Cloudy Skies 11.c
Saturday, July 16
Chevalier looked up from the week's accumulated reports as the door opened and Hannah walked in. "How was patrol?"
The patriotic parahuman shut the door behind her and dropped into the chair on the other side of his desk. "Well as could be expected, I suppose," she said, pulling her scarf down to reveal the rest of her face. "There were no crimes in progress on our route, but we found more tags."
"Whoever it is, they are becoming bolder." He frowned. They had been finding gang tags in previously gang-free areas for a few weeks now. The first were crude to the point of incomprehension, but a few budding graffiti artists had made it clear the images were supposed to be of a wolf's head. The problem was that there were no local gangs that used that emblem, and they were encroaching farther and farther inwards.
"It gets worse."
She pulled her phone out of her pocket and tapped the screen a few times before turning it to face him. The image she had taken was of a basic tag spray painted onto a brick wall. What was new were the words below the design:
'Eat Everything'. He glanced up and shook his head. "I don't understand."
"I wish I didn't. Eat Everything. E E." Hannah scowled. "I used to see that everywhere back in Brockton Bay. It's one of many subtle ways to refer to the Empire Eighty-Eight. We have
Nazis carving out a foothold here."
"I thought they were wiped out after they broke through the containment wall around Brockton Bay." He distinctly remembered that from reading some of the after-action reports that were made available to him in his capacity as head of a Protectorate branch. Learning the slightly awkward Calamity Witch had an ability that more than earned her moniker was stressful enough, let alone that she had singlehandedly killed an entire gang's worth of capes in one blow.
She shook her head. "The capes in Calamity Witch's pocket dimension were killed. Two capes were outside. Victor died, but Cricket escaped along with the unpowered members and whatever cape they had that triggered in the building the other heroes were assaulting. More than enough to move to a new city and start pulling in sympathizers to their ideology. It's widespread enough, unfortunately."
Another new gang. Perfect. "Is it bad I almost hope they run into Jotunn's capes? For once, his greed for turf might work in our favor. How did Starmetal do?" he asked, changing the subject to something a little more palatable.
Hannah hesitated for a moment. "Well enough. I keep comparing him to the Wards from Brockton and how quickly they progressed. They were criminally misused, but they picked up protocol extremely quickly. Probably because it was a matter of survival. His constant need for validation is... grating, I will admit."
"He has an inferiority complex," Chevalier said, holding back his thoughts on her earlier statements. He certainly agreed with her assessment of the Wards' misuse, and he had not missed that she was ignoring her own contribution to that situation. It was not— No, it
was her fault in part, but her tendency to follow orders unthinkingly was not unknown. It was why there were multiple comments in her files recommending against putting her in charge of a Protectorate branch. As a second-in-command who would turn policies and directives into action, she was one of the best, but she did not have the personality to take charge long-term. No, the majority of the blame in Brockton Bay fell on Armsmaster and Emily Piggot's shoulders.
"You mentioned that. I can understand the need to praise him as he progresses but still be irritated by the need. It is not as if he is slow to pick things up. One thing he does need to learn, however, is how to keep information secret. I do not mind him casually making mention of his home life in privacy, but doing it on patrol gives anyone listening too many clues they could use to figure out his identity."
"I'll bring it up to him tomorrow, but I have to say it's nice to have a Ward who is so open with us. He's made comments to me as well, on base anyway, enough to get a general idea of the kind of environment he grew up in. Single parent, always working. Never got a lot of validation and support at home, so he bonded to the first group that was willing to take him in. Typical story of the nice kid falling in with the wrong crowd." It was likely exacerbated by his feelings of never being good enough, though that one they could use to their advantage. So long as he felt a sense of belonging with the Protectorate, he was unlikely to leave.
"What do you plan to do with Starmetal once he knows his way around a basic patrol?" Hannah asked. "He won't be old enough to engage in combat for a few more months, and I don't know that we can keep babysitting him until he turns eighteen."
Chevalier sighed. "I am still weighing my options on that. One of the ideas I had, though I still haven't decided if it's a
good idea or not, is to pair him with Vista. She knows Protectorate protocol backwards and forwards, so she will have plenty to teach him. Maybe it will also get her to be less of a pain in the ass."
Hannah sent him a glare at that comment, though she looked away with a shrug when he raised an eyebrow. It was not as if she could really argue against that description. "I worry that she will not take being paired with him well. Didn't she already express her unhappiness with how things are working to your face? Considering his own need for praise, she might take out her frustrations on him and set back his progress."
"She will put up with it if she really wants to go out on patrol. It's the only way that's going to happen."
What Vista was refusing to understand was that there were rules in place bigger than him, rules that he could not simply set aside. The Protectorate's own regulations were very clear that Wards were not to be taken on combat patrols except under specific circumstances, and even then it was limited to older Wards who were vouched for by full Protectorate members. They could go on patrols through safer areas where they were not expected to engage in any fights, the so called 'show patrols', but even then the Youth Guard had imposed age requirements. Wards younger than fifteen years of age were not permitted on those patrols without a senior Ward or a Protectorate member accompanying them. Before Starmetal had agreed to join them on a probationary basis, all of the Wards were too young to go on even the safest of patrols on their own. In a perfect world, he could send an adult hero with them, but Philadelphia was the smallest main branch in the Protectorate with three heroes, and even sparing one of their members to show Starmetal the ropes was putting a strain on them.
Without any older Wards or adults he could spare to chaperone the Wards, Vista had by pure necessity been benched. He had no way around it.
He glanced over at the year-long calendar he had pinned to his wall, something that had become more and more common as his tolerance for Vista's behavior waned. September fourteenth was circled, and written within in red ink were the words
'1 more year'. He had more than a year before he could even begin to loosen the restrictions on her, no matter how much she whined and complained.
The Youth Guard were justified in their need to put rules and restrictions in place. The courts and Congress had certainly thought so, and looking at the examples of behavior they had brought forth as evidence, he personally could not disagree. His problem lay in the fact that while those restrictions were meant to prevent the Protectorate from turning Wards into child soldiers, they gave him little latitude for deprogramming one who already existed.
It was not as if Chevalier could not sympathize with her position. When he hit his four year anniversary of being a hero, he had already been in the Protectorate proper for a year and change. Having the kind of experience she did – even if that experience was by and large the kind she should not have had in the first place – but still being limited by her age would be frustrating to anyone. He had tried everything he could to engage her in other ways, including arranging extra training exercises with the teams from Boston and New York and encouraging her to take a leadership role and help educate Flambé and Cherry Bomb in the ins and outs of being a professional hero. If she had tried even minimally to meet him halfway, they probably would have something worked out by now. Not a perfect solution, but at least a compromise they could both tolerate until she turned fifteen and had more leeway.
Far from compromising, Vista had instead dug her heels in deeper and deeper, disdaining anything that was not related to live combat. And instead of helping her find some peace, Chevalier was increasingly tempted to restrict her to base permanently or even transfer her
anywhere else where she could be some other branch's problem child.
Maybe Anchorage. She could both metaphorically and literally cool her heels until she learned how to play nice with others.
"You look exhausted," Hannah remarked, looking at him more closely. He opened his mouth to deny it, but she was already continuing, "Finish that up and get some rest. I'll head out on your patrol in a couple of hours."
He smiled faintly. For all her faults, Hannah was still one of the heroes he most liked having around. He had ever since their days in the inaugural Wards. It was the reason he had requested her specifically when the Brockton Bay branch was dismantled. As a second-in-command, there was no one he would rather have at his right hand. "Thanks."
Tim's Linker Core rank advanced to S.
Tim's skills are again available at their regular price.
Now is the time to decide what new things Tim will be doing instead of building. Or maybe by building. Who knows, because this vote is gonna be a pain in my ass!
There are two ways this can go. On the one hand, you have the choice of three subtemplates.
- (Magic) Calamity Witch – Ranged combat class with a variety of bullet types.
- (Magic) Extinction Knight – Close combat specialist with heavy armor and the cartridge system.
- (Magic) Infinite Enhancement – Support class with spells that empower your allies and hinder your foes.
Now SW, I can already hear you saying, what is in the other hand if all our choices are in the first hand? Well, my friends, in my other hand is the second set of options.
- (Tech) Calamity Witch – Alternate modes to energy weapons, and a few underhanded tricks.
- (Tech) Extinction Knight – Improved close-combat technology.
- (Tech) Infinite Enhancement – Serums with various enhancing properties.
Those "Magic" and "Tech" tags are critically important. The Magic choices are sets of spells that will require Tim to leave his lab and get into fights to be able to learn. The Tech choices are sets of skills akin to those found in the baseline Gadgeteer template and are purchased just like any other Gadgeteer skill.
Because this vote is weird, you have your standard 24 HOURS to ask me any questions you want before I open the poll.