//------------------------------// // Interlude 10 // Story: Shard of Magic [Worm crossover] // by blake0831 //------------------------------// Director Emily Piggot did bother to look up from her paperwork as Armsmaster and Miss Militia entered the office. She ignored the polite greeting from the heroine and simply jotted something down onto her pad. There was silence in the office as the two Protectorate heroes stood there waited patiently and the portly PRT Director fumed at her desk. Eventually, Armsmaster cleared his throat. "You're still angry." he commented. "You're damn right I'm angry." Director Piggot muttered through gritted teeth, her gaze still fixed at her papers. She then held up a hand to forestall any defense from the heroes while she took a few deep breaths. "Armsmaster. Intellectually," Director Piggot started, looking up at the two heroes. "I can't fault you for making the decision to involve the Wards two days ago. You were in dire straits, having been dragged unwillingly into a solo fight with a ramped up Lung, while surrounded by his armed minions. In that situation, you did not have the luxury of time or capacity to think very deeply of the possible ramifications and consequences. You had to work with what you know, what allies are available to timely assist and what you have at that time to, at the very least, survive the situation with as little friendly casualties as possible. That you had no options but put your trust in the predictions of a friendly, but not fully tested and trained precog." "However, I'm still angry that you allowed a pair of Wards that decided to go cowboy into an active combat zone, on the reassurances of a twelve year old." Director Piggot said, her voice not raising above conversational level, but still smouldering with anger. "Precog or not, a two thirds possibility of a better outcome is not a justifiable reason to bring children and teenagers into a massive firefight." Director Piggot then leaned back, seemingly spent. "Still, what's done is done." she said tiredly. "Let's move on. What's the status?" The two heroes sat down on chairs and Miss Militia opened the folder of reports she had brought along. "Fatalities are light, mostly of the Troopers that were escorting Convoy Delta. The number of injured were high though, given the involvement of Rune, Alabaster and the suspected Gesellschaft cape in the assault. Thankfully, although the prisoners carried by Convoy Delta were freed, they were only three hardcore E88 members and some low-ranking crooks." She paused. "On the other front, although there are no friendly casualties, there weren't many surviving captures of the non-parahuman gang members of either ABB or E88 affiliations." She flipped some papers around in the folder (Piggot idly wonders why does Miss Militia have to refer to the paper reports, considering the heroine's eidetic memory. Perhaps it's something she does to put other people at ease.) and continued. "We have managed to capture and restrain Lung," (Piggot saw in a corner of her eye that Armsmaster had sat up straighter in his chair, a bit of pride of his accomplishment leaking through the armored hero's stoic demeanor.), "The Cornell Bomber who now calls herself Bakuda and another suspected Gesellschaft cape. Lung, Bakuda and the Gesellschaft cape are currently in high security holding cells on the Rig under enforced sedation and heavy guard. We've hooked them up to IV drips, and stripped them of everything on them." Armsmaster entered the conversation. "We're keeping the Troopers and the BBPD on alert. The E88, the Merchants and smaller gangs in Brockton Bay might capitalize on the ABB's loss of strength, especially when we still don't have any confirmation regarding the status of Oni Lee." He idly tapped a finger on his thigh. "E88 might do something to compensate for their loss in reputation, seeing that their last assault on the PRT convoy did not, unlike before, free their imprisoned capes." Director Piggot frowned at the reminder. Coil's tendrils into the PRT systems was likely why the Brockton Bay PRT had so much trouble holding on to villain capes before the capes could be incarcerated in high security prisons out of state. "How are we doing?" Miss Militia answered. "As I said before, we have relatively light fatalities among the Troopers, but many more are injured. We're enlisting the aid of Panacea to assist us with more severe cases. On the Protectorate, there were no casualties or serious injuries. On the Wards," Here, she hesitated a bit, before soldering on. "The Wards Starburst, Clockblocker and Forecast were benched for a week, possibly two, for their breach in conduct and are slated to undergo remedial training and counseling in the mean time. The rest are fine." Director Piggot nodded. "Okay. Armsmaster," she asked, turning towards the Protectorate member in question. "How are we with our..." she trailed off a bit. "-our anti-Endbringer countermeasure?" She paused, before asking again. "Are we absolutely sure of the next Endbrinnger and probable target?" Armsmaster sighed, sagging a bit. "Yes. My and Dragon's work, the Endbringer Prediction Algorithm and Forecast's predictions points to a collectively 88.4% certainty of the upcoming Endbringer attack being carried out by Leviathan. On the target," he took a breath. "very high probability that it will attack a city on the East Coast of the United States, likely any city within a span approximately about between New York and Delaware, within two weeks to a month." Director Piggot leaned back in her chair. "Fuck." she swore, before looking at Armsmaster again. "And the countermeasures?" Armsmaster looked uncertain. "Six Mobile Thaumaturgic Anti-HydroKinesis Projectors and their battery arrays; configured for about two to three hours of operation at full power, are complete, and we're starting on the seventh and eighth vehicles. The re-configured vans had their engines, suspensions and wheels revamped to handle rough terrain at high speeds, and the driver and co-pilot pairs for the vehicles are adequately trained and ready. Though we have not extensively test the anti-hydrokinesis array, we are reasonably certain it will immensely curtail Leviathan's main weapon of choice in his attacks." Director Piggot furrowed her brow. "The vans are going to be targets. Are we sure additional defenses can't be installed on them? How are we on the vehicles deployments?" Armsmaster shook his head. "Not without compromising the strength and longevity of the anti-hydrokinesis projectors." He leaned forward and frowned. "Regarding deployments, just four of the vehicles at optimal locations is enough to cover most of Brockton Bay. But we're not sure about adequately covering a larger city like Boston or New York with what we have now, thus why we're continuing to devote some of the R&D personnel and PRT mechanics into the project, to keep making as many projectors as we can. As Brockton Bay is relatively in the middle of the range of probable projected targets, we can deploy the vehicles to the further cities quickly if we have to. Hopefully, we can get enough of a warning to get them into place in time." Director Piggot looked down, not quite liking the uncertainty but forced to accept it. "Very well." she conceded. "Is there anything else you would like to bring up?" ************************** Armsmaster and Miss Militia walked down the hall away from the PRT Director's office in silence. It was only after they've entered the empty elevator and the doors close that Armsmaster spoke up. "You did not mention about all the Wards submitting themselves under Master/Stranger protocols earlier today." Miss Militia, blushed, what little of it can be seen over the bandana. "I'm... not sure it was pertinent to mention it during the meeting. The... 'event' seems harmless. The initial medical reports showed no signs of anything wrong." She paused. "And I'm not sure of how to phrase it." Armsmaster looked at the heroine silently for a moment. "The effect seems to be... isolated to Kid Win's fiddling with the remaining thaumaturgic battery in the Wards workshop. The anti-silicakinesis fields provoked no such reactions here or at the Rig, despite their projectors and battery/recharger arrays being active continuously for nearly three weeks now." Miss Militia looked away. "Yes..." she stumbled a bit. "There were no reports of similar incidents. Only this one incident." Armsmaster hummed. "I wonder what prompted Kid Win to hook up a Jacobs Ladder antenna pair into the thaumaturgic battery..." Miss Militia chuckled nervously. "At least the rainbows and sparkles coming out of the antennas were nice to look at, even through the security footage..." The power armor clad hero frowned a bit. "Seems a bit of a waste to just... discharge the stored thaumaturgic energy into the air like that." he commented. Miss Militia fidgeted a bit. "Still, no one could have predicted what would happen next or the effects on the Wards present in the Wards common room at the time." she pointed out. Armsmaster nodded. "We still haven't figure out where the instrumental background music comes from." He paused. "Still, not mentioning it now to the Director?" Miss Militia looked at Armsmaster in slight exasperation. "What was I going to say? The Wards were fiddling with a thaumaturgic battery and a Jacobs Ladder in the Wards common room, and they all spontaneously burst into a perfectly coordinated, choreographed, musically tuned and synchronized song and dance about 'How They Can't Wait To Be Real Heroes' despite there was no outside influences or any preparations what so ever by anyone? With inexplicable background music from the song "I Just Can't Wait to be King' from the Earth Aleph movie 'The Lion King'? It felt absurd just thinking about it, let alone trying to write up a report." she gestured helplessly. She then took a breath. "...I'll take it up to Director Piggot later, once we have the full story when the M/S protocols are done, the Wards are fully debriefed and the initial investigation is completed." she conceded reluctantly. Armsmaster was silent for a moment. "We'll have to investigate further if the phenomenon has any detrimental effects or whether it is replicatable or repeatable for further study. That it managed to affect all the Wards present in the common room at the time suggest it is a rather potent Master effect, even if they claimed that they felt like they had been somehow emotionally 'asked' for consent beforehand by 'something in the air' to participate." He said firmly. "If it proves to be a benign effect caused simply by the raw thaumaturgic energy being freely discharged into the air, then we can all breath easy." he concluded. Missi Militia nodded. "So far, tests had came back negative on anything detrimental. In some of the Wards, there was a minor improvement in the emotional states of the Wards. They reported to be feeling less tense and frustrated." She tapped a finger on her chin. "It seems to be more like 'Scream Therapy' for emotional release, but more pleasant to the ear." Armsmaster sighed. "Considering what could happen, improvement of emotional and mental states of anyone nearby via induced singing and dancing as a side effect of the usage of thaumaturgic tech is better than what I could hope for or fear about." He rubbed a hand on his helmet. "Starburst had claimed before that raw thaumaturgic energy had no detrimental effects on living beings, but it'll be better to double check, especially after an incident like this." Miss Militia nodded. "Indeed. The more we know, the better." She let out a breath. "At least, the Wards weren't hurt by this. A little bewildered and slightly embarrassed, but unhurt emotionally, mentally or physically." Silence lasped between the two heroes for a moment. "I wonder if the Wards would appreciate a video of their performance. We do have the video from the security feeds and Kid Win's helmet cam, and the audio was captured rather nicely..." Armsmaster mused randomly. Miss Militia just shook her head while chuckling to herself. The two heroes quickly composed themselves as the elevator doors open.