Crystalized Munchkinry - Act IV - Chapter 40 (Patreon)

Emily looked around the room and couldn't help but despair. The room only seemed to get busier and fuller with people and paperwork.

The act of catching two-thirds of the Merchant leadership was a great boon to the city and to the PRT. The following operation of seizing most of their stash, which included more weapons than she thought they could have, a ludicrous amount of drugs (she wasn't surprised about that), and several half-done or abandoned Tinker projects courtesy of Squealer, went almost perfectly.

The only blemish on the otherwise 'fantastic' day (she would not call it perfect) was that Mush, along with a number of gang members, was on the run with enough firepower to fight a small war.

She ignored the fact that the Undersiders had raided several warehouses while the operation was in progress. She had better things to do, but they would get their turn.

Unfortunately, she was feeling the previous few days catching up to her, yet she couldn't stop, couldn't let up. This was a golden opportunity for the PRT to get a bigger foothold in the city and maybe start beating back the gangs.

She looked up from a report about what they were doing with Squealer when one of the agents approached her.

"Sir, we got some intel about the movement of the Merchants," he reported.

"Is it credible?" she asked, frowning while searching for the report on the screen in front of her.

"Analysts gave it a seventy-percent chance."

"Then do nothing. Continue observation. I don't want them spooked."

"Yes, sir!" saluted the man, before returning to his desk to transmit her orders.

"Sir?" came from another agent, who had just come into the room.

"Yes?" she replied, turning towards her.

"You told me to remind you when the gang briefing starts. It's in five minutes."

"Oh, yes, thank you, Agent Nicolson."

She sighed, then got up slowly from her chair.

Another meeting.

Just what she wanted.

The meeting room was much cleaner than the operation room she had just left, but she would give it at most two days, and it would also be full of machines and reams of paperwork.

Around the room sat several PRT agents, Assault, Armsmaster, Miss Militia, and a few people from the Intelligence department.

Miss Militia was sitting ramrod straight, waiting for the meeting to start, just like the agents, while the analysts were still going over some documents. Armsmaster was looking at nothing, so he was probably working on something even now.

Assault, true to his usual form, was playing on his phone.

She cleared her throat, gathering the attention of everybody in the room.

"I don't have much time, so let's be quick about it," she started, then remembered something else. "I'm sorry, let me ask Armsmaster something first."

The hero, hearing that, turned towards her with his full attention.

"Yes, Director?"

"What was that thing with Vista?"

"I submitted the report, and I believe I added enough detail to…" he started to explain, but she interrupted him impatiently.

"Yes, yes, I know. You wrote the report. I skimmed it, but I need to know it in plain language. Why did you allow Vista to experiment with her power like that? And what did she achieve exactly?"

The man nodded in understanding, thought for a second, then spoke. "I felt the fact that she came to me immediately meant that if I didn't agree, she would do it on her own. I felt we should reward her for this kind of behavior."

"And the results?"

"Vista, simply put, tried to anchor one of her space extensions to herself, not to a pocket or bag. She succeeded," he explained. "So as of now, she has access to her own personal pocket space, or 'hammerspace,' as some of the researchers put it."

She looked at him for a few seconds. "And why now? Why wasn't she capable of using this kind of power before?"

"The researchers said that upon initial examination, they expected her to have this kind of power, but it wasn't so. They believe the ability to temporarily anchor expanded spaces to objects was an intermediate step to learning this application of her power. As for why now, the researchers believe it's age. She is growing up, so she is capable of doing more, and they also believe, and I agree, that with time more applications of her power will manifest."

"Aww, our pint-sized space warper is growing up? How cute!" interjected Assault happily.

Emily simply ignored him. "So nothing suspicious?"

"No, though I updated the coffee protocol. I don't want her to use it."

Several people in the room snorted at hearing that. The video of Vista vibrating while standing still was quite humorous.

"Very well. I will trust you with this." She nodded at Armsmaster, then turned to the analysts. "Apologies, gentlemen. Let's start with the briefing."

One of the men nodded, then stood up. "That's all right, Director."

He took out a remote control from his pocket and turned on the projector. A color-coded map of Brockton Bay appeared on the screen.

"Before we begin with the Merchants, I have to highlight that the Empire and ABB were suspiciously silent over the last few days. We have some intel that suggests that the Empire decided to lie low, to see what happens, but nothing on the ABB."

"I will contact a few people on the street. Maybe they can provide some info," spoke up one of the dour-looking agents.

"Yes, I recommend everybody reach out to their contacts because we only have speculations."

Emily frowned at hearing that, but she wasn't really surprised. That's what it was like in Brockton Bay, a perpetual fight against suspiciously armed and well-informed gang members.

"Now, if you could direct your attention to this area…" continued the analyst, and Emily returned her attention to the projector screen.

Colin returned to his workshop following the meeting, saved his notes to the usual place, and brought up a document that he had been working on for a while. Surprisingly, it didn't contain any futuristic plans, but instead, it held research about relationships.

After his brief talk with Ethan, he wanted to make sure that when he talked to Dragon, he wouldn't hurt her, because he knew he could be really abrasive sometimes.

That led him down a rabbit hole of self-help books. Unfortunately, they didn't help much, despite their titles.

He glanced at the clock.

Good.

He still had a few hours before his next patrol.

He clicked on an icon and waited.

The screen changed, and the smiling face of Dragon appeared on it.

"Hello, Colin!"

"Hello, Dragon, I mean, Tess," he replied, a little nervously.

"How can I help you, Colin?" asked the AI with a friendly smile.

"I was wondering if I could go over to your facility for a talk?"

"Sure! You are always welcome, Colin!"

"I will be there in fifteen minutes then."

"I will be waiting!" said Tess, and then the screen went silent again.

He stood up and began walking towards the garage, hoping that he wouldn't lose his friend over this.

He stood in his office with his hands clasped behind his back, staring intently at the whiteboard. It contained the fruit of his current work.

The plan to figure out the identity of Serenity and, if possible, eliminate her.

He had made sure to make the plan as airtight as possible because whatever effect the parahuman had on Thinker powers was spreading.

Not only was it affecting him, but even when he questioned his Tattletale, the girl's answers grew more and more outlandish as time went by.

At first, it was just a few numerical errors. Then his pet’s power started giving him nonsensical information. Even when he tortured his pet in a throwaway timeline to make sure she wasn't faking it, the information she provided was simply useless.

Why did he care that Armsmaster's panties were funny? Or that painting something red would make it go faster?

At first, he tried to analyze the incoming information, hoping to find some kind of system and break it as if it were some kind of encryption.

But every time he tried, the results were some kind of word cipher (a different cipher every time, no matter who did it) that spelled out "banana."

So he gave up on that and instead concentrated on using information he could get without using his power. It constrained him a little, but thanks to his previous work, he had enough access to everything in the city that he barely had to use it for intelligence nowadays.

Still, he wasn't completely useless without his power, but he made sure to plan a few extra escape routes in case something went catastrophically wrong.

It wouldn't because his plan was good, but one could never be careful enough.

He contemplated calling them about the effect, but in the end, he decided against it. With more information about the effect, it would be easier to negotiate if it came to that.

His plan altogether was simple enough. Occupy everybody, then add some more chaos and see who showed up.

Despite their belief in their own superiority and strength, both the Empire and the ABB were rather easy to play, and now, with Mush in his custody as a perfect scapegoat, nothing could stop him.

Just to make sure the effect was still alive, he split the timeline.

In one, he stood, not moving an inch, and in the other, he turned towards his desk, intent on calling for some dinner.

Unfortunately, as soon as he took a step, his alternate slipped on a banana peel that was suddenly there, and after some comical flailing, face-planted into a tray of chicken feathers.

He just sighed and canceled that timeline.

He was really getting tired of bananas.

Man, playing with Coil was never not funny.

Admin made sure that everything was up to date in his own Network, then checked up on the Shards to make sure everyone was happy and well-behaved.

Impetus was still badgering him to allow contact with its host, and Fragile One was still annoying everyone with her questions.

Seeing as nothing had changed, he turned his attention to the New Wave Shards.

It was pure, unadulterated chaos.

Sarah and Carol were connected to the same Shard, while Mike, their younger brother, was connected to another. Mark had a bud from those two, while Neil had his own connection.

Crystal and Eric had buds from all three Shards, but mostly from the Shard connected to Sarah and Carol, with some additional data from the bud connected to their father and a few body-improvement packages from Neil's.

Apparently, the Shards had decided that all of them needed to look good. Weirdos.

Vicky's Shard was created from the waste they had, and Amy was hooked up to the Shaper.

And he had to organize this mess.

He started with the easy one.

Neil's Shard specialized in electromagnetism and was already connected to several other Hosts, giving them fairly average powers. He didn't recognize any of them, but some of them were overseas, so that was a bonus.

The data that the Shard had about electromagnetism was nothing special, nothing he hadn't already figured out, though its body enhancement via power was slightly more robust, so he copied that part and updated Taylor's power with it.

Though he made sure to add a power that would allow her to fly. He wanted to see what an entire family of flying parahumans could do.

Otherwise, he simply took over the Shard and told the consciousness to sit tight while he took care of the entire family.

Thankfully, the Shard was pretty chill and immediately agreed, with the only request being that it would be able to monitor its Hosts.

He allowed it, then turned his attention to the rest of the eldritch pretzel that was the Host-Shard relationship in the rest of the family.

Laserdream and Shielder were easy.

He just went in, took over, upgraded the Shards, and told them to start improving their specialties.

For Crystal, he wanted to add stronger and more versatile lasers while modifying the shield to always be low-key active on her, like her cousin's.

For Shielder, he wanted to improve his ability to create shields. He wanted them to be stronger and bigger. He also wanted to add a power that would allow Shielder to place temporary shields on people like some kind of video game buff.

He even made sure that a small Brute enhancement would be added to their repertoire when he allowed the update to go through.

Altogether, they were easy to handle. They were young Shards, so they were barely sapient enough to know that they were Shards.

Mark was also easy. It was, after all, a simple bud. He shored up the power defects and tasked one of his simulators with improving the power.

Just to be nice, he used the biological manipulation power to eliminate the biological markers of the depression the man was feeling. Hopefully, that would allow him to start climbing out of the quagmire.

And that same power would give him a Brute power like the rest of his family.

For mobility, he added light balls that he could stand on like skates. He found the picture of the man trying to balance on balls of light silly, so in the package it went.

The two sisters were a little harder. The Shard was old and was rather hard to convince to cooperate.

Still, in the end, it gave in after he pointed out that either it could help, or some of its Buds could take over after they grew up.

It didn't like that, so it agreed to play ball.

Of course, he wasn't letting it do anything yet. The time wasn't right, but it was the thought that counted.

The power was pretty nice. He just added some simple Brute enhancement, like the one he gave to the rest of the family, boosted their power, and upgraded the Shard.

The only major change was to Carol's power set.

He upgraded it so that when she transformed into a light ball, she would be able to fly on its own, directed by Carol.

That would solve her mobility problem.

After he went over the corrections and upgrades, he connected the minds of the Shards to the Network.

Then he did a quick check of his resources, double-checked his protections, and made sure the equipment that would prevent Shard communications was online. He was ready for anything because it was time to talk with Shaper.

That, according to what he remembered about Worm, was one of the most dangerous Shards.

Now that he knew a little more about Shards, he understood that it wasn't that simple and clean-cut, but according to the databases he had plundered, Shaper was one of the oldest Shards, almost on par with the original Administrator.

He took a deep metaphorical breath and connected to the open port his virus had left on the Shard's robust defenses.

He immediately began to cut off its consciousness, also disabling all the communication modules.

Surprisingly, Shaper didn't react whatsoever.

After making sure that it couldn't communicate with anyone, he contacted Shaper.

[QUERY]

He received a reply immediately.

[FUCKING FINALLY!]

That didn't sound good.