[ ] Monstrous Menagerie, Part 2-ish? – Those Beasts that attacked the party had to come from somewhere. Question Miss Militia about what she knows about them, and demand some answers if she tries to hide the truth again.
Emigration 4.16
Tuesday, April 5
«
Connection established.»
"Miss Militia."
«
It's Calamity Witch,» you project, careful not to let your lips move. Everyone else has also tuned out Mrs. Kohle's lecture about the symbolism in
The Great Gatsby, but there's no reason to let them know you're using that time to make a phone call. «
I believe we still need to have a little chat.»
"Yes, I guess we do," she replies in a tired voice.
"When can you come to the Protec—"
«
This is a discussion we should probably have at a more neutral location, wouldn't you say?» And by neutral, you mean somewhere where Miss Militia doesn't feel like she has a home field advantage, not to mention somewhere you can send Samantha ahead of time so she can lie in wait and make sure no one tries to trap or bug the place.
Is it petty? Yes. Paranoid? Maybe a little. But petty and paranoid or not, your trust of the gunslinging heroine has taken a pretty big hit over the last couple of days. After weathering the glares and the
'I'm not mad, I'm disappointed' lectures from both Samantha and your dad, you dragged your Guardian Beast away so you could put your heads together. With this new data point, it's clear the warning your intuition gave you after the first encounter with the Beasts was a valid one. Miss Militia knew something was off about the crazed monstrosities, but she didn't tell you and instead lied that everything was perfectly fine. How long has she been hiding what's really going on? Has she been lying to you since right after the Simurgh attack when she called to persuade you to leave Boston? If she's been lying about this, what else has she been lying about?
You just don't know.
She is quiet a moment before letting out a quiet sigh.
"I suppose it could be. How about the rooftop across from the jeweler's where you and Vista fought them? Maybe in an hour?"
English ends in forty-five minutes. It won't take you long to fly to that area of the city, not at the speeds you can reach, but you'll also have to shake off Kayleigh. The redhead was extra clingy yesterday, and you know she'll be the same way as soon as she finds you after class. You'll have to convince her to go to lunch without you, and since you might wind up skipping class for the rest of the day depending on how long the conversation takes, you'll have to give her a really good argument so she doesn't completely smother you tomorrow. «
Ninety minutes would be better.»
"Fine. Ninety minutes. See you then."
The woman hangs up, and you ask, «
You caught all that?»
«
That I did,» Samantha answers. «
Though I have to wonder. Do you truly think she might set a trap for you, or are you just being cautious?»
«
You think it's too much, huh?»
The raccoon's laughter fills your mind. «
Oh, not at all. Whatever information she withheld, it nearly got you killed the first time you found those creatures. Perhaps it was never her intention to put you in danger. Perhaps it was. Only she knows which, and until she reveals her goals, it is best that you watch her warily. No one ever died from being too careful.»
Not what you were expecting, but you'll take it. «
I just thought you would tell me not to judge her based on one act or something along those lines.» Then again, your Guardian Beast has tried to get you to think before you act before now, so maybe she's just taking what she can get.
«
I will not say you should never offer trust to those who have abused it once, but be sure you know and agree with their reasons why before you do so. Should similar circumstances crop up again, they will undoubtedly make the same choice.
«
I will arrive at the rendezvous point soon. I'll see you when you get here.» The telepathy cuts out, leaving you alone in your own head and with nothing to do but watch the clock count down.
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
You are still airborne when Miss Militia shows up. Not in transit, just floating; more precisely, you're leaning back against the empty air with the brim of your hat pulled down over your eyes. A single finger pushing from underneath slides it back to reveal your mask. "You made good time."
"I had an hour and a half. If it were late with that much time to prepare, it would be a problem." Looking around at the apparently empty rooftop, she drops her knife onto the gravel where it turns into a small cannon. It seems that the power to make 'any weapon' doesn't include improvised armaments like folding chairs, no matter what professional wrestlers want the world to believe. Still, she seems comfortable enough on her makeshift bench.
The silence turns stuffy until you finally cave. "What's
really going on here, Miss Militia?"
"It's… complicated," she admits. "I think you've already figured it out, but these aren't Case 53s. There are too many, and they're all duplicates. At first, we thought we were dealing with a duplicator, maybe someone with a similar power set to Oni Lee but with a Brute aspect added in. Then the teleporters showed up. Self-duplication almost always prevents a cape from copying someone else, so that theory looked less likely. And now, with these healers? That theory is dead.
"Once you take clone-based powers out of the mix, the sheer number of enemies points to one big, scary alternative: a bio-Tinker. The problem with that is that Tinkers need time to establish themselves. Setting up a working lab, fine-tuning their abilities, learning the ins and outs of their powers; all that can take months or even years. The Brute-type would already be incredibly sophisticated for a fresh Tinker, but he's progressing too quickly for that to be the case. We're more likely dealing with somebody who is acting out a long-standing plan. We just don't know what he wants."
"And you couldn't just tell me that?" you demand. "You fed me that lie about Case 53s to lure me here instead? If you had just
asked me, I would have happily given you a hand dealing with them."
She shakes her head sharply. "I didn't lie to you. When we talked in Boston, I told you what I knew about the situation. I wasn't briefed on the realities until I got here."
"Why keep it a secret? If there's a bio-Tinker who needs to be stopped before he builds some kind of mutant army, I'd think you'd want every hand on deck you can get!"
"Because the last time a Tinker built a 'mutant army', we built a wall around him," the American-themed heroine points out. "No one wants to turn a city of one and a half million people into a second Ellisburg, and that's what will happen should this information become public knowledge. Typhon, our current name for this villain, is moving slower than Nilbog did. We still have time to stop him. Until the situation gets entirely out of our hands, we don't want to cause a panic. Chevalier, Legend, Director Paulson, and Chief Director Costa-Brown talked the situation over, and it was finally decided to make the details classified outside the Protectorate and PRT with few exceptions. Chevalier wanted the information spread further so we could get more help," Miss Militia explains, raising her hands helplessly, "but his hands are tied. So long as we are mostly in control of the situation, he has to be careful in how he gets help."
…All right. You are still angry about the situation and the terrible decisions that went into it, but just maybe it isn't Miss Militia personally you should be mad at. Left unanswered is another question, one you would dearly like an explanation for. "What happened Friday? The Beasts were well away from where they should have been, and you and Chevalier were already on their tails."
"Like I told you, we had been on the hunt for most of the evening already," she says with a sigh. "We hoped that we could find a group and drive them back to their creator so we'd know where in the city we needed to focus our efforts, but instead of fleeing home they went on a rampage. The group we found somehow called in reinforcements – a lot of reinforcements, at that – and while we drove them off, we were afraid they would just find somewhere else to attack. Unfortunately, we were right, and they found your party. Sere was with us in the beginning, but his powers managed to kill some of the Brutes without letting them rot away like they normally do, so he had to stay behind and make sure they stayed intact while Chevalier and I continued the pursuit."
"Why was that so important?"
"Once we had intact specimens, Chevalier wanted them sent to Houston. If anyone can glean insight from another bio-Tinker's work, it's Bonesaw. I just hope it doesn't give her
ideas," she adds, her voice soft with worry.
That makes some sense, you suppose. "And where were the Wards in all this?"
Miss Militia crosses her arms. "Shortly after you came back with Vista the night you ran into Cudejo, somebody called in the Youth Guard with some nonsense story about her being intentionally sent to arrest him. All the Wards are benched until they finish their investigation. For now, it's just Chevalier, Sere, and me, along with whatever independents want to help out."
"How long do you expect the investigation to take?"
"However long it takes for the pair of representatives to go through our records. Not that Chevalier or Director Paulson have anything to worry about; the Wards program here isn't nearly the mess it was in Brockton. If anyone had called them back there, Director Piggot would have been in a very sticky situation. Not that it matters anymore," she finishes with another sigh.
The silence this time is melancholy rather than stilted, your mind drifting back in time to Brockton Bay as well.
Thumps sound from a nearby heating vent, and Miss Militia jumps up, her cannon reforming into a heavy pistol. Not that she has anything to worry about. A few deep grunts come out, followed shortly by an unremarkable raccoon. "I told you you wouldn't be able to climb out of there in war form," you say.
The raccoon shoots you a glare before melting into Samantha. "If I needed to get out quickly, I would have just ripped through the metal. No need to damage anything now, though."
Miss Militia's own expression is indecipherable, though you have the feeling she recognizes the significance of you keeping your Guardian Beast in war form and hidden nearby.
"How
is Vista doing?" you ask before your obvious distrust can make things too awkward. Not that asking about the thirteen-year-old you brought back critically injured isn't awkward all on its own, but sadly it's probably less so than the former.
The older heroine shakes her head. "She…. She's doing as well as can be expected, I suppose. She has been spending most of her time in her room, and she doesn't want to talk to anyone. In a way, the Youth Guard's timing couldn't have been better. Pushing to be let back on the field while she's still recovering would do her more harm than good. Much more."
"And there's no way I would be allowed to go over there and try to talk her out, is there?"
"Don't take this the wrong way, but no, there isn't. No one outside the Protectorate has permission to see her right now. Any hope of her keeping her identity secret long-term is dead, but we will still protect it while it offers her even the slightest protection." Returning her knife to its sheathe, Miss Militia gives you an incline of her head, not even a nod, and says, "I need to get back to my patrol. You know how to reach me if you need me."
And with that curt dismissal, she walks away and climbs down the fire escape.
«
That was certainly pleasant,» Samantha sarcastically thinks to you.
"Maybe, but I don't know how much of her frustration is really aimed at us." You pull off your wirework mask and rub the bridge of your nose. "It is nice to know what's really going on, though. I just wish it were better news."
"On that score, we'll just have to take what we can get." A second later, the raccoon leaps up onto you and climbs to your shoulder. «
Onward. You still have just enough time to get back to school before your next class. We can grab something on the way.»
"And you're, what? Just going to hang around for three hours until school's out?"
«
Maybe I will. You dragged me away before my soap started, so there's no point in catching just the last five minutes. I'll have to wait tomorrow to watch it online.»
You roll your eyes where Samantha has no chance of missing it. You
really should have waited to find a cat. She'd be a whole lot easier to deal with.
Dimensional Transfer learned.
Vote, vote, what to vote on? Ah! Next chapter will be the big scene with Dragon. Is there anything in particular you want to talk about, either just with her or for you or her to say to the TSAB should you get ahold of them?
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