VT - Chapter 17 : That Bitch! (Patreon)

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PRT HQ, Brockton Bay

–Director Emily Piggot–

Even on the best of days, capes were unstable, violent, and unpredictable when it came to interacting with the rest of society. Most capes seemed to understand each other just fine, which is why it was decided that the one to head a cape team would be a cape, but when it came to interacting with any hierarchy that involved people who were not capes, the discipline went up for a toss.

It was only due to her ironclad command over her capes that she could proudly say that she could trust the capes under her to follow her orders, not unflinchingly, but they should follow most of her orders without issue, especially the team leader and the second in command. Armsmaster was easy enough to handle, as dangling his Tinker budget was the only thing needed to gain his compliance. Miss Militia was another matter entirely. The Noctis Cape was rule-abiding to a fault, even when she clearly did not like the orders given.

She was by far the best when it came to the capes she had under her command. That did not mean that she would trust Militia as far as she could throw her, but–

A shrill red alarm rang within her office, snapping her out of her thoughts, as she hurriedly looked towards the terminal to see what had—

Color drained from her face as she watched the video feed showing an identical suit to the one that wiped out the Nine from the face of the planet, floating in front of Militia. Slamming her hand on the phone, she all but screamed, “Console, Dispatch to Militia. NOW!”

She heard the line try to connect and fail. Before she could ask again, Console spoke up, “Ma'am, the line is being scrambled. We are unable to contact Miss Militia right now.”

“Send in the closest capes. Where is Armsmaster?” 

“Already on his way, Director. He has an always on alarm for anyone whose transponder might stop responding in the middle of a patrol. He is en route to her last recorded location.”

“Send in Dauntless, Velocity, and Battery as well.”

“Affirmative.” After a moment, Console spoke up again, “Ma'am, are we expecting a fight?”

“Let’s pray to God that it does not come to that.” She slumped in her seat, watching the terminal, which showcased footage from a nearby Traffic light. Her eyes narrowed as the suit simply unfurled on its own, showing that it was empty from the inside, and yet still capable of so much more than any other Tinker tech suit she had ever seen in all the PRT files she had access to. 

Was this a show of force? To show the PRT and the world that if they could build a hollow suit that was so dangerous, then what could they do when they did not have to work with that constraint? The suits used to take out the S9; some of them were without pilots, but she reckoned that atleast some of them had pilots inside of them. After all, how could someone trust mere machines with a task of such importance?

If they did have pilots, though, then where did they go? The ship as well as all its contents were destroyed. Destroyed, not teleported. Watchdog could confirm it for them. They could confirm that there was nothing that could be considered alive in that ship before it self-destructed. The creations themselves seemed to have some minor Thinker disrupting abilities, creating issues for Watchdog, as too much analysis about those creations seemed to exhaust all Thinkers.

“Armsmaster ETA - 15 seconds.” Console reported to her, as she watched the suit hand over a file to Militia before rocketing off straight into the sky at extreme speeds, generating yet another alert to her about an unregistered high speed flyer loose in the city. Dismissing that notification, she watched as the city’s overlay showed the suit flying out into the ocean before diving into the water below.

Their limiter tracking systems worked up to a certain depth, but beyond that, they could not track the suit’s location. So, the suit was capable of underwater propulsion as well, which should not be a surprise to her, but it was surprising just how much they had been able to cram into a single humanoid suit, all without turning into some kind of worldwide villain, abusing their power.

Still, that did not make them saints by any stretch of the imagination, but she supposed that it was a nice change to have entirely unknown and yet unimaginably powerful capes to just keep to themselves and not use that power to torture the world.

“We have Militia Back, Director.” Console crackled to life before putting through Militia.

“Miss Militia, what happened?”

“Director, this is some kind of intel that we must act on within the next two days, or else…”

“Or else what?” She snapped. She knew it was too good to be true. Now, an International level threat had come to her city and was going to…

“They threatened us with a visit, Director.”

She sighed, barely stopping herself from snapping once more. “Just….get back to the HQ. Bring Armsmaster with you. The rest of you can go back to Patrol.”

A chorus of “Yes, Director!” could be heard as the rest of the capes went back to their duties.

___xx___

They were in her office, and Militia had just handed over the paper folder to her after it was thoroughly screened for any threats, tinkertech or otherwise. Though it was her personal belief that for a group that could take care of the S9, indirect means were unnecessary, protocol had to be followed, and as such, she had to wait for an entire hour to read whatever was inside that folder.

They were threatened with a visit, should they not act on that information within two days. Just what could be inside that? 

Meanwhile, Militia was put in M/S screening protocols, just as a precaution, as she waited for Armsmaster to arrive. A few minutes later, he did, handing her the file and standing in front of her.

The information was deemed need-to-know the moment she could make contact with Militia, so she was reasonably sure that no one had seen it yet. So, she flipped the first page open, and as she read through it all, flipping through most of the pages, her face had gone pale as she gnashed her teeth.

“Hess,” She partially hissed the name of that troublesome girl. She knew that she was going to be nothing but trouble, but they couldn't afford to be picky with any cape they could add to their roster, even if they had a history of juvenile crimes.

“Director?” She looked up and threw the reports on the desk, letting Armmaster read through the documents. As expected, the reports got to him as well. Understandable, since this was going to weigh heavily on his role as the leader.

“Verify those reports. Interview the victims if you have to. I want her Case handler called in for questioning. Make it look routine. I want all her phone records pulled. As her guardian, you have my permission to do so. GPS. Call logs. Texts. I want it all.”

“Yes, Director.” He said and walked out of her office. The door closed, and she slumped in her seat, looking at the terminal showing the views of the Rig, before speaking to Console, “Console, get me Aegis and Dauntless as soon as you can.”

If Aegis shows even a hint of knowing about Shadow Stalker’s actions, then she might have to bench him too. Atleast, she could feasibly hide his involvement, but if she had to take the reports as well as the threat of the Grand Chariot group seriously, then it was all but certain that their reputation was going to take a hit, but she hoped that them seriously punishing a Ward without regard for their reputation would help them a bit.

As for Dauntless, outside of Armsmaster, he had the best bet of making sure that Shadow Stalker did not flee the HQ. She could definitely see her doing that in an idiotic attempt to flee from the consequences of her actions. She might have been able to get away from them for too long, but not anymore.

…..She could tell that a meeting with the Directors as well as the Chief Director was on the table, aside from the monthly check in.

…Ugh. Costa Brown was going to use this to keep denying her more resources, wasn’t she?

Damn you, Sophia.

__xx__

She watched on the screen, satisfaction filling her as she watched Sophia writhing on the ground, as Dauntless used his arc to disrupt her Shadow Form. As expected, Sophia had tried to make a run for it the moment it became clear to her that something had gone wrong. As was her routine, Hess had come back from school straight to the HQ, which was understandable since her home life certainly was less than…stellar. 

However, when Aegis and Dauntless both told her that she was being called to a meeting with the Director, she had tensed up for a second before immediately making a run for it. A stupid decision, yet entirely in line with Sophia's previous actions.

Shaking her head, she looked at the gathered capes, with all of them in varying states of shock, anger, rage, and worry as they had been brought into the fold regarding the situation. The situation was such that not even Assault was cracking jokes right now. The situation with Shadow Stalker would have been serious on its own, but with Grand Chariot added to the mix, it had catapulted to become a national level issue.

She already had a meeting scheduled with Costa Brown late into the night, as the Chief Director seemed to take pleasure in making sure she stayed past her doctor-prescribed bedtime on top of the extra stress.

“So,” She watched as Assault broke the ice, just like usual, “This is bad.”

“Bad?” Velocity snorted. “Just Stalker would be bad. This is worse.”

“Yeah,” Assault agreed, “But you get my point.”

Battery slapped Assault up the head before turning to her, “What are we going to do, Director?

She exhaled tiredly before replying, “Grand Chariot is expecting public actions, and as such, quietly taking care of this issue is out of the question.”

Assault agreed, “Yeah, that might bring some bad press, but not doing anything would bring…that.” Assault jutted his chin towards the screen on the wall, showing a slideshow of all the known firepower that Grand Chariot had access to. 

A group of tinkers capable of building that had been hidden for so long. Just the mere thought of what more they could have built together sent shivers down her spine.

“I think we have to charge Shadow Stalker,” Velocity spoke up, and she agreed to that. The question was what could they get away with?

Sure, the information from Grand Chariot had been incriminating in its own way, but after further research into her call logs, they found more crimes that Stalker was getting away with. That search led to her Case handler being detained and their records being pulled, which led to the Principal of Winslow being implicated as well, whose financial records showed that she had been embezzling federal funds being sent to the school for her personal use.

A litany of crimes had been revealed within a single day, just because of a single file, and honestly, she found herself conflicted on whether she should curse Grand Chariot or thank them.

“I think we should make public only what was given to us by Grand Chariot,” Armsmaster spoke, pointing at the sanctioned patrols and violence inflicted on multiple people using weaponry that she was not authorised to use.

That statement prompted yet another round of debate from the capes under her command, as she sighed and popped yet another pill in her mouth to reduce the headache.

This was going to be such a clusterf*ck, and she was not sure they could get away with it. All of it depended on how her meeting with Costa Brown went later on.

__xx___

“Make it public. Charge her with everything. Make sure the maximum public impact is made. We don't want them against us.”

“W-Wait, I—” Her words were cut off as the bitch went offline, not even listening to her speak. She barely resisted the urge to slam her hand onto the monitor and just slumped in her chair in impotent rage.