the man in such a short period of time. Footage was limited, but a smear of red had colored it, and he'd started screaming and flopping bonelessly about shortly afterwards. It was a surprisingly vicious takedown for someone who generally played with a softer hand, and Emily wondered if it was because she hated Nazis, or if she had some connection to Stormtiger, as unlikely as the latter explanation would have been.
She observed the bay from her desk and wondered, a glass of water in one hand.
What would it mean if Himeko's arrival had released two powerful new capes into the game? This heretofore unheard of Shaker, and the Breaker/Changer that was Hotaru. In some ways she was surprised none of the capes at the table had mentioned that Hotaru seemed to draw some elements of her armor from Himeko's own costuming. With bright lights and flowing, skintight lines, albeit heavier cuirass and armor pieces crossing over it.
Piggot frowned, perusing the preliminary reports assembled from Armsmaster and others, shifting them until she got to the Bay Shaker incident.
Just the clearing of the bay's wrecks was enormous in it's scope and impact, with the vast majority of Brockton Bay's shipping lanes now reopened, the city's industry could experience a flood of incoming industry, and while Boston had been the preferred option for a long time, recent cape actions had destabilized the docks district of that city, and if companies were looking at a loss in business regardless of their locations…
She groaned, yes, most of the terminology went over her head, but if Brockton Bay's industry and dockworkers were smart, and with Hebert in charge they absolutely were, then her city might be facing an enormous amount of growth headed it's way, along with a commensurate increase in population, capes, and business enterprises.
Piggot sipped her water again, and let a wry smile carve its way across her face as she muttered.
"If this is your fault Himeko… I'll have to thank you, and then call you a bastard for making my job 10 times harder."
A knock on her door startled her slightly, and the woman turned to face it as a pair of people entered her office.
The first was Deputy Director Renick, her faithful, loyal, and logistically talented second in command, and the second was Miss Militia, the only hero that Emily would ever admit to liking in any public facing capacity.
"Director… updates from Militia and myself on the Shadow Stalker situation."
Emily nodded, and turned to face Miss Militia first, with the kurdish woman immediately speaking.
"Ma'am, we've located a few traces of Stalker's presence, but she's frustratingly difficult to track down more than she has been. We have no idea if she's gotten better at evading us or something else, but we know she's raided several of her caches already."
Pictures were passed to Emily, holes in the ground, in buildings ripped open, nondescript black bags and foam lined cases ransacked, everything stripped out of them.
"How badly did we fumble this… what does her psych profile say?"
Renick answered her first question in the honest, gentle way he always had.
"Bad. She was mastered as long as years from what we're able to tell, and potentially, she was one of the first victims of Barnes' powers, depending on when she was first exposed. It's frustrating that Vermillion Knight slew her so readily and left us with the pieces, not that I would ever blame her for taking the necessary course of action she did, but it is frustrating to lack so much of the larger picture because of it. Our fumble means that we only have the first victim, namely her father, who isn't helpful given his catatonic state in a mental hospital."
Emily winced, it was easy to despise most capes for her, but Masters… a special place in her heart was held for them. A special place full of hatred and vitriol, the monstrosities they were capable of… the things they all felt compelled to do because of such powers.
Those? Unleashed upon a teenage girl who's worldview was dangerously drunk on her own strength?
It was a miracle Stalker hadn't started nailing people to walls with crossbow bolts again.
It was Hana, Miss Militia, who stepped forwards to answer the question about her psych profile.
"Her psych profile states nothing about this course of action, she should be collapsed, likely near catatonic if we were lucky, and she absolutely should not be vanishing better than most of Coil's people."
A dark look crossed over her face and she continued.
"Regardless, I am very worried, this is atypical behavior at best, and I fear that she may start something akin to a rampage, but her intended targets are… not exactly the most obvious."
Piggot frowned for a moment.
"We were observing her stashes, right?"
"All that we knew of, and yet she seems to have punched through all of them, collecting and collating her supplies. We do not know what she's intending to do, or who… if she blames the Barnes' we should expect her to attempt to kill them, but if she's seen the footage of what Himeko's done already, then she knows that they were victims, and that the object of her revenge is already dead. It's not a certain thing, but she might be attempting to leave the city?"
Piggot pinched the bridge of her nose.
"It doesn't make sense, cameras should have picked her up, especially with the focused angles, and yet they didn't, do we think she sabotaged them?"
She frowned.
"Alert the other branches of the PRT, and especially those around the containment sites for our S-Class threats, the damage she could cause is enormous if left unchecked."
Renick nodded and exited the room promptly, sensing that his orders were given, before Piggot turned to face Hana.
"Hana… tell me what you think she's doing…"
Miss Militia paused, before she turned to the map of the United States and placed one finger on Washington D.C.
"Canary."
Her voice was flat and she traced it, before turning back to Emily.
"Shadow Stalker is a girl driven by pride in her own abilities, with her faith in those abilities shattered she will try to prove to herself that she is still the "predator". If she had a target to focus on, such as Emma Barnes, she would attempt to do so, in this case, her target was removed conveniently, meaning that she has to do something else."
Hana pointed to the board.
"It's widely known that Canary's trial is a sham, and the convoy transporting her to her hearing has suffered protests and attacks by civilians, if I were Shadow Stalker, I would break Canary out using my abilities."
Piggot snorted.
"The girl was near psychotic, a terrible influence and a bully to her teammates."
Militia raised an eyebrow.
"Was she? Or was she controlled and dominated by another into being the stereotype of that girl's darkest fears, pointed and controlled as if to tell her she was over it while reminding her of the trauma she went through?"
Piggot frowned, Militia made entirely too much sense, and the woman's opinion of Shadow Stalker shifted.
"Meaning that if she wants to be taken seriously as a hero, and expects the Barnes case to go public… she'd have to come to the public with every single iota of support she could possibly drum up, which isn't going to be easy for her if she's indicted in the bullying campaign against Taylor Hebert…"
They both reached the same conclusion.
"If she earns enough favor in the court of public opinion, if she wants to be a hero, she'll do something outlandish enough to make her the PR darling of the day, whilst also making certain her career isn't completely scrapped as a side effect of the damage she herself committed under the effects of the Master…"
Piggot grimaced as she spoke.
"What is the update on Canary?"
Hana's mouth set in a frown, the thin line betraying her disapproval at the entire process.
"Permission to speak freely, Ma'am?"
At Piggot's nod, she continued. "She's a terrified child getting the book thrown at her for no reason, and we all know it, she didn't do any of what she's been accused of, and everyone knows it, but this inane stunt is simply meant to serve an example for Human masters."
Hana stopped as Piggot raised her hand.
"An update, please."
The woman nodded.
"All trial and hearing preceedings are as normal, and the justice department has refused to offer her any differences as far as I am aware. She's been kept in level 5 brute restraints, and gagged to prevent any use of her power. Despite all of this, her own lawyer is a failure of a defense attorny thrown into a role by the state. It is a gross miscarriage of the justice system I loved the most about this country."
She wrinkled her nose, lips flaring in a growl.
"It reminds me of the way justice was dispensed in my former village."
Piggot felt her anger, felt the rage against what had happened to her suffuse her words as Miss Militia recomposed herself.
"The sham trial is exactly that, and the kangaroo court they'll construct will doom this young woman to the birdcage. The place where actual monsters go."
"Thank you, Miss Militia. I will take this into consideration."
The Kurdish woman nodded, tugged her bandanna up on her mouth and marched out of Piggot's office.
Turning back to the view over Brockton Bay, Piggot thought.
One the one hand, if Shadow Stalker was targeting the convoy, she owed it to her superiors to try and stop the girl. Simply because she could get herself hurt or killed, and others as well.
On the other hand… while she'd ransacked her equipment caches throughout the city… and while it had been missed in the initial foray, Piggot calmly noted that lethal bolts, stored in each cache, hadn't been taken, only the tranquilizer arrows, and spare equipment, rather than the heavy caches of lethal bolts.
If Stalker was truly trying to turn over a new leaf… would it not be fitting to allow her one single shot at it?
She looked out to the city and thought about her conversation with Himeko, she was allowing that woman one chance to manage her group of teenage apocalypses… and if she failed chances are that the world would go tits up and her city might explode.
Also, it would shove a fat fucking middle finger in the face of Rebecca Costa Brown, the uptight, conniving bitch.
Was Piggot political enough to get egg on the face of her largest pain in the ass in the PRT? No.
Was she petty enough to let a girl have her shot at playing teenage Madcap again on the off chance that she truly meant to be a hero?
Not entirely.
She'd give marching orders to her capes, and attempt to assess the information network that they all lived in, if it was satisfactory, if the case against Canary was going poorly… then she'd see about setting up Stalker.
Canary did not deserve what was being done to her, and for once, Piggot was in a position to do something about it, with an entirely deniable asset.
She couldn't lie, as she sipped her water and chuckled, a part of her wondered if this was how a supervillain felt when they plotted their large scale schemes.
She raised her glass of water and muttered.
"I hope you make the right decision, Sophia."
A/N: I don't have too much to say here, just that this was hopefully entertaining and enjoyable to read.
From an authorial standpoint, I like exploring this slightly… dare I say sunnier Emily Piggot? She's better off here partially because she didn't let herself go as much after Ellisburg, and also because she's not had the crippling injury of canon. As for Sophia, several of you have been clamoring to know what's happened with her, do I have plans for her? Absolutely, are they going to be center stage while we're focused on the crew in Brockton? Not really, maybe you'll get an interlude at the end of Calm, when that airs. But it might not fit to show her part there!
From an IRL standpoint, in 3 days, the anniversary of the date I lost my sister will happen, coincidentally, it happens to be my birthday, I'm not sure how long it'll be until I return with another chapter, I want to believe it'll be as soon as next week, but I just don't know. I'm sorry, folks.
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