How to Beat Fried Worms
Disclaimer: Worm is owned by Wildbow, and he can keep it.
-----
Chapter 57: Insidious
Interlude: Armsmaster
-----
Colin Wallace was not a happy man.
Standing next to the door to a hospital room, one eye on the man seated nearby, there was a host of reasons for that. Late night calls were always frustrating, cutting into his limited rest hours, but those were tolerable at least.
The reason he was at the hospital was a key issue. Anything involving parahumans fell under Protectorate and PRT jurisdiction. The Protectorate tended to handle 'exposed' parahumans whilst the Parahuman Response Team tended to handle the logistics that went in to discovery.
The current issue was a large factor in his irritation. His team wasn't really meant to handle sexual assault victims but neither the Protectorate nor the PRT had a Special Victims Unit at the moment. They'd been requesting a transfer, or at least a spot in the official training roster, for the last three years to no avail.
They weren't trained to handle the girls that Apollyon had brought to their doorstep and that fact rankled at Colin, grating at him. There were books and guidelines, materials that both he and Hannah had gone over but it wasn't the same and he damn well knew it.
"Hey," Apollyon, the monster taking up the other half of Colin's focus, called out as he stood up. "I'm gonna hit the vending machines. Anybody want anything?"
"I could use an iced coffee," Velocity said, sounding far more relaxed than he actually was. The man had been sent as part of the official response guidelines when handling unknown parahumans, which the victims technically counted as.
"I'll take one, too," Glory Girl said with a frustrated sigh. "Can you grab another can for Ames? She's gonna need it when she gets done."
"Ken I get a beer?" the baby-faced brute asked.
"No, Billy," Apollyon told the man. "They don't offer alcohol here and you're a minor, it'd be illegal for me to give you any."
Colin would've laughed at the absurdity of the statement considering the severity of the crimes Apollyon had been performing with no hesitation. He would have laughed... if his mind wasn't putting that statement together and creating an increasingly unpleasant image.
"Seir always gave me a beer..." the boy sullenly grumbled.
"Alright. Juice for Billy and three cans of coffee. Armsmaster?"
"Coffee," the Tinker absently answered, his eyes narrowing in thought under his visor. "Miss Militia prefers water."
The murderer nodded in assent and then turned away, walking down the hallway. Colin watched him go, his lips pursed in thought.
Apollyon sat in a rather unusual spot, so far as the Protectorate and the Parahuman Response Team were concerned. Order for the Protectorate, authorized by Legend himself, was that the man was not to be provoked into hostilities. His powers were largely unknown but had gone through multiple refinements before Legend had settled on Trump/Breaker. The current notes stated that he could claim copies of powers from defeated foes and then escalate them into stronger forms.
And Legend did not want to hand him any powers from the Protectorate, which seemed to work so long as the man was not in active opposition with the Protectorate as well.
Colin didn't like it. At all. Apollyon had spat on his work, along with everyone else that had been working to bring order back to Brockton Bay. That the man's methods seemed to have worked, at least in the short term, left a rank, bitter taste in Colin's mouth.
Compared to the Protectorate, the PRT had an almost diametric opposite stance on the man. Director Costa Brown had risen Apollyon's threat rating as high as it could go without him having an open and obvious body count. He was to be apprehended at all costs, damn the consequences.
Director Piggot, upon learning of that directive, had very clearly told Armsmaster that he was not to mention Apollyon in any official capacity in which the two departments could feasibly cross. It was, the woman said, some kind of inter-departmental pissing match and she wanted nothing to do with it.
"We've got a problem," Hannah whispered towards the two Protectorate capes as she carefully closed the door to one of the hospital rooms behind herself. "A big one."
She'd been tasked with doing a preliminary interview with the victims, getting whatever testimony she could that would be put together with what the doctors noted and whatever Panacea would give them.
"What's wrong?" Velocity asked, his voice equally quiet.
"One of those girls was HardHeart," Miss Militia said. Colin frowned, the name was familiar but he couldn't place it...
"Who?" Velocity asked, saving Colin the trouble of doing so himself.
"HardHeart was one of Legend's Wards before she turned 18 and got transferred to Kansas City as a Protectorate member," Hannah explained. "She was reported as being Killed in Action against the Fallen. She was sent there specifically because her power made herself and those affected resistant to Master effects."
Velocity hissed while Colin crossed his arms.
That complicated things. Badly.
With a frown under his beard, Colin flipped open a panel on his left wrist, revealing a miniature computer. Pressing one of the buttons, the man began to compose a text.
Someone coming back from the dead wasn't unheard of, powers were weird after all... But a member of the Protectorate being reclaimed from a cult? After her team leader had provided a body that had been buried with honors?
Heads were going to roll.
Absentmindedly, Colin accepted the can of cold coffee that was offered to him as he stared at the small screen and waited. He'd sent a text to Legend with the information that they currently had and, as an individual familiar with HardHeart, he was going to be needed to confirm the girl's identity.
The implication that the Kansas City branch of the Protectorate might be compromised felt like a snake, coiling inside of Colin's diaphragm. He didn't have access to the Protectorate databases but he was afraid of what he might find if he checked the Kansas City roster.
That they were always desperate for help had been something of a joke among the other branches. Colin knew that it was considered a better posting than his own city, he'd heard people saying 'Well, at least it's not Brockton Bay'.
How much of that was cultivated? Had it been made to look like that as some kind of a trap? Had Apollyon known? Was that why he'd brought the victims to Brockton Bay instead of the much closer and much better funded hospitals in Missouri?
Looking up, Colin watched the man sit back down across from the younger parahuman, Billy. Forcing himself to look at the man in a new light, with fresh eyes as Glory Girl immediately began needling him again, Colin realized...
Apollyon did not look smug or satisfied with himself. There was no happiness in his expression as he humored the belligerent teenager. No, Apollyon just looked... tired.
Colin frowned, thinking, until his wrist-mounted communicator dinged. Looking down, he saw that Legend had responded. Something short, brief and efficient-
Legend: OMW
Looking back up, Colin could see light roaring through the windows as the fastest overland Mover on Earth Bet approached at speed.
"...Boss man is not happy," Velocity mumbled. "Not happy at all."
"No," Miss Militia agreed. "No, he's not."
"Think one of us should tell him that the perp is already dead?" Velocity asked, only half-joking to Armsmaster's experienced ear. "Might calm him down."
"The Master might be dead," Colin agreed as they all heard a door slam open in the lobby downstairs. "But we don't know about their accomplices."
"You think the Heartland branch might have been working with the Fallen?" Miss Militia asked, doubt in her tone.
"I don't know," Armsmaster admitted, uncertainty clear in his tone. "They may have been Master victims, too. Or coerced. We don't have enough information to start making any assumptions."
Whatever discussion the three capes could have had was cut off abruptly by the appearance of Legend, light literally bleeding from his form as he struggled to stay coherent in his rage.
As one, every cape in the Protectorate East-North-East straightened up.
This promised to be a difficult conversation. For a significant number of reasons.
Colin was just glad that none of those reasons were actually caused by him, or his department.
Yay! More crafting feats!
