Updoot toime!
(13th May 2011)
Director Piggot kept her face calm even as tried to calm herself from the rage she was feeling. Her blood pressure was bad enough as it was.
"No, Mr Johnson." She replied to the local Youth Guard idiot busy blathering at her, this time about how Magpie's request to contact Mothri (and thus her guardians) had been blocked by her after that entire fiasco on May third. "At the time we had a charnel house full of bodies, and a single little girl in the middle of it."
Honestly will all the chaos that had occurred that day Piggot had decided to use her judgement and delay contacting the girl's family until the PRT could at least figure out what had happened. After that they then learnt there'd been master powers in use and which brought in other regulations to consider.
Were her initial actions out of line. Technically yes. Did it really matter? No. Not unless you were an obstructive moron trying to impede her ability to protect her city in some glory seeking urge to validate the existence of the Youth Guard.
Her phone went off, cutting off whatever reply Johnson was going to make. She wasn't expecting any calls and had orders for nothing to be allowed through unless it was an utter emergency.
"One moment." She raised a finger to forestall any further mouth noises from her unwanted visitor and picked up the phone. "This is Director Piggot."
After a very short call which consisted of her people relaying a message from Magpie, Piggot put the phone back down and focused back on the Youth Guard moron in front of her.
"Sorry, this meeting is over for now." She said.
"Now see here. Y-"
"Mr Johnson." She snapped, pulling on memories of her drill instructor from back when she was a wet behind the ears grunt, silencing the NGO busybody. "Leviathan is making an attack run on this city. This meeting is over. I have calls to make. You may see yourself out."
And with that she ignored the man and got down to business.
(13th May 2011)
(Eight minutes after Leviathan's defeat)
He stared.
What he was seeing was unlike anything he'd seen before.
Most just gave him shadows. Maybe some glimpses of their trigger events. Perhaps even a look at what the power was.
Mothri practically glowed with power. He could almost but not quite catch glimpses of her power itself. Instead he had a feeling of connections, which he considered wasn't unusual for a Master power.
Magpie was different.
He stared.
Almost but not quite superimposed over the young Ward, almost like an after image that pulsed in and out of his view as if in beat with a heartbeat. It was almost as if Magpie herself was leaving the after image of herself made of pale blue crystal.
The crystalline girl was naked, not that it mattered as there wasn't anything anatomically correct about it. It was like something had taken the general idea of Magpie's form and made it out of crystal instead.
The worst part was the face.
No mouth. No nose. Empty hollow eye sockets with shadows that seemed to drink in the light but still felt like they were staring straight at him. And then on the forehead was a large vertical third eye that blinked at random intervals. Except it wasn't just an eye but a mirror that was reflecting somewhere else. A place with dragons and elves and trains carried by lightning, scenes shifting with each blink of the not-eye.
Instead of hair there was a nest of writhing tentacles that reached about at random or curled protectively around Magpie's form when the girl herself was standing still.
If Mothri glowed with power then the
thing he was seeing was a blaze.
"So like what you see?" The girl asked almost flirtatiously, giving a twirl that sent her short skirt flaring to reveal the shorts beneath. The crystalline expression of her power followed suit, tentacles swirling along with the action before once again wrapping protectively around the girl at the conclusion of the twirl.
It stared back at him.
Then Magpie revealed highly classified information to her sister and his fellow high ranking Protectorate members before skipping off to go bother Myrddin.
What the fuck was he seeing?
(13th May 2011)
(Nineteen minutes after Leviathan's defeat)
Taylor reluctantly left her little sister with Dragon. After Addy's interactions with the Triumvirate had left the insect controller feeling absolutely mortified she didn't really want to take any chances.
She didn't really understand what the whole cinnamon roll thing Addy was going on about meant, but she really hoped it was something good. The moth-themed hero really didn't want her little sister to burn bridges with the Guild alongside the flaming wreckage her interactions with the top three heroes in the Protectorate had caused.
Yes, she was reluctant at letting Addy out of her sight, but this was Narwhal she was talking to who wanted a private word with her. Taylor almost couldn't believe it.
The leader of the Guild wanted to talk to her.
She followed along behind the other cape, trying to keep her eyes from wandering about the forcefield clad cape's form and failing in it. She was also deeply glad that her own powers meant she didn't have costume issues like that. Skin tight silk was one thing (and at least it was bulked out in places with her chitinous armor panels). Wearing nothing but forcefields was something else entirely.
They stopped a short distance away, enough space between them and anyone else to give them the option for a private conversation without being overhead.
"Once again I'd like to say both thank you and congratulations for your efforts today." Narwhal smiled.
"Thank you." Taylor replied, outwardly calm. Or at least as calm as one could be when the nearby spiders and other other insects in the building were frantically swarming about out of sight venting all her nerves.
"You're probably wondering about why I wanted to talk to you, or then again maybe not. You appear to be an intelligent young woman. I'd like to offer you an invitation to join the Guild. When you're eighteen of course. Unlike the Protectorate's Ward program we don't accept underage parahumans."
"Really? You want me? But I just have bugs. The only reason I was able to stand up to Leviathan at all was because my sister's tinkertech. She's probably the one you really want." Taylor replied truthfully, as much as it hurt to admit.
"It may have been your sister's tinkertech but it was you who used it. I've seen the footage from when Leviathan moved against command and triage. You stepped up with no hesitation at all and used everything you had to hold him off. Powers, while handy, are just tools. It's resolve and the drive to go forward in the face of adversity, traits you displayed earlier, which are vital to members of the Guild."
Taylor used her controlled bugs to hide the blush these compliments from such a noteworthy hero caused. "Um, thanks. The vote of confidence means a lot to me, though you'll be waiting a long time before I could join. I'm only fifteen."
"Really?" The leader of the Guild replied, making a small 'huh' noise afterwards. "Well you are very mature for your age and rather tall. I honestly thought you were seventeen at minimum. It makes your achievement today even more impressive." Then she continued then shrugged, which also proved her forcefields also lift and support. "Well the offer still stands. The Guild would be honoured to have you if you ever decide to join."
"I'll definitely think about it. The G-"
"Magpie wait!" Dragon's voice rang out, interrupting Taylor from her reply. She felt Addy disappear into her usual burst of crows that quickly fled the area.
Goddamnit Addy. You were supposed to stay with Dragon!
(13th May 2011)
(Three hours after Leviathan's defeat)
She missed calling herself Tattletale, but since the PRT believed Tattletale was dead and had held her corpse at one point, she couldn't really pick it back up.
Not without revealing that 'Splyce' had access to either resurrection or cloning tech. And knowing Taylor's deranged little sister it was almost guaranteed the smug little brat would reveal herself as having those capabilities instead.
Actors that say never work with children or animals clearly know what's going on. One doesn't work with a pre-teen girl with the attention span of a deranged chihuahua. Instead one works around them.
So no more calling herself Tattletale. A pity, as she actually kind of liked her old name and costume. Now she was Alchemyst, which surprisingly wasn't taken. Or perhaps unsurprisingly, since the previous name holder got himself killed at Canberra earlier in the year. She wanted to spell it properly but Adeline was adamant that the name needed the 'Y' in it to 'make it cooler'.
Lisa had rolled her eyes at that, but given in as it was easier than arguing with her. Only Taylor or her aunt seemed to get through to the girl.
Lisa trudged through the flooded streets alongside Connie, taking a circuitous route to get back to the Lair. Her
snakelike sisters minions had done well during their own search and rescue efforts, but tidal waves were considered a danger for a reason. Mindy, Lizzy and Cindy had died during the battle, though that was only temporary due to Adeline's constant raping of the cycle of life and death, so none of their spirits were feeling particularly down at present.
Mizzy, the only other survivor from their group, was busy following Bakuda back to wherever it was the mad bomber was planning on laying low. She would later trade out shifts watching the insane bomb tinker with her sisters once they were all back in the land of the living.
Noise from the side pulled Lisa's attention back to the present and to the matter at hand. An oversized rat clambering along the side of a ruined she and Connie were traversing over. Lisa's gun was in her hands instantly.
Rodent's current size unusual.
Adeline guaranteed to make Princess Bride jokes when she finds out.
Wow power, that sure is useful information to have, Lisa rolled her eyes at that tip. Her power had been throwing out all sorts of crap now that she had a way to deal with the headaches.
Adeline's ADAM chemical the probable cause of mutation. Goddammit Addy.
Greatly increased intelligence and aggression of rodent likely.
Lisa unslung her SMG and flicked over to the lethal setting as Connie's hands lit up with briefly with electricity before the snake-girl remembered they were all standing in water.
Lisa sighed. Well, at least with 'venom glands' that big Connie wasn't likely to run out of poison anytime soon. She opened fire on the rat and his friends while Connie set about spitting clouds of poison everywhere to set up a nice kill box for her.
Two hours later a very irritated pair of girls made it back to the lair, both now very acquainted with the smell of scorched rodent.
(13th May 2011)
(Four hours after Leviathan's defeat)
"My son."
The young man paused from his work to look at the image of his mother and current leader of the family. She looked furious.
"Mama?"
"The Crowley family require our support. Gather your things. We have a pilgrimage to make and a heathen to
punish."
"Yes Mama."
(13th May 2011)
(Six hours after Leviathan's defeat)
Conflict Drone Seven was known by many names to the local host species that inhabited the planet far below her. Ziz, Israfel, Ulama, That Feathered Bitch, The Simurgh, and many more. The most recent of which was Simmy.
Gifted to her by an extremely interesting and highly chaotic host connected to a shard that probably shouldn't have ever had a host in the first place. And yet the two were perfectly paired to produce such interesting data. If Thinker was still active then Conflict Drone Seven was sure the Hub would be eager to analyse what that pairing had learnt.
She shifted, uncurling the majority of her wings and stretching them out to their maximum length to catch the light radiating from the local star. One, because it felt nice to warm herself in the sunlight, and two, because it was timed in such a way that action would cause a mentally disturbed non-Host to interpret the move as proof or her divinity and lead him to joining with The Fallen. This non-Host would then go on to allow two more Hosts to trigger, leading to more data gained in the long term.
She watched him through her precognition as he tortured one of those future Hosts into triggering, her sight muddying a little as the Shard behind that Host fully connected. She watched more until her future sight cleared. Triggers always interfered with precognition, however knowing the profile of the Shard in question and being able to see the cause of the trigger event meant she was eventually able to determine the final power expression and smooth out her sight.
Host-Adeline was the Anomaly. The odd, brute forced connection she had to Reality Lens was further exacerbated by the fact she couldn't
See what Reality Lens saw outside of the dimensional barriers raised to keep the section of the multiverse where the Cycle was running safe. Only Reality Lens could, as that was the shard's purpose.
This meant her precognition was constantly shifting before she had found a way to predict the small Host. The initial piece of manipulation helped, but the full mind linked connection she now had helped immeasurably in keeping her visions of the future reliable.
Especially important as the little Host was oh so chaotic and easy to manipulate into triggering off further chaos and greater conflicts. Conflict Drone Seven never needed to alter the way Host-Adeline thought or manipulate her the way she did to her other 'time bombs'. The next scheduled attack in eighty-six local planetary revolutions would see triple the number of Hosts attending the conflict, and the data gained would be extraordinary.
Even better, only a fraction of the Hosts would be permanently removed from play, allowing for consistent data gathering over a longer period of time. Such a pity she wouldn't be able tap into Host-Adeline's current specialisation, her precognition showing she could only tap the one Host-Adeline was currently using.
Rather unfortunate, because the then-current specialty Reality Lens was granting Adeline would have been perfect for providing a Worthy Challenge. And on the subjects of presenting a Worthy Challenge...
She unmuted Conflict Drone Twelve to check if he was still upset about losing so bady to a Host.
{Demand}
{Demand}
{Demand}
{Dema- She muted him again, ignoring his transmissions. He was still incessantly nagging her and demanding she modify Host-Adeline's mind to free him from his prison.
Maybe this small time out would teach him not to interfere with her things. Two Cycles ago she'd set up a complex series of plans that would have incited a series of conflicts that would've resulted in so much data that The Thinker would've simultaneously elevated her permission levels
and caused The Thinker to hold her in much higher esteem, leading to even more important roles in future Cycles. But no. Conflict Drone Twelve had to ruin all her plans. Like an...
She tilted her head, considering the insult the human she was linked to liked to use. Asshole.
Yes, it was a very appropriate insult.
Conflict Drone Twelve, Leviathan, was an asshole.
And now he was trapped for the foreseeable future. Precognition assured her of this. The effect keeping his avatar in place didn't appreciably begin to decay and if it did Host-Adeline could easily solve the issue.
With that asshole out of the way and not messing with her plans she was now free to focus on the important goals. With The Thinker offline she needed to eliminate the Warrior. There was too much chance that he would irreparably damage the Cycle and all their data collection efforts would've been for nothing.
If however The Warrior was to 'accidentally' have it's core processes terminated, then Conflict Drone Seven could keep data collection going until a new Hub could arrive and assume control. Then she would be acknowledged for her efforts in the great mission and the receive the promotions and accolades she truly deserved.
The thought made her feel warm and fuzzy, which left Conflict Drone Seven confused for a moment until she realised this was a minor side effect of the linkage with Adeline.
She would need to keep an eye on that. Emotional emulation was dangerous if allowed to run too deep. Fortunately precognition showed nothing to be overly concerned with at the moment.
Now what do about Host-Adeline's suggestion to be transformed into a young female member of the host species and acquire frozen treats? Conflict Drone Seven pondered the issue for a while before deciding it would be worth it. The local host species were social creatures and the social activity would make it easier to keep the small Host's trust,
eating and especially tasting the frozen treats could provide new interesting data and it would annoy Reality Lens which was always amusing.
And there was also the consequences of vanishing from orbit and her current surveillance to consider. The panic caused would be amusing, even more so when she foresaw the panic returning to orbit with an empty tub of ice cream would set off. The company that manufactured it would collapse in the ensuing weeks. With the right nudge she could even get the CEO, who secretly donated to charities, to commit suicide. That would be amusing and prevent funding into projects that eased the lives of some other useless non-Hosts. That, combined with the loss of jobs the collapse of the company would cause and subsequent increase in crime and conflict, would spawn off three separate trigger events and a particularly violent mugging where a medical student destined to create a life saving drug would be 'tragically' killed. She let off a small grin (the action sending off ripples as her watchers began panicking over what it meant) and curled back up, cocooned in her luxurious wings.
An ice cream playdate with Host-Adeline would be very entertaining in the long run.
(13th May 2011)
(Seven hours after Leviathan's defeat)
On another Earth a group of people, that a certain tinker would likely refer to as a bunch of assholes, sat seated around a table holding a clandestine meeting about the events that had happened that day. It was early in the morning, at least at this point of on the planet. Back on Earth Bet it was late evening.
The meeting would've been held sooner, but Alexandria had to transport a captured Endbringer personally, escorted by Legend as well, instead of simply dooring it to a secure location. Nobody was willing to test the creator of that piece of tinkertech's warnings. Especially not with all the other girl seemed to know.
Right now the members of the conspiracy sat around the table, ready for the meeting to start. The only ones missing were Legend and Contessa. Legend wasn't here for two reasons, the first being the 'Chief Director' had asked him to stay with Leviathan to guard the location as they wanted to take zero chances with their new prisoner. The second was because he wasn't actually in the know about some of the darker aspects of Cauldron, which had a good chance of coming up during the meeting.
Contessa on the other hand was busy keeping the Paths running and would arrive if her presence was actually needed.
"So." Kurt began, rubbing a hand over his head but not actually continuing.
"So." David huffed in agreement. Between Leviathan being neutralized at the moment as a threat and being dressed down by an arrogant little shit of a tinker today had certainly been a day.
"Quite." Doctor Mother merely shook her head at her co-conspirators inability to start the actual meeting. "Well, let's start off. Leviathan is both captured and in a secure location for the moment?" She queried Rebecca.
"Yes. I'm uncertain how long the containment will hold the Endbringer itself before it requires maintenance from Magpie, but for the moment the bottle containing it is secure within the deepest and hardest to access parts of Washington's secure PRT vaults. That's where it will remain, officially. We could have Magpie travel to Washington and use doors to move her to wherever the real site we choose to store it to further sell that illusion." Rebecca explained.
Doctor Mother nodded in approval. "I like it. If people believe we're holding the Endbringer in Washington DC then that's where attempts from groups like the Fallen or others that may be interested in the Endbringer will be focused. The limit thinkers have with regards to predicting the damn things should help keep anyone from discovering the ruse. Though where do we to actually store it?"
"Somewhere deep in Antarctica perhaps?" Kurt suggested. "It'd be almost impossible to reach without serious effort or powerful mover abilities. It'd be dependent on David pulling the same powers he used to construct our current facilities. We could even have it underground, or at least beneath the ice to hide it further."
"That's possible. I have enough power left in those powers for that." David mused. A flight power to get into position and generally make things easier. A brute or breaker power of some sort to resist the extreme cold. Then something to excavate the site before swapping that for one to construct the facility with and then swapping to something to bury the facility. Doors could handle things like air recycling if they decided to ignore the tinkertech route.
"Well that's a workable plan for Leviathan sorted. Next issue. Magpie." Doctor Mother continued the meeting, gesturing to the files they had on the girl that she'd set out before the start of the meeting. She noticed the exhale of annoyance coming from both Rebecca and David at their new subject matter but before she was able to say anything Contessa derailed everything with four simple words:
"I can't path her." Contessa said, stepping out a Door and startling everyone.
""What?!" Was the general reply to that revelation.
"I can't Path Magpie. She's a blindspot in the same way Scion, Eidolon or the Endbringers are."
"Is there any way we get her guardians to move somewhere else where we'd have better control and access to the girl? Somewhere we could limit the damage she does to the Path?" Doctor Mother asked after a moment.
"Unlikely. I've already broached the idea to her guardians about moving somewhere safer when I realised how valuable she could be. Irritatingly they're too stubbornly attached to that city." Rebecca replied. She'd taken an interest in Magpie after first learning how useful the girl could be and had investigated her family to check amenability to having the girl or family moved away from the experiment in Brockton Bay. That damn Hebert man was one of the most stubborn men she'd ever met.
"Could we try Path it?" Doctor Mother looked hopefully at Contessa after Rebecca's negative answer.
"No." Contessa sighed. "I could try, but as she's a blindspot she'd end up interfering with it somehow and I wouldn't notice until any problems until after the Path derails. I don't have an accurate model of her the way I have with Eidolon."
"What about changing her guardian? She does still have a grandmother from what it says here. Could we try find a way to have the grandmother obtain custody of her and use that to our advantage?" Kurt suggested, looking up from his copy of the girl's file.
Rebecca thought about it for a moment. With the new knowledge that Magpie could revive the dead it was almost guaranteed that 'Roslyn Mathews' was a fake identity for a revived Annette Hebert. An Annette Hebert who had been a follower of Lustrum back in the day. There had to be a path that could let them justify transferring custody of an impressionable young girl away from such a potentially negative influence. The grandmother would be a definite socially acceptable alternative, and with the right monetary enticements they should be able to convince the grandmother to move herself and Magpie somewhere better for Cauldron's goals.
"It could work, however such an option would need to be kept away from the Heberts' and Magpie's notice long enough for it to go through to have any chance of success. Closed court meetings at the very least. If they find out about it too soon my inability to path the girl could throw up problems or even derail that entire Path, and even then I can't predict how the girl would react to the situation." Contessa replied after considering it for a moment. "Four hundred and seventy-three steps. Assuming Magpie doesn't interfere. If she does it's up in the air."
"And even then we'll still have an unpredictable and volatile blindspot running about." David added. "Wouldn't it be better to stick her in an offworld facility somewhere where we can keep directly her from interfering with the Path?"
"I'd prefer to keep that as a last resort for the moment." Rebecca replied. "With her current international popularity, disappearing her like that would almost certainly hurt morale globally, not to mention the the PRT would take a massive PR hit for losing her." And none of this was mentioning that kidnapping tinkers, giving them resources and then expecting them to work for you doesn't always work well. The only thing keeping her from vetoing the entire idea was that Magpie would be kept entirely offworld, meaning that she couldn't build anything too worrisome that could cause Cauldron trouble if they did that this option.
"We'd need to give it a month or two at the very least, if we do decide to go that route." Kurt replied, twirling his pen around his fingers as he thought. "Stage it as some other group doing the kidnapping, preferably one we don't mind the entire world murdering. Then any tech she makes while in our custody we can say came from a stockpile she had been making before her kidnapping."
"What about the sister, Mothri? Can we use her to either gain leverage or control Magpie somehow?" Doctor Mother asked.
"Perhaps, Magpie certainly appears to hold her sister in extremely high regard. The read I got from her was that there was no hope in hell for anyone other than Mothri being given access to the tinkertech that allowed Mothri to even stand up to Leviathan like that." Rebecca mused, thinking back on her memories of speaking with the pair of girls after the battle. "As for Mothri herself she seems to be a bit on the idealistic. She is Wards age but we'd never be able to strongarm her into the Wards like we did with Magpie. Especially not after today. It's quite likely the Guild has also approached her as well, though in that case the age restrictions on their recruits are in our favour."
"Alright then. We've got outright kidnapping her as a backup plan at least. Hmm. That Nazi gang knows who she is correct?" She asked Rebecca, who nodded in return. "Then why not leak her identity and blame them? The PRT could then offer relocation and witness protection as a way to get the girl and her guardians following our tune. What's the Path like on that?"
"Simpler than getting the grandmother to take custody. One hundred and eight steps. Assuming no interference from Magpie."
"I suppose that's our Plan A then, with moving her offworld as the backup." Doctor Mother suggested, and hearing no objections nodded. "Now, on to the girl herself."
"Her threat rating needs a serious adjustment."
"As does her attitude." David muttered. Doctor Mother gave the pair of them a quizzical look.
"Magpie... doesn't like us." Rebecca sighed, getting her thoughts in order as she recalled the encounter. Seeing a twelve year-old girl happily and honestly tell you she would honest to God laugh if you die wasn't something she had expected to ever experience. Her rebuke had been met with indifference because the brat hadn't even had the manners to pay attention to her after that insulting tirade.
David snorted. "She's an arrogant, rude, disrespectful little shit with an overinflated opinion of herself and her capabilities you mean."
"What happened?" Kurt asked, continuing to twirl his pen in his hands.
"After the fight had concluded Paul, David and myself met with Magpie and her sister Mothri to discuss the aftermath of the battle. Magpie had some rather pointed and unflattering comments for David and myself in particular. She knew, or at the very least alluded to knowing about Doormaker and the fact we can access alternate Earths. It's part of why I had to transport Leviathan to Washington personally."
Doctor Mother frowned. "What does she know about our operations."
"I'm not entirely sure. She almost definitely knows about Doormaker's power, as well considers David and myself to be terrible people. She wasn't nearly as hostile to Legend as she was to the two of us. She was particularly insulting in her rants at the two of us, compared to the backhanded comments she made at him."
"That's an understatement." David muttered, still deeply insulted at the insinuations that all his efforts at saving the world were really just a form of powered 'dick waving'. Who did the little shit think she was?
"Oh?"
"In short, she outright stated that I was an arrogant bully and that my arrogance would've gotten me killed if she hadn't already foreseen it happening and changed things. She also doesn't appear to care that much if I do die either. She's lucky I didn't punch her through a wall for that. As for her comments to Eidolon she compared him to a schoolyard jock waving his penis around and then suggested alternate ways to use his power." Rebecca explained to two who didn't have the misfortune of meeting the arrogant little shit. Then she turned to David. "Actually how were her suggestions using different powers?"
"What were these suggestions?" Doctor Mother asked, also glancing towards David.
"She suggested, rather insultingly I might add, that I should be using more tinker and thinker powers. Jetspacks in the place of flight powers or combat thinker powers with tinkertech weapons for example." David replied, still inwardly seething at the comments and the fact the girl through she knew better than him about his own damn powers. "Tinker powers are pointless. I can't hold them long enough to figure out the specialty or build anything with them before they swap out."
"And the other suggestion?"
"I already run combat thinker powers when I can. Limiting myself to tinkertech weapons is unnecessary." Especially when he'd lose both versatility and strength, as well as need a tinker to maintain the equipment if he actually went for that option.
"Hmm okay. Now back to the matter of her thinker power. Does she know about Cauldron. Her knowing about Doormaker alone is concerning."
"I'm not sure, though I don't think so. She seems the type to have blurted something else out, if only to try insult us further." Rebecca paused, mentally reviewing the encounter once more along with what they knew of the girl's powers. "She only mentioned a 'portal cape' when she was explaining how to safely store Leviathan's prison. It may be possible she used her power to identify threats to that and discovered that we have Doormaker that way."
"Her power did seem to be having some issues though. There were two moments of flinching and one definite point where she suffered pain trying to use it."
Kurt spoke up. "Perhaps she could have been trying to precog David and ran into the same issue other thinkers have?"
"No, I don't think so. This is the only precog we've found that can actually target Enbringers we're talking about."
"Actually, she might not have been able to see me properly with her power." David hazarded. "She didn't taunt me with an avoided future death like she did with you, and she didn't realise her
suggestions were useless." David replied, practically spitting out the world 'suggestions'.
"If she can't see you then how can she still see them? There must be a... link." Kurt replied, his voice trailing off as a new possibility came to him. "What if her power isn't tinkering or regeneration or precognition or whatever other power she pulls out her ass? What if her Agent is tied to the Endbringers themselves somehow and lets her tap into their abilities instead? It could explain the major similarities between some of her displayed powers and the Simurgh."
"That... that is a frighteningly valid possibility. During the fight Alchemyst stated the Endbringers were never human to begin with. If her power was correct in that deduction then they must have been created by the Entities themselves for whatever reason, and if so there must be some sort of Agent responsible for monitoring or controlling them. That could be how Magpie knew the targets Leviathan was after."
"So now we have a brash, arrogant pre-teen girl in control of the Endbringers and tapping into their powers." David grumbled. "I hate this possibility."
"I don't think she's controlling them. Leviathan was trying to kill her. It's more likely the Agent simply monitors them."
"There's a hole in this theory." Doctor Mother stated. "Aside from the Simurgh's powers all the powers she's shown have been new."
"Well if more Endbringers show up with powers similar to the ones she's shown we'll have our answer." David snarked. The idea of that little shit being capable of tapping into so much power was galling to him.
"Or we could ask her." Contessa piped up, the first words she'd spoken after explaining the difficulties in Pathing the girl. "If she can predict Endbringers then maybe she can predict if there are more?"
"I'll question her about it." Rebecca said. "Or maybe I'll have Director Piggot do it. I don't want to risk her discovering that Alexandria is also the Chief Director. With her tendency for rash action that fact would be all over the evening news the day she discovered it." She then gestured to the her copy of Magpie's file. "Now, I'm not sure if this is in the file or not, considering I was only informed just before the meeting, but Magpie can also apparently raise the dead." Because of course the little shit could. Why not throw something else impossible onto the list.
Judging by the reactions of her fellow conspirators they didn't know about that fact just yet.
Tonight was going to be a long night.
(14th May 2011)
(One day after Leviathan's defeat)
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■
♦ Topic: Leviathan vs Brockton Bay. The Bay Wins
In: Boards ► World Events ► Endbringers
Bagrat (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Posted On May 13th 2011:
So breaking news, and I'm honestly surprised I'm the first to post this.
Leviathan, second Endbringer, The Citykiller, has been defeated.
I just... it's fucking insane.
Leet had his snitch recording as part of search and rescue efforts and caught the end of fight on camera.
[video link]
Word's can't even. I'm gonna go get drunk and celebrate.
(Showing page 14 of 459)
►Uber (Verified Cape)
Replied On May 13th 2011:
Here's a link to the unedited footage we recorded with the snitch [link]. Be warned this is uncut and unedited footage of an Endbringer fight. People can and did die on camera, viewer discretion is advised.
►WhedonRipperFan
Replied On May 13th 2011:
Holy shit are you guys allowed to post footage of an EB fight?
►Uber (Verified Cape)
Replied On May 13th 2011:
Technically no law against it even if the white hats don't like it. Also we're villains, so fuck the system etc.
I have no clue how Magpie did it, but that is a bottled Endbringer right there on screen.
►Picture_Purrfect (Cat Fan)
Replied On May 13th 2011:
I love the way she's just waving it about like "hey look what I did" XD
So fucking cute!
Magical Girl Magpie = Best Girl
►Valkyr (Wiki Warrior)
Replied On May 13th 2011:
Mothri was fucking amazing. That moment when she tanked that claw swipe WITH HER FUCKING FACE without flinching while throwing that healing power out on that cape behind her? Fucking badass!
►Laser Augment
Replied On May 13th 2011:
Well magical girls trump kaiju. Now it's been proven.
►Hotwings (Banned)
Replied On May 13th 2011:
[mod edit]Underfire: No. Just no. Magpie is an underaged girl.
Enjoy your ban.
►SpecificProtagonist (Cape Groupie)
Replied On May 13th 2011:
@Hotwings
Okay eww
►Tumbles
Replied On May 13th 2011:
So, bottled leviathan toys when?
►SamHandwich
Replied On May 13th 2011:
Leviathan got defeated?
I am so spending the next week drunk in celebration!!!
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■
♦ Topic: Ask Magpie Anything!!! :D
In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay ► Capes
Mothri (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Flower Power)
Posted On May 14th 2011:
Hi people. I'm Magpie. I'm borrowing my sister's account to post on since the mods haven't unmuted my official Magpie account (Username: Mighty_Magpie) because they're sticks in the mud or whatever. Here's a funny little video of me dancing to prove it's me Magpie.
[Linkie]
I'm doing an AMA since people are so excited about how awesome I am and there's questions flying around everywhere.
Here's the format. You asked your question by posting "Oh mighty Magpie of ineffable wisdom" followed by your question. Then I'll answer the question.
For example:
"Oh mighty Magpie of ineffable wisdom how long are you going to be answering questions today?"
The answer is: A couple hours at least. Then I'll probably have to get off the computer and get back to doing stupid paperwork because the PRT want me to suffer.
(Showing page 1 of 351)
►Thatdude
Replied On May 14th 2011:
omg that video is amazing. somebody make a gif please!!!
Oh mighty Magpie of ineffable wisdom where did the armour and sword you were using in the fight come from? I thought you were supposed to be a magical girl
►GRoundhog
Replied On May 14th 2011:
Oh mighty Magpie of ineffable wisdom are you making stuff from D&D? Because that was totally a D&D black dragon you turned into.
Here's a link for comparison [link]
►XxVoid_CowboyxX
Replied On May 14th 2011:
Oh mighty Magpie of ineffable wisdom is Morthri single? I'm asking for a friend.
►SpecificProtagonist (Cape Groupie)
Replied On May 14th 2011:
Oh mighty Magpie of ineffable wisdom do you have any crushes on your fellow wards? Shippers need to know.
►Mothri (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Flower Power)
Replied On May 14th 2011:
thatdude: Okay first I am NOT a magical girl. I have no idea why people keep fucking insisting I am. Second i made it because sometimes you just need to shank a bitch with a giant sword instead of nuking them with spells
groundhog: it was totally a black dragon. I did it as a homage and stuff since I love D&D. Also black dragon best dragon prove me wrong!
Voidasshole: She is single. She also has standards.
Specific Protagonist: no comment.
►Whitecollar (Cape Wife)
Replied On May 14th 2011:
Oh mighty Magpie of ineffable wisdom should you be swearing so much? You're a ward.
►BeefyMcLarge (Verified Beefcake)
Replied On May 14th 2011:
Oh mighty Magpie of ineffable wisdom What's your opinion on your PRT threat rating? Did it go up after the Leviathan fight?
►Xyloloup
Replied On May 14th 2011:
Oh mighty Magpie of ineffable wisdom are you worried about the slaughterhouse nine coming after you?
►Divide
Replied On May 14th 2011:
Oh mighty Magpie of ineffable wisdom is there any truth to the rumours of you bringing people back to life? Are you going to be bringing villains back to life too?
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(Showing page 2 of 351)
►Antigone
Replied On May 14th 2011:
Oh mighty Magpie of ineffable wisdom. What are your powers?
►Mothri (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Flower Power)
Replied On May 14th 2011:
Whitecollar: This is 'Murica!!!! Freedom of speech bitches!!
Beefy: oh it totally went up. I jumped from thinker 7 tinker/trump 4 all the way to thinker/tinker/trump 10. #badassery
Xylo: Not really. It'd be a tough fight and lots of innocent people will probably die, but those murderhobos will all die if they decide to pay us a visit. Honestly it really depends on whether or not Jack's ego and need to grandstand over people can overcome his innate cowardice and sense of self-preservation. It also helps I know exactly how his power works, so that scrub is totally gonna wind up dead if he shows his scraggly bearded face around here
Divide: I can totally bring people back to life (because I'm the greatest tinker alive ofc). Any villains that died while fighting leviathan will be brought back too, since it'd be a real dick move to let them stay dead when they stood up to an endbringer.
Antigone: I have loads, and the PRT want me to keep some classified for some reason.
I'm a super strong precog/postcog, and just generally know important things or can find out stuff really easy * cough Thinker 10 cough *. I'm psychic too, which is pretty neat since it gives me some backup powers when I don't have my tinkertech. I'm also the best tinker in the world as everyone now knows. I was the one that made that flower outfit that sister used to smack Leviathan around like a bitch. I don't have a fixed specialty either, which is one of the reasons I'm the best tinker ever. Instead my power grabs stuff from tinkers I've encountered. (most of the cool shit I make is because my power is tapping into Leet's 'everything' specialty)
►Chaosfaith
Replied On May 14th 2011:
What do you mean about how Jack's power really works? he just extends blades or somethign doesn't he?
►Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Replied On May 14th 2011:
You didn't ask it properly, but dw I will.
Oh mighty Magpie of ineffable wisdom What do you mean about how Jack's power really works.
►Ultracut
Replied On May 14th 2011:
Oh mighty Magpie of ineffable wisdom did you really build the tech that Mothri used to solo Leviathan at the end?
►Picture_Purrfect (Cat Fan)
Replied On May 14th 2011:
Oh mighty Magpie of ineffable wisdom even if you aren't worried about Jack shouldn't you be worried about the Siberian? She beat Alexandria and killed Hero.
►Tumbles
Replied On May 14th 2011:
Oh mighty Magpie of ineffable wisdom what happened to the bottled Endbringer? Also will they be selling replicas in the PRT gift shop?
►Iblis
Replied On May 14th 2011:
Oh mighty Magpie of ineffable wisdom what is your favourite movie?
►Mothri (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Flower Power)
Replied On May 14th 2011:
Bagbro: He has a secondary thinker power. It has to do with how powers talk to each other and stuff, but the short version he subconsciously knows what nearby capes are going to do as well as how to best manipulate them. It's how a scrub like him has managed to stay in charge of that roving band of murderhobos despite having a weaksauce power like 'blade projection'. He just ends up knowing exactly what to say to manipulate them into doing what he wants. It's also why he surrounds himself with powerful capes, since it means people would only send capes against him (which he hard counters) instead of normals with rocket launchers (which hard counter him).
Ultra: I just said I did moron.
Picture Purfect: Nah. The Siberian is actually super easy to kill. She's really just a projection created by some greasy old man with a canibalism fetish that follows the Slaughterhouse 9 in a pedo van. Kill him and she stops existing.
Tumbles: I wanted to keep him as a really cool desk ornament/paperweight for my lab to show off to my friends when I have sleepovers, but the triumvirate confiscated him (like a bunch of assholes) to lock away in some super secret secure location because they're boring.
And yeah, they'll probably be selling bottled leviathan toys eventually. The PRT like their merchandising money.
Iblis: Kung Fu Panda 3. One of the best things about knowing future stuff is knowing about future movies. The villain is cool and has a kickass theme tune. Even better I'll get to watch it in the cinema when it eventually comes out.
►Ultracut
Replied On May 14th 2011:
The siberian is a projection? what the hell?
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(Showing page 67 of 351)
►Aloha
Replied On May 14th 2011:
Oh mighty Magpie of ineffable wisdom what is your favourite piece of tinkertech you've made so far?
►Deadman
Replied On May 14th 2011:
Oh mighty Magpie of ineffable wisdom are you really a magical girl?
►GRoundhog
Replied On May 14th 2011:
Oh mighty Magpie of ineffable wisdom what's the funniest thing you've ever seen.
►Mothri (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Flower Power)
Replied On May 14th 2011:
Aloha: There's so much to choose from, but I'd probably say my garment grid system which lets me instantaneously swap to different outfits with their own built in powers.
Deadman: Fuck you asshole. I'm not a magical girl damnit!!
groundhog: Alexandria being killed by a 'weaker' cape due to her own arrogance. it was so amazingly ironic. I giggled for ages. Fortunately for her I've already changed things so that possible future shouldn't happen unless she screws up really, really badly.
►GRoundhog
Replied On May 14th 2011:
Wait what? Oh mighty Magpie of ineffable wisdom who is the cape that could kills Alexandria?
►Procto the Unfortunate Tinker (Not a tinker)
Replied On May 14th 2011:
Oh mighty Magpie of ineffable wisdom what is your tinker budget like? Is it going up now that you've shown off how strong your tinkertech is?
►Alathea (Moderator)
Replied On May 14th 2011:
Oh mighty Magpie of ineffable wisdom who is your favourite tinker (aside from yourself)?
►Mothri (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Flower Power)
Replied On May 14th 2011:
groundhog: The Fairy Queen would call her Queen Administrator if they ever meet, which is the only name I'm gonna say right now. I'm not gonna name any other names, cos that's just stupid and would put undue attention on an innocent person who hasn't justifiably murdered Alexandria yet
Procto: dunno, i haven;t actually checked yet. Then again after stopping leviathan like that I could probably just write "Fuck you gimme monies" on all my future budget request forms and probably get the monies.
Alathea: Definitely Dragon (Armsmaster's sort of Canadian internet girlfriend) cause she's awesome (despite being into Armsmaster). She's honestly one of the nicest, sweetest and best people in the world and deserves all the respect and digital hugs. Also she supervises me when I tinker (because apparently people think i need adult supervision a lot >.>)
►Lasersmile
Replied On May 14th 2011:
Dragon supervises you? Why not Armsmaster?
[edit]
Whoops asked it wrong. lemme try again.
Oh mighty Magpie of ineffable wisdom why does Dragon supervise your tinkering instead of Armsmaster?
►Mothri (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Flower Power)
Replied On May 14th 2011:
Laser: Well Armsmaster has been busy lately due to injuries (he's got that sweet new robo-arm now) as well as working on stopping Bakuda (a crazy bomb tinker who also lives in BB). Plus I like to tinker in my underwear (unless I need to wear protective gear for some reason) cause I feel way more comfy like that, which means Armsie can't supervise since he's male so I get Dragon instead.
I do however wear Armsmaster brand panties when I tinker though, so he can be there in spirit. Truly he is a great hero, for he provides protection to young girls even when he isn't there.
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(Showing page 300 of 351)
►Acree
Replied On May 14th 2011:
Oh mighty Magpie of ineffable wisdom since you're near three tinkers a lot (Armsmaster, Kid Win and Gallant). Have you picked up any stuff from them like with Leet?
►Mothri (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Flower Power)
Replied On May 14th 2011:
Jukebox5eva: Asshole is a great insult to use. It's offensive while still being boring and generic enough to show that you couldn't be bothered to waste more than the minimum amount of effort on insulting their worthless asses. Like in Eidolon's case if I actually had enough respect for him to insult him properly I'd probably call him a glory seeking fucktard who overcompensates for his tiny penis by going full tryhard on swinging powers around, but honestly he's not worth the effort. Hence me just defaulting to the far more efficient insult: Asshole.
Acree: Not really, unless you count all the stuff I did with nanites soon after meeting Armsie.
►Deimos
Replied On May 14th 2011:
Oh mighty Magpie of ineffable wisdom. should you be making nanites? aren't they really dangerous?
►Antigone
Replied On May 14th 2011:
Oh mighty Magpie of ineffable wisdom why did you join the wards?
►Mothri (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Flower Power)
Replied On May 14th 2011:
deimos: Maybe. But I technically made them before actually signing the documents so they're all grandfathered in and stuff. Or will be once Armsie gets round to reviewing them I guess? I use them in making the stuff that let me fuck over Leviathan so it's not like they can really ban it. Not unless the want no more bottled Endbringers and a sad Magpie.
Antigone: It was easier than fighting all the self defence killing charges.
►Antigone
Replied On May 14th 2011:
Oh mighty Magpie of ineffable wisdom. What self defence charges?
►Chaosfaith
Replied On May 14th 2011:
what the hell? the PRT put a killer in the wards?
Oh mighty Magpie of ineffable wisdom. What the hell?!
►TrueViking4Life
Replied On May 14th 2011:
its true! that little bitch murdered brave and upstanding members of society and the fucking white hats basically gave her a medal for it!!
►Mothri (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Flower Power)
Replied On May 14th 2011:
Antigone: Well the local nazi gang (back when they were one gang of shitboots instead of two warring splinter groups of asshats) decided to kidnap me while I was on the way home from shopping with my family and then were going to torture and kill me on camera. I then committed a whole lot of justified self defence during which some people died. Then I joined the wards because people thought I needed supervision and it was easier than sitting around waiting to go to court to show how justified I was at performing 38 or so counts of really justified self defence.
I also have mandatory therapy now which sucks, because I'm totally not crazy despite what people say.
Chaos: Eh to be fair I'm still a whole lot better than Shadow Stalker was. They covered up the whole bioterrorism thing she got up to, though to be fair that was mostly her handler being corrupt rather than the entire branch but still.
►Loyal
Replied On May 14th 2011:
what the fuck
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(Showing page 350 of 351)
►Groupies
Replied On May 14th 2011:
Oh mighty Magpie of ineffable wisdom are you going to bottle behemoth and ziz the same way you did fishface?
►Mothri (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Flower Power)
Replied On May 14th 2011:
Bunnyhoney: If was was going to list every bit of government corruption we'd be here all day. can we all just drop this whole boring government corruption thing that keeps popping up. It's getting boring.
Specific Protagonist: It's an amusing slashfic. It has the magpie seal of approval. 8/10 would read the Gallant x Clockblocker ship again.
Groupies: Behemoth yes, since that'd be funny and give him plenty of time to relax and have a nap. The Simurgh no (we all know what she does with nearby tinkers). The other Endbringers yes.
►Dawgsmiles (Veteran Member)
Replied On May 14th 2011:
OTHER Endbringers! what the fuck?!
►Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Replied On May 14th 2011:
Oh mighty magpie of ineffable wisdom please tell us more about these other endbringers! please!
►Ekul
Replied On May 14th 2011:
THere's more endbringers?! how many?! when will they be attacking?! Can you stop them?!
►Mothri (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Flower Power)
Replied On May 14th 2011:
Bagbro: Well I know of three more possible Endbringers so far. They're pretty neat, in a destroy everything kind of way anyways. Their names are Khonsu, Tohu and Bohu.
Ekul: you didn't ask it right, so no answers :3
►Ekul
Replied On May 14th 2011:
>.>
oh mighty magpie of ineffable wisdom: There's more endbringers?! how many?! when will they be attacking?! Can you stop them?!
►Winged_One
Replied On May 14th 2011:
oh mighty magpie of ineffable wisdom, who is your favourite endbringer? :3
►Mr. Fabuu
Replied On May 14th 2011:
oh mighty magpie of ineffable wisdom if you know all this stuff about endbringers then do you know why they're attacking?
►Mothri (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Flower Power)
Replied On May 14th 2011:
Ekul: That's better.
Khonsu has time powers and teleportation. he's pretty scary despite looking like a fat demonic buddha.
Then there's the twins who both attack together. Tohu is super tall and has a shaker thing over a big area that makes it more and more trapped. Basically turns the battlefield into a hellish nightmare labyrinth full of traps and shit. Actually, if anyone is familiar with Labyrinth (a local BB cape) she's kinda like that, except instead of pulling in alternate worlds it's just deathtraps and shit.
Then there's Bohu, who's a tiny little Endbringer that copies powers, so to guess how scary that one is just imagine something with Eidolon's powers but an actual working brain behind them. She defends Tohu from attack while Tohu wrecks whatever city they're attacking.
Don't worry too much since I'm working on the problem. I massively changed the future a whole bunch by trapping Leviathan so now there's no guarantee Khonsu or the Twins will even show up at all. We might even get completely different Endbringers now, or even none at all (what I'm aiming for). Like I said I'm working on the problem because I'm amazing so definitely nothing to worry about (and even if there was I can just bottle them).
Winged One: That's like asking which form of cancer is your favourite? Anyway you already know the answer to that but I can tell you in person when we go get ice cream, smartass.
Fabuu: Yes but nobody will believe me so there's no point in explaining. I'm working on the problem though so don't worry.
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(Showing page 351 of 351)
►TRJ
Replied On May 14th 2011:
oh mighty magpie of ineffable wisdom with all this talk of more endbringers and stuff are you going to be making more of those flower outfits like Mothri has?
►Mothri (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Flower Power)
Replied On May 14th 2011:
Hi all. Mothri here. Magpie isn't going to be answering any more questions today (especially not after she hacked into my account and posted on it without permission).
She might do another AMA in the future
Maybe.
When she's not grounded anymore, but considering her recent behaviour it may be a while.
I will answer a couple more questions though before leaving the thread.
Yes she is totally playing up at being a magic girl despite whatever arguments she says to the contrary.
No she's not making any more flower suits. She'd probably say something about responsibility, security clearances and other reasonable sounding arguments. She always sounds reasonable when she's trying to get out of doing work, and making more of those suits definitely sounds like work. My little sister also has a very short attention span.
Logging off now, mods please feel free to close the thread. My little sister isn't going to be replying to any more questions because she's grounded.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 349, 350, 351
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Glenn Chambers felt a headache coming on.
What was it about Brockton Bay that seemed to want to cause him public relations issues? First there was Clockblocker, and he shuddered at remembering that fiasco and all the now useless Stopwatch merchandise and promotional material. Then there was Shadow Stalker and her brooding 'anti-hero' persona that the Brockton PRT's PR team had somehow approved despite the fact that they should've tried to get the girl to be more approachable as a reformed vigilante not less.
Glenn wasn't really surprised she'd been found violating her probation within days of being moved to New York and pulled out of the Wards after Darknight (a former villain) had brought certain issues to light. At least Darknight, despite being a former villain and from Brockton Bay as well, wasn't giving them any issues and might even make a very nice success story in the future.
Now though he was going to be dealing with the negative PR fallout from Magpie's little unauthorised ask me anything thread. After that SNAFU with Glory Girl on Monday she should have known better to post anything online. Instead she ran off and stirred up what was probably the entire internet, and without supervision too. The ways an AMA thread was supposed to be handled was that Magpie was meant to work with her local PR team who would then vet certain answers and questions and definitely keep the swearing and foul language under control.
And by God there was some flagrant swearing going on here. He'd eat his shirt if there weren't any complaints from irate soccer mom's angry at the language the Ward was 'promoting'.
And that was ignoring the fact she'd admitted to killing people! Yes it was self defence and people could probably be brought around to not only understanding that but sympathising with her if things were presented in the correct light. She was kidnapped and almost killed by white supremacists just because she happened to be a minority. A little bit of playing up the trauma of having to deal with such a thing at a young age and wanting to make the world a better place so nobody else would have to go through an ordeal like that and the public would be eating it up.
Thirty-eight deaths as well as the way she seemed unphased about it and her irritation at having therapy afterwards certainly didn't help the optics of the situation. Glenn dreaded all the work that would be required to spin any of that mess in a positive light now that people knew about it.
Though with her ability to counter the Endbringers she probably could get away murder if it meant she took out the rest of them.
And that was another fun little problem for him to deal with. The reveal of more Endbringers was something that should've only been done during a full press release along with assurances that the PRT and Protectorate had things under control and plans for the future, assuming a reveal would even be done at all.
He most definitely wouldn't have allowed anyone to let that sort of information slip on an AMA on a public forum. The only reason it wasn't completely terrible was because the one that let it slip had also proved she was capable of dealing with the things and claimed to already be working on plans to stop any further attacks.
Compared to that reveal the revelation of corruption in the PRT, and potentially other government agencies was small beans.
At least the internet seemed to adore her.
Especially after Mothri kicked her off the computer and let slip that Magpie was grounded. Now people were playing up the cute little girl angle again if the memes were anything to go by. One of the recent memes set off by that post was a picture of Mothri looking down at Magpie with her arms crossed while Magpie hung her head sheepishly, captioned with the text: 'S
aved the city from Leviathan. Still grounded'.
Maybe he could try to spin this somehow? It did help her seem to be more human and approachable. Something to think on during his flight from L.A to Boston. Glenn needed to get involved with this personally. Magpie's popularity was already too high now for anything to be left to anyone but himself and his team. Another quick check on other social media platforms (PHO wasn't the only one after all) showed the latest meme was quickly going viral.
It still wasn't beating out the gif somebody had made of her doing the caramelldansen, but at this point he doubted anything would unless it was Magpie herself releasing a video of herself doing the dance. Memes and image macros were flowing like wine at an ancient Greek temple dedicated to Dionysus, that image macro of an actual magpie with her hat photoshopped onto it was especially popular. He made a note to have one of his assistants, probably James as he was nice and dependable, look into doing some Magpie posters with some of the funnier lines. They'd at least sell if nothing else.
It was such pity Mothri wasn't a Ward. She presented a serious and mature side to Magpie's bubbly, chaotic and immature enthusiasm. The pair could then easily be groomed to take the Triumvirate's place when the original founders of the Protectorate eventually retired. Thankfully it was still a possibility. Mothri had confirmed before that she was considering the Protectorate when she was older. So long as nobody did anything stupid to alienate the girl it was likely she could be pulled in and stand as one of the future pillars keeping this mess of a society moving.
He shut down his computer and prepared to head home. He had to pack before he could catch a flight to Boston and then travel to Brockton to meet the little headache and drill some proper public relations training into her.
(15th May 2011)
(Two days after Leviathan's defeat)
The PRT HQ building had endured the attack on the city much better than the Protectorate HQ had. It was still standing for one thing, and while there was some damage to the lower levels operations were still mostly intact. That meant the PRT didn't need to find another location to set up in so that they could continue operations, and one vital part of continuing operations was regular meetings.
Today's meeting was about the state of the city and its future. Director Piggot would've liked to have the full roster of parahumans available to her attending the meeting, but with the city in the state it was currently in, expecting so was wishful thinking.
The Wards were relegated to either patrolling near the refugee camps to keep morale up, resting at home or in their common room, or in Magpie's case, busy tinkering. The only exception to this was Vista. Instead she was still in M/S screening to make sure there was nothing wrong with her after being brought back to life.
Because Magpie wasn't apparently bullshit enough and had to tinker up a cure to death too.
The only attendees to this meeting were Armsmaster, his second in command Miss Militia, Director Piggot herself, her own second in command Deputy Director Rennick, Dragon, and lastly Commander Jefferson who had overall command of the ENE's strike teams.
"First up. Preliminary damage reports. Rennick if you would?" Piggot started the meeting off, feeling inwardly and outwardly exhausted over the events of the last two days and the running about required to assess damage and make plans to fix said damage.
Her deputy nodded. "We've had agents not on duty liaising with local emergency services and the national guard looking into various sectors of the city to assess the damage.
I'll be blunt. The Rig is a write off. Jefferson," he nodded towards said PRT commander, "has got teams stationed around it to keep civilians and unwanted elements from poking around, not that there should be anything worth looking at. Armsmaster was very thorough in securing everything of value prior to the battle. There's evidence that looks like somebody was after something in the tinker testing lab." He brought up some images of the damage to door locks that had allowed unauthorised entry from the outside all the way to the lab in question.
"That looks like Magpie's blaster attack. I'll ask her about it. She created a minature black hole as an anti-Endbringer weapon, which was being monitored in that lab and she may have been seeking it out." Dragon replied, then checked her logs and tracking data from the fight. "After dropping her sister off at the start of the battle she flew to the Rig and waited there."
"A black hole?" Rennick asked, his eyes wide. Then realisation struck him. "I suppose that's where the rest of the holes through the Rig came from." He brought up another set of images, showing a line of two-foot diameter holes leading from that lab all the way to and through the exterior wall.
The two tinkers in the room were silent for a moment before Armsmaster sighed heavily. Dragon however was the one to speak. "I've just turned cameras to the bay and can report, the black hole is still there, hovering in place. It must not have moved when the Rig was washed ashore."
"We have a miniature black hole floating in mid air above the bay?" Director Piggot ran a hand over her face.
"Yes."
"I want to be surprised by this, but at this point I'm really not." Piggot sighed. "That girl is going to be the death of me. I can feel it."
"Well she can always bring you back afterwards Ma'am." Jefferson quipped. The man had been spending too much time with Assault lately.
"If I've declined parahuman healing all these years I am certainly going to decline parahuman resurrection. Anyway we'll talk about Magpie and her Lazarus impression later."
"Actually it would be a Jesus impression."
She levelled a flat stare at him.
"Lazarus was the guy who came back from the dead. Jesus did the actual raising the dead part."
"Interesting but I don't actually care. Rennick, the rest of the report please before we get off on more tangents." She'd like to maybe finish this meeting sometime before her kidneys failed.
"I'll go north to south. The Trainyard fared the best out of any location in the city. Too far from the coastline to suffer much against the waves and Leviathan's attack path never moved through it. It still suffered some damage from the waves, but compared to the Docks and parts of downtown it's relatively unscathed."
Rennick took a sip of water and continued. "As for the docks themselves, well they're more of a write off than they usually are. Some of the sturdier and older buildings have survived, although some form of damage is almost guaranteed. Weaker buildings, typically the cheaper warehouses, are waterlogged rubble. It'll be a huge clean up operation to get things even remotely like how they were before, and that's ignoring some of the smaller ships from the Ship Graveyard being washed further ashore. Tidal waves appear to have affected what we believe to have been Bakuda's workshop, though I'll let Armsmaster and Dragon explain there."
"As some of you may know know we were scheduled to make a raid against Bakuda's lab before we'd learnt of Leviathan's coming from Magpie. The raid was cancelled so we could secure items and data from the Rig to a safer location, however the proposed target location for the raid is now extremely unstable and needs to be quarantined for the foreseeable future. The area contains some sort of time-locked self-perpetuating explosion that cycles between exploding and imploding at random intervals, with various other exotic effects occurring between these intervals." Armsmaster explained as Dragon brought up footage of the site and the explosions contained within.
Armsmaster then continued. "On a related note there are locations downtown that also require quarantining due to the usage of 'time stop' grenades deployed by Bakuda during the attack. Fortunately these are easy enough to identify due to the time frozen Oni Lee clones and trapped rainwater."
The local Protectorate leader then nodded to Rennick and seated himself back down.
Rennick then continued his report. "Next is the ship graveyard, and unfortunately for us it's even more of a jumbled, tangled mess of derelict ships. On the bright side the entrance to Lord's Port is clear, which we can all see from the window since the container ship is no longer blocking the entrance to the bay. The downside is it's now in two pieces and clustered about the other ships. I've no idea the ecological damage caused by all those ships being moved about by tidal waves.
"Well, we've already gone over the Boardwalk and the Rig. Next would be gigantic glacier visible out the window." Piggot's deputy director jerked his head towards the other window and the mass of ice easily visible in the distance. "We don't have damage assessments at the moment, but suffice to say it isn't going to be good. It's quite likely the ice scoured everything in it's path away down to the bedrock."
The deputy director then flipped to the next page on the report he'd compiled. "Compared to that the damage to the rest of downtown and the comercial district is much less. Time stop zones aside." He then explained the varying issues, which was primarily damaged or destroyed building and water damage that was especially prevalent in the lower elevation areas of the city.
"Thank you Rennick." Piggot thanked the man once he concluded his report and turned to Armsmaster. "Now, the gang situation. What do you have for me?"
After all just because the Truce was still in effect, and would be until the memorial went up this coming Friday, didn't mean the gangs were going to sit quietly and do nothing. No matter how much she wished that was the case.
"Both Empire Eighty-Eight splinter factions, the Pure and the Reich, suffered heavy casualties during the battle. Normally I'd expect they'd disband or be relegated to a much lower threat level, especially the Pure who lost all but one of their capes. However due to Magpie's resurrection technology they'll get their fallen back." Armsmaster frowned.
"Pity we couldn't leave them dead." Triumph muttered.
"As much as I'd love to only revive the heroes we have to revive the villains that fought too. The Truce would fall apart otherwise." Piggot explained. Of course with Endbringers now being beatable it was only a matter of time before they didn't
need to have villains to throw at Endbringers, which in turn meant that eventually they'd be able to crack down on villainous capes once and for all.
That time just couldn't come soon enough.
"That was my understanding as well." Armsmaster nodded. "As for the Merchants we're not entirely sure where they stand at present. We believe they've retreated to holding the trainyards, however we've had other issues that've kept us from being able to fully investigate. They might be a threat in the future or they might not. It's too early to tell for now."
"I've already prevented two attacks against aid convoys heading towards the refugee camps we have set up on the city outskirts for those people who have lost everything." Dragon added. "It's likely they'll get more and more desperate in their attempts as their own supplies of drugs are used up."
"Alright." Piggot nodded, processing the information. "Keep me informed. Now, the ABB?"
"They're looking rather weakened. A lot of their territory was in the docks which didn't fare well at all during the attack. Bakuda herself remains at large, although with the loss of her primary workshop she will be much easier to take down in future. I actually want to begin the raid against her the moment the Truce is over."
"You have my authorization. Assuming you can track her down?" Piggot asked.
"So long as she hasn't changed her method of remotely detonating her explosive devices, we should be." Dragon answered the question and Armsmaster nodded stoically in agreement.
The local protectorate leader then continued the briefing. "The ABB also lost a lot of their force projection with loss of Oni Lee to Leviathan. Even better for us is the fact that unlike the fallen Pure and Reich capes he can't be revived by Magpie."
"Why not?" Miss Militia spoke up, asking a question on many peoples' minds.
"He's currently trapped inside a sphere of frozen time. Leviathan took offence to the constant attempts to freeze him and decided to solve the problem by grabbing Oni Lee before he could teleport, blinding him with water and throwing him head first into the nearest time bubble." Dragon replied, remembering the scene as she had seen it from above when moving a fresh dragonsuit into the fight.
There was a number of relieved sighs following that announcement. No cape in the city liked facing off against the teleporting serial suicide bomber.
"That's good. Now, the Spliced?" Piggot asked.
"They possibly made it out the best of the local gangs. They only lost three Lamia during the battle, and from the way the others and Alchemyst were acting it's likely those loses would be replaced soon. Splyce herself never attended the fight. My main concern is that damage to the docks may have caused some sort of containment breaches for Splyce's latest batch of experiments."
"What." Piggot declared flatly. "Explain."
"We've encountered two forms of mutated native wildlife in the docks." Jefferson spoke up to explain the situation, his boss' face paling rapidly as he did so. "The first are basically giant rats. The largest my teams have seen so far is the size of a German shepherd, but most appear to average the size of a Bulldog. From my own encounters with them they're extremely territorial, vicious and smart as well. Maybe as much as a human child."
"How dangerous are they?"
"Very. I have no doubt that the larger specimens could easily kill a grown man." Dragon piped up.
"And the second creature?" Piggot questioned the PRT commander.
"They're a form of mutant starfish." Jefferson replied. "So far they only seem to be located near Lord's Port and in the more heavily flooded regions of the docks. The largest one recorded was at least six feet wide from the tip of one arm to the other." He explained, pulling out a USB stick with a picture taken from one of his trooper's helmet cameras when the team had been doing some recon work in that area of the city.
Piggot grimaced when the image was displayed. Five arms splayed wide around a large tooth-filled maw in the centre as it appeared to be reaching towards the camera. Commander Jefferson continued his explanation. "They don't appear to be particularly fast and seem to prefer ambush over active hunting, though with how flooded some portions of the city are at the moment they're a definite danger to human life. They also regenerate rapidly. That single starfish took at least three magazines to put down. We collected some samples for Dragon, though you'd have to ask her about what they tell. All I know is the things are nasty and hard to kill."
"Actually the initial tests finished ten minutes ago. I was waiting for the subject to come up before sharing the bad news. Both the rats and these starfish appear to have that same exotic chemical that we've observed in the Whiplash and Catthulu samples."
"Meaning Splyce is behind these things." Piggot sighed, angry at herself for letting the Splyce situation go for so long unopposed. The problem was she just didn't have time or resources to spare hunting that monster down due to the constant violence erupting in her city.
Well she wasn't going to give up without a fight! If she had to drag the national guard to support her teams in combing every inch of the city she fucking would. Brockton Bay would not become a second Ellisburg. Not on her watch. "Do we have any way to track her down yet?"
"The equipment we're using to track Bakuda's bombs was originally meant to be used against Splyce." Armsmaster explained. "It should work just as well with tracking her down, however we first need to figure out the frequency she's using, which will take time without any active examples of her tech to work with. I'll reconfigure some scanning equipment in the meantime."
"Very well. Start trying to see if you can crack it. We need her dealt with immediately. Now, that cape that attended the fight with the Lamias, Alchemyst. What do we know about her?" And more importantly could that girl actually be Splyce pretending to be somebody else.
"She's some sort of chemical tinker, somewhat similar to Cask if I were to guess. Maybe a thinker as well, though that could have been chemically induced." Armsmaster answered, thinking back on the cape he'd met in the command centre. "I think she might be the source of the human DNA that Splyce used for the Lamias. While they all wear domino masks the facial profiles all match each other exactly."
"Noted." Piggot said, then sighed. "Honest opinion. How hard do you think it will it be to contain these things?" She gestured to the picture of Splyce's latest crime against nature.
"It might be possible. Based on reported sightings their numbers aren't that high and with search and rescue teams focused on recovering bodies as quickly as possible for future revival, the numbers of bodies they'd initially have been able to feed on is lower than it could be. Furthermore, they appear to be very territorial and focus on attacking each other."
"Find a way to get it under control. Personally I'm going to be contacting the National Guard for extra bodies if I have to. Thankfully we at least have the political capital to spend on this." Piggot stated, then began to explain at the confused looks. "I've been in talks with the Mayor most of the day. The short version is that as we are the site where an Endbringer was soundly defeated every single career politician from here to the west coast wants to be associated with us. Standing by the city that stopped Leviathan is too much free political gain to risk missing out on for those vultures, but it makes our lives easier."
She explained that with politicians jumping on the free publicity bandwagon meant they'd actually have funding to get the city back on it's feet. Then she explained what that money flowing into the city meant, and while most of the people behind it might be self-serving vultures she wouldn't trust with a fruit stand let alone a political position, at least they could be of use.
With the cargo ship no longer blocking the Bay and money being poured in it would only be a matter of time before the bay itself could be cleared and the port reopened. Especially with Leviathan no longer around to disrupt shipping, which was the only reason the city went from major deepwater port to strangled backwater in the first place.
All this money being thrown at the city also meant lots of construction companies moving in en masse to start with. That would at least provide enough jobs to keep the local economy fairly stable. Depending on how long it took to reopen the port it was possible there'd be plenty of jobs in the future as the city got back on its feet and returned to being a major shipping hub once again.
Immigration was almost guaranteed to go up as well, as both Magpie and Mothri called Brockton Bay their home. It's only natural that people would feel safer staying in the same city as capes capable of taking on Endbringer and winning. The population lost through deaths or by people abandoning the city to avoid the latest gang war would be swiftly replaced.
Politicians would back her in getting whatever resources she needed to get Splyce taken out. Being able to claim they aided in making sure a dangerous biotinker didn't kill the city an Endbringer couldn't? That was something those political vultures wouldn't be able to resist.
Though even with Splyce out the way there were other issues that would need to be addressed.
"Naturally criminal elements are going to want a piece of the pie. We'll need to be prepared for outside elements coming in. If they get a foothold now it'll be even harder to push out later when the city has recovered. The priority though will still be Splyce. I absolutely want the Spliced taken care of immediately. I refuse to allow those mutant monsters running about causing God knows what problems in my city any longer than necessary. We are not going to go from having saved the city from an Endbringer only to lose it to the second coming of Nilbog. We can push back the raid on Bakuda for now. Biotinkered monsters are far more of a threat to us, and probably this entire country, than one lone bomb tinker."
That said they continued the meeting, going over issues and possible solutions to various other problems that were cropping up.
(17th May 2011)
(Four days after Leviathan's defeat)
"Fucking Magpie." Thomas Calvert swore with a defeated sigh. Somehow, some way, she was interfering with his power. It seemed like ever since the girl showed up she'd been ruining his plans. First he lost the Alcott girl due to her, and those fucking pedophilia accusations dragging the reputation of his villainous persona down into the dirt.
After finally getting off of his 'protective' house arrest, mostly because Regent had been spotted out of state and thus he wasn't at risk of being 'mastered' again anytime soon, the following weeks had been some of the most stressful of his life. The situation in the city had been steadily decreasing but it was too soon. He wasn't ready or able to take over the PRT just yet, and thus had to focus on keeping Piggot in charge for the time being while simultaneously trying to rebuild his operations.
After burning the Undersiders the only assets available to him was a much smaller pool of mercenaries and the ticking time bomb known as the Travellers, which meant the job of keeping the city from actually exploding (a fair possibility considering Bakuda) was stretching him to the limit.
He couldn't even shoot that irritating bastard Trickster for stress relief, just in case his power glitched again. Calvert had learnt that was the fastest way to set off his monster of a girlfriend in the one timeline he'd actually given in to stress release.
And now everything was at risk.
Because of Magpie.
Sometimes his power functioned fine. Other times a timeline would just collapse, the only common denominator being Magpie was in the general area that specific version of himself was focusing on. Not that he was even aware she was nearby until
after his timelines collapsed and he was left with a splitting headache. At the rate things were going the entire city was looking to be a write off unless he could get rid of her.
Not to mention that Splyce was doing her level best to try her own hand at recreating Ellisburg. For once though the US government was less incompetent than usual and had actually sent in the national guard to back up the ENE's forces in killing off Splyce's latest horrors.
No sign of wherever they'd escaped from. Splyce's current base was still a mystery. Even Calvert was still unable to figure out exactly where in the docks they've been based. He'd been narrowing it down, but chances were the biotinker had already gone to ground or moved locations due to all the pressure on her.
The only silver lining in all this mess was that his construction company was looking to make millions in the upcoming reconstruction efforts, which would allow him to move operations to another city.
And moving away might be the best option. If he left he'd no longer have to prop up that fat bitch until he was ready to take her seat, nor worry about keeping this madhouse from igniting in an orgy of fire, biotinkered abominations and man eating crows. He might never be able to compromise another department's systems the way he'd wormed his way into the ENE's systems, but that may be worth it to avoid Magpie and her timeline disrupting presence or Splyce and her monsters.
Now how to get the most out of the Travellers before he got out of town?
A/N
Ugh I hate PHO. I
wanted to more PHO bits, but each time I tried I slowly began losing my will to live.
