(Worm) Pebble in the Path: Part II
Cyclone
Robotech Nerd
- Location
- Earth, Sol System
A short while ago...
They were here. The Triumvirate, Cauldron, the most powerful members of the Protectorate on a carefully crafted lie, and a few other key players they'd recruited under other pretenses. All those years -- decades, really -- had been building up to this, and now, they were using a plan formulated on information from a future that would never be.
Alexandria hung back with the mastermind of their plan.
"Are you sure about this?" she asked.
"I can't remember ever being less sure of anything in my life," Contessa admitted, a bittersweet smile on her face. "That said, given what we're doing, I'd say that's for the best."
"Fair enough," the iconic heroine acknowledged. It did make a certain perverse sort of sense. "Before we do this, any last minute advice?"
The world's strongest human Thinker paused to consider the question for a moment. "Don't pick a fight with Taylor Hebert."
Alexandria took a misstep at the seeming non sequitur. Who the hell is Taylor Hebert? she wondered. "Why?" she asked.
Contessa hesitated again. "She wanted to work with the PRT, but you pushed her. She killed you, blackmailed the PRT into accepting her into the Wards, then got herself lobotomized and masterminded Scion's death."
That was... disturbing. "If she's that dangerous..."
Contessa shook her head. "She's just a teenager bullied by Shadow Stalker right now. She hasn't even triggered yet."
"...I see." Very, very disturbing.
"Let's do this," Contessa said, obviously dismissing the matter.
* * *
Alexandria looked at the surprisingly frail-looking figure in the bed. It was strange. In the last few days, she'd probably seen more of Contessa -- the real Contessa -- than she had in all the decades they'd known each other.
Ultimately, though, the deed was done. Scion was no longer a threat to humanity. The Endbringers were pacified. The battle had largely been contained, and the PRT had miraculously managed to keep it all largely under wraps.
She considered getting a healer to bring Contessa out of the coma... but there were precious few healers who could work on brains without altering them, even fewer healers she felt she could trust with something like this, and the two groups did not have any overlap.
Still, for the first time in a long time, she felt hope.
Even if she had other things to do. Like head off whatever was going to happen with the Hebert girl.
* * *
Chief Director Rebecca Costa-Brown stared at the file on her screen for a long moment, then closed her eyes and massaged her temples. The cape name Contessa had mentioned had been the obvious starting point; capes and their exploits were uncommon and public enough that it was rare for two capes to have the same cape name.
And Shadow Stalker was a Ward.
She could almost picture what must have happened. Shadow Stalker caused Hebert to trigger, and in the heat of the moment, Hebert lashed out, attacked her, maybe even killed her. Something -- probably her powers -- had attracted Rebecca's attention, causing her to take a personal hand in recruiting her... but the girl probably hadn't been as dazzled as she'd expected. A misjudgment, a hard sell, and a girl pushed too far...
She must have thought Hebert's powers were spectacular if she had gone in person to handle it. And still underestimated them to get killed by her. The fact that Hebert would've gone on to successfully blackmail the PRT meant she probably rated at least an A-class threat.
A Thinker, probably, given the whole "masterminded Scion's death after a lobotomy" part. A very powerful one if Rebecca had taken a personal interes-
Her eyes snapped open. Would Taylor Hebert trigger with Scion's version of Path to Victory?
After a moment, she shook her head, ending that line of thought. No sense in coming up with wild theories without more data. She looked at Shadow Stalker's file again and stroked her chin thoughtfully. She considered just killing the Hebert girl to eliminate the threat -- after all, with Scion and the Endbringers gone, they shouldn't need someone that powerful -- but she recoiled at the idea. She'd done a lot of reprehensible things in her life, but in the end, they'd all been for the greater good, the survival of humanity.
This? This would be just to save her own neck, to take the easy way out in dealing with a girl who almost certainly wanted to be a hero anyway -- why else join the Wards, after all? -- ruined by a bad apple, one she could do something about.
No, this required a different touch.
She picked up the phone.
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