Taylor stood in front of the door, unsure whether or not she should actually be reporting this. She sighed, and decided she wasn't going to let a little thing like nerves stop her. Carefully, she knocked on the door to Miss Militia's office when she was present in the PRT building.
"Enter," Miss Militia's voice announced.
Taylor opened the door, entered, closed it, and sat down.
The only complaint was from the chair.
"What can I help you with, Taylor?" Miss Militia asked. "Isn't it time for you to be getting out of here?"
"Yes, it is, but after thinking about this all day, I figured I should make an official report of this," Taylor said.
"Go on," the heroine prompted, turning on a little voice recorder. "For the record, this is a record of a discussion between Miss Militia of the ENE Protectorate and Juggernaut of the ENE Wards, on February 25
th at 1850 EST."
"When I was called in this morning, I jokingly set my goal to stop the Endbringers," Taylor began in a nervous voice. "I immediately knew where I had to go, what I had to do and that nothing would stop me once I started."
"Continue," Miss Militia made some notes on a notepad.
"My power allows me to identify and track my destination
unerringly," Taylor said. "When I set the goal, my destination was 16,494,167 meters southwest of my location at the time. It's 3,053,891 meters south-southwest of where I am now."
"Can I ask who or what your target is?" Miss Militia inquired.
"It's Eidolon," Taylor stated. "When I get to his location, I'm to punch him as hard as I can. Multiple times if needed."
"Interesting," Miss Militia commented. "You were picked up around 0430, correct?"
"Yes, that's correct," Taylor answered. "I set myself that goal about three minutes before the van started moving, as I was walking up to it."
"Very interesting. Anything else?"
"No, that's all I had," Taylor said.
"I'll pass this along to Armsmaster and Dragon," Miss Militia said. "They spend a lot of time going over footage from Endbringer fights, analyzing it for any information they can get." She shrugged before continuing. "I don't have all the details yet, but I have heard that near the end of the battle, Eidolon got distracted by
something which got him hit fairly hard by the Simurgh.
"The fight ended shortly thereafter, so I'm told, with the Simurgh leaving or being driven off," she finished. "I'll make sure that they leave your name out of it. Wouldn't want the world's most powerful cape to take exception to that statement and try to bury you in libel and slander complaints."
"Eidolon would do that?" Taylor asked. "Seems kind of petty."
"The man can be difficult to work with," Miss Militia admitted. "You should be going, if you want to catch the bus for your neighborhood."
"Oops," Taylor stated as she got up. "Thanks for your time." She turned around and opened the door.
"Not a problem, Taylor."
- - - - - - - - - -
Armsmaster was, as predicted, going over the data from the last Endbringer battle with Dragon. The security system to his lab announced the presence of Miss Militia at the door. "Yes?"
"I've got some interesting data for your Endbringer database," she stated. The door slid open silently and she walked in, the door closing silently behind her. Sitting down in the chair he reserved for guests, she handed him the brief report. "And hello, Dragon."
"Hello, Hannah," Dragon replied, her avatar smiling in a friendly fashion.
"Are you sure about this," Armsmaster asked.
"I've verified the times from the reports and logs filed by the driver of the van," Hannah answered. "At 0927 UTC, Juggernaut stumbled briefly on the sidewalk in front of her residence, looking surprised. This lines up with the time she said she made it her goal to stop the Endbringers."
"At 09:27:06 UTC, approximately six seconds later, Eidolon was visibly distracted in his fight with Ziz," Dragon reported. "He reported after he was recovered that he had a feeling that someone was watching him, despite not having any thinker powers in his power set. At 23:33:06 he was physically slapped by Ziz, and was ejected from the combat area, impacting a building nearly three kilometers away."
"This implies that Eidolon has a connection to the Endbringers," Colin said in disbelief. "I can't see how."
"She also gave the approximate bearing and exact distance in meters to Eidolon at the time she set her goal and when she was in my office," Hannah added.
"Did she say what her end goal was?" Dragon asked, curious.
"To punch him as hard as she could," Hannah recited from memory. "Multiple times if need be." She shrugged where she sat. "I don't think I need to remind either of you that the level she was tested to was not her maximum, which is still undetermined."
Dragon chuckled. "So in essence, find Eidolon and beat the stupid out of him?"
"I wouldn't have put it that way," Hannah admitted. "There's not even a suggestion of
why punching Eidolon would do anything to the Endbringers."
"If Juggernaut did that," Armsmaster muttered, "and Eidolon wasn't ready for it in a number of ways… her documented capacity of 10 meganewtons would be enough to accelerate a 1 kilogram mass she hit to 10,000 kilometers per second within an instant. For a normal person, assuming they didn't aerosol and their body held together, they'd be accelerated to 100 kilometers per second and would probably be leaving the planet.
"Eidolon being struck like that would be... not good," he finished. "And the damage to the area would be extensive."
"That's grossly understating things," Dragon added. "The expected shock waves would level buildings within 500 meters. And those velocities through the atmosphere are what causes bolides."
"I sincerely hope that Juggernaut does not engage Lung," Armsmaster stated. "I don't think the city could take it."
= = = = = = = = = =
The next day dawned bright and sunny, as if untroubled by the goings on of the previous day. It was a bit early in the year for birds to be singing, though there were a few making the attempt. There were no overt signs that any criminal activity was taking place, though that would change as the Endbringer truce period came to a close.
Taylor, as she rode the bus, reviewed the messages on her Wards phone, trying to look like just another texting teen. The investigation was still ongoing into the explosion out in the Docks. Wards were due for patrolling in the afternoon. She'd gotten an information payout for her report. She'd check the amount in private
later.
The bus was subdued, people quietly discussing the Endbringer attack, and how this would affect prices of everything from chocolate bars to tea from China (even though Leviathan hadn't attacked any ships at sea, and had barely affected international trade). A few students discussing homework assignments (some of whom she shared classes with), talking about who was cute, which bands were popular, and what various capes had gotten up to of late.
By the time she reached the last of her messages, the bus had arrived outside of Arcadia, and she was getting off with the other students and heading for the front door.
"Dean, Vicky," Taylor greeted.
"Good morning, Taylor," Dean replied.
"Hey Taylor," Vicky added.
"No Amy today?" Taylor inquired.
"She's worn out after Canberra," Vicky explained. "She should be in after lunch, though. What a mess."
"Yeah, they'll be domeing the city," Dean added as they walked into the building. "I heard a couple of Brockton Bay's capes will be laid up for a while until Amy can get to them."
"Anyone we know?" another student asked as they entered.
"Velocity and Dauntless," Dean said after checking his personal phone. "Both injured during search and rescue."
"Well, I'm off to my locker," Taylor said, "I'll see you guys at lunch."
- - - - - - - - - -
The morning classes, lunch passed, and Amy arrived without incident, though Taylor had the feeling someone was watching her throughout the day. Nothing definite, and no one in particular. Of course, with her stature, eyes were usually on her anyway, since she was literally head and shoulders above the student body, with the exception of a couple of the senior boys; one on the football team and the other a wrestler. Neither came past her nose.
And no one had asked her if she wanted to join any of the athletics teams in the last couple of weeks. Her PE classes were more involved in improving her flexibility, so it was mainly yoga exercises along with Vicky, who was pretty much banned from competitive athletics due to her being parahuman.
"You're coming along pretty good, Tay," Vicky complimented.
"Thanks," she answered, and moved onto the next set of stretches, as did Vicky. "So, any plans for the weekend?" she asked as some of her joints popped. "Oh, that felt good."
"Eh, the usual," Vicky replied. "Date with Dean, patrol with New Wave, guard Amy while she's at the hospital on Saturday."
"And not damage anything at the hospital?" Amy snarked from where she was doing her own exercises.
"You wound me, sister," Vicky shot back in a melodramatic fashion. Which was interesting due to the position she was in.
"But I can heal you up, and no one would know," Amy retorted in a somewhat sinister and overdone fashion. "Mu ha ha."
"At least she's not asking me to arm wrestle again," Taylor commented.
"Nope, not going to do that again. Torsion fractures
suck," Vicky stated with surety. "And I did not know you could do that to yourself."
"Shouldn't you be more careful about things like that?" Amy asked. "I mean, you're not an open cape."
"She should be, yes," the PE teacher said. "However, there are only two teenagers over six and a half feet tall, and Mr. Atwell won't be getting any taller, and only one of them is a girl…"
"Yeah, I get it," Taylor answered. "I should be more careful."
"Not like we're gonna say anything," one of the other girls in their group said. "If you're not in costume, you're Taylor. Also, you can't be Juggernaut, you don't have red hair."
There were murmurs of agreement amongst the other half dozen normal girls participating.
"Dodged a bullet there, Taylor," Amy whispered to her.
"I suspect I'm going to have to endure another class with Ms. Vasche about things," Taylor grumbled.
- - - - - - - - - -
Eventually, Taylor found herself at the PRT building, getting ready for her afternoon of walking the mean streets of Brockton Bay. After half a day being careful about what she said – and really, the whole discussion about the arm wrestling had been both her and Vicky's fault – she'd made it to the PRT building via the bus and down to the Wards area to get ready.
A quick check of her phone revealed that she did have a scheduled appointment with Brockton Bay's director of PR and Image tomorrow morning. She had a patrol today that she was here for, and another tomorrow afternoon, but had Sunday open.
"Hey Taylor," Carlos greeted her as he came into the Wards area from the back entrance along with Dean and Chris. Dennis and Missy had the day off to go spend time with his dad at the hospital or attend court ordered family counseling, respectively.
"Hey," she responded. "Anything special today?"
"We were thinking about starting a pool about how many idiots would be trying to knock you out with various blunt weapons," Chris said, "but Dennis thought it'd be tempting fate and we'd be the ones getting clubbed and beaten instead of you."
Taylor looked somewhat croggled at that one. "Dennis was the sensible one?" she responded. "I think I need to look up how to call master/stranger protocols on someone. Besides, it won't be just blunt weapons. They'll escalate to using things that will get everyone in one shot. I'm pretty sure I can take anything that's out there on the street right now, but I think I'd be the only one left standing."
"Maybe someone could talk to PR about staging a demonstration so everyone can see that kind of thing doesn't work?"
"Would that discourage them or encourage them?"
Chris' mouth opened and closed a few times as he thought. "I don't know?"
