Armsmaster strode into the Ward's headquarters, expecting the worst from what he had been told on the drive over.
"Armsmaster!" Gallant was the first to notice his arrival. "Good to see you sir."
Armsmaster gave him a nod then moved out of the way so the others that rode the elevator with him could join them.
"Dean!" Glory Girl floated past him and immediately went to her paramour and pulled him into a hug. Armsmaster had thought that they were broken up, but of course he didn't care much for teenage gossip so who actually knew.
Behind her sister Panacea walked more slowly, taking everything in and examining the injuries on those she was going to heal. That was what Armsmaster liked about the girl, she was strategic in that way. Didn't let emotion interfere with her healing. Admirable.
"Hey guys." She gave a small wave. "I heard about what happened and Vicky brought me as soon as she could."
Armsmaster put the niceties to the background as he looked over the whiteboard the Wards had set up. On it were comments and inferences about the Undersiders. Clever.
Grue's darkness didn't just block sight, but sound as well. Hellhound had to verbally command her dogs, which meant she likely didn't have powered control over them. And lastly was the Undersiders' newest member, Tin Girl. Limited shapeshifting, could store items inside her metallic body, apparent limitations of her strength. Then at the bottom of the list were comments about her spacetime abilities.
Inconsistent release of those trapped. Browbeat several days, Lung indefinite, hostages in bank after an hour. Timed at moment of activation or manual release?
Two forms of freezing. Fixed in space(i.e. Browbeat, hostages) and free in space(i.e. Lung, chair legs)
Frozen objects are immune to Clock's freezing. Also can't freeze through objects that are frozen.
If Vista is there she can shrink freezing areas. Sees them like a cloud in the area. More like a heat mirage.
The last one caught Armsmaster's attention. "Vista?" He asked.
"Yeah boss?" The youngest Ward had taken the least injuries so she was at the bottom of Panacea's priorities.
"Is this true? Can you sense Tin Girl's ability to freeze space and counter them?"
"Yeah. They tried to lure us into a sort of cloud of space but I noticed and realized I could just…shrink it. The energy wasn't gone but it was the size of a marble now."
"Interesting. That implies certain things about Tin Girl's powers." Armsmaster's brain was beginning to race. He put a clamp on the ideas his power was providing, promising to come back to them once he was in his lab proper. "Vista, I'd like to schedule for you to come to my lab this weekend. If we work together I may be able to create a device to allow us to see Tin Girl's energy even when you're not there."
"Got it! Don't have anything going on this weekend anyways."
"Good." He looked back to the white board and glared at the empty column that held Tattletale's name. "No info on her?"
"No sir." Vista said. "Gallant knocked her out of the fight early, and by the time she was back on her feet the rest of us were…well." The young girl was frustrated, angered by her loss to the criminals. As the Protectorate member in charge of the Wards it was up to Armsmaster to make her feel better.
"Continue examining the battle. That way you don't make the same mistakes that caused you to fail this time." Perfect. "And I will handle information gathering about Tattletale. I'll put together a team to go over witnesses and video footage. Just stay here and learn from your mistakes."
Vista's eyes were wide. "U-understood sir."
With wisdom dispensed, Armsmaster went over to the other Ward that he needed to speak with. The Tinker of the group.
"Kid Win. I heard that you used unauthorized tech in the field." It wasn't a question.
"Yes, Armsmaster." At least he looked contrite. "Piggot already had the power source confiscated. So I can't use it again."
"I see. From what I was told you teleported the cannon there in pieces? How does that work?"
"Well I figured out how to move things through spacetime wormholes by studying Vista's powers, but I couldn't move anything larger than a toy car. So I basically made the alternator cannon able to be put together from several smaller pieces. Even added a few redundancies so if pieces went missing it would still work as a whole."
"Interesting." That tech could be vital in getting over the wall in his nanothorn project. "That tech is quite useful. After you are healed go to your lab and pull up any documentation relating to your alternator cannon. I want to go over every inch of it before speaking to the review board."
"Got it!" Kid Win seemed excited despite the reprimand he had gotten. Armsmaster would never get kids.
"Armsmaster." This time it was Aegis who approached him, wounds healed at least enough for his own healing factor to do the rest. At least he didn't have any glaring holes in his body. "I wanted to talk to you about Ward deployments, because I think us going in without backup today showed some potential flaws."
A discussion that would actually take up Armsmasters time and attention. He scanned the room and made sure nothing would need his attention, but CLockblocker was already on the couch playing some videogame, Gallant had left with Glory Girl to another room, and Browbeat was always fine so that was nothing that needed him.
"Very well. I'd like to hear what you have to say."
"So first of all Shadow Stalker wasn't even informed because it was decided she was to far away to help-
Let's Play
"Are you sure you're okay Dean?" Victoria fussed over her sort of boyfriend(maybe depending on how their next few conversations went).
"I'm fine Vicky. Don't worry. I got tossed around a little but the armor held up so I just have some bruised ribs." He grabbed the hand that was looking him over and gave it a squeeze. "You can relax."
Vicky scoffed but gave a grin. "Yeah, have you met me? I never relax, ever." Her smile fell. "I wish I was there, I could have helped."
"Vicky, it's fine. We're fine. Just bad luck that you had to get to Brockton U early." Dean meant it as a reassurance but it just added to the weight that Vicky felt.
It wasn't bad luck, it was design. She had purposefully kept herself from being dragged into the bank robbery so she could act as lookout for Coil's secret scheme. A scheme that either hadn't happened or that her, Shard, and M missed.
"Next time you go up against the Undersiders, call me. No matter the time or place or if we're broken up or not. Call me." VIcky's voice was firm and in this state Dean knew better than to argue.
"Promise. Now you have to promise to not feel guilty. Nobody could have predicted this."
Victoria just smiled and said nothing.
Hours later the Wards had all gone home, Amy took the bus to the hospital, and Victoria had taken to the skies, flying towards her and Shard's meeting place.
"What happened?" Was the blond's first words as she entered the abandoned Ferry Station.
"Huh?"
"What happened to your plan? Stop Coil's operation. The whole reason I allowed the bank robbery in the first place."
"Something changed. I don't know why." Shard was speaking in that detached way that for a while Victoria thought was cool but was now quickly getting on her nerves. "I'm scouring every source of information I can get my hands on and Coil did nothing during the bank robbery, and even after."
"So this all happened for no reason? We let the Undersiders get away with forty thousand dollars because your plan was wrong!?" Victoria was getting angry.
"It wasn't wrong!" Shard snapped back. "I got an alert from my system. Light the match? The quest chain for taking down Coil? It was completed. Somehow just us being out there disrupted his operations. The plan is working Glory Girl."
"Ah yes the almighty system." She said sarcastically.
"Hey! You're the one that helped us realize that the system has access to information we don't! It knows that we messed with Coil, and thanks to that we know we're doing something right!"
"We don't know anything, Shard! I don't know anything. All the information I get from you is second hand. I have no idea if you're lying about your quest or not."
"Lie?" Shard looked genuinely taken aback by that. "Why would I lie about this?"
"Shaker and Striker."
"What?"
"Shaker and Striker." Victoria repeated. "Those are the powers you got from fighting the Wards this time right?" Shard looked like she was going to speak but she just barreled through. "Fighting heroes gives you an excuse to increase all those powers of yours. To get stronger and complete those quests."
"That's not why I'm doing this. I became a cape to help people, to save lives, and that's what I'm doing with my infiltration. Because Tin Girl was there I could direct the Undersiders, make sure there weren't any innocents caught in the crossfire, ensure that the Wars were taken out as painlessly as Tin Girl could make it."
"Really? Everything you do is just to help people?"
"Yes!"
"Then how did you get your latest Master and Breaker power?" Victoria asked.
"What?"
"You heard me. Flying Brick and Child of Flemming. Both of those you never explained how you got. You told me to trust you and I did, but that was before you led me around by the nose and kept me out of a fight where my friends were in danger."
"You know me Glory Girl. You know you can trust me."
"Can I? I know nothing about you." And that was true. Victoria had no idea Shard's real name, her face, she didn't even know if she was even a girl or not considering how often and easy it was for her to change that with her abilities. She didn't know how old the girl was, if she lived with her parents, or even if she had parents considering she always used the neutral 'parents' whenever referring to her guardians in a way that made it obvious she was covering something up. "I want to trust you. I want to believe that you're on the side of good, but it gets real hard when I literally don't know anything. All we've done is help criminals rob a bank and do nothing to actually hurt Coil's organization!"
Shard flinched back at the chastisement and started rubbing her arms as if there was a sudden chill. Victoria's face softened. "I'm sorry I yelled, but it is hard. I know me being an out cape isn't the norm, and I do understand not sharing your identity, but you have to give me something. Something that proves this partnership isn't a one way street."
Shard hesitated, then started to speak. "It was three years ago when my mom died."
Oh.
"It was a dumb car crash, she was on her phone and didn't see the other driver. After that things went downhill. My dad forgot how to take care of us for a while, and even after he pulled himself together it wasn't smooth sailing. My best friend betrayed me, started bullying me at school, and eventually everything she did made me just…snap." Victoria could see the pain, even through Shard's full body costume. "Then I woke up and had my power and things started looking up. M became my friend, I met you, and we started working on this project. And…and you're right." Shard let out a deep sigh.
"We haven't done any real damage to Coil and it's my fault. Flemming? The way I got it and why I'm not proud of. I think ever since then I've just been trusting my power, thinking that as long as I follow it and whatever intelligence is behind it I wouldn't make more mistakes."
"Shard," Vicky interrupted. "I've seen you in action, planning and fighting and keeping this weird little trio you me and M have on track. You should trust yourself, and if you don't turn to a friend like me or M, not something we have no idea if it even has morals like humans do."
"You're right, you're right." Shard let out a breath and all of a sudden seemed much lighter. "Our plan shouldn't just be following the system. I've got plenty of information from Tin Girl in my back pocket. I'll sift through it all and put together a list of locations to hit."
Victoria smiled and held out her hand for a fist bump. "There, not perfect but it's a start." The fist bump was returned. "We need to have a bigger conversation later, about everything, but I do trust you a lot more now." She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "It's getting late and I have homework I need to finish. We'll talk more about this later, right Shard?"
"Absolutly," Shard said. "Victoria."
Let's Play
Princess Powerful. Princess Powerful. Fucking Princess Power.
How in god's name was Coil's plan stopped by a Tinker that named herself Princess Powerful?
"Gah!" Coil allowed himself a burst of anger and punched his desk. This couldn't just be bad luck could it? What were even the odds that a new hero would debut themselves at the same time and place he was pulling off a kidnapping. Instinctively Coil knew that Princess Powerful didn't know anything about his plans, the brightly colored cape was stopping any crime in the area, even ones not related to him in the timeline where Dinah Alcott was untouched.
The big issue was nobody knew who the hell she was. The only reason people even knew the flamboyant cape's name was because she seemed to shout it in the third person every time she fought crime. There were none of the usual hints of Tinker activity, no scrap theft in the standard haunts, no large scale purchases of electronics or metals. Princess Powerful was a ghost who appeared out of nowhere to 'fight crime in the name of love and peace' as the woman herself put it.
His operations were at a turning point and Dinah was one of the larger pieces he needed in order to get the board under his control. Without her there was too much uncertainty to bring in the Travellers and their giant liability of a friend. He shot off a quick email telling Accord he was no longer interested in the group and that he could do with them as he pleased. It was honestly a coin flip if Accord killed them all or washed his hands of them. It probably depended on how well dressed they were if he was being honest.
Things weren't all bad though. Trainwreck had successfully united the remains of Merchant territory under him, and with Lung gone and Coil behind the scenes it was a matter of weeks before the ABB was sliced into pieces for him and the Empire to divide amongst themselves.
Not only that but the Undersiders accomplished their mission splendidly and proved that they had what it took to play in the big leagues with their complete defeat of the Wards. He could switch his plans around, place the Undersiders where the Travelers would have gone in his plan and then find other out of town talent to act as the dissidents and scapegoats he needed.
Yes, that was a good plan. Especially with how useful Cameron has been becoming. Between stopping Lung and, from what Coil had put together from the after action reports, helping lead the Undersiders against the Wards she was becoming more and more of an investment worth keeping.
He would have to keep a closer eye on her from now on, see if she continued to exhibit leadership material or if it was only limited to combat situations.
As for Dinah he doubted that there would be another perfect storm of the PRT and Protectorate being distracted and out of town for him to take her. Especially since the longer she was out there the more likely she would tell her parents and get attention that took her out of Coil's grasp. Instead he had to make an active move. He sent a message to one of his moles in the PRT to look over a specific file sent to his department about a girl who was experiencing heavy headaches and push for her to be evaluated for powers. Dinah in the Wards would be more easily accessible to him as Thomas Calvert, especially one he took over Piggot's position as Director of the PRT.
His plan wouldn't be foiled by Princess Powerful of all people, he would be victorious.
Let's Play
I threw a ball for a dog as I waited for Bitch to show up at her impromptu dog shelter. It had been a day since the bank robbery and my conversation with Victoria.
She was right, I had been relying too much on my system and was avoiding actually trusting my fellow heroine. I had already emailed her a list of locations that belonged to Coil that she'd be able to take on without much difficulty or legal repercussions. Good old fashioned crime takedowns. I had done that but hadn't told Vicky about meeting up with Bitch tonight.
I felt like I should but at the same time I would feel bad. The three of us had fought the Empire together, saved a whole gaggle of dogs. I was here to give her medicine for sick and injured dogs.
The scarred dog brought the ball back to me and I threw it again. The other workers here tonight were giving me a wide berth, which made sense considering I had come here in a completely all black outfit with a mask, so that nobody would connect the me here dropping off medicine with Shard.
I checked the clock and it was ten to eight. Bitch was almost late. I decided to go through my system while she took her time.
Quest Complete! Light the MatchRewards:
5000 EXP
+1 SP Cap
The rewards from stopping whatever it was Coil was doing the day of the bank robbery. Coil's thinker powers must have given him warning about them being stopped due to our interference, which gave some insight into what they might be. Something that could warn him of us stopping a crime but wouldn't let him know that there was a mole in his organization.
Then there were my Cape Power Rolls. Victoria had accused me of staging things so I would get more powers, but there was no way that was true. Yes the faster I gained powers the more likely it would be that I would have a tier 2 by the next Endbringer battle, but I wouldn't ever manipulate a situation to hurt innocent heroes just for power.
I pushed those thoughts out of my head and pulled up my fourth Shaker power.
1d72=48=Starvation
Shaker: StarvationCost: 8 SPAt will, you may dramatically accelerate the decline of all personal resources—without any additional benefits—in a 50-meter radius. Personal resources, in this case, means things like the internal energy and fat stores of living beings.
This causes everyone except the user to rapidly burn through their available resources, collapsing due to dehydration or lack of energy. In the case of parahumans who utilize internal energies of some kind, this also accelerates the decline of those energies as well.
That was an awful power. Oh god. It literally just starved everybody around me. I couldn't even exclude people from my power, just everybody in my radius without any discretion. I wouldn't say this would never be useful but holy shit it was just sadistic. This went into the same pile as Big Baby.
Hopefully my Striker ability didn't do something horrific like turn people into sludges of sentient goo that did nothing but feel pain.
1d81=58=Backup
Striker/Trump: BackupCost: 9 SPYou can absorb and store the personalities and powers of others. The absorbed memories and powers can be imprinted into a new body, creating a separate existence. The process does not overwrite the new host's original powers and experiences. The power absorption is temporary if the target is in good health but can become permanent if they are weakened.
Thank god this wasn't horrific. Well too horrific. There were some obviously useful and kind applications to this power. For example if there was a coma patient and a body that didn't have any previous mind inside of it it would be a match made in heaven. Or if there was consent between individuals it could temporarily give others powers and the memories needed to use them. Obviously niche situations but still ones that meant good things unlike making everybody around me starve.
Unfortunately a quick check with my Thinker abilities made me realize that there weren't any glaring loopholes in the power. I couldn't give myself the personalities and powers of a person, so power copying and then excising the personality imprint like a virus from my brain wasn't possible. I had a good feeling about this power.
What I didn't have a good feeling about was Bitch not being here. She had told Cameron, who was the only other Undersider in their base at the time, that she was going out and wouldn't be back tonight several hours ago. I had assumed that meant she was going to eventually make her way here and spend the night with me helping the dogs, but she was late; seriously late.
"I've got to go." I said to one of the volunteers looking after the dogs. "If Bitch comes by, tell her where I left the medicine and that the instructions are in the box." And with that I helped put the dog I was exercising away and made my way to the roof. From my pocket dimension I pulled out a statuette of the woman in question, one of several I had made of the Undersiders just in case, and used my Second Sight.
I promised myself not to use it on criminals except in emergencies or when they were being active as capes, but at the moment I wasn't exactly treating Bitch as a criminal so it was fine. I got a lock on her location and my brain supplied an overlay of a map of Brockton to figure out her exact location. Near the Trainyard. A storage facility if I was remembering correctly.
I switched out of my generic outfit and put on my Shard uniform. I had a bad feeling and if this went down poorly I was going to be ready.
Name: Taylor Anne HebertPerfect Body LVL 16SP Cap12Loose SP7Tier 1 Powers(28)Mover(1)Shaker(4)Brute(4)Breaker(2)Master(3)Tinker(3)Blaster(1)Thinker(1)Striker(2)Changer(3)Trump(3)Stranger(1)Tier 0 Powers(79)Synergy Powers(28)Power Upgrades(6)April 15th
A.N.
Decided to post this a little early since honestly the words just poured onto the page and had it ready faster than usual.
I think this is a pretty fun set of interludes. Catching up on the internal thoughts of characters we haven't for a while.
Glory Girl is the big one of course because she's finally pushing back against Taylor. Taylor has been keeping GG at arms reach for a while and ever since she had her confrontation with Sophia she has been acting more hesitant and less willing to trust herself. The situation isn't perfectly resolved, there's still going to be growing pains. However the attack on Coil's organization is going to be getting much more active with the information being used.
Armsmaster's interlude was there for a few reasons. First to show the ripples. Glory Girl and Panacea weren't at the bank so they have no knowledge on Tattletale's abilities still, and because Armsmaster wasn't stripped of his Wards responsibilities due to the Lung situation he was the only one there and not Miss Militia. The chewing out was also less in depth because they didn't try to switch costumes and because there was minimal property damage from Glory Girl not being there to smash through the ceiling.
Coil's point of view exists to know how the infiltration is going from the other side. He's suspicious about something, but Cameron has been squeaky clean in general so he has no reason to think she's the mole. However he's much more on edge than he normally would be at this point in canon which may offset him losing Dinah and the Travelers. By the way, the Travelers aren't in the story now. In canon Coil uses Dinah as leverage to get them to work for him and without her he not only doesn't have that bargaining chip but also doesn't have her to help keep the pack of loose cannons in line. As a result he's passing on them being his secondary cape squad and is pivoting in his plans.
Now onto the powers. Holy shit on a stick starvation is a messed up power. Just people starve and dehydrate to death around you as long as it is active. No mercy, no letting certain people be immune to the effect. Just starvation. On the other hand, Backup is almost a god send for how I can use it for dramatic purposes. I also made sure to note that she can't give herself other people's powers with it because otherwise it would be way too broken.
Hope you all enjoyed the chapter and have a great day!