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Dysfunctional (Interlude 1)
🕑 Added 2025-03-06 17:20:00 +0000 UTCArmsmaster was always prepared.
Taking into account how prepared one could reasonably be in this line of work, of course.
As such, Armsmaster was used to being blindsided. The reactive nature of national parahuman law enforcement agency meant that its members have to constantly contest with one crisis or another. If they are lucky, the disaster is only one in the making and not actively imploding. Ironically, the three biggest disasters blindside no one, as they follow a strict schedule. So far, this predictability has not aided in resolution of that particular crisis.
Still, to excel in such an environment is to be adaptable. Roll with the punches, land on your feet, assess situation, devise solutions within available resource constraints and execute. An efficient process, understood and refined long before it was widely codified.
Every Protectorate branch leader and PRT Director who qualified for their position understood and mastered this process. None stopped there, none thought it was enough to only react.
Because to react to parahuman crises is to eventually react to Elisburg, to Eagleton, to Freedom. The nature of powers means that the statistical probability of failing or even succeeding to react means losing an entire city. The reality of this was shown to them three times a year. No matter how much the general populace preferred to close their eyes to this reality.
There were no solutions. Even if his prototype anti-Endbringer countermeasures bore fruit – and Colin was willing to stake everything on them – the unexplained nature of parahuman powers will eventually blindside his or any other department again. Catastrophically.
Still, those are the extremes.
Day-to-day, that approach was meant to counter organized parahuman crime. Not prevent, not solve, not defeat – counter. Keep it to an acceptable level. When it works, you always know where various players stand, where borders between gangs lie, what to generally expect and when the balance was starting to tilt. And it will inevitably tilt.
Doing your job well meant to postpone that moment, all while slowly eroding the gangs’ influence and resources, so as to not let them become too powerful, too entrenched.
Failure to do so led to what they were all dealing with in Brockton Bay. Where the gangs had become so entrenched that they exceeded PRT’s capacity to meaningfully diminish their power. Which in turn led to what was effectively a lost city. All that’s left was a stubborn refusal to withdraw. Because of optics.
Because optics mattered.
They mattered for wider considerations of what panic and diminished faith in the PRT’s ability would do to the country and western hemisphere at large.
But they also mattered to Armsmaster.
Making a big arrest, like what his still developing anti-Brute tranquilizer was supposed to help with, would be good optics. For the news stations, for Armsmaster’s popularity, for his brand. But also, for his superiors. Show good results and you would be shown recognition. Make a big enough impact, and people will start wondering if your talents would be better used in a more important position than a branch leader of a failed city.
A more prestigious position.
A better legacy.
Taking down Lung will tilt the balance. It will most likely result in a large-scale conflict.
But that too was part of the job.
No one could say Armsmaster wasn’t performing well if he captured one of the most dangerous villains on the East Coast. Who was also a linchpin of his gang.
With those thoughts, Colin entered the Director’s office.
“Armsmaster.” Stern woman greeted him.
“Director,” he nodded, “your message said you have a briefing for me.”
“Indeed,” she turned on projector. “Think-tank confirmation came back this morning. We now have Butcher XIV.”
Colin wasn’t surprised. Four days ago, they had received a report about large-scale engagement with the Teeth. Everything pertaining the possibility of Butcher mantle being passed on, was a subject of scrutiny by every PRT branch in the country. This particular succession has caused quite the commotion.
Most of the time, if a challenger arose inside the gang, it was resolved in-house, so to speak. A fight in the arena, a gladiatorial match, an honor duel, or an assassination.
This time, however, the challenger – Quarrel – had decided to play to her strengths and lured Butcher into a drawn-out fight across New York streets. I was a good strategy, since she had perfect accuracy due to space warping effects of her power, so her plan to overwhelm Butcher from a distance, never letting him to get close made sense. And evidently paid off.
“Understood,” Colin acknowledged. “I will inform the rest of the team.”
“That’s not all I have for you. There is also the issue of West River mall situation.”
Armsmaster frowned. In order to create space for her fight with Butcher, Quarrel conspired with Vex, Hemorrhagia and Spree, as well as numerous unpowered members of the Teeth to organize a series of diversions.
One of those targeted a Wards PR event at a mall. It was a bad situation all around. Villains sometimes clashed with Wards; it was statistically inevitable. This, however, was a targeted attack. Which was far rarer. Targeted attacks on Wards were answered with extreme prejudice. Injuring a Ward while on the defensive or as part of collateral was… accepted. Targeting them specifically will bring Alexandria on your head. Doing so in Legend’s city was almost unheard of.
Unless your goal was to make Legend fly all over New York answering distress calls and then having to decide if he should fight Butcher or save his Wards.
Ultimately, Quarrel succeeded but a great cost for the Teeth, who were now down 4 capes.
Butcher XIII, Hemorrhagia and Spree were dead and Vex was in PRT custody.
The whole ordeal was very bad for the PR department, but thankfully, there were no deaths among Wards.
Colin failed to see how it was his problem.
Unless…
“Youth Guard demands new regulations?” Which was still not his responsibility to handle, but may well become his responsibility to adhere to.
“Yes, but that is not my point.”
Two new images appeared on the screen. Two images of children. A red-headed boy barely in his teens, and a blond girl that looked to be around six or seven.
The Director was observing him carefully.
“Shirou and Tanya Danvers. Ages 13 and 9 respectively. Orphans. Their guardian – Alicia Danvers, their maternal grandmother – passed away four years ago.” she paused.
Colin waited for her to continue.
A third image appeared. An attractive red-headed woman in her twenties.
“Their mother, Sumire Danvers. Died 8 years ago in a mugging gone wrong, according to BBPD reports.”
“How did they come to the PRT’s attention?” Armsmaster could see where this was going if Director mentioned them in relation to the attack. Two orphans in the middle of Teeth attack.
Or were they New York Wards? It was quite some time since he checked their roster, and usually he didn’t bother with civilian identities if he didn’t have to.
Director waited a moment and then the screen lit up with a montage of security camera recordings.
Colin observed as a typical scene of busy day at a mall was disrupted by several people, including a lone Ward moving some distance away from his peers, getting downed by an opening volley of bullets. The recording paused.
“The Teeth planned a two-pronged attack. A bulk of the unpowered members would initiate hostilities from the direction of main entrance, drawing Wards attention. After that, they would be attacked from behind by a Hemorrhagia, who was hiding inside the mall at the time, and who would in turn be reinforced by Spree and the rest of the attack forces. From there, they would I either fight until Protectorate forces arrived and subsequently retreat or take the Wards hostage. Jouster was just about to take a bathroom break when they initiated the conflict and was injured by a stray bullet.”
Or he was intentionally targeted by a sharpshooter. No reason for captured gang members to confess shooting a Ward with lethal intent if he survived. Though given the distance and weapons involved, a lucky shot was more probable.
The recoding continued. Civilians run towards the exits and safety of boutiques when Colin spotted a small figure purposefully running against the flow of bodies.
“From what we were able to piece together, Miss Danvers was taking a bathroom break herself. Her brother was running to her rescue when the other half of Teeth force made their move.”
Halfway towards his goal the boy was drowned in what Armsmaster recognized as Spree’s clones running in the direction of the rest of the Wards. Of course, given the nature of Spree’s powers, his clones were rapidly losing the ability to distinguish between their targets and bystanders, effectively turning into a mad mob with armed with pipes.
It led credence to Director’s words about it being the attempt at a hostage situation. The Wards were pinned behind a forcefield, which Armsmaster recognized as Shelter’s technology. If Spree was armed with assault rifles when generation his clones, Wards would be slaughtered.
Back on the screen, the stream of screaming clones exploded, bodies flying in all directions.
The boy, his skin now covered in a glowing circuit pattern, tried to force his way towards bathrooms, but now clones identified him as a threat and focused all their efforts at bludgeoning him.
After a few moments of struggle the boy… conjured a pair of Chinese dao?
Colin peered into the screen. The swords were shorter than classic dao and a good deal thicker and heftier too. All the same, they looked far too big for boy’s hands.
Yet all else aside, they looked… beautiful.
As a weapons designer himself, Colin held no doubt that he could create much deadlier weapons. More versatile, more efficient, lighter, thinner and just as sturdy.
But he couldn’t help but feel that it would diminish those swords. That any attempt to change their design to add to it or to make them better would instead take away from them.
There was no more efficiency to eke out.
The blades looked… complete.
Colin shook off his tinker musings and focused on the recording.
On which the boy was slaughtering clones.
Silently Colin activated his combat prediction software. He didn’t have any previous data on the boy, but the program was trained on enough human opponents to add to his analysis.
Definitely some type of Combat Thinker. The boy wasn’t just swinging swords, he fought expertly. He targeted every opening and successfully capitalized on each and every one. More so, he created those openings by baiting his opponents. His defense was full of very obvious holes, in a way that could only be intentional given how swift every counterattack was.
Granted Spree’s clones weren’t putting any thought in their strikes, aside from the swinging pipes very hard at his head, but given their numbers…
If Colin was in the boy’s place, he would have to take part of the clones’ strikes on his armor. Which the boy did occasionally, but he took them on his bare flesh.
Again, Colin could surmise that glowing pattern was an indicator of Brute power, but he thought it was connected to the boy’s speed and reflexes given how fast he was. Strength too, depending on how sharp his blades were. Full body enhancement then?
That’s when he noticed another child. The boy’s sister, easily recognizable from the images earlier, run out of the bathroom… covered in blood from head to toe.
Armsmaster looked at Director but she waived him off.
The girl looked around, then at a downed Jouster and screeched something.
She then proceeded to run towards her brother at a ridiculous speed for a short 9 years old.
Colin’s eyes widened as she jumped into the fray and started to cleave the assailants apart with absolute savage ferocity. In her right hand he spotted some kind of glowing blue energy construct.
If the boy took down his opponents with expertise and precision Colin could appreciate, his sister put similar expertise to the singular purpose of murder. Each strike was aimed to kill an enemy with extreme prejudice in a minimum amount of time.
Several enemies at once in some cases. Her energy construct slashes through clones without any noticeable resistance. She’s been hit several times, but barely stumbled. She’s a Brute too?
A parallel feed appeared on the screen, where Armsmaster could see PRT wans appearing on the scene. The moment they hit the brakes, agents burst out of the wans and started shooting at Teeth groups pinning the Wards down.
At the same time, Spree took assault rifle from a nearby gangster and unleashed a new stream of now much deadlier clones.
The boy moved to cover his sister with his body, but then seemingly noticed Wards’ backs in the distance.
He threw away his blades and unfolded a violet force field between himself and approaching clones.
No. Not threw away.
Colin repeated that part on his helmet’s interface.
He had thrown them out!
On Director’s screen, the blades flew at an impossible arc and cleanly decapitated Spree!
Magnetic properties?
As the bullets stop pinging on his forcefield, the boy’s sister fell unconscious. He had to catch and hold her, until Legend arrived and mopped out the remaining Teeth.
PRT agent securing the scene took one look at a pair of children surrounded by gore and sprayed them with foam.
“Your thoughts?” Director prompted after a few moments of silence.
“Extremely brutal and highly efficient killers. If they were adults I would recommend them for fast track to S-Class response team, given the absence of previous record of misdemeanor.
After a thorough power testing and full psychological evaluation.” He added after some thoughts.
Such willingness to kill at a young age could be explained as either power induced altered state of mind or deep-rooted psychological issues if not outright psychosis. Both, in worst cases.
Director snorted “Yes, it’s not every day you see children earn a two digits body count during a Wards PR event.”
“Spree’s clones hardly count as casualties as far as legalities go.”
“No, but Spree and Hemorrhagia were still brutally murdered.”
Collin realized he did not see Hemorrhagia anywhere on the recordings.
“Where was she during the fight?”
“Getting killed by 9 years old in a bathroom. Pelvic bone cleanly sliced all the way through.”
Collin mentally adjusted threat level of the girl’s power.
“Have their legal guardians been contacted?”
“Given full scale of that shitshow, a full background check has been conducted. There is no guardian.” She huffed.
What?
“An orphanage then?” Colin had to confirm.
“They live by themselves in their deceased grandmother’s apartment.” Director calmly explained.
“That makes no sense,” he immediately denied.
A pair of lone juveniles would never be allowed to live alone. They would be put into the system unless they had any living relatives.
It could be explained if they were runaways, but they evidently weren’t.
A new image appeared on the screen.
“Meet Antony Jefferson. A government employee, and their ‘case worker’. As it turns out, he’s also part of a large-scale net of insurance frauds conducted by Adepts.”
Armsmaster frowned. Such white-collar crimes were usually the Elite’s forte, but Uppercrust operated differently. At the very least it was difficult to imagine him stealing from orphans.
“Their scheme targeted vulnerable members of society, of which recently orphaned children qualified, and affected dozens of people over the last five years.”
Five years?
“This is a major fuck up.” Director continued, “Legend is furious, and Dragon has been tearing into government records and insurance companies since it was revealed. Uppercrust has been applying pressure from his own side.”
Was that why Dragons hasn’t been answering his calls? Colin couldn’t imagine insurance companies were cooperating with opening their own records.
“Mr Jefferson skimmed off the significant part of the kids’ payouts, giving them pittance, and handled the paperwork. All while Adepts posed as their guardians for the appropriate authorities. From what we were able to discern the older sibling was covering their living expenses with part time jobs including repair works on electronics and vehicles. Ironically, according to interrogations it was those kids’ resourcefulness that convinced Adepts in validity of their ‘cash cow’ approach. Suffice to say other targeted children weren’t as capable.”
No wonder Dragon was busy. She wouldn’t leave something like that unanswered. Neither would Legend.
Still…
“Such technical expertise at his age is highly unusual.” Collin said.
Was the boy a tinker? The blades and glowing pattern on his skin could be tinkertech.
“No tinker lab was found at their home. Doesn’t prove anything, but it doesn’t seem likely. The boy simply has natural inclinations towards fiddling with machines it would seem.”
“Were they tested?”
“No. They aren’t cooperative at all. Both are held in PRT custody at the time. So far they have not told us anything other than demands to see each other.”
“They are held separate?”
“The girl suffered a concussion and multiple blunt weapon traumas. She’s being held at the medical. The boy is being held in a cell after their display until they can conduct interview as per protocol. Which they can’t conduct it because the boy hasn’t uttered a word after his initial demands.”
“And the girl?”
“She wants a lawyer.”
Collin hummed. At this point, those two were wards of the state, and effectively in under the guardianship of PRT given their status.
“Do they have difficulties with understanding their situations? It has been explained to them, yes?”
“This is where things become interesting. Their whole situation. You see, Armsmaster, when Dragon was investigating Jefferson’s files, she uncovered Alicia Danver’s will. In that will, she mentioned a name of her grandchildren’s presumed father. One Colin Wallis.”
“Has he been identified?”
Director looked at him blankly.
Colin held her gaze.
“You can’t be fucking serious, Armsmaster.” Director send him a very unamused look.
“What do you want to say, Director? I don’t have a secret family. The name is a coincidence.”
“And paternity test is a coincidence too?” she raised an eyebrow.
“What paternity test?”
She silently tossed him a folder.
Colin opened it and read the documents inside. A request for his genetic material kept for MSP purposes. Approved. Paternity test: negative for Tanya Danvers… positive for Shirou Danvers.
“This is impossible.” he denied.
“Are you a virgin?” Piggot contested, with a faint hint of genuine curiosity.
No. But the only time he…
Colin looked at the image of Sumire Danvers. She did have red hair.
He shook his head.
“What does it matter?” Armsmaster asked, trying to brash off this whole nonsense.
“It matters because I want them transferred her.” Piggot declared.
“Why?” They would be nothing but trouble.
“If national office won’t mandate sending us reinforcements, we will make our own. Wilkins can’t rightfully put a claim on them if they have family right here, now, can she?”
“And you want me become boy’s guardian to facilitate…” Colin started heatedly.
“I want them both, Armsmaster. That means they are a package deal. Given their attitude, PRT doesn’t thinks it’s a good idea to separate them. Until we ruled out cluster dynamic, at the very least. And even then, which provides us a window of opportunity to…”
“That is even worse!” Colin started to lose his temper, “What do you want me to do with them!?”
“Do you not feel even a shred of responsibility?” Piggot asked with contempt.
“Don’t give me that, Director! You are not looking out for them either!”
“No,” she admitted, “But I am not a parent”.
“I am not suited to raise children,” Colin argued, “I live on the Rig, all my savings go into tinkering.”
“Is it a question of money, then? The kids are entitled to some serious payouts for pain and suffering. I can get legal department file all necessary paperwork for you. How’s that for tinkering budget?”
Was she insinuating…?
“Look, Armsmaster,” Piggot continued, “They survived almost five years on their own, they don’t need your constant presence. Just say you are busy at work, or even don’t say anything at all. I doubt you will have much trouble in that regard.”
“No.”
“Armsmaster!” Piggot snapped. “We are constantly on the defensive. We two new capes, soon we can project our presence further than Broadwalk. Aren’t you the one who constantly petitions for sending out strike teams in gang’s territories?”
Colin wanted to say that two children won’t be very effective but he saw the recordings. If anything, they had the opposite problem.
In any case, if all goes according to plan, soon it won’t be his problem any longer.
“I refuse, Director,” he replied curtly.
Piggot closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I will increase you tinkering budget by 30%.” she spat.
“You don’t have the funds.” Colin observed.
“Kid Win haven’t been making himself very useful lately. I guess there will be material shortages for him in the future.”
Increase in budget would help him finish his tranquilizer and update his gear for his planned confrontation with Lung.
But more importantly, the nanothorn project…
“54% increase.” He answered eventually.
Piggot gritted her teeth. “Fine!” she spat, “Deal! I will have to get creative with budgeting, then.”
Colin nodded. “And I won’t have to deal with them at all. You want them here; they are your responsibility.”
Director looked at him like she wanted to reenact the content of the mall recordings on him.
Armsmaster turned and simply left.
“Congratulations, Colin,” Piggot send venomously at his retreating back, “You are a father.”
He slammed PRT Director’s door for a first time in his career.
Armsmaster was always prepared. Used to being blindsided.
But it turned out Colin Wallis was not.
