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Rating:
Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warning:
Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Category:
Gen
Fandom:
Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Relationship:
Alexander/City Building
Characters:
Rebecca Costa-Brown | AlexandriaDragon (Parahumans)Director James TaggEmily PiggotColin Wallis | Armsmaster | DefiantBastion (Parahumans)
Additional Tags:
Self-InsertCYOAEndbringerA man finds his hobbyThe rest of the world is terrifiedCausing major wars by accidentTeehee~Misunderstandings
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English
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Published:2025-02-16Updated:2026-02-25Words:229,706Chapters:83/?Comments:559Kudos:1,458Bookmarks:363Hits:86,824
(End)Bringing You A New Home! (Endbringer SI)
10moorem
Chapter 71: Chapter 71: Gear Up
Summary:
Did someone say: humanitarian crisis?
Chapter Text
Chapter 71: Gear Up
-Renji POV-
Awareness returned to Renji slowly, thoughts meandering and slow as molasses. Normally there would be nothing like this, no in-between state of consciousness. He was either awake and alert, or he was not.
Yet now there was a gradient, a gentle twilight for his awakening. He could feel himself stirring awake, pushing past the sleep slowly. It should have upset him, perhaps even concerned him. This was weakness, after all, a frailty. Logically, he should be worried that something had gone wrong with the operation, he should be lurching awake violently.
He didn't.
There was something…soothing about this? He didn't quite understand it himself, not in way he could adequately communicate. The feel of the pillow against his cheek, the warmth of the cover around him, the restfulness of his mind that he had never known. It felt as if someone had scraped along his mind, pulling out cobwebs and anything that might impede his full function.
Yet, eventually, the serenity turned to restlessness. Stagnant waters lead to rot, this he knew, and to remain where he was would turn idleness to sloth.
Slowly, reluctantly, he opened his eyes, heart beating steady and calm.
The face of his maker was the first thing to greet him. They were resting in a chair, one large enough to accommodate their bulk, not too far from them, glancing towards the middle distance.
No doubt messing with their Mind Interface Unit, or plotting out the routes their scheme would have to take to upturn the current status quo. Or perhaps just zoning out.
Renji turned his head softly, eyes meeting with his creator.
After a few seconds their eyes focused on him, noticing he was awake. "Ah,"they said, shimmying closer in their -now clearly wheeled- chair.
"Good morning Renji! How was your nap?"
The question got a slow blink in reply, Renji still luxuriating in the peace he was feeling.
Eventually he spoke up, "I feel…good. Did you do something with my rest cycles?"
A triumphant smile spread across the blue face of Alexander, now looking very pleased with themselves. "I did indeed! Sleep is a very underrated phenomena, good for the mind and soul!"
Renji nodded, finally lifting himself up by his arms and swinging his legs around to dangle off the bed's frame. The clothes he wore now were not the ones he had on before the operation, he realised. Unlike the usual sharp and vibrant reds Renji typically wore the fabric was instead a soft blue, and instead of a kimono he was now wearing silken pyjamas of some kind. More distressingly was the cartoonish dinosaurs that those same pyjamas bore.
"What happened to my clothes?" Renji asked dryly.
"Oh, you're wearing them. I just transmuted them a bit, I'll return them once you get up," Alexander replied with a bright smile.
Renji sighed, well acquainted with Alexander's antics.
His feet touched the cool tiles of the labs floor, he shivered at the temperature difference between his bed and the cold floor, but quickly adapted.
"There, I'm up. Now give me my clothes!" Renji most certainly did not whine.
Alexander snickered at the display, before snapping his fingers a summer red kimono appearing…on the railing of his bed, his pyjamas staying as they were.
"Seriously?" Renji deadpanned.
Alexander giggled slightly, before pushing the chair backwards -Alexander still sitting upon it- using the bed as leverage. Then they stood, dusting themselves off slightly, before turning to the door.
"Once you're done changing meet me in room A-1, we can test your upgrades there," and with a final wave hid friend walked out of the room, leaving Renji alone for now.
"Seriously," he grumbled, "What on earth is the point?" He grabbed the kimono and pulled it off the railing, laying it down next to him as he began to discard his night wear.
"I mean, it's not even-"
He paused.
Did…Did he even know how to put on a kimono? Surely he did, right?
Except, no, he didn't. He wracked his brain, but could only remember Alexander materialising new clothing around him, when it was required, which wasn't often. Alexander's work tended to last, and was even capable of self-cleaning thanks to certain spells woven into the fabric. He had never needed to put one of these on himself.
"Oh, that bitch," he said, finally getting the joke Alexander was playing on him, and trying to come up with ways to get back at him.
-Alexander POV-
I glance up, Renji finally walking into the room after 30 minutes of waiting. I snap the book in my hands closed. From the feel of it, Renji had done a decent enough job. Oh, he had clearly messed up the placement of some things, hence why his kimono looked so crooked, but still – a decent job.
Not letting that show, I instead shake my head in false pity.
"Half an hour, for shame Renji."
"Did you seriously leave and make an entire testing room that's just next door," he instead asks, clearly tired of my bullshit.
"Maybe~"
Renji looked so done at that moment, a thousand eyed stare on his face.
"Let's…Let's just get the testing done first," he said, swiftly moving towards the centre of the room, scanners and equipment surrounding it.
"Alright, Let's…"
My eyes widened.
"Fuck!" The profanity from my mouth was raw and unfiltered, bitterness at what I had missed, what I had failed to see.
Renji's head snapped towards me, clearly hearing the anguish in my voice.
How could I have been so blind?! It was right there and I didn't see it!
"Oh, fuck! Renji, I could have made a Skyrim reference when you woke up, and I missed it!"
Renji took that in for a moment, and sighed, his tensed shoulders dropping.
"I don't know what that is, and I don't want to know. Please, just get on with the testing," Renji said, voice thick with exhaustion and pain.
Which I shared in! How could I forget! I came up with the idea while Renji was unconscious, and I forgot! What the hell! The chance to make one of the best references of all time, and I botched it!
Grumbling, still seething internally, I joined Renji near the centre of the room.
"So," Renji said, gesturing at the scanners surrounding him, "What is all this-"
He didn't get to finish, before I turned the equipment, likely worth millions -if not billions- of dollars, into a puff of hydrogen.
"It was for a bit," I grumbled, explaining myself to Renji. "I don't feel like it anymore," I say.
Which is true, missing the chance to say 'hey you, you're finally awake' will haunt my nightmares for years to come, but it wasn't the only reason.
Renji, clearly, didn't want any further diversions. Which made sense, this had been something he'd been agonising over. His lacking strength, his inability to assist me in battle. It ate at him, poisoned his soul with doubt. I had gotten my jokes in, but there was a point where it crossed the line from tasteful into just plain unneeded.
"Okay, first let's make sure everything still works perfectly," I say, beginning the starting tests, comparing against the baseline I had deep in my memories. Memory checks, flexibility, sword forms, etc. Everything checked out, so we began the true tests of his ability.
Renji, previously, could lift around two to three tons, which was respectable enough. That was enough to comfortably lift a car, possibly a van with some strain. If I recalled correctly that was in the same range as Glory Girl, who was a decently strong Brute.
Even before I added NanoPunk to my arsenal I possessed meta-materials capable of withstanding truly incredible amounts of strain, so Renji's true limits had mostly come down to the size of his frame. He couldn't lift too much while being as small as he was.
Now, with an increased ability to tell physics to fuck off and cry in a corner, Renji was much stronger than he had been.
Taking notes from the entities playbooks, much of Renji's mass was distributed over great spatial divides, using portals to connects them. Because of this, he could lift hundreds of tons of weight, casually break the sound barrier multiple times over and take hits that would instantly down any other paragon.
Needless to say, I wasn't so keen to test that last one, much to Renji's displeasure.
That same distributed nature of Renji's body also meant I could add a plethora of tools to my friend's arsenal. Personal forcefields, swords, bows with ludicrous draw strengths, more swords, bombs, swords, scanners, a personal teleporter, swords and more swords.
Renji insisted on all those swords, by the way. A good portion of the time I had spent planning Renji's new body had purely been trying to come up with different varieties of swords.
Once we confirmed all of Renji's new bag of tricks was working, we moved on to the final -and most esoteric- addition.
Unlike the paragons, Renji hadn't been given anything special to define him, no magical ability that scoffed in the face of reality.
That had changed.
There had been a part of me that wanted to influence the gift he would receive, rather than leaving it up to the whims of magic. Perhaps I could have used Renji's desire to protect me, as well as his position as my bodyguard, to form a skill that revolved around defence. Something that could keep him safe, even in the worst of times.
Yet I knew he wouldn't thank me for that, so I allowed nature to take its course, the magic instead shaping itself by using his soul as a blueprint.
And Renji? Renji was a sword, a weapon designed to slay my enemies, no matter how much I now wished otherwise.
Renji stared, transfixed, at the white sheen that had overtaken his blade. Even from here I could tell he saw something in that light that I could not. He spoke of possibilities, probabilities, futures. All of which he could cut.
Not easily. Not even quickly.
But he could.
He demonstrated this by standing, stock still, in front of a rotary cannon that I freshly fabricated. He began the test with a single swing, nothing abnormal about it, according to my senses, and when the cannon went to fire upon him it shuddered and jammed.
Renji had killed the possibility of being shot.
Apparently this wasn't something he could do multiple times in a row, and the bigger the possibility culled the harder it was, but it was still an ability that left me dumbstruck.
By the time testing ended, three hours had passed. The room was a ruin of slash marks, crushed equipment and cracked cement. Renji seemed pleased enough, humming a tune to himself with a small smile. More than that, he seemed eager for the next challenger to come his way.
Which, going by the alert my MIU was making, wouldn't be as long as I would have hoped.
For the drone had arrived in Boston, and the scans it took revealed much. My heart skipped a beat and if I had blood my face would have surely paled.
With a thought I pinged Renji, the man straightening up as he received the message.
"Not another dimension then?" The question was rhetorical, so I didn't bother replying, too engrossed at what was before my eyes. Just below the skein of the world, located right in Boston, was a sub-dimension the size of a city. It was being maintained, but more importantly…
"So they're still alive," Renji finished my own thoughts, clearly going over the hundreds of thousands of life signs spread across the pocket realm.
A number that was rapidly going down.
"…I thought they were dead."
"I think most did," Renji replied, as my mind raced for an explanation.
In such a tightly confined space, being so close to an unleashed Titan, they should be dead. The spatial warp alone should be deadly, the establishment of a pocket dimension even more so.
Both actions, unless controlled to do otherwise, had a tendency to produce exotic radiation.
Which kills people, to be clear.
Even if it didn't, the rampaging Titan should have finished them off.
So why was it that so many of them were still alive?
Obviously they were still dying, but it wasn't the amount it should have been!
In Earth Bet the amount of people residing in Boston was around 500,000. Currently there were still 380,000 people still alive, which was insane given that they had been cut off from the rest of the world and moved into a pocket dimension to fend for themselves.
It just didn't make-
I stopped that line of thought, clearly it did, I just wasn't getting it.
Okay let's work through this logically.
"The Titan likely isn't active," I say, sharing my theory with Renji.
"Because they'd all be dead? That's true," Renji replied, before offering his own thoughts, "There still would have been panic in the immediate aftermath. Riots, looting and other such things."
I nodded, even for a well adjusted populace, being suddenly transported by a kaiju into a sub-dimension would freak anyone out. Earth Bet was not well adjusted, and probably would have crashed out even more.
"Someone must have stepped in to stop it, the PRT?"
"Possibly, the local government and police force could have helped too. Even the villains, assuming a truce could be laid down."
That seemed sensible enough to me, the pieces coming together in my head. "The ambassadors probably would have reached out first thing, say what you want about Accord but he is organised."
Okay, so the initial panic is probably what killed the most people, but has since been cracked down upon. People are still dying, and well above the average of the current U.S. but that's still better than anything I could have hoped. That being said…
"It's not sustainable," I point out the obvious. No modern city is truly self-sustaining, with the only exceptions being my cities. Modern infrastructure just isn't built to last if suddenly cut off from supplies.
I run the calculations. The amount of perishable foods would mostly be used up by this point, so they'll start going through the non-perishables quickly. But, even for a city the size of Boston, they should still have a few days. No, it's the water situation I'm most worried about.
The ground taken from below the city is shallow, the crater of Boston only reaching 20 meters deep. So, no groundwater. Even worse than that is the fact that a good number of piping might have been damaged from the forceful translocation. Sewage bursting out into the streets could lead to an outbreak of disease, and might even contaminate large swathes of land.
Worst case scenario, Boston would have to depend upon bottled water and fruits for their hydration needs. I once again run the numbers, and don't like the result I come to.
Two days. In the worst case scenario, it would only be two more days until the death rate started to soar.
Which means I would have to come up with a plan to save an entire city's population in less than two days. And, going over my history, I wasn't exactly the picture of grace under pressure.
"Well, fuck."
-Pretender POV-
I stared at the unconscious form of Chubster, a man I had never met yet knew so much about. I was here, sitting by his side at a medical bed because that is what was expected of me. It was what Alexandria would have done, though not for any moral reasons.
People were tools, and tools needed to be well maintained, according to her.
"Estimated time of recovery?" The question was brusque. Yet the authoritative tone that underlined it could not be brooked.
"I-It's unclear ma'am, we're seeing unusual activity in his brain, and his injuries are severe. The b-best estimate we have is a few weeks," a meek nurse replied, clearly new to the protectorate branch and overwhelmed with her current duties.
He would have tried to comfort her, even half-heartedly, but that wasn't what Alexandria did.
Instead he nodded, expression firm and posture undaunted. "He'll wake up sooner, he's strong," he said instead, before turning to leave.
Before passing through the door of the patient's room he turned to give the room one final glance and turned to the nurse, "I'm sure it doesn't need to be said, but if anything changes…"
The nurse nodded, nodded so fast he was almost worried her head would rip off.
"Of course! Of course, we'll inform you immediately!"
With that final appeasement, he turned to leave the room.
He passed the guards assigned to guard the room, and likely the stranger that was also assigned to this place.
Chubster was a person of interest now, more so than he already was from his numerous encounters with S-class threats and parahuman phenomena. The man to escape from an Endbringer's centre of power. The PRT, not to mention Cauldron, were very interested in hearing what he had to say.
Healers were being brought in to diagnose, and hopefully heal whatever he had gone through. Waiting weeks to learn what Chubster had seen was too slow, they needed answers yesterday.
And, as he returned to his current duties -his current chains- he could only wonder what horrors the man had seen, what he had experienced.
AN: Had some weird issues with my internet browser where I couldn't click on things for a bit, that was odd. Fixed now, though.
Renji has been upgraded! What do you think of the new duds? Honestly, one of the best parts of Renji is that he can bring out parts of Alexander that no one else can currently. That playful, mischievous, side is something that has peaked through before, usually when building a city, but never to the extent as when he's with Renji.
Also, as many of you guessed, the people of Boston are still around, something that no one else expected due to being in close proximity with an Endbringer/Titan. Now Alexander had to find a way to help, while shackled by more than a few restrictions.
Also the PRT has Chubster. Yay!
Thanks for reading! if you don't comment then, I must warn you, I have a gun!
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Work Header
Rating:
Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warning:
Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Category:
Gen
Fandom:
Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Relationship:
Alexander/City Building
Characters:
Rebecca Costa-Brown | AlexandriaDragon (Parahumans)Director James TaggEmily PiggotColin Wallis | Armsmaster | DefiantBastion (Parahumans)
Additional Tags:
Self-InsertCYOAEndbringerA man finds his hobbyThe rest of the world is terrifiedCausing major wars by accidentTeehee~Misunderstandings
Language:
English
Stats:
Published:2025-02-16Updated:2026-02-25Words:229,706Chapters:83/?Comments:559Kudos:1,458Bookmarks:363Hits:86,824
(End)Bringing You A New Home! (Endbringer SI)
10moorem
Chapter 72: Chapter 72: Crumbling City
Summary:
Reality proves that it hates Alexander specifically!
Chapter Text
Chapter 72: Crumbling City
-Bill Burback, Civilian of Boston-
Things had gone south.
Well, things had always been going south ever since he came of age, it simply hadn't been as rapid of a descent as the last few days.
He was old enough to remember the first sighting of Scion, the first whispers of Parahumans, the formation of the Protectorate and the killing of Vikare. He remembered the death of hope, the end of a golden dream, a lie spread to the masses.
Superheroes were real, and they were just like you and me!
What a joke.
Bill knocked back another drink, one from his private collection unfortunately, they were no longer selling alcohol in stores. He glanced out from his shitty apartment window, a small part of him hoping to see a blue sky, but finding only darkness, pitiless in its indifference.
It was a bleakness that had persisted for days now, the city gone mad because of a thing that, even now, was still only a few blocks away! Staring at an empty home, inscrutable and alien.
The streets were still full of broken glass and discarded rubbish, a reminder of the chaos that had first engulfed the city.
'Well,' he mused to himself, 'at least I'm not near the Wharf District.' Even in his drunken haze he could still feel the stirrings of pity for those who lived so close to The Teeth, who had all but taken over section of the city after the sky went dark. This was unlike before, when their hold over the area was still contested, now they were the de-facto rulers of a portion of the city and still seeking to expand.
They weren't alone, however. Charlestown was now fully under the protection of the Ambassadors, and even without the leadership of Accord -Apparently he had been away when everything went down?- they were still making strides in expansion. East Allston, similarly, was seeing an increase in Blastgerm patrols, biotinkered creatures prowling the edges of their territory.
Many other gangs had followed suit, some successful and some not.
And where was the PRT in all of this?
Doing fuck all, of course!
They had retreated, consolidated their patrols around the richer parts of the city, particularly Beacon Hill. Bastion, the Protectorate leader, was apparently still gallivanting around in a foreign land, when he was supposed to be protecting them!
Well, not many took kindly to that, everybody saw the writing on the wall. They were trapped here, no way in or out and with limited supplies to boot. The supermarkets were the first places raided, people clubbing each other to death over dried meat and cans.
The police couldn't stop thousands of desperate rioters, and certainly not when some members were joining in themselves!
Eventually that had stopped. The PRT and Blastgerm had announced an alliance, with the biotinker supposedly attempting to come up with ways of prolonging their food and water supply. The Ambassadors had joined in not long after, wanting to get in while they still could.
Together they put an end to the anarchy engulfing half the city.
He said half because the other end was still basically on fire, the people within having either moved out, found somewhere to bunker up, or joined in with the chaos.
Was this what it all came down to? Carving up the city, giving it to modern warlords, all in the name of necessity? He stared into the empty bottle at his side, the muddy reflection of himself in the bottle was warped and twisted, much like his life had become.
What happened to the dreams he had as a child? Of the promises his parents had given him? Of a nation that was free? Free from terror? Free from hunger and sickness? Free from this animal cruelty? Where had it all gone? Was it ever true to begin with?
He turned to look at the pills by his side.
He took another swig, considering.
His hand reached out.
It was not to be, however, as an explosion rocked his living room, causing the lights to dim and a startled swear to exit his mouth.
He staggered towards the window, and opened it to stick his neck out. Not the best decision, but he was drunk.
"Wha' th' hell is this shit!" The man screamed from his apartment window, red faced and angry. That face quickly paled, however, when a streak of black cut across his vision.
Shakily, he looked to his left.
His eyes landed upon a pool of black, an impossibly tall wall of it that had sheared an inch away from his face, going on to cut through a dozen other buildings.
He looked up, quiet now. Meek in the way a mouse would be when facing a hurricane.
Explosions lit the sky, buzzing contraptions revealing themselves and flying away from a jagged edge of grey that was streaking through the sky. It hit one of the machines, and exploded, then darted back out to pursue another. Whatever it was, it was fast. His bleary eyes only making out a blur of grey, a smudge against the backdrop of the black skies.
Another wave of black erupted from the blur, and Bill realised that wahatever had almost killed him, it had come from that thing.
With shaking hands, and a thundering heart, Bill closed his window and shut his blinds. Eager to return to the rotting apathy that a bottle always brought him.
And outside, the battle raged.
-Alexander POV-
Life update: things have not gone according to keikakku.
I curse as another drone is clipped, their magical cloaking sputtering out and unable to continue hiding.
Thanatos' head snaps towards the drone, even before the invisibility truly falls. A millisecond later the drone is gone, run through by the creature's knife-like fingers.
Holy fuck, it's fast!
My eyes blurred from how fast I was directing my units, issuing out order after order.
Now, you might be wondering how we got to this point hopefully not existing spectator of my life! Well, it all began with a brilliant plan, an idea so immaculate, so perfect, that nothing could go wrong.
Unfortunately, I'm me and this is Earth Bet, the place where good ideas go to die.
A flick of the creature's wrist sent a scintillating wave of abyssal black upwards, cutting through three of my drones, these ones still cloaked.
Why these drones were there to be destroyed had actually been a part of my solution to Boston's woes.
Question: if you have an impossible deadline, one that you know you can't meet, what do you do?
Well, obviously, you try to extend the deadline.
In this case that would be by supplying the people of Boston with supplies via stealthed drones. Each of these versions came equipped with an onboard fabricator, one capable of altering matter into something fit for human consumption. Not necessarily something palatable, but a meal that they can survive on until I come up with a better plan.
Those fabricators could also help with building water treatment plants, filters, and anything the city might need. Hell, they would have a direct line to me so I could update Boston's civilians should they run into problems they couldn't solve.
Truly, an elegant idea!
If only reality had agreed with me instead of kicking me in the dick!
Upon entry into the pocket dimension, the previously dormant Titan had been roused, and then began taking issue with my machines entry into its lair.
Now, this alone didn't ruin the plan. In fact I had considered the possibility it might happen. Forcing an entire fleet of drones into a personal dimension wasn't a subtle thing, after all. So Thanatos being able to sense the opening, and using that to attack my drones was understandable.
That was the reason I had sent so many.
However, when Thanatos continued to target the drones, even after moving away from the breach, I began to grow concerned. I knew for a fact that my creations shouldn't show up on any 'spatial sense', or whatever this thing used to see the world! I had tested it!
Yet, regardless of where the drones went, they were slowly being picked off.
Yet not quickly, which I found odd. There were also points where Thanatos just completely whiffed an attack, slicing at empty air mere meters away from a cloaked drone.
So, I hypothesised that this was because whatever method they were using to detect my creations wasn't perfect. I hope so, anyway, because the alternative is that the thing is just playing around with me.
Not a great thought to have.
Which brings us to the present, still desperately juking my drones out of the way of Thanatos, and desperately hoping to find a solution.
It was here where I, in my slowed perception of time, came to a rather dreadful hypothesis: Thanatos could sense magic somehow. Nothing else made sense, and this was the same Titan that had been in close proximity to the magic-filled Jinzhou.
Taking a gamble; I cranked the cloaks power up as far as it would go.
It exploded a microsecond later, a fracture in space tearing it in two.
Hypothesis confirmed.
I slowed my perception even further, to the point that my instincts began screaming at me to not go any further, and began thinking up a solution. I accessed the magical modelling scanners each drone possessed, the image taking four subjective seconds to load onto my MIU.
I noticed the trails of magical energy each drone let off, the lines crisscrossing in the black sky of the pocket dimension, their brilliant colour obvious against the dismal, non magical, background.
A drone was glanced by a wave of black, part of the runic array shattering and dispelling the magical cloaking. The forceful deactivation was akin to a signal flare in the dead of night, a metaphorical explosion of light next to the small candles that were the other runic machines.
It was destroyed a second later, and the next few attacks all missed their target.
My cognition returned to normal speeds, as I finally had a solution.
The next cloaking failure wasn't accidental, it was on purpose, a deliberate breach in the runic stabiliser. Another flare of magic, as the rest of the drones began to scatter.
It was apparent by now that almost all of the drones I had sent would be destroyed, sacrificed in order to hide a few remaining survivors. If this thing could truly perceive magic then the stark lack of magic in the surrounding area was only making my creations more visible to it.
Time to fix that.
This time ten of my drones, all spaced far apart from each other, began experiencing a meltdown in their magical reactors. Magic spewed from them like blood from a wound.
One went down. Then two. Four, and finally all ten were destroyed. All in less than a couple of seconds.
It didn't matter, I still had over a hundred left, and the surrounding area was being dyed in the colour of magic, Thanatos now needing five attacks to successfully take down even one of my hidden drones.
Another ten drones flared brilliantly, before dying unceremoniously.
Enough magic had spread across Boston that there was no longer a place it didn't touch. It drifted along on air currents, it seeped deep into the soil and it even passed through the people desperately attempting to eke out some semblance of life.
Yet it was thin, diffuse. Not enough to truly hide my drones, not yet.
Ten more fell. Twenty, thirty, fifty. Until, at last, only a handful remained.
All were stock still, some still floated above the city, while others had touched down upon the roofs of buildings. Their emissions were as diminished as I could make them, their magic still protecting them from the senses of the Titan Thanatos, but little else.
I watched the Titan search for my little infiltrators, the eye sockets blankly staring up at the sky, scanning the nearby buildings for any movement. There was none.
Eventually the Titan returned to where it had previously been standing, a lone and abandoned apartment building. An apartment that, I knew from my research into her, belonged to Mary.
It simply stood in front of the building, silent and vigilant.
Back in my lab I let out a sigh of relief. Seven drones had made it into Boston, seven out of hundreds.
My eyes strayed again to my second monitor, showing the feed of a drone with a decent view of the city. Many of the homes and buildings that had been near Thanatos were now levelled, little more than piles of rubble and rebar.
Buildings that had, thankfully, been abandoned due to being so close to Thanatos, yet it still left me slightly morose. Logically speaking, there was no way for me to have known that Thanatos could sense magic, but there was a part of me that was still bitter and strangely unsurprised.
God, I was so tired of things like this happening.
My gaze remained upon the broken buildings for a time, before I wrenched my gaze away from the screen, reminding myself that I still had my responsibilities.
Taizong was my creation, and it was his mistakes that had caused this, so I needed to set things right.
With only seven drones my previous plan simply wouldn't work. Even worse, if all my drones committed to any large scale act, Thanatos might sniff them out. My dreams of remotely fixing all of Boston's problems had just gone up in smoke.
Which left…
I turned in my swivel chair, reluctantly gazing upon the very ugly spear sitting on a workbench. Speaking favourably, it was the result of all my specialities blended together, a weapon that had a chance of breaching the Titan's defences and knocking the avatar offline.
Realistically, it was a mess of wires and subpar engineering. The chances of it working were…pitiful. Most likely, it would function for approximately half a second before exploding.
Sue me, trying to make a weapon that can kill a Titan, while on a time limit, was not easy!
There was still a way I could use it, but…
Well, I'd rather try every other method first.
Let's see...
Sending in another flood of drones would likely provoke a harsher response from the Titan, worst case it could follow the breach back and start wreaking havoc on the outside world again.
Having the drones make more drones was…possible, but not efficient. In addition, the high energy physics needed to transmute certain elements necessary for their protections would likely only alert Thanatos, so that was a no.
With only seven fabricators I would only be able to push back the breaking point of this city by about a day or two, three if I'm being generous.
I sighed, knowing I would have to do what I never wanted to do.
Talk to people, ugh!
I felt gross just thinking about it.
Well, to be fair, that was always going to happen with the previous plan, you couldn't just build a bunch of water treatment plants, filters and food sources and say: 'have at it'.
(Well, technically you could. However I like to think I'd learnt my lesson from Fukuoka.)
Except, in the previous plan, there would have been a lot less back and forth between me and the various factions of the city. I would have had a small army of drones with much needed supplies, after all, so people likely wouldn't have been willing to push me too far.
But now? I only had seven of the things, hardly the position of strength I had wanted to be in.
I bit my lip in frustration, attempting to map out the consequences of this newest complication.
Let's see, there would be a lot more wheeling and dealing, to start. People would probably attempt to take advantage of me in ways I wouldn't be able to immediately slap down. I would have talk with each faction, one by one, and get them all on the same page. Get them all working together.
Oh, except the Teeth. I didn't have much hope for reason prevailing there.
"Fantastic! Diplomacy! Something I'm great at!" My words were bathed in sarcasm as I lay back in my chair, and promptly came to a realisation.
Could I a socially awkward weirdo properly negotiate some kind of deal with people who had likely been managing, manipulating and dealing with others for years on end? Probably not, but I knew who could!
"Hey, Renji?" My MIU flickers to life, as it begins transmitting my words to my friend. "Do you think you can get Sanzang? I'll send you the details in text form, but to make a long story short; I'm going to need his help to cut a deal with a bunch of lunatics."
AN: Is it an Alexander plan if things don't go sideways? At least this time it wasn't his fault, Thanatos being able to sense the effects of magic wasn't something he could have predicted.
Now Alexander has to go with plan B, enter into diplomacy. He isn't happy about that, and even more so that he's still on a time limit.
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Rebecca Costa-Brown | AlexandriaDragon (Parahumans)Director James TaggEmily PiggotColin Wallis | Armsmaster | DefiantBastion (Parahumans)
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Self-InsertCYOAEndbringerA man finds his hobbyThe rest of the world is terrifiedCausing major wars by accidentTeehee~Misunderstandings
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Published:2025-02-16Updated:2026-02-25Words:229,706Chapters:83/?Comments:559Kudos:1,458Bookmarks:363Hits:86,824
(End)Bringing You A New Home! (Endbringer SI)
10moorem
Chapter 73: Chapter 73: Tough Talks
Summary:
Alexander is doing super okay! Can you tell just how okay he's doing?!
Chapter Text
Chapter 73: Tough Talks
-Alexander POV-
Do you know those days where you think that things can't possibly get any worse that they already are, and then they do? That's my day right now, that's it summed up, because, as I await Renji and Sanzang for the talks I notice that another had chosen to join them.
From my matter sense, I already knew who it was. I had long since memorised the gait of everyone important in Jinzhou.
I frown, the only sign of my now tumultuous thoughts, as I view Taizong's form walking alongside the two.
I didn't want to see the man, and no doubt Renji knew that, so this was either a play on his part or it was Sanzang's doing. On the one hand, Taizong seeking me out of his own volition would be uncomfortable, but it would be manageable.
If this was Sanzang's idea, though…
Well, Sanzang didn't do anything without reason and, unlike Taizong, it was usually to people's benefit that he did so. I sighed, feel weary as I slumped into my chair, the already stressful thought of having to compromise and sweet talk gang leaders had just been compounded. Why did things have to be so difficult?
I sit up, slapping my face twice, attempting to get my act together. They're only a dozen or so meters away when I feel I've put on an adequate façade, shoulders relaxed with a lazy, uncaring, smile on my face.
I turned to face them, timing the rotation of my swivel seat to occur just as they passed through the door.
"Welcome, welcome! Who's ready to save some people?" My question was asked with a smile and a cheery voice, neither of which truly reflected how I felt as I looked upon the three men.
I could tell they didn't buy it, their faces told me everything, that was the price of surrounding yourself with competent observers and a friend who knows you very well. Unfortunately for them, I refused to be the one to crack first, so I gestured towards the freshly fabricated seats - colour coded for their convenience.
Sanzang didn't even bother to glance at the chairs, unlike Taizong who seemed slightly put off by the childish stickers I had attached to the chairs. The numerous 'My Little Pony' stickers I had attached to his seat probably didn't help.
"Yà lì shān dà," Sanzang greeted me with all the solemnity of a retainer greeting their king, "how may we assist?" The man, much like myself, not addressing the presence of the elephant in the room.
I wasn't sure what to make of that. Did that mean Taizong really came by his own decision? It was an immensely troubling thing to not know what was going on there.
I gamely kept my smile up, regardless.
"I've managed to successfully plant seven drones within Boston, less than I would have hoped due to Thanatos somehow being able to sense the magic they gave off. My initial plans relied on more than that, and as such, I'm seeking advice and aid in negotiating with the factions of this city."
The monk nodded, calmly taking in the information.
Taizong, however, spoke up, "You wished for there to be more drones for both fabrication purposes and diplomatic leverage?" The ruler of the city above my head summarised, having likely read the briefing I had sent to Renji.
I frowned at the interruption. "That is correct," the reply was terse.
"There is little to be done regarding the lost fabrication capability, according to that report, but surely you could create leverage?"
Oh, I did not like where this was going.
"How? By building bombs, perhaps? Maybe use the threat of my undetectable machines to instil fear in them?" The words were harsh, and I could see Taizong inch back from me, yet his expression remained firm.
Tension coiled across the room like a snake, entangling all and beginning to squeeze. I could see Renji's hand twitch at his side, reaching for a sword that I knew he had left behind for exactly this reason. Taizong's expression was complicated, flashing between emotion too quickly for me to parse in my current state, but settling on resignation.
Sanzang was as ineffable as always, a tranquil pond amidst our turbulent seas.
Finally, I sighed and relented. "Sorry, that was unfair. What was your idea?"
There was a lessening of tension and I saw Renji throw me a discreet thumbs up behind the other two's backs. I sent a withering stare back at him.
Taizong coughed, "Apology accepted, and I don't blame you for thinking that, given everything." The extension of trust was thin on both ends, fraying and liable to break at the slightest touch, yet it existed.
He continued, "It is true that the lack of numbers will hamper your efforts, however you don't have to tell the leaders in Boston just how many you have, correct?"
Oh, that was a good point, to the point that it felt foolish for not considering it earlier.
Sanzang smiled, observing the two of us keenly, though I payed it no mind.
"That's true, though that's a bluff that could be overturned quite quickly if they think to test it," I said, now properly mulling over Taizong's suggestion. It was true that appearing strong where you were weak was a classic strategy for a reason, but it was a paper tiger in truth, and if they called our bluff then the lost trust and respect would make my bargaining position even lower than when I started.
Taizong shrugged. "It's not ideal, I'll admit, but then neither is the position they're in." He moved closer to the screens, gesturing at the destroyed sections of the city. "The people here will be scrambling for solutions, if you give them one then they'll take it. They may not even bother to question it."
The thought of taking advantage of desperate people didn't exactly sit well with me, but then I had been planning on using gunboat diplomacy to browbeat those same people into letting me save them, so I probably shouldn't throw stones in my glass house.
From what my drones had picked up, their ability to listen in on conversations from blocks away being very helpful, the PRT had allied with both Blastgerm and the Ambassadors. Perhaps not surprising, neither of those gangs were as hardcore as the Teeth, focusing on drug production and white collar crime respectively.
I quickly relayed an overview of the situation to the rest of the group, asking for advice on who to approach first.
"Should we approach this alliance as a whole or one at a time?" The insightful question was put forth by Renji, causing another round of conversation to take place, Renji and Sanzang wanting to approach the alliance as a whole, while Taizong and I agreed that negotiating with each group one at a time would be more beneficial.
"The alliance seems loose, at best."
"It would still be the quickest way to get them all on our side," Renji argued.
"A conversation that would be full of half truths and outright lies. None of the groups in question want the same things, they may be working together for now, but they're undoubtedly going about things their own way. Allowing them a one on one meeting will allow them to be more truthful with us, not needing to put on a façade for the sake of their allies," Taizong cut in.
"Which may destabilise their alliance. As the only group able to extend the city's supplies, and their only window to the outside world, we will have an enormous level of influence. So what would it say if this same group did not respect the alliance that had been made? It would suggest that they shouldn't respect it either, as you would be undercutting their foundation. Such a thing could lead to a lack of coordination, which would lead to chaos." Sanzang offered his advice, arguing for the inclusion of all three groups.
Needless to say, Taizong and Sanzang were the ones truly carrying the conversation, being much more knowledgeable than myself or Renji, as our areas of expertise were a lot more specialised.
Eventually we came to an agreement, Taizong and myself finally relenting, we would approach all three factions. We would do this in the guise of a group of Tinkers, offering our support. After the first meeting we could choose to approach any of the individual groups for a more private meeting, if we felt it necessary.
This was mostly because of us agreeing with Sanzang's point. I really didn't want this alliance of theirs to fall apart and Taizong, treating this more like an intellectual challenge, agreed that the possibility did indeed exist.
Their alliance was integral for keeping order and preventing further death. All of us agreed on that, some more emotionally invested than others.
The meeting carried on for only a short while after that decision, mostly to hammer out specifics, but eventually the others began to leave.
Renji left first, having little to add to the plan, instead choosing to head up and begin patrolling the streets of Jinzhou. Apparently he had made quite the name for himself as a problem solver, helping the elderly across roads and fixing items that had been damaged from the excitement of a few days ago.
Taizong, too, eventually left, needing to resume his duties. The search for someone who could manage outside relations was still ongoing and, considering we were in Antarctica, not a pressing matter. Still, Taizong was searching for a suitable individual for the role, I had checked.
Once I had the drones in place for the meeting I would set up an online conference for them to join in, not all things needed to be done in person, as a certain virus had taught me.
Which left me alone with Sanzang, who seemed to wait patiently for the questions I had. I considered the man for a few long moments, allowing the silence to build.
"Why?"
Sanzang's coal black eyes gazed evenly back at me. "Taizong, you mean? You know that this enmity serves no one, yes? Yet you are both too proud to admit fault." The words were stark of ambiguity, allowing no possibility of a misunderstanding.
"I doubt I am at fault as much as Taizong," I snap back, defensive. "When Inotice people in pain because of my actions, I do something about it!" My words were punctuated by a finger that pointed towards the unconscious members of the protectorate, still in sight.
"And how much of that was from his poor example, and not wanting to be like him?"
I glared back, not at all pleased at the implication that I would have left the members of the protectorate to suffer if Taizong hadn't messed up. "Absolutely none of it."
Sanzang looked into my eyes, and seemed pleased at what he found. "It is immaterial, regardless. What matters is that neither of you are ready to truly trust the other, something that may well be needed in the days to come."
My eyes narrowed. "What would you know about that?"
Sanzang shrugged. "Not much, but I know desperation when I see it. I know you are afraid, even if I don't what you're afraid of. Tell me, would your plan be better served if you had Taizong by your side."
I didn't say anything, and going by Sanzang's face, I didn't need to.
"You'll use him regardless, won't you?" Sanzang hit the nail on the head, correctly deducing a portion of my intent. "Wouldn't it be better to be able to trust him?" The question, as innocuous as it may have seemed, made my skin crawl. I'm not sure I could trust him, just the idea made me nauseous.
"He'd cooperate regardless, it concerns the safety of his people," I deflect, a twisting feeling in my gut.
Sanzang gives me a look, but wordlessly chose to move on, perhaps picking up on how uncomfortable I am. I appreciate it, even though I know he'll just circle back to this later.
"About your sessions," Sanzang doesn't use the word therapy, but we both know that's what it is, "when would be a good time for you?"
The sudden question causes me to pause for a second. Well, negotiations will probably take a day, so…
"Two or three days should be good," I answer him, a little off balance from the sudden shift in topics.
I'd love to be more specific but, given all the plates I'm juggling, I need to be flexible with my time.
He nods, likely jotting that down in his computer of a brain.
He opens his mouth for a second, before thinking better of it, likely noticing the increasing terseness of my responses.
That actually makes me feel a little bad. I didn't want Sanzang to have to walk around eggshells because he was afraid of upsetting me. It's not like I was the sort of person to suddenly snap at others, so I really didn't want Sanzang thinking of me that way.
A fist crunching against a perfect face, destroying the wall behind him.
I twitch, before ruthlessly suppressing the thought I had just had.
"If you need to say something, then say it. I won't judge," I instead say, hoping Sanzang hadn't picked up on my brief loss of composure.
"It's…not something that will be important until we've had a few sessions together. I'll bring it up then."
I frowned, feeling a bit dejected that I hadn't been able to assuage his worries.
Sanzang, of course, realised this. "It has nothing to do with me being worried about upsetting you. It's simply because the first couple of sessions need to be about establishing trust, you need to feel comfortable talking with me and, currently, we are strangers."
That was hard to argue against, and it didn't seem like he was lying to me, so I let it go and moved on to the last topic.
"I'll take a few hours to get everything ready. For safety's sake, I'll need to be slow in moving the drones, using anything but a minimum level of power would be risky," I explained.
"I'll call you and…Taizong when the time comes," I say, only hesitating briefly at the promise of contacting the leader of Jinzhou. Renji's addition not even needing to be said.
Sanzang stood and left the room, appearing as unhurried as ever. I stared back at the door he had left through for a minute, before turning back around to get everything set up.
AN: It was Christmas when I wrote this, had to do it on my IPad, since I wasn't going to take my computer on vacation. Did some job applications today, that sucked, the market is really bone dry right now, isn't it?
Bit of a talky chapter, this time, but it sets up a lot of character stuff. You get a look at what Alexander's planning, how he's feeling and a bunch of other stuff. Plus another look at Sanzang.
Thanks for reading, please enjoy yourselves today!
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Rating:
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Category:
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Fandom:
Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Relationship:
Alexander/City Building
Characters:
Rebecca Costa-Brown | AlexandriaDragon (Parahumans)Director James TaggEmily PiggotColin Wallis | Armsmaster | DefiantBastion (Parahumans)
Additional Tags:
Self-InsertCYOAEndbringerA man finds his hobbyThe rest of the world is terrifiedCausing major wars by accidentTeehee~Misunderstandings
Language:
English
Stats:
Published:2025-02-16Updated:2026-02-25Words:229,706Chapters:83/?Comments:559Kudos:1,458Bookmarks:363Hits:86,824
(End)Bringing You A New Home! (Endbringer SI)
10moorem
Chapter 74: Chapter 74: Meetings Arranged
Summary:
Boston is pretty fucked, or is it?
Chapter Text
Chapter 74: Meetings Arranged
-Director Armstrong POV-
Kamil Armstrong collapsed back into his chair, feeling every year of his long life as he sat in his office. In truth, this short five seconds of quiet was likely the closest he had gotten to 'relaxation' since the Blackout Incident began.
The same incident that had seen them catapulted away from their home reality and instead deposited into, what he could only assume to be, a pocket dimension. The incident had a thousand names by now, each one more evocative than the last.
It had only been a few days since then, and every single one of them had been a Herculean task to get through. The first few hours were worse, they had been apocalyptic. Communication lines had been cut, the sky went black, riots and anarchy reigned and all the while they were at a loss at what had happened.
Then they had spotted the giant, a macabre titan, a being of crystalline flesh and bone. Pair that with the reports of the few Thinkers currently available to him and it painted a chilling picture.
Another Endbringer, so soon after the fourth.
The only mercy was that it appeared to be dormant, though how long that would last he wasn't sure.
He had begun reaching out to the gangs after that. With outside support from the greater PRT no longer available, and a sword of Damocles hanging over everybody's heads, it seemed like the sensible option.
Citrine -apparently Accord had not been in the city when the Blackout Incident occurred- had been easy enough to convince. Blast was slightly trickier, if only because he was high as a kite the first time he had called the man, instead needing to speak with his associate; Rotten Apple.
…The amount of names that woman went through.
Things had gotten easier, for a time, coordination had improved and they were able to consolidate their territories.
Then the Teeth had started rampaging. No rhyme, no reason, just pure, unrestrained, savagery.
It had taken hours to beat them back, and the death toll from that battle alone was staggering. What was worse was the death of many of his troopers and officers from the local police department, people who were desperately needed.
They were slowly bleeding to death. Food and water were fine, but only for the moment. Even the best case projections, where Blasto actually lives up to his many promises, would only extend the cities lifetime by a few months.
Raids from smaller gangs were another drain on his manpower. Citrine had suggested more permanent options to deal with them.
Armstrong was, shamefully, considering it.
Should no help come soon his hand would likely be forced.
And now, just hours earlier, something had happened to rouse the Endbringer. It had returned to dormancy after only a few minutes, but even that short time rampaging in an abandoned area of the city had claimed the lives of dozens.
He sighed, looking down at the timetable placed atop a gargantuan pile of papers, all important, all needing time he was forced to spend like a miser. He would need to leave this office in the next two minutes to give an address, lines of communication with the public having partially adapted to the loss of communication equipment. Now it was instead word of mouth and handed out newspapers, like they had gone back a century.
He would attempt to assuage their worries in a carefully curated speech, that would take half an hour. Immediately after would be the joint strategy meeting with the Ambassadors and Blastgerm. Then there was the papers he needed to go through, the evaluations, the internal meetings, coordinating with the police and…
Kamil felt a migraine coming on as he gazed down at the packed itinerary, only enough time spared to give the minimum amount of rest, like a machine spared only the required amount of maintenance, and no more.
It was something he had agreed to, but it was already beginning to eat at him.
He lifted his tired eyes up to the clock on the wall.
Just a minute left.
His gaze blankly swept the room, his mind attempting to properly wake up. His eyes looked upon, and then looked past his computer.
And then snapped back to it.
There was an alert, and not one that originated from the internal PRT network.
In the middle of a communications breakdown.
He pressed the button under his desk, activating the silent alarm.
Paranoid? Maybe, but they were already on high alert and whoever was able to contact him in this manner was undoubtedly a Tinker of some sort.
The next few minutes were a whirlwind of activity, his previous plans completely upended as security teams swept his room as well as the rest of the building. IT specialists, as well as the few Tinkers available, took a metaphorical scalpel to the data packet that had arrived in his inbox.
Once, twice, three times it was swept for malware and more nefarious means of sabotage before, reluctantly, it was declared to be clean.
Hesitantly, he opened it, revealing a text document.
Dear Director Armstrong.
Allow me, and my associates, to apologise for contacting you in such a way, and in such a tense period of time, however we judged this to be the least intrusive way of getting in contact with you.
For transparency's sake, we have also contacted Citrine and Blasto in the same way, and for the same reason.
We represent a collective of Tinkers whose curiosity compelled us to investigate the disappearance of Boston. Through the use of a Spatial Tinker, we discovered the plight of this city.
Upon realising the likely state of your city we resolved ourselves to becoming involved, and began by seeking to obtain a clearer picture of what was going on in the pocket dimension that you reside within.
Unfortunately we did not anticipate that the Endbringer was still present, or that it would take umbrage with our intrusion. The incident a few hours prior was caused by us, for the deaths caused by this we sincerely apologise.
Armstrong furrowed his brows, feelings mixed at what he had just read. The deaths of the people under his protection, some two dozen lives, had been snuffed out because of the actions of this group. However they had only been attempting to help and had been the first to make headway, beyond even the PRT.
No doubt you have questions, questions which cannot be adequately answered through this method of communication, and there is much we can offer that you might be interested in. Therefore we would ask for a meeting, between your alliance and us.
Once you have consulted with your allies you may inform us of the time and place of the meeting through the link below.
Thank you for your time.
The Prometheans.
Armstrong blinked, and blearily read the document again, his tired mind struggling to fit the meandering prose together.
"I'm not the only one seeing this, am I?"
One of his IT technicians looked up, looked around and noticed that no one else seemed inclined to answer his question, before nodding. "It's real, director." They seemed just as shocked.
"Great," he drawled out, already imagining the conversation he was going to have to have with his reluctant allies, as well as the amount of missed paperwork this would cause – which he would still have to do later.
"Well, no time like the present. Call them," he ordered, ignoring the flurry of activity his words caused as he closed his eyes, eager for a short period of rest.
-Citrine POV-
Jeanne adjusted her mask, the stylish golden mask resting just slightly crookedly upon her brow. Even with Accord absent, it wouldn't do to allow complacency to seep into her works, professionals had standards, after all.
"Is it ready?" The question was directed at one of the many new hires she had been forced to add following the city's relocation to wherever they were now. With the recent panic, a large portion of the previous staff dead from the riots, and a need for new skills in this different environment Citrine had been forced to expand operations.
Well, better working under her than the Teeth.
The man looked up, and nodded, adjusting the last piece of wire to the contraption taking up an entire wall by itself.
With access to the outside world, and it's satellites, cut most of the modern communications infrastructure had been crippled in an instant, yet that was not all. Even short range radio was unreliable, for whatever reason. Signals distorted and jammed frequently, and with no rhyme or reason.
For a good few days all faction in the city had to resort to word of mouth and messengers to pass along information, which did not help the immediate aftermath of the Blackout Incident.
The solution, if one could call it that, was barely a solution at all.
The machine that was attached to the wall like a limpet was an ugly thing, wires and antenna spilling form it like the tentacles of some aquatic best. The screen was crooked and the control unit was a mess of buttons and levers that seemed to follow no sensible order that she could discern.
If Accord had so much as glimpsed it in his office, and knew that she was the one who had arranged for it's installation, he would have shot her dead and burned the body.
Yet, it was necessary, for it was the only truly reliable way of contacting people over long distances.
It wasn't perfect, of course. Only the larger models, like the one she had, could both transmit and receive messages across the city. The smaller ones housed in various basses of operations across the city were incapable of sending anything at all, only receiving signals.
Perhaps if she were younger, fresher to the scene, she might fight that absurd. But she had long grown used to the peculiarity of Tinkertech.
She watched as the screen booted up, watched as it buffered for an entire minute without a single change in expression, before the static cleared and she was face to face with her allies of convenience.
Kamil Armstrong, taking up the left side of the screen, was a portrait of a tired bureaucrat struggling to hold things together. The bags beneath his eyes and the slumped shoulders told her more than words could ever say regarding his situation.
The man on the right, however, was the complete opposite. The lab coat he wore was the only professional thing about him, the man sat, sprawled out, on a swivel chair, legs waving and head tilted upwards – clearly smoking something.
She supressed the urge to scoff, if the man wasn't so vital to their efforts she would never have agreed to ally with him.
"Greetings, thank you for coming," she smiled, stealing the first move in this meeting – and presenting herself as the one leading.
Judging by the light glare the PRT director sent her, he wasn't unaware of the game she was playing. Blasto, on the other hand, seemed completely oblivious, content to narrow his focus on the drug he was ingesting.
"I take it we all got the same message?" The question came from Armstrong, tired eyes glancing between them.
Citrine nodded, "The Prometheans, yes, we received a similar file to the one you sent," she confirmed.
Blasto didn't speak, still gazing upwards as if the roof of his shitty apartment had the secrets of the universe held between the mould and the unmentionable stains.
An arm shoved him, someone from outside the camera's view taking notice of Blasto's distraction and attempting to get him to focus.
Citrine wished them luck.
"Wha- Oh, yeah, sure. We got that, uh…thing too," came the slightly slurred answer from Blasto, and was it her imagination or did Citrine hear muttered curses coming from Blasto's side of the screen?
She and Armstrong shared a glance that conveyed a shared, tired, understanding. A mutual agreement to move on and not draw attention to Blasto's indiscretions was silently formed between them.
"Your thoughts?" The man asked her.
"A trap," she immediately replied, because what else could it be? A team of Tinkers with the exact specialisations necessary to save them, taking only days when even the best team of Parahumans should have taken months?
No, her instincts were screaming at her that this was not as simple as it appeared to be.
Armstrong nodded, probably having considered the possibility already.
"If it is a trap then they're confident," he pointed out, almost pulling a hiss from her lips.
Armstrong was correct about that, the offer to allow them to choose the time and place of the meeting was the one aspect of this that didn't add up. Unless, of course, this group was confident it wouldn't matter.
"Confident, or mad perhaps," she instead responded, thinking of the many groups within the city who would be suicidal enough to try this.
By the director's face, he too understood what she was implying, but chose to continue.
"And if it's not?"
"Not a trap, you mean?"
Armstrong nodded, and Citrine had to withhold a grimace at the question she really didn't want to have to answer.
Because yes, it being a trap was far more likely, however…
"If you think there's the slightest chance it's real then we need to attend that meeting," she said, gazing into Armstrong's eyes.
Citrine was someone who valued objective facts, logic and numbers, however she also knew the value of instinct, especially that of a veteran's who had been in the cape scene for a while now. Armstrong, for all his faults, was the man who had masterminded the complete removal of all gangs from Boston, prior to the Boston Games.
Enemy or not, she trusted his judgement.
"They are Tinkers. That's a fact," he started, to which she nodded. "There was an incident which woke the Endbringer up, if only briefly," he continued, staring down at his desk.
Finally he looked up, no longer the tired bureaucrat but instead the embattled director.
"The pieces line up, so we'll go. That being said…"
Armstrong's smile cut a dangerous edge as he continued to speak.
"They didn't say anything about coming alone, nor did they impose limits on how many we bring," he finished, to which she could only smile grimly in return.
"So, in the worst case, we gain the trail of the Tinkers who did this and in the best case we gain allies that may have a way out of this cage," she summarised, coming around to the idea. The best way to spring a trap was often to charge right in, and between the two of them they had enough parahumans to bull through almost any problem.
"Indeed. The only issue is that we'll be leaving our territories exposed if others notice that our capes are busy."
There was a curse from the other side of the screen, an arm once more jabbing Blasto in the side, causing him to look up with a wince.
"Sure, sure, we can handle that. Just gimme a minute," he waved the hand off, causing a deep sigh to originate somewhere off screen. The figure stepped onto the screen, revealing the figure to be Poison Apple -or was she going by another name?- stepping up to address them.
"I'll get this bozo to grow some extra muscle for you, just give us a few hours," she said, pushing Blasto out of the sight of the camera.
Citrine couldn't help but feel some relief knowing the apple themed cape was running herd on the simpleton.
"That would be appreciated," Armstrong said before turning to her. "Would seven hours be appropriate?"
She checked her clock, mentally running the numbers, before nodding.
"Then in seven hours we'll confront this group, and secure their aid one way or another."
AN: Wrote this when I was very tired, that was fun.
So, yeah. Meeting happened. Here ya go. Would write more, but brain-meats were having trouble thinking.
Thanks for reading, leave a comment or something. Nap time now.
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