Worth the Price Ch. 35 (Worm AU) (Patreon)

(Every character depicted in the story below is a consenting legal adult over the age of 18)

A/N: Piggot has opinions.

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“You just… let them go? A mercenary group and an unknown trio of Parahumans with what sounds like a Master Power among them and you let them walk away from the scene? Armsmaster, do I need to put you under Master-Stranger Protocols?”

Director Emily Piggot of the PRT ENE often finds herself frustrated and at wits end with her job. But this… this particular occasion has her nearly popping a blood vessel. It feels like a vein in her forehead is throbbing as she stares at Armsmaster from across her desk.

On the other side of said desk, the Protectorate Leader in question stands stoically, hands clasped behind his back and legs spread wide in parade rest as he shakes his head.

“That will not be necessary, Director. As I’ve already explained, the Parahuman Power in question is not a Master Effect. Furthermore, when I arrived on the scene, the parties in question had not broken any laws that I could discern. While the city’s relationship with Faultline’s Crew is certainly… tenuous, I decided that in this case, discretion was the better part of valor. I informed them they were on thin ice and allowed them to depart in order to keep the peace.”

The worst part is that she can’t fully disagree with him on that front. She just wishes he hadn’t given up so quickly. It’s entirely possible that applying just a bit more pressure to Faultline and her crew would have gotten these unknown parahumans to come in for power testing and proper registration. And at least at that point they could have started building real files on them, rather than the shit they were going to have.

But at the end of the day, it was true that Brockton Bay was a precarious balancing act even at the best of times. As much as Piggot hated it, the facts were that the situation in the city was as unstable as it could be without blowing up in all of their faces. Many different groups acted to varying degrees like 'supports’ in order to keep it all from toppling down… and Faultline’s Crew was one of those ‘supports’.

They weren’t as… crucial to the city’s stability as the standoff between the Empire and the ABB of course, where if one group was weakened too much, everything would get so much worse as the other group capitalized on that weakness. But the Palanquin was still a form of territory so to speak, and if anything ever happened to Faultline or her group, the others would try to move on it and it would certainly result in a couple of turf battles, if not a full blown gang war.

Piggot didn’t like to admit it, but the best way to handle things was to keep everything cold, or at least simmering on low heat rather than boiling hot. The death toll and property damage if the gangs went to war would be catastrophic.

In that regard… the Merchants were so small and pointless that they weren’t a ‘support’ at all. So ultimately, their takedown actually didn’t jeopardize the city’s tenuous peace. Piggot still didn’t like it though. She-

The door to her office opens up and a woman in a domino mask and a sleek-looking full body jump suit steps inside. Piggot stares as the woman brushes herself down for a moment before looking at the two of them.

“Ah! Sorry I’m late, not used to storing my suits and actually attending these things in person.”

Now, Director Emily Piggot is not stupid. She’s able to put together context clues. And so she doesn’t have to waste time doing the whole inane ‘who the hell are you?’ shtick. Instead, rather flatly, she looks the other woman up and down and frowns.

“Dragon.”

Smiling widely, Dragon nods as she steps forward.

“In the flesh! I figured I’d come and help Armsmaster with the debrief, especially since the decisions he made in the field were at least partially influenced by my advice.”

Yes… Armsmaster has reported as much. Piggot’s eyes narrow.

“You’ve had dealings with this… ‘Pact’ character in the past then?”

Humming, Dragon nods.

“Yes. Pact, Bind, and Quill. Those are their names.”

Arching a brow, Piggot clasps her hands in front of herself.

“They’re affiliated with the Guild then? Is the Guild now working with Faultline’s Crew? Did you hire them to take down the Archer’s Bridge Merchants for you today?”

That would explain a lot, even if it wouldn’t make Piggot any happier over the situation. But Dragon just blinks at her rapid fire questions for a moment before chuckling.

“Oh… no, sorry Director. Pact and his group are not part of the Guild, we cannot claim any ownership of them. They’re… allies though, that’s for sure. And Pact wants the same thing we all want… a safer, more peaceful world. He’s set up here in Brockton Bay with the intention of helping you protect your city.”

Piggot scowls.

“By unilaterally taking out petty gangs? Today might not have had many injuries, but it certainly could have gone worse. You should have advised your new allies to join the Protectorate, Dragon.”

Dragon’s smile becomes a little strained at that. It’s interesting actually meeting the woman in the flesh for the first time. Piggot had always considered Dragon calm, cool, and collected… a parahuman worth working with among all the parahumans who constantly gave her headaches.

Now? In the flesh? It becomes obvious that Dragon needs more practice with her poker face. Her expression is giving her away, especially with the domino mask only covering so much.

“That’s… not an option, I’m afraid. Pact is a natural born leader. The Protectorate and the PRT do a lot of good, don’t get me wrong… but you all can be a bit stifling.”

Piggot’s eyes narrow once more.

“Then you should at least convince your ‘ally’ Pact to come in for power testing, as well as signing up as an affiliate. Otherwise, if he continues to run amok, he’s liable to do more damage to this city than even the gangs.”

Dragon hums, smiling weakly in a way that tells Piggot this ‘Pact’ isn’t likely to respond positively to such advice.

“I’ll pass the message along.”

… Right. Piggot huffs, but before she can continue, Dragon changes the subject.

“That said, the response time was rather… alarming today. Pact and his group anticipated dealing with the authorities directly and only called me in when nobody came for an hour after the fighting had started. Was there truly no alert? Did nobody notice that there were multiple cape battles going on?”

Piggot scowls again as Armsmaster straightens and clenches his jaw. Good, neither of them are happy at Dragon’s line of questioning… but Piggot is least happy of all.

“The PRT and the Protectorate cannot be everywhere at once, Dragon. We rely on emergency calls from concerned citizens as much as the normal first responders do. When nobody calls, how are we to know something is going on in the first place? Pact could have called himself, for instance. He could have even called ahead of time, if he really wanted the proper authorities involved!”

The deadpan stare that Dragon gives her is yet another example of the other woman being obviously unused to social interactions. She’s wearing her heart on her sleeve, so to speak.

“And if he had called ahead of time, would the PRT have actually agreed to a joint takedown of the Merchants, or would you have shut him down and told him off for trying to do the right thing?”

Piggot growls, eyes narrowing into slits.

“People often construe ‘the right thing’ with ‘what they feel like doing at the time’. Pact is already dangerously close to looking like a villain from my point of view, Dragon. And I don’t mind if you tell your ‘ally’ that as well. He needs to know he can’t just run around in my city doing whatever the fuck he wants.”

It’s crystal clear that Dragon wants to say something in response to Piggot’s words, even as she visibly swallows her response and smiles plainly.

“… I’ll let him know, Director. Still, I hope we can all agree that the Merchants were handled quite well. Not a single death, no injuries greater than a broken bone or two. Property damage kept to a minimum. And oh yes, all of those petty drug dealers captured and pulled off the streets, to say nothing of the list of stash houses and drug depots that we handed over to Armsmaster so that the police can have quite a few wins of their own over the next few weeks.”

Piggot’s lips purse as though she’s bitten into something sour. Dragon, meanwhile, just smiles all the more broadly.

“Considering all of that and how much better off the city will be with all those drugs and drug dealers off the streets… I think offering Pact a little leeway is the least you can do. But also, I wanted to come and make you an offer, to take one of your new prisoners off your hands.”

That makes Piggot blink. It takes her a second to figure out what Dragon is talking about and when she does, she has to hold back the urge to snarl.

“No. Absolutely not.”

Even Armsmaster is looking to Dragon with the closest thing to an askance expression the man can muster. Dragon though, neither wilts nor retreats. She remains undaunted and still smiling as she looks Piggot in the eye.

“Please Director, try to be reasonable. Don’t let your… biases color your vision for what the future could be. Squealer, or rather Sherrel Bailey, is not the sort of woman who would do well in prison, just as she wasn’t doing well in the Merchants either. However, she’s now made a deal with Pact… one that frees her from her addictions so long as she chooses to stay on the straight and narrow. I’m merely suggesting we give her a way to steer clear of temptations… namely, by offering her a place in the Guild where she can Tinker to her heart’s content at my side.”

Piggot scoffs.

“You want to reward a parahuman criminal with a rap sheet half a mile wide, rather than punishing her properly. Squealer belongs in prison, just as her fellow Merchants do. That’s where she’s going.”

Dragon shakes her head.

“It’s not about rewards or punishment, Director. It’s about what the prison system should always have been… rehabilitation. Redemption. Sherrel isn’t going to find redemption in prison, all she’ll find is more of the same. But if I take her under my wing, I’m confident that she will flourish and be a force for good. It’s a rather common tactic is it not? Even your own Protectorate has a couple examples last I checked.”

Piggot’s nostrils flare at the pointed reminder. Dragon is talking about Assault and Shadow Stalker, of course. The former had been an outright villain specializing in extracting other villains from prison transports who had rebranded when he was finally caught by his now-partner Battery. The latter was a vigilante who had killed more than one man before she’d been caught and forced to join the Wards. She’d now graduated into the Protectorate, but Piggot still wondered at times if they really should have given Sophia Hess a chance or not.

“The Protectorate is one thing and it’s possible that Squealer will be offered a chance to… rebrand and join a different branch. But letting you take her into the Guild? After all the shit your so-called ‘allies’ pulled today? No. Not happening.”

Piggot was quite firm on that too. She might have to swallow the bitter pill that was Armsmaster letting all of them go earlier… but she was putting her foot down on this. Only, Dragon barely looks disappointed before a resolved expression takes over her face.

“I’m sad to hear that, Director. I think you’re letting your bias show quite heavily… and I feel I might have to talk to the Chief Director about this to see what she thinks should happen.”

Piggot’s eyes widen in disbelief. Was Dragon… threatening to go over her head? The sheer nerve… was this even Dragon?! The way the other woman was acting was so utterly abnormal from what Piggot remembered of her. Fuck, Dragon was supposed to be one of the good ones!

The urge to tell Dragon to get the fuck out of her office is very, very strong. She wants to call the Tinker’s bluff, to make her either go through with her threat or simply accept defeat. There’s just one problem with that… this is Dragon they’re talking about.

In most cases, Piggot thinks that Chief Director Costa-Brown would side with her. Especially when it came to intimidation tactics from uppity parahumans like this. However, that ignored the truth of what Dragon was, both to the PRT and Protectorate as well as on her own.

Given everything Dragon did, it was entirely possible that she could legitimately leverage that to force the Chief Director to side with her against Piggot, which would in turn be a blow to Piggot’s credibility and potentially cause the Chief Director to resent Piggot for not just handling things herself.

… Damn it all.

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A/N: Throw me a comment if you can but please leave a Like if you don’t want to, it’s the main metric I use to track whether a story is doing well or not!

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Google Doc Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1My71KWmz4vpZBjcU9m54ck-1f2Q1Nd7I_r-GGiPPbLE/edit?tab=t.0