A/N - I don't own anything, etc etc etc. Updates will be sporadic as I'm working on this while dealing with my dad recovering from a prolonged hospitalization.
It had once been a rather lovely summer nature camp right at the foot of the Longfellow Mountains. The low rolling mountains could be seen just to the west, and the trees were mostly quite lovely this time of year. There had been a rather large lake at the center of the camp, surrounded by the various main buildings of the complex with the campers cabins circling the lake at a somewhat higher elevation. Meadows had surrounded the lake, giving room for the campers to run around and play in nature or for the more organized activities typical of a summer camp experience. There were large swimming pools as well, designed to support both generalized splashing around as well as serious swimming and diving. There even was a small firing range tucked away in its own little hollow up in the hills that supported both firearms and archery.
That had changed, and mostly not for the better in Armsmaster's admittedly biased opinion. He had remarkably fond memories of his own time in a summer camp much like this one, albeit one with more of a focus on science and engineering than nature, but that had been one of the best summers of his life before he'd triggered. But this idyllic nature camp was no longer so idyllic, considering that the Slaughterhouse 9 had decided to pay it a visit.
The lake was a muddy hole now, slowly refilling as the small river that fed it poured in. There were craters and scorch marks on the ground, the small snack stand that sold candy and such to campers was a blackened, charred wreck and the main hall was missing part of the roof and an entire wall. The administrative building had burned to the foundation, taking the camp records with it. The small parking lot was filled with crushed and burned out wrecks that had once been vehicles.
Fire crews were still dealing with hotspots as a brushfire had been ignited in the forest opposite the main hall, evidently by the same thing that had destroyed the admin building judging by the presumed angles. Many of the trees in that direction had been blasted down, mostly reduced to ash and stumps that still smoldered in the fading light of the long summer evening.
It looked like a warzone. Like something out of the First World War inflicted on a small nature camp in Maine. Indeed, Armsmaster mused, if one were to adjust for the passage of time some of the damage resembled contemporary reports from the aftermath of the fighting at Normandy during D-Day or one of the island campaigns in the Pacific. Raw earth that had been blasted out of shell holes, for example. The musty smell of burnt out fires. He was irresistibly reminded of the aftermath of some of the Endbringer battles he'd fought in, especially those against Behemoth who'd left behind similar devastation albeit on a far larger scale.
Therefore it was a minor miracle, in Armsmaster's opinion, that none of the campers had actually been killed considering what had happened here. A few of the counselors had been injured when they'd acted to shield their young charges, and a number of staff members, including all three security guards who were employed by the camp, had been killed by the S9 before whatever had happened, well, happened.. But none of the children had suffered anything worse than bumps and bruises, although he was depressingly certain that many of them had experienced quite a bit of mental trauma from what had happened in front of them.
What was far more important was that the Slaughterhouse Nine had evidently met the proverbial bigger fish here at the formerly lovely Camp Kookamunga, and that bigger fish had decided it really didn't like them all that much and apparently decided to express that dislike with high energy discharges and brute physical strength. There was so little left of them that it had taken Armsmaster several hours with a high powered tinkertech scanner to simply find enough DNA evidence proving that they all were, in fact, dead. A scorched bit of pulverized flesh here that was a match to Hatchetface, a fragment of bone there that was a solid match to Burnscar, the crushed chassis of Mannequin, the surprisingly intact head of Shatterbird with an expression of utter terror preserved for eternity, and a barely surviving DNA sample on the hilt of a melted knife that was a match for Jack Slash himself. There was no sign of the Siberian, but there was a crushed van containing the remains of Dr William Manton was parked in the employee parking lot among the rest of the cars there that had been crushed as well, a data point that Colin was attempting to decipher. Considering that the van was parked right behind the burned out hulk of an RV linked to the Slaughterhouse made that a quite curious bit of data indeed.
There also was absolutely no sign of Bonesaw, which was a bit of a concern for Armsmaster as the biotinker was a terrifying loose end. His scanners were detecting no pathogens, at least, and while there were the shattered remains of some of the little menace's 'spider bots' scattered around there was no other sign of her at all.
"Colin?" he heard over his helmet as Dragon called him. "I've completed the preliminary analysis and can confirm that Crawler was present, but cannot confirm his demise as there are no identifiable remains beyond some chemical traces."
He nodded grimly, he'd been trying to find any physical remains of the monstrous cape for the last hour. "I see." he subvocalized, somehow managing to sound just slightly less curt than he usually did. "Those chemical traces are in the vicinity of the main crater, correct?"
"They are," the faintly accented voice of his Canadian… colleague… confirmed. "Almost in the very center."
Colin nodded. "Which would appear to confirm that he was the target of whatever created that crater."
"Yes." was Dragon's simple response, and Colin nodded again, more sharply as he made a mental note to add to his report.
"So all but Bonesaw and the Siberian are positively or strongly accounted for, and there is witness testimony on both of those, plus inference if tests come back showing that Dr Manton was a parahuman." Armsmaster said with a faint note of satisfaction in his tone.
"Correct." replied Dragon, and Colin nodded sharply, a faint smile flashing across his face. He may not have been the one to take them down, and that grated on him, but his name would be on the report and it happened on his watch, so he'd get at least some credit.
It had, however, been a long day and unfortunately showed no signs of getting shorter.
Several hours earlier PRT ENE had received reports of explosions and bright lights from the camp, then silence. Due to a number of skirmishes with the ABB and the Empire most of the Protectorate capes were not available and so Armsmaster, who'd ostensibly had the day off and had been busily tinkering in his lab, had been dispatched to investigate the situation. It was moderately annoying to be pulled away from his tinkering on his day off, but needs must.
While en-route he had received word that a 911 call had been received from within the camp… that the Slaughterhouse Nine had been there and 'it killed them!' repeated over and over again by the young caller who seemed to be in a state of ecstatic shock according to the console. This immediately upped the priority of the call, and he'd actually been rather pleased to have the excuse to activate the turbos on his bike and ride at maximum speed without getting yelled at by the Director.
By the time he arrived the picture cleared up somewhat, he'd made it there just as emergency services arrived and they'd started out far closer to the camp than he had. Getting coherent reports had been somewhat frustrating, truth be told, due to the youth of the witnesses and their state of excitement, but he'd persisted despite the inefficiency of it all and eventually managed to put together a rough timeline of events.
The Slaughterhouse Nine had indeed attacked the camp, initially murdering the security guards who'd made a brave but futile attempt to stop them. They'd forced the camp staff to summon the campers to the main hall, once the children were gathered together Jack Slash had evidently made one of his typically sadistic 'speeches' while sending Burnscar and Shatterbird out to look for any stragglers who might be trying to hide. At that point it appeared that the Nine were about to start their typical sadistic 'games' with the campers when, somehow, Burnscar and Shatterbird had both been killed simultaneously, with bright flashes of light visible inside the hall, followed moments later by the Siberian vanishing as a thunderous crash sounded from outside, with the entire building shaking as if in an earthquake.
At this point Hatchetface, Crawler, and Mannequin had gone outside to deal with whatever was happening, while Jack Slash murdered a few of the camp staff in an attempt to intimidate and terrify the campers while whatever it was that was going on outside was dealt with. Thankfully all of the campers were on the far side of the hall from the entrance when, right as the door was opened by Hatchetface, a massive 'metal thing that looked like a ship's bow' had crashed through the wall and crushed both Hatchetface and Mannequin. Crawler evidently grabbed on to it and the campers had seen him being flung into the lake before what looked like a gigantic robot lowered twin boom-like cannons and vaporized the monstrous villain in an eye-wateringly bright flash of energy.
Moments later what appeared to be a number of drones had appeared that looked like remote controlled fighter jets, which had flown into the hall and gunned down Jack Slash, meanwhile the massive robot had shrunk down to a more human scale, following the drones in, and grabbing Bonesaw and somehow causing her to vanish into thin air.
Mannequin had apparently survived being crushed by that blow, and had evidently attacked the robotic figure from behind, leading to the figure turning and unloading a hail of energy weapon fire into the psychotic tinker, utterly destroying him. Many of the craters outside had come from that brief battle.
The figure had then apparently motioned for the campers, counselors, and surviving staff to evacuate the building which was obviously structurally unsound, while small 'lasers' cut down Bonesaw's spider bots. The survivors had fled outside, with those with phones hastily calling 911 to report the situation. They'd seen the robotic figure stand near the staff table for a few minutes, then step away before vanishing in a ball of light.
The descriptions of the drones and the 'robot' had been infuriatingly vague and imprecise, mostly due to the youth of the witnesses and them using cartoon references rather than anything more coherent or relevant. Armsmaster had given up trying to make sense of that as an inefficient waste of time, simply filing it all away. There had, however, been one other thing. A piece of an unidentified metal that appeared to be half of a highly complex electromagnetic 'key' that was designed to be slotted into the other half of the 'key' to form a whole. And a note, that the bearer of the other half of the key would report to the PRT ENE HQ to collect the bounty on the Nine in the coming weeks.
The note had been written on a piece of camp stationary with a Sharpie, evidently with the non-dominant hand of the writer considering how shaky the writing was, which didn't match the nearly military professionalism of the content of the note. It read like a hand-written version of the memos that Colin regularly read as part of his duties as the leader of the Protectorate, the word choice was that of an experienced trooper with a strong military background. Considering, however, that all of the descriptions of the robot stressed that it had no hands, but rather had ships for forearms, of all things, that made things even more mysterious.
According to the campers, 'it' and 'them' had disappeared in that 'flash' from inside the hall, only leaving behind the 'key' and the note. And no, none of them had seen where 'it' and 'they' had gone. There was some small damage within the main hall, evidently from this method of disappearance, as some of the tables were missing what appeared to Colin's scanners to be a divot that would indicate a spherical 'bubble' effect of some sort. There was some indication of exotic particles, although for the life of him he couldn't figure out precisely how they'd been generated without a significant radiation release. Thankfully his built-in geiger counter was showing no elevated radiation levels, which on the one hand was a relief but on the other simply deepened the mystery.
One quite likely possibility was that one of the campers had somehow triggered in response to the arrival of the Slaughterhouse Nine, a powerful enough trigger that they were able to take the Nine down without training or experience. None of the kids or surviving staff were acting like they'd just triggered, but considering the euphoric situation and the emotional whiplash they'd all experienced it might just be someone hiding in plain sight. With the destruction of the administrative building there were no records to check, leaving it to the surviving counselors and the kids themselves to indicate that there were no missing campers.
There was one additional point of deep confusion for Colin. If somebody had indeed triggered it was a rather confusing mystery as to what ratings they would have. They obviously were powerful enough to destroy the Nine, that was a given.
Initially he'd thought that it was some sort of extremely overpowered Blaster, based on the initial damage survey, but as the police interviewed the campers and reported their findings to him the picture grew more and more confusing.
The closest approximation would be some sort of Tinker, specializing in giant robots, although their design aesthetic irresistibly reminded Colin of something a toy company would come up with rather than anything remotely efficient. However there was no way that a newly triggered Tinker would be able to come up with something as polished and powerful as this. Tinkers needed time and a workshop to build up to this point, and no Tinker would be able to fly under the radar long enough to build something like what was described without it becoming known, at the very least to the PRT if not to the gangs.
At least the design style would be better than Squealer's monstrosities, he mused, but that was damning with faint praise. Ships for arms? Whoever would have thought that was a good idea probably worked for Mattel or one of the Japanese manufacturers.
Another possibility, that he found himself grinding his teeth over, was some sort of wide area Shaker effect that generated Tinkertech ex nihilo. If that was the case he could already hear Clockblocker's cries of 'bullshit' from here and, truth be told, he'd be strongly tempted to join that chorus if that turned out to be the case. Dauntless was bad enough, to have another cape that would completely overshadow him was almost intolerable.
It could also potentially be some sort of overpowered Changer form that only approximated Tinkertech aesthetics while actually possessing a Blaster and Mover subrating. That was somewhat more palatable, he thought, but still unlikely which left the entire situation quite… unpleasantly and inefficiently chaotic and unstable.
At least whichever cape had pulled this off was kind enough to include what Colin was certain was their cape name on the note. Although for the life of him he had no idea what 'SDF-1' meant. Both he and Dragon had searched the PRT and Guild databases already with no hits, which added to the mystery.
The tinker looked up as the first bus pulled into the remains of the parking lot, uniformed local LEO and a few PRT troopers beginning to chivvy the children into the buses for the trip back to Brockton Bay. His gaze lingered on them, mentally trying to determine if any of them looked like they could be a hidden 'SDF-1', but he already knew that was a fool's errand. No matter what popular cape shows implied there was no special ability for one cape to identify another, or to even tell if anybody had triggered if they weren't right there at the moment of triggering.
The youngsters were all chattering amongst themselves over what had happened, the excitement still fresh in their young minds, while the older teenagers looked equally distracted by their own reactions and thoughts. None were helpfully holding up a sign identifying them as a new cape, none were skulking furtively in the crowd like they were trying to hide from the big bad Protectorate cape among them.
Saturday Morning Cartoons, Armsmaster wryly thought, lied.
