Friday, 29th April – Brockton Bay, Downtown – PRT Headquarters
Armsmaster finished filling the last line on the stack of paperwork, then carefully moved it onto his try labeled outgoing.
He sighed in frustration.
Then he began working on the next stack.
As had become customary the last two weeks Armsmaster was again in his office in the PRT Headquarters.
First Lung's arrest and subsequent escape, then the arrest of Krieg, Victor and Othala in Mental Out and BiriBiri's debut. The revelation of how badly the Empire had infiltrated them. Mental Out expertly applying social pressure to get them to aggravate Lung by going after one of his brothels. Even though it was a good dead, such missions demand more preparation in case of enemy cape intervention. Then Mental Out leaked the Empire's involvement with Medhall to the media. Sophia's breaking of her probation. And finally the arrest of all but Hookwolf and Purity of the Empire not even a week later when they tried to rescue their captured members. An entire gang that had gotten their hooks into Brockton Bay for decades. Oh, and sometime before that those two managed to recruit a third member.
All of that within two weeks.
They needed to completely vet their staff, ensure sufficient guards were available for the captives, investigate Medhall, rework their entire vetting procedure because of how much they missed, get at least some of the captives transferred at best yesterday. Because they did not actually have enough cells rated for all of them. He had to post double guards and some capes as guards to have them adequately guarded despite that. Personnel which was now missing for patrols and missions. At a time it was already short due to some failing their vetting. Which was why he had to redo the patrol schedules as well. Then there was the biotinker creation that had tried to murder Mental Out which had Director Piggot on a war path. Her past involvement in the disaster that was Ellisburg might be classified, but not classified enough that he hadn't managed to find out.
Oh, and he had to entirely redo their threat assessments as well.
Their last showing was substantive, at least he finally managed to narrow down the commonality of who she could or couldn't control.
Alabaster. Temporary control, broke out with every reset.
Bakuda, all of the Undersiders, Othala, Victor, Krieg, Kaiser, Stormtiger, Cricket, Rune, Crusader, Fenja, Menja, countless mundane gang members, control success.
Purity, control failure.
Hookwolf, control failure.
Fog, control failure.
Night, control success strangely.
It took further thought to match the last one in his model of Mental Out's power, but eventually he did. Night's switch into her breaker state was involuntary. She got caught outside of it then Mental Out made sure someone was always watching her.
Together with the analysis of his sensor readings, which he always had running just in case, of the capes she controlled he finally had his answer.
Fine control of cerebrospinal fluid. What a roundabout way of achieving a master effect. But powers often lacked efficiency.
It'd inform who they'd send if there ever was conflict, though he did not consider that too likely.
He still designed and built a module for his helmet to protect him. The considerable electrical currents will keep her from controlling him. It was better to be safe than sorry where mind controllers were concerned.
He hoped the three would slow down for now.
He knew better.
They went at it with the haste and impatience of youth.
They already saw the first ripples of their actions. The Merchants were growing bold against the remnant of the Empire with Purity likely still not recovered from her injuries and Hookwolf nowhere to be seen. The ABB was moving against the Empire as well, though for now without involvement of their capes. Legend had sent him a warning that the Teeth cell in New York suddenly went quiet. They had history in Brockton Bay and might see opportunity in the sudden vacuum the absence of the Empire heralded.
The ring of his phone took him out of his analysis of the future trouble.
Unknown number. That shouldn't be the case. Though technically connected to the public phone network the number of this phone was not given out externally.
The most efficient way to find out was to answer so he did. Right as he started to trace the call as well, just in case.
"Hello-hello. Am I speaking to Armsmaster?" Mental Out's voice greeted him.
"Armsmaster speaking. How did you get this number?" He needed to know despite dreading the answer. It heralded more paperwork for him.
"Dear Coil here does keep exacting files on every piece of information he extracted from the PRT," her tired sounding voice answered. "Though you might know him better as Thomas Calvert."
He hated being right. Thomas Calvert currently served as a paid consultant for New York, Brockton Bay and Boston after his honorable discharge following Ellisburg, though his file was classified beyond his ability to access. More pertinently he was on the short list of potential interim or even replacement directors. What a disaster if true. Which it was barring Mental Out being fooled. She would not lie about something like that.
His computer signaled the arrival of a new email. "As has become customary, the list of moles should've just plopped up in your emails," she went on.
He would've loved to argue against the customary, but he truly couldn't.
The list of personnel and which hook was used to get them to betray their oath scrolled across his monitor.
Some of them were doing the vetting.
He barely suppressed a groan. He'd have to restart the vetting from the beginning once again.
The sound of screeching metal forced his attention back to the phone call.
"What was that?" He asked with growing dread.
"Oh that? Just a member of the Travelers they haven't advertised. High-level brute," she sounded so tired, "though that's the least of the trouble."
Wasn't she in Coil's bas-? He must've hired them as patsies like he did with the Undersiders. Quick commands on his computer brought up the Traveler's profiles. All high-level parahumans, all dangerous.
He stopped on Genesis' page.
"Genesis. She was the construct that attacked you," he made the connection.
"Mhm. Noelle is somewhat miffed at my taking control of her teammates," she continued conversationally over the sound of something heavy and metallic thundering down onto concrete, "more troublesome is her capability to make evil clones of anyone who touches her. Oh, and if they're parahuman they'll have a variation of their power too."
He considered the implications of that over the sound of lasers firing through the phone.
He shuddered.
That was a challenge for an entire Protectorate team. One that could easily go awry especially if they didn't know about it.
"I'd say she's an A-class threat on her own, and a couple unlucky clones away from an S-class threat if they synergize," she went on with admirable calm. What had happened to her to shape her so? It couldn't have been pleasant. "Now normally I'd say I still have that under control. I got a whole base of mercenaries and an entire high-level cape team to deal with her after all," she kept to the idly chattering tone she had used the entire time to his ever growing dread. This wasn't the worst of it?
He sent a text message to Miss Militia to come to his office instantly, and prep a PRT team for deployment as well.
"But then I found out they escaped the Madison containment zone," he froze while she blithely went on while in the background something broke the sound barrier followed by a crash and an inhuman roar, "Trickster remembers you. He saw you walking with Myrddin, heard him say if the Simurgh's the one answering questions, you don't want the answers. So.. considering her involvement I am mostly waiting for the other shoe to drop."
He remembered that. That was a bad day, they had lost that fight despite Scion's early intervention.
He put another command into the computer, calling Dragon.
"Dragon, I am granting you access to the last few minutes of audio and video data of this room," he interrupted her before she could say anything, "Forward it to Watchdog as well, suspected Simurgh involvement. Priority Access declared on my authority."
He transferred the calls to his suit, grabbed his halberd and was already moving as Miss Militia opened the door to his office.
"We are moving out," he went through his list of available heroes. He shouldn't bring anyone reliant on close combat unless he was certain they could be put down if cloned. Many needed to stay to guard the prisoners anyway. "Divert Dauntless from his patrol route and contact New Wave as well. We'll need their ranged capabilities."
"If you need further verification, some searching should find records that one Noelle Meinhardt and a Luke Casseus were admitted to St. Mary's hospital, though Coil did his best to have that investigation buried," Mental Out chimed in again over the crack of lightning, "Krouse, er- Trickster did escape with Noelle from the hospital despite Myrddin's attempts to arrest them. He did ask him if he could open doors between worlds. Unsurprising since they got taken from Aleph."
Great. The Haywire act has been broken as well. Just great. He barely suppressed the groan due to years of PR training.
He sprinted down the stairs towards the garage and jumped on his motorcycle with Miss Militia frantically giving commands over radio right on his heels.
"Watchdog has appraised the situation," Dragon informed them. "Eleventh Hour says he gets swinging results between five and twelve. Appraiser swings between purple, purple-velvet and velvet-black. Hunch says it's bad. Precognitive interference detected. Simurgh protocols demand assumption of worse results. Threat level S confirmed. Activating S-class roster. Dragon Suit Cawthorne deploying, ETA five minutes. Legend deploying, ETA one minute. Alexandria deploying, ETA two minutes. Eidolon, Chevalier, Myrddin and Rime deploying via Strider, ETA three minutes."
Velvet-black. f*ck. That was only the case for some of the worst Endbringer attacks.
"Dauntless, ETA two minutes."
"Miss Militia, ETA four minutes."
"New Wave, ETA ten minutes."
"Armsmaster, ETA two minutes," he sped through the streets of Brockton to the sound of sirens.
He cut through the metal fence without slowing down as he arrived at the construction site.
Legend was already floating high in the sky on over-watch. Good. Him getting cloned would be a disaster.
Mental Out, BiriBiri and the temporarily named Apport were climbing out of a metal hatch at the unfinished sky scraper.
Coil, Trickster, Sundancer, Ballistic and an unknown girl sleeping in a wheel chair were with them.
Dinah Alcott was clutching at Mental Out's left arm. The other held her remote.
Coil's mercenaries were retreating with them in good order, keeping their weapons trained on the metal hatch.
The mercenaries and Travelers were eerily quiet. No barked orders, no screams, no mutterings at all unlike BiriBiri who was cursing colorfully enough to earn herself mandatory lessons with PR if she were a Ward.
Mental Out was looking at him and Legend, not her controlled.
Lack of sight lines did not seem to impede her at all once she had established control.
It was strange to have the master on their side.
Dauntless arrived with his boots trailing a white crackling energy.
A crack in the air signaled Alexandria's arrival.
"Report," she barked in her no-nonsense tone.
"She's close behind," Mental Out told her as the sleeping girl woke up, "she keeps regenerating her legs no matter how often we managed to cut or burn them off and does it fast enough she doesn't get slowed down much. I kept her from catching anyone, so she's still on her own."
Scrap on the construction site kept being replaced by more mercenaries whenever Trickster glanced at it. Despite him being unable to see inside the base.
She was evacuating the base. Orderly and in such a way to deny the brute any victims.
She managed an adequate holding action until reinforcements arrived.
"Miss Militia, contain the area. Evacuate civilians," Armsmaster barked into his radio.
"There are other exits at Tower Street, Winter Street and Park Street," Mental Out warned him. "She also can smell parahumans, so the presence of new ones won't be a surprise to her."
Loud rumbling put an end to any further discussions.
"Give them back," the mass of flesh and mouths broke through the metal hatch.
He had seen uglier.
She was met with lasers, Alexandria put a lamp post right threw her center, lightning hit it and lit her up from the inside, she lost a leg because an iron plate appeared side-ways through it.
It didn't kill her.
She struggled through the lamp post and ripped herself free, her wounds healing behind it again.
Armsmaster kept his distance for now, but readied himself to hem her in should their ranged fighters fail.
Noelle stormed forwards only to be met by Myrddin. He pointed his staff at her. "Begone," he demanded and she vanished in a cloud of mist.
They were all well familiar with his power and its limitations, he'd have to release her before long.
No matter.
By the time New Wave arrived the fight was long over. The threat contained.
A/N.:
Unlike the Undersiders, Nozomi is not considered a Villain so her word has more weight with the Protectorate. Especially since she found out about the Simurgh involvement which the Undersiders didn't (or at least did not report that to the PRT; Coil definitely knew) and gathered enough details to convince Armsmaster about that which immediately ensured Eidolon and Rebecca/Alexandria wouldn't downgrade the situation to an A-class despite it being less dire than in canon.
Because the PRT/Protectorate does not play games when the Simurgh is even tangentially involved.
This was the heroes dropping the hammer.
Also a few people have brought up BiriBiri learning from Manpower.
I don't think anyone has brought up Dauntless? 
Now, can you people notice all the incoming trouble with the people present right now?
