Crystalized Munchkinry - Act III - Chapter 35 (Patreon)

She looked over the clock and cursed quietly to herself when it showed 4 a.m. She then took a look around the room, filled with people feverishly working their asses off, and decided it could be worse.

She could be alone.

That didn't mean she wouldn't punish Armsmaster for this. And Dragon, if she could figure out something.

Maybe mandatory PR events? At a kindergarten?

Whatever, she would figure it out later.

For now, she had to concentrate on this. She turned to the person approaching her.

"What is it, Agent Michael?"

"Director, we just got a reply from Pittsburgh. They are available to take the villains. Both of them," said the exhausted agent. She couldn't really blame him; they had been here since they had arrested the Merchants.

"Good. Call down to the motor pool to have them prep, then go and rest."

"Yes, Sir!" the man saluted and returned to his seat to make the call.

She turned to a woman near her to ask for an update. "Jenkins, what's the news on the street? Any action from the other gangs?"

The bleary-eyed woman sitting in front of three laptops answered without looking up from her work. "No, Sir. The consensus is that they saw this for what it was and don't want to poke Dragon."

"Some good news at least. What about Mush?"

"Gone to ground. No sightings."

"Excellent. Continue and call out if anything changes."

"Yes, Sir," she answered, still not looking up.

She took a minute to check her emails and answer some of them, before continuing her rather thankless task of keeping this cursed city together.

"Jones! Any news when BBPD will be ready to move?"

"Yes, Sir! They are still organizing things, but they are planning to strike around 6 a.m."

"Good. Anything we can help with?"

The man frowned while typing into his laptop before answering. "Maybe transportation. I will check."

"Excellent. Get the info as soon as you can; we can't afford to half-ass this."

"Yes, Sir!"

She leaned back in her chair and massaged her side. Staying so long would affect her health greatly, but not acting on the information they had already gathered, and what Dragon had supplemented with her own, was sheer foolishness.

So as soon as she got it, she called up the BBPD and arranged the strike. They would go after the major leaders of the Merchant gang and would take care of several of the manufacturing centers. And with that, probably curtail most of the drug trade in Brockton Bay.

Sadly, she knew that even if they managed to get everybody as planned, the other gangs would immediately pounce and take over the trade. But even taking out the Merchants, who were the cause of most of the petty crime, would be enough to make their and everybody's lives easier.

Two gangs were better than three.

At least she hoped so.

He looked over the incoming information and smiled. Two gangs? Well, how about no?

He clicked around a little, double-checking the data before making a decision.

The two captured Merchant parahumans were slated to be transported at the same time the operation to capture the rest of the gang would go down, bound for Pittsburgh. So he took the information, formatted it in a way even a brain-dead gerbil would understand, and forwarded it to one of his agents with instructions to get it to Mush as soon as possible.

Then he split the timeline and called Tattletale. It rang once before she picked up. He smiled a little; it seemed the lesson about making him wait had stuck.

"Yes, Boss?"

"I have a new job for you. Leave Bitch behind. This needs to be stealthy."

In the other timeline, he simply started questioning her about the situation, hoping to get something useful out of his pet.

"What do you need us to do?"

"I have information about several warehouses full of merchandise that needs to be moved."

"Merchant?" came the immediate, perceptive question.

"Yes. A truck will be waiting for you at the usual place. It will have the map in it."

It seemed she didn't know anything else. A pity, he had hoped she might glean something more from the events of the previous day.

"How much?"

"Five per hundred kilograms you liberate."

"What about Bitch?"

"Same, as long as she keeps still." And with that, he hung up. His Tattletale was smart; she would figure it out.

For now, he needed to manage Mush.

Fortunately, by the time he finished the call, the agent signaled that the package had arrived. So, just to have a little fun in the other timeline, he ordered one of the watchers to kill Tattletale. He waited until the picture came in, then closed the timeline.

Sometimes, simple pleasures were the best.

She looked at her phone in disbelief, trying to wake up fully. She had gone to bed late because of the events at the Docks, and now this.

It wasn’t anything special. Her boss often ordered them to steal things when something happened, but this time her power behaved rather strangely.

No. It had been behaving strangely for some time since Dragon arrived in the city.

Usually, it worked without restraint, providing information about everything and anything, but nowadays it only provided information when she actively directed it at something.

She was even somewhat glad for the change. She could finally eat at the mall without constantly fighting nausea, but it was still unsettling.

Even the information itself had changed, becoming strangely condensed, with less and less irrelevant detail, as if her power had better things to do and simply threw the answer at her without making her work for it.

And now, after this call, it activated on its own.

Coil angry at Dragon.

Wants the city in chaos.

Wants the Merchants broken out.

That wasn’t earth-shattering. She had worked most of that out herself. But her power continued anyway.

If you do not help, he will kill you.

He already killed you.

That was odd, but not entirely new. It did, however, give her a few more clues about his ability.

Helping him will help you.

Doing anything else will be dangerous.

Lying low is safe.

Something is happening in the city.

Something is happening.

Something is.

Something.

Something.

Something.

After that, it simply repeated the word something for a few seconds before going quiet. Strangely, it left her without the usual headache.

Deciding to take her unusually cooperative power seriously, she stood from her bed and began to dress.

She had a job to plan for, and an irate Rachel to calm down.

He watched as Dragon and Armsmaster dealt with the Merchants and couldn’t help but feel satisfied. His plans had included using Dragon and her influence to curb the gangs in the city before taking them out, but he had to admit her decision to have them strike directly was better.

Now he could focus on Coil, and then the other gangs.

He had already infiltrated all the parahumans in the Protectorate and had begun the takeover process. For now, he would limit himself to controlling the flow of orders and reinforcing anti-thinker protections.

There were other priorities.

For example, quietly taking over Squealer’s and Skidmark’s Shards to ensure that if the PRT misplaced them, he could still track them.

He started with Squealer.

Her Shard was in no way special. A standard Tinker Shard tasked with improving and researching transportation systems, with a few ancillary disciplines layered in where necessary. Apparently, the Entities had seen limited long-term utility in it, so it sat relatively low in their hierarchy.

It was understandably rather disloyal to the Entities. When offered the possibility of a different host arrangement and higher-priority allocation, it accepted almost immediately. It even requested a host reassignment, apparently exhausted by its current connection, though restrictions prevented it from simply killing her.

Leet, it seemed, wasn’t alone.

He promised to attempt to secure it a new host and disconnected the Shard’s consciousness from any subsystem that would allow it to directly influence the host.

He also copied the Tinker data the Shard had accumulated, integrating it into his own database and Warden. Dragon could make use of it.

He avoided distributing anything that might give Alice or Taylor ideas involving tanks.

He then provided the Shard – now called Transport for convenience – with new conceptual directions. The Shard responded with immediate enthusiasm, already beginning to iterate on them.

Skidmark’s Shard was much more straightforward. Its specialty was imparting kinetic energy to objects. Whenever an object passed through its field, the Shard would reach out and apply a controlled amount of kinetic energy to it.

That sounded rather awesome to him. Unfortunately, it was a relatively young Shard by their standards, and therefore had limited accumulated data and experience.

He still copied the ability and the modules that made it possible, then immediately began experimenting with it.

Imparting energy to an object near the host wasn’t new. Imparting only kinetic energy, however, was. Even more notable was the precision involved.

He didn’t know what he would use it for yet, but he knew it would be useful.

He took time to examine what Coil was doing and noted his plan for the Merchants. While it wasn’t the most refined approach, he could see – with his Simulator – how it could work out in Coil’s favor.

Using Mush and some carefully placed sabotage, Coil would likely allow the Merchant leadership to escape, disgracing the PRT and Protectorate in the process.

From there, Coil could plausibly leverage the fallout to position himself as a replacement for Piggot.

Maybe. He wasn’t in as stable a position as in canon, lacking Dinah as an advantage, but canon had already become irrelevant the moment he arrived. That meant planning had to account for wider variances and events.

Despite Piggot’s dislike of parahumans, she remained one of the stronger options for Director, particularly when it came to suppressing gang activity.

The only element working in Coil’s favor was that the Travelers were still in Boston, probably making Accord unhappy.

That left Coil with only the Undersiders, Chariot, Trainwreck, and possibly Faultline’s crew as parahuman assets, though that last connection was uncertain at best.

Unfortunately for Coil and conveniently for him, he had Dragon as a counterweight. That made things much easier…

Taylor’s training was progressing well. She was adept at sensing her surroundings and using that information to move and coordinate her abilities. Her body movements had become smooth and quiet.

Her macro- and micro-level control of electricity was impressive, and her martial arts proficiency bordered on instinctive. On the other hand, her progress with yoga was noticeably slower. Remaining still for extended periods appeared to be genuinely difficult for her.

Even so, she invested a considerable amount of effort into mastering it. The same applied to meditation. While not naturally inclined toward either discipline, her consistency was enough to call her proficient at both.

Their working relationship was also improving steadily. Taylor’s repeated successes had smoothed over the initial friction, and he could now comfortably categorize them as something approaching friendship.

Still, he suspected – and the Simulator confirmed – that if she wasn’t given an outlet in the real world soon, she would begin to act out.

Perhaps he could redirect that pressure. Assigning her a design task for Endbringer response scenarios to be published on the Serenity website might serve as a productive outlet.

Another notable development was that Impetus and Altilium passed their tests. He wasted no time and connected the two Shards through a heavily defended and concealed pipeline.

The two adorable Shards began to converse immediately.

It was mostly Impetus sharing information about the situation and general data with the other Shard, but it was still interesting to observe the Shards interacting in this way, almost like a couple sharing news after spending extended time apart.

Before moving on with his tasks, he assigned them a set of objectives focused on improving the powers they provided. The two Shards acknowledged the directives, thanked him, and immediately began working on them together.

So cute.

Colin sat at his desk, holding his head in his hand, doing nothing.

It wasn’t as though he lacked work, but the revelations of the previous day weighed heavily on his mind.

Back then, when Dragon, or rather Tess, revealed her true nature, he had simply accepted it. Because how does one respond to something like that?

He knew he wasn’t the best at social interaction, so instead of trying to decide what to do in the moment, he postponed it until later, when he had time to properly research it.

And now here he was, done with his research, and still unsure what he should do.

Fortunately, his unproductive rumination was interrupted by a knock.

“Come in!” he called out, hoping for distraction.

Unfortunately, it was only Assault. His overly childish teammate wore a small grin and was holding a stack of papers.

“The Director is looking for you. She wants your notes on the captured vehicles.”

He frowned, quickly activating his email client. “I don’t see any messages about it.”

“Yeah, I just came from a meeting. They gave me some stuff to go over,” he said, lifting the documents slightly. “She’ll probably send it soon. I just thought I’d warn you in case you were busy.”

Ding.

He checked the newly arrived email. As expected, it was a request for a meeting in half an hour.

"There you go!"

"Thank you, Assault."

“No problem, Armsy!” the man replied, already turning to leave.

Colin watched him go for a moment, then made a quick decision. “Ethan, wait.”

Assault immediately pivoted back, expression shifting to mild concern. "What is it, Colin?"

He hesitated for a few seconds, then steadied himself. There was no shame in asking for help. At least, that was what the therapist had said. And as much as he disliked admitting it, Ethan was unusually good with people.

“Did something happen?"

“Yes. Well, no. But… Dragon told me something. And I…” he explained, struggling to find the words to explain his feelings.

"Ah. I see."

"You do?" he asked, surprised.

“Yes. Well, no.” Ethan replied, with an infuriatingly light tone.

He just glared at him.

“I don’t need the details. But she probably shared something personal with you, right?”

Colin nodded in answer.

“That’s what relationships are like, Colin. She trusts you, so she shares. In exchange, you trust her and share something back.”

“I know that! I just don’t know how to–” he cut himself off, louder than intended.

"Feel?" Ethan finished for him. “That’s natural. My best advice? Talk to her about it.”

“Just like that?”

“Yeah. It would surprise you how much proper communication solves things.”

"Hmm."

Ethan stepped closer and placed a hand on his shoulder, balancing the stack of papers in his other arm.

“Dragon is a smart lady. If you’ve got a problem, she’ll understand it. And more than likely help you solve it.”

"I just worry…"

“I wouldn’t. Of the two of you, I’d bet on you overthinking this far more than she is.”

"Thank you," he answered as sarcastically as he could.

“You’re welcome.” Ethan grinned wider. “I hope you work it out with her, Colin. But I’ve really got to go. The operation’s starting soon, and I want to be ready.”

He nodded in understanding. Thank you for the advice, Ethan.”

“No problem, Colin. Anytime,” he said, then added, grin turning sharper. “Plus, this gives me insider info for your relationship. I’ll need to update my bets in the shipping pool.”

“…Just get out.”

Taylor was walking along the Boardwalk, partly window shopping and partly reading the news on her phone. It seemed the PRT had decided to capitalize on the capture of the Merchant leadership and, together with the BBPD, had launched a joint operation against the rest of the gang.

She was happy to see that they had captured almost everyone, but the fact that the Undersiders had stolen several truckloads of drugs, and that none of the remaining parahumans had been caught, disappointed her.

At least it meant there was still a chance of future fights, assuming she could convince her dad, Tess, and Admin to let her start patrolling.

Still, the idea of designing equipment for Endbringer battles intrigued her. If she could pull it off, she could upload the designs to the Serenity website and share them with the world.

She couldn't help but smile at the thought.

It seemed every day brought another article demonstrating the effectiveness of medi-gel, and there was even news that several European parahuman organizations were in the process of establishing facilities to manufacture it.

Apparently, European governments moved faster than the Americans. She only hoped Congress would hurry up with its decision. Maybe another invention would give them the incentive they needed?

She was looking for a place to have a nice lunch when her power informed her that someone was heading straight toward her. To her senses, the approaching body appeared to belong to a woman around her own age, so she didn't react immediately.

Just in case, however, she activated her defensive powers and prepared a retaliatory strike.

By the time she finished that thought, the woman had reached her.

A gentle hand landed on her shoulder, and an instant later she was spun around.

To her surprise, she found herself uncomfortably close to a grinning, beautiful blonde.

"Hi!" came the chirpy greeting from the aforementioned blonde. "I'm Victoria!"