26 June 2011, Early Afternoon
Greg thought he'd been quiet while trying to sneak back into the house.
"You're late," said his little sister Julia from where she was standing inside the door.
"Gaaaah!" Greg's reaction was typical of someone who'd been startled by someone else. "Don't do that!"
And who is this? Garyx asked in his mind.
Is this someone we need to deal with?
Greg mentally sighed.
Yes, it's someone we need to deal with, but not in the way you're thinking of. She's my sister Julia.
Ah, siblings. I have – or had – siblings, Garyx noted.
I believe the term you would use for my family would be dysfunctional? Yes, dysfunctional.
"Who're ya talking to?" Julia asked, looking closely at Greg's face.
"No one!"
"Uhuh." Julia stated. "You've got that look on your face you get when you're talking." She sniffed a bit. "And why do you smell like smoke? What did you do, brother of mine?"
"I didn't do anything!" Greg denied as he closed the door.
"Just like you didn't do anything to get all those bans on PHO?" Julia had a very smug smirk on her face.
"How did you find that out?"
"I suspected," she admitted, "but wasn't sure until you just confirmed it." Her smirk was now very smug, coming up to an eight of ten on PHO's smugness scale.
"I am so stupid," Greg muttered.
"Nah," Julia said. "Stupid implies a lack of intelligence. Yours is more like wisdom was your dump stat."
Greg was now wishing he'd never taught his sister to play D&D.
"But seriously, what happened?" she asked, insistent on the matter. It was then that he noticed she had her phone out with a video queued up, which clearly showed him (thankfully from behind, not that it would prevent those who knew him from recognizing him) getting chased into an alleyway. She played it on mute, leading to the tremendous blast of fire that came out of said alleyway. It ended with the arrival of emergency services, including the PRT and BBPD.
"That has to be some kind of record," Greg muttered. "It was streamed live."
"Spill, spill, spill, spill, spill!" Julia said while bouncing up and down.
"I think I'd like to hear this, too."
Greg and Julia slowly turned around to find their father standing there. Their father, Lt. Charles Veder, of the Brockton Bay Police Department. "Busted," he said with a smile. "Let's take this to my den. But I would really like to know what happened today, along with what's been happening."
Ooooh boy, Greg thought to himself.
Here it comes.
Garyx only cackled in Greg's mind.
OK, bright boy, Greg snarked,
my dad interrogates some of the meanest people in Brockton Bay. I learned a long time ago not to lie to him, he will break
you and get to the truth. So how do I handle this?
That, my young friend, is something you're going to have to figure out for yourself. But I agree on one thing: Be honest and forthright. Tarry not with subterfuge, be bold, brazen and direct. Act. If you find yourself deceived, act to correct it.
- - - - - - - - - -
The Wards happily found themselves back in their quarters aboard The Rig. It was their first day back after their group training camp, and they'd had the weekend off. It wasn't too long before Miss Militia joined them.
"Welcome back from camp," she said, a grin evident underneath her bandanna. "We've a few things to cover before the patrol and PR schedules are gone over.
"We've got a new cape in the city," she said to groans from all around the table. "Whether this is a new Trigger or an older Parahuman is unknown. Based on the evidence of the one incident, they are a fire-based Blaster. We don't know anything concrete at this time, but there's no evidence that they've killed anyone."
"So strange Cape, throws fire around, isn't Lung," Dennis said, grinning. "Two of us don't have to worry about heat and fire. The rest of us left our Nomex™ costumes back in R&D."
"Or Glenn threw them out," Chris muttered. "The stories we could tell…" his voice trailed off darkly.
"You may regale your newer teammates with your horror stories
later," Miss Militia continued, as if the interruption hadn't happened. "Should you think you've encountered this Cape, and things are peaceful, approach cautiously. Otherwise, observe from a distance and call it in. If trouble starts, call it in and try to keep civilians out of it. We do not want a repeat of April."
Dennis and Taylor both shuddered. "Duly noted," Taylor said. "I'll see if I can't keep him from being stupidly heroic."
"Thank you." Miss Militia swiped her tablet, bringing up the next item. "Especially as the Protectorate leadership agrees with your choice of the next Wards' leader, complete with a PRT endorsement. The changeover will happen in a PR event on the thirtieth of this month. Senior Wards are expected to attend, however we would appreciate it if you could all make it.
"There will be a schedule for who is at the PRT / Protectorate booth during the Fleet Week / Independence Day festivities. You and your families will be offered guest passes to watch the fireworks from The Rig, if you want. Covert transportation will be provided."
She stopped to take a drink of her coffee before continuing. "There will be extra PRT and police presence around the Palanquin nightclub during the week. The reason is that Bad Canary will be headlining there during the lead up to the Fourth of July, and then putting on a show at the old ferry station. We expect there will be trouble, namely between Canary's supporters and various groups that have anti-Parahuman sentiments."
"Bigots, you mean," Taylor said.
"Yes. There are those who think she should have been locked away in the Birdcage for accidentally Mastering her abusive ex-boyfriend. And there are those who think otherwise, so we're expecting multiple factions." Miss Militia shook her head. "It could get ugly."
There was a bit of quiet mumbling from Dinah as she quietly asked herself some questions. "The highest chance for something to happen will be on the fourth, with a 45.67% chance." There was a jingle from Dinah's PRT phone. "Samira agrees, and mentions it's likely to be non-Parahuman in nature."
"Thank you, Weaver. I was going to ask, but…" Miss Militia's phone played its incoming text jingle. She read the brief message. "Precogs, what can you do?"
It was well known amongst the Wards – among most users of Parahumans Online, actually – that the user known as Winged_One was a troll of the highest order. Samira had admitted that she had been posting on PHO since three months after the Lausanne incident. The panics had been awesome in its scope – people were wondering if the entire planet would need to be quarantined and other such nonsense.
It appeared that subtle trolling was endemic to Samira's personality. Or she'd been at it for so long it was a habit now.
At least she wasn't setting up psychic time bombs anymore, Hannah thought to herself.
She also undid all the ones she'd set up since she'd arrived.
No, so far having the
former Simurgh on your side, even as an inveterate troll, was far better than having her against you. Even if it meant you got helpful bits of information that were also subtly trolling you.
- - - - - - - - - -
The evening patrol was going nicely. It was the last aerial Wards patrol Naurelin would have with Aegis. She soared serenely, just under the five hundred foot mark, keeping her eyes and ears open while Aegis floated within earshot. With no wind and their low airspeed, that was actually a fair distance away.
"Aegis, I think we've got a mugging in progress," Naurelin rumbled. "No, it's a purse snatcher."
"Yeah, I see it," Aegis answered. "There he goes."
"I'm gonna go invisible and get ahead of him," Naurelin said. "He'll probably see you and run. He's already running from the police."
"Keep your transponder on, I'll call it in while you– That's unnerving." While he'd been talking, Naurelin had quietly disappeared. He could still feel the blast of wind as she got ahead of the purse snatcher, looking for a place to land so they could get him in between several rocks (namely the authorities) and a hard place (a dragon).
Aegis called it in and began his descent.
- - - - - - - - - -
The purse snatcher came to a halt just inside some alley and began looking through the purse, seeing if the woman he'd grabbed it from had anything interesting or valuable.
"You know, it's rather rude to rifle through a lady's purse," Aegis said. "But somehow I don't think you care."
"It's one of the kids," the guy muttered. With far too much bravado for a non-Cape, he brandished the small knife he'd used in cutting the purse's strap in Aegis' direction.
"Yes, I'm a Ward," Aegis stated. "Want to know something else? We're seldom out on patrol alone."
Naurelin took her cue, and silently appeared behind the lackluster example of humanity. With a small snort, a bit of smoke blew out of her nostrils, alerting the purse snatcher to her presence behind him.
Slowly, and you almost hear the ratcheting sound, he turned around and found himself nose to muzzle with Naurelin.
"Ebbehebbehebbehebbehebbeh," he intelligently said.
"I think it would be in your best interest to simply give up," Naurelin counseled the man. "Otherwise, I might have to do something you'd regret, and then I'd have to fill out paperwork. I'd rather not have to do that. So, please?" With that, Naurelin smiled.
A dragon's dentition is often described in such lurid terms as "teeth like daggers / shortswords" and such. That might describe her canines, each easily ten inches long. Her incisors, while less distinctive, were still the size of a man's hand and sharp as wood chisels. Her premolars were like hatchet blades, and her molars were the size of anvils. All harder and tougher than mere steel.
Surprisingly, the impressive set of teeth were not white, but a creamy ivory color, spotlessly clean and well maintained. Or at least thoroughly scoured by the things she chewed on and her inherent magic.
The man's reaction was not to fall over in a dead faint. Instead, he slowly sank to his knees, the knife and purse falling to the ground. His hands were obediently placed behind his head.
"Thank you," Naurelin said to the man. "I really appreciate your consideration. And maybe you'll have learned an important lesson."
It was all Aegis could do to keep from laughing. Still, he had a job to do. He took the guy's hands, one at a time, and zip cuffed him while the police caught up with them.
"Here he is, officer," Aegis said as the policemen finally arrived on scene. "Looks like just purse snatching. He had a knife, but my partner managed to de-escalate the situation."
The police officer took one look at Naurelin and chuckled. "I can imagine how, so I won't need a demonstration."
"Suits me just fine," Naurelin quietly rumbled. "All I did was ask him politely to stop. I even smiled."
The police officer, whose badge read McCord, laughed. "Here comes my partner now."
Naurelin craned her head around to see another police officer walking up with a very familiar-looking person following, with another, kind-of-familiar face trailing behind the two of them. Her eyes went wide on recognition. Unconsciously, she began fidgeting nervously.
The policeman's partner picked up the purse and handed it to Paige. "Here you go, ma'am," he said in a polite and professional manner.
"Thank you, Officer Milner," Paige said. She took a quick inventory of her purse. "It appears everything is here."
"Please don't let this spoil your visit to Brockton Bay, ma'am." They began marching the man back to the squad car, reading him his rights as they went.
Paige's companion was almost laughing at Naurelin's nervous antics. "Lord ha' mercy, Paige," Helen stated from where she was standing, "I think you've got a fan! A really big one, too!"
"Uhm," Naurelin asked nervously. "Yeah, I am. Could I maybe get your autograph?"
