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Interlude - 1.a - Piggot2,152 words
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Interlude - 1.a - Piggot

Interlude 1a – Piggot

“Would anyone like to tell me how this particular mess happened?” a heavy-set woman sternly asked as she leaned forward, large hands set upon the meeting table as her steel-grey eyes took in those seated all around her.

She didn’t shout, she didn’t scream, or even raise her voice. She did not allow a single glimpse of the fury roaring inside her to color her perfectly controlled voice as she asked the question to the gaggle of heroes and PRT personnel filling her personal meeting room in PRT ENE headquarters. And yet, more than one hero in the room shifted away from her in their seats upon hearing her words and feeling the icy glare as her gaze passed over them.

“Well? Would anyone care to tell me how exactly is it that a call for a disturbance at Winslow High ended up in a free for all between four members of the Protectorate, one of our Wards, and a complete unknown, an unmasked unknown at that, and ended up with said unknown escaping and both her identity and the identity of our Ward probably blown for all to see?”

As several of those listening fought down shivers that had nothing to do with the room’s AC, Emily Piggot waited for an answer regarding the newest madness that had befallen this misbegotten city. Her steely eyes moved from one target to another as she tried to keep her anger at bay, something that was not helped by the growing dull ache on her body that signaled she would have to have dialysis soon. But that could wait, preventing Brockton Bay from going up in flames for one more day could not.

“No spins, no guesses, no elaborated tales. Leave that to the papers. All I want to know is what, exactly, happened!” the Director of the PRT ENE firmly stated, her hard eye moving towards Assault and Battery, the fact that the first was acting unusually serious instead of doing his usual clown act not helping settle her nerves in the slightest. “Assault, Battery, you were the first on the scene. Walk us through what happened.”

“Battery and I were patrolling our route for the day when we received an urgent report of a possible altercation with a parahuman at Winslow High. As the closest to the area, we immediately moved to assess the situation,” the reformed villain promptly replied, voice serious and to the point. Narrowing her eyes, Piggot knew that this would not be good, if Assault was taking it seriously. “Approximately three minutes later we were on the site. Upon arrival we saw Shadow Stalker, unmasked, fleeing from the school while being pursued by an equally unmasked female cape. She was a tall teenager, with long black hair, possibly of Caucasian descent, though the fact she was covered in filth, dust and plaster made that hard to verify.

“Stalker jumped and entered her shadow state in order to gain distance, the pursuer in retaliation fired lightning from her hands, hitting Stalker at the apex of her jump, bringing her down.” He continued, grim-faced and eyes narrowed. “As the unknown then proceeded to approach the downed Shadow Stalker, we intervened, myself attempting a disabling blow while Battery rushed to see to Stalker’s health. Despite hitting the unknown with more than enough force to down a fully grown man thrice her body mass, she was completely unaffected, and proceeded to fight us while ignoring all attempts at dialogue.”

“Leading to the running battle that is, even now, going viral on the internet,” Piggot spat out, grinding her teeth as Assault nodded his head in agreement. What a fucking mess. “Do we know what caused this whole debacle?”

“Following the trail of destruction into the school led past several destroyed walls and directly towards a school locker that belonged to one Taylor Anne Hebert, a locker that was filled with what was, for all intents and purposes, rotting biological waste. Old tampons, sanitary pads, used toilet paper, all left to rot for a few days at least. All of it covered with a fresh layer of vomit, and traces of blood.” Miss Militia took over the explanation, her eyes narrowed dangerously and showing she was not happy with what she found. “The locker’s metal door was embedded in the row of lockers across from it, the damage showing it was hit from the inside with tremendous force.”

Emily fought the urge to curse as the picture of at least part of what had to have happened started to take form. “A Trigger Event. Someone filled her locker with that filth and thought it would be a grand idea to shove her inside and lock the door. Which in turn, more likely than not, caused her to Trigger.”

“Very likely,” Armsmaster added, for once his tone of voice showing he was actually giving the meeting his full attention instead of working on a project while pretending to do so. “Upon doing a more thorough investigation of Miss Hebert, I found over a dozen abandoned school accounts filled with hate mail and assorted threats and attacks. And while most of the school staff showed themselves to be distinctively uncooperative, the information obtained painted a picture of what looks like a protracted bullying campaign.”

Briefly closing her eyes, while trying to ignore the fact that Armsmaster most definitely would not have had the time to obtain the warrants to access said email accounts, Piggot took in a deep breath as she felt her headache grow. The girl had been bullied to the point of triggering, and then promptly proceeded to try and hunt down the Wards little pet psychopath, currently resting unconscious on an infirmary bed, in a blind murderous rage. Two plus two was four.

“I want a thorough search of both the Hebert and Hess residences. Also access any phones, emails or media accounts they may have. I want Hess’ lockers, both here and at Winslow, ripped apart. Her phones, computer, her room, both here and at her house, everything is to be searched thoroughly! I want to know exactly what the hell she was doing to bring this onto our heads!” she barked her orders. For once Armsmaster’s robot-like efficiency wasn’t aggravating her as the hero promptly started on the order right there at the table without so much as a ‘by your leave’, his finger dancing upon a small holographic keyboard that appeared upon his left wrist.

“Director, we can’t just violate one of our Wards’ privacy like that!” Triumph protested in an appalled tone of voice, only to immediately shut up as Piggot glared at him with the full brunt of her current fury. “I mean, don’t we need a warrant for that at least?”

“Sophia Hess is on probation; she has no rights concerning privacy regarding this matter as far as I’m concerned!” she hissed back. This was a downright mess! Fury at the little psychopath that had been shoved onto her despite all her protests threatened to boil over. “Or have you failed to realize that Shadow Stalker’s civilian identity may very well have caused a girl to Trigger with an extremely powerful power-set. A girl who now has plenty of reasons to turn to villainy!

“Renick, I want you to grill Hess’ handler! We have received nothing but glowing reviews regarding her charge’s conduct in school up to this point, something that I now find very suspicious! I want answers!” she told her second in command, fuming at the mess she now had to deal with. As if preventing the bay from imploding with the scant resources she had was not enough trouble!

After taking several deep breaths to center herself, she proceeded with the meeting. An order to place Hess’ family under protective custody until they could try and contain the leak of Hess’ secret identity was given, as was the order to try and contact and bring in Hebert’s father and only living family, and finally moved to the next part of this nightmare.

“Regarding the fight itself and the powers used, what can we tell about Hebert?”

“She has no fighting experience whatsoever,” Assault immediately replied, causing more than one person to look at him incredulously considering how it had taken four fully trained heroes to cause the girl to retreat.

“Are you sure?” the Director questioned through narrowed eyes, pushing the growing pain in her bones aside as she focused on the topic at hand.

“She telegraphed all her attacks and unbalanced herself more than once by over-committing her strikes,” the red-clad hero replied while raising an eyebrow. “And that’s not mentioning how she had her thumb tucked inside her fist when she was trying to hit me. Yes, I’m quite sure she has no fighting experience whatsoever.”

“As for her powers: Brute five, easily, probably higher,” he continued with a grimace, opening and closing his fist as he spoke as if to limber a pained muscle. “I managed to bypass her freaky shadow defense a couple of times and even fully connect a hit or two straight to the back of her head, hits that carried more than enough kinetic energy to lay out grown men thrice her size, and she didn’t even notice it, save for being shoved around a bit. And when you add that to the trail of destruction she left behind as she chased Hess, and how she didn’t even seem to feel Dauntless’ lightning…”

“Blaster six, I think,” Dauntless hesitatingly added as Assault trailed off, the Spartan-themed hero’s hands idly caressing his shield as he spoke. “Her lightning blasts had one heck of a punch. The only time I blocked a blast stronger than that was from Purity when she was going all out, and she is a Blaster seven.”

“Shaker three or four for her ability to manipulate and solidify her shadow,” Battery continued, clearly uncomfortable with the whole mess, a rare sign of sanity for a cape. “The ability appears to be limited to her own shadow only, but at the same time it seems to be an automatic aspect of her power, with it apparently not needing her direct input to respond to threats. More than once it blocked Assault’s strikes despite how she was completely focused on pursuing Hess and I.

“Breaker/Mover three for her ability to turn into mist,” Miss Militia firmly stated, the weapon created by her power strapped at her waist changing between different types of handguns with flashes of green light as she spoke. “She completely bypassed the containment foam that was trapping her, and while in said form was able to fly away at considerable speed as she made her escape towards the nearest alleyway.”

“Christ…” Emily found herself muttering, headache now stronger than ever. Each of the powers in question by themselves could constitute a credible threat, but all of them together in the same Cape?

The fact that Hebert seemed to be freshly triggered also meant that the numbers in at least one of those categories would most probably go up in the following weeks as she grew more used with her powers was the cherry atop this particular cake!

“We need to find her, fast, before someone else finds her first.”

Hebert’s secret identity was blown beyond any hope of recovery. The fact that Winslow was infested with members of all three of the city’s major gangs made sure of that. By now said gangs most likely already knew her identity. And when that was added to her shown powers and the fact that she was an unstable and currently homeless teenager on the run, it meant that the gangs would do everything they could to either recruit or remove this newest piece who had just appeared on the city’s board.

“We may have a problem regarding that,” Armaster concisely stated, not stopping his frantic tying for even one moment. “The Empire Eighty Eight seems to be already making some noise in regards to attempting to find her.”

Gritting her teeth, Piggot cursed the heavens, because of course that would be the case!

A bullied white girl pushed to trigger by a black hero? Hebert was a public relations wet dream as far as the Nazi wannabes were concerned! And that’s ignoring how strong her powers are!

As those around her added their two cents in regards to the unwelcome news, Piggot tried to plan how to prevent this new unhinged problem from causing the already unstable pile of cards that was Brockton Bay to collapse and burn.

At the very least keeping deranged idiots with delusions of grandeur from doing so was something she had years of experience doing. But even so, as she started barking orders and getting the spandex-clad problems under her command into a semblance of order, she knew that they were now racing against the clock.

Author's Note:

Piggot is a surprisingly difficult character to get right without turning her into a stereotype. She deeply distrusts and hates Capes. But unlike most she is fully aware of that fact and tries and places her professionalism above that. Not to mention how she actually has a valid reason for her distrust and hate. Hopefully I managed to get that across.

Hope you enjoyed the chapter, please review before leaving.

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