Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

It was fortunate timing that the timing for it being wise to lay low came when he had other matters to attend to. With the fall of the Empire, the entire bay was the undisputed territory of him, the Dragon of Kyushu.

Which made keeping his gang in line so much easier. The recruitment of the bomb Tinker had exploded in his face rather literally. But she seemed to have sorted herself out. He frankly didn't care what had happened to her, so long as no one else knew either.

He and Lee were the only known parahumans that belonged to the ABB, and he preferred to keep it that way. It was only wise to conceal his hand until he needed to play those cards. It only underlined the stupidity of the Empire to flaunt their power while they failed to notice that not only was he their equal on his own, but that he had steadily recruited more Parahumans to his gang.

The Tinker might be practically useless to him, but Tinkertech made money. And she wasn't quite useless. The medical knowledge she had made her useful to patch up his soldiers, and she was a very pretty face to get others to give up their secrets.

None of them were the sort of powerhouse that could have allowed him to overturn the Empire, but they had proven invaluable in killing or capturing those sent by the CUI. That he had settled far from their territory was no accident. No country held any love for the CUI, by forcing them to cross so much distance, he limited what force they were willing to send.

And with Legend so close, any attempt to take him with overwhelming force would only trigger open warfare between them and the United States.

What worried him was the new piece on the field. A man that quite obviously held the entire concept of heroes and villains in contempt. A man he had hired to remove obstacles. He was unbeatable on the field of battle, but he had little defense against an assassin he did not know was coming.

He had sent his best spies and trackers to watch Coil, wanting to be sure that the snake was dead. Instead, they had discovered they'd been following a decoy only when an ambush had failed to catch him.

He had been quietly amused to find out that Coil had been on the payroll of the PRT. He had been even more amused when Kaiser's desperation move to reinforce their collapsing reputation had backfired. It was almost and beautiful as what the Nine had done to the Teeth when they'd tried to hire them. But more satisfying considering it was resulting in the PRT and the Empire exhausting themselves fighting.

A lesser man would have struck just when the PRT was finished with their operations, taken all of the territory for himself now that he was unopposed. A lesser man would have over extended himself.

He was not a lesser man.

He would be patient. Another gang would rise to fill the void, a weaker one. One without the backing that the Empire had enjoyed. One he could control. And with the weaker Villains in the city would come a reduction in the strength of the Protectorate.

And then he would rule the city. So long as the PRT wasn't publicly embarrassed, he could make significant demands. It only had to be cheaper than trying to remove him by force.

He just needed to make sure that the wild card was either in his hand, or out of the deck.

How much would it cost to have him kill One? Without that monster, the CUIs precious teams would turn themselves against them. Especially as the rebels would wield all of the others powers against them until Null either knew which of them to revoke them from, or died.

Go to Brockton Bay.

Quarrel woke up tired. She wished that one of the previous Butchers had a power that came with no need to sleep. Noctis capes. That was the word. That's a phrase.

"Fuck you! If you're not going to let me get any damned rest, then you can live with me being stupid."

She'd given up her stance against talking to them ages ago. She might not be crazy, at least not as far as she knew, but the voices had selective hearing if she just thought something. Not that any of them but the original really mattered.

The Bay.

It controlled her dreams. Controlled all of their dreams. Every waking minute it badgered her, but that was relief from the control it had over her in sleep. And like with all dreams, it didn't have any need to be only eight hours long.

The Bay!

She'd learned that pain was no indication that she was stuck in a dream. She'd learned that the first night, when the First had unleashed her predecessor on her. Had forced her to live through a month of being nothing but a helpless toy for the broken monsters that lived in her head.

Bay.

The broken monster she was becoming.

Brockton Bay.

"Shut the fuck up! We live in Boston now."

You don't get to rest until the Teeth are in Brockton Bay. If you tear out Kaisers heart and eat it, I'll leave your dreams alone for a week.

"We both know you don't feel obligated to follow your agreements. You barely feel obligated to let me rest enough to survive. And even then, only until you get bored with breaking me."

Then you know I get what I want. One way or another.

That was the truth. The Butcher's host died when The Butcher wanted them to. He picked his next host, drew them into a battle. Maybe the first few hadn't been on purpose, but it reveled in picking out a new host, a new power, a new life to ruin. A new soul to consume.

Brockton. Now.

She felt the warning edge of pain. Pain that threatened to render her unconscious. Pain that left her at the nonexistent mercies of the monster that ruled her dreams. That was the misunderstanding so many had.

She wasn't The Butcher. You will be. She was still Quarrel. The voices in her head controlled their powers. Controlled everything that wasn't her. She couldn't kill herself. No matter how much damage she'd done, they'd fixed her.

You're stuck with me. Forever. Give in and enjoy it.

The worst part is that she wasn't the undisputed master of the Teeth. The Butcher had long since figured out communicating with his gang, and how to signal when his host wasn't conveying the message correctly.

"Fuck you. I'll tell them to pack. Then you let me get an actual night's sleep. After that, we go to Brockton Bay." She sighed.

The pain receded, leaving only the memory of agony and the tremble of exhaustion as she opened the sound proofed door between her bed and the room in which The Butcher held court. There were dozens of members still gathered there, though only a handful were still awake.

Fine.

She could feel the sulking as it blasted the sleepers with pain. That itself revealed the ones who were dead. The gang was less of a gang, and more of a cannibalistic death cult. Apparently the religious cult aspect had really come into its own after The Butcher had taken one of Haven's members for a host.

Five had been mentally strong enough that people had thought The Butcher was dead for a few weeks. Then she'd broken. She'd been too rigid to yield an inch, and it had destroyed her.

She was pretty sure that Haven still harbored a grudge against The Butcher for that. But there wasn't anything they could do. There wasn't anything anyone could do. Not unless Scion could wave his hands and magically fix things.

"We're going home. It's time to remind Brockton Bay that they belong to the Teeth. To remind the Empire and the overgrown gecko freak that The Butcher is eternal. That the only way to receive eternal life is through me."

She parroted the words as they came. They were far more coherent than what the Teeth had been used to. She didn't know if the reason why was related to when The Butcher chose a new host, or if it was a symptom of how little was left of the current host.

She did know that the pace of replacing hosts had slowed, while at the same time The Butcher had changed its selection criteria somehow. She was convinced there was something wrong with the inheritance process, but there was no way for her to figure that out.

But even the immunity to pain that The Butcher gave her when she wasn't being punished couldn't mask the migraines completely, or the undertones of worry from the others. She couldn't read their minds like they could hers, but some things leaked through.

And then there was the other presence that weighed at the back of her mind. The presence that she knew had never been human. The presence that pressed against her when she tried to act outside of her new role. The one that had stopped her from being able to shoot herself in the head.

It was wrong.

Its every movement felt like worms crawling in her brain.

She hadn't really gone to bed intending to sleep the entire night. She might be grateful to McDonnell. But she knew the score. She was a public black eye for the PRT and the entire Wards program. She was the posterchild for every person who criticized the Wards program, even more than the ones that had died.

'Former Ward robs department store' was the story of her life now. That wasn't going to change just because one man told her he'd fix it. That wasn't how any of it worked.

She had meant to sneak out. To be on her way. Even if Armsmaster giving her the time of day would be amazing. Even if she really wanted to find out what a Modularity Tinker could do for her. They wouldn't actually do that for her.

But she'd just felt safe. She hadn't had to sleep with an eye open, or with her threat warning system turned on. Not that it worked very well any more.

So she'd slept like she was dead. And now there was the scent of freshly cooked breakfast. She really missed a home cooked breakfast. That was the downside of being an instantly recognizable criminal. No one did a proper breakfast as something she could grab without starting a manhunt for her.

Since he'd mentioned daughters, she expected to find his wife preparing breakfast. Knowing her luck, she'd be prettier than her, and way less weird. A perfect women that would pair with the perfect man.

That was how things worked.

No one that fantastic would be single for long.

Instead he was in the kitchen looking amazingly domestic. That hadn't even been a trait she knew she wanted in a guy until that moment.

He was wearing a T-shirt that casually strained at his arms, emphasizing his muscles rather than hiding them. An apron protected it and him from grease spatter as he worked, not that he seemed to pay the heat any mind as he absent mindedly moved to grab pans out of the oven.

"Go ahead and dig in. I always make a lot for breakfast. The girls make a habit of using the leftovers for other meals, since we're not together for many other meals." John said, laying the best-looking pancakes she'd seen outside of a commercial onto the table.

"Do you leave like, literally anything for your wife to do?" She blurted out.

She found out that she could still blush when he laughed. Or maybe she could blush again? She really hadn't been able to keep track of her body's functions while on the run. And things like blushing or flushing really didn't apply to her normally.

"I'm not married. The girls are adopted. They needed a good home, but unfortunately they got stuck with me." He joked.

Panacea. No, Amy. Amy walked into the kitchen, casually folding a pancake into what she could only describe as a really stubby breakfast taco before munching on it. She looked lighter than she had yesterday. There was still the sort of restlessness she thought only came from being on the run behind her eyes.

But it seemed like Amy had found the night to be just restful as she had.

"I took some time last night. I got your file, and the entire incident report your original department wrote down. I'm pretty damn confident I can get the entire thing spun as an unfortunate power interaction between you and Tinkers. Especially if you're willing to go through a few tests once I convince Armsmaster to fix you up."

She blinked. Did this man even sleep? He had to be an angel. He was way more able to just keep going than she was, and she was basically a robot at this point. So if technology couldn't explain his perfection, it had to be divine.

"Let me know if you need some leverage. There's like a million ancient assholes in politics, and basically all of them have health issues. So if I can help by healing a sleaze or two, I can hold my nose." Amy offered casually.

Maybe he actually could get something done. She hadn't considered that he probably had favors he could call in. Or that he probably gave other people the same tingling feeling, the feeling that said she could be better. That the world couldn't be so bad if there were people like him in it.

"Let me shake a few trees first. Once you open that door, they're not going to let you close it again. I can probably get a meeting with the chairman of the Parahuman Regulatory Committee. If nothing else, I doubt he'd ignore me turning up at his office with a scandal and a statement in hand, and offer him the option of which he'd prefer the news ran."

"I think I'm friends with his daughter on facebook." A blonde she didn't know offered. The teenager looked only a few years younger than John, maybe a year older than Amy. "She loves to post thirst trap photos on the account that's not under her name, just with her head cut out."

She had to be one of his daughters. And if she hadn't been told she was adopted, she would have assumed they were related. Which made her think of awkward questions.

"I'd ask how you know that, but I think I'd prefer not to know. He also sits on the VA oversight committee, and his whole campaign lately has focused on supporting the PRT and helping veterans. So he won't have a choice but to put up with me unless he wants to ruin his reputation on both counts."

He was casually threatening a congressmen. He was doing it for her. She had to take a moment to calm herself down and get control of her body. She hadn't always been careful about what kind of technology she assimilated, and so she tended to make embarrassing noises when she got excited.

It didn't help that the entire thing was a feedback loop.

More importantly, she actually believed he could do it. If he'd said in that same tone of voice that he could move mountains or fight Endbringers, she'd believe him about that too. It was a confidence she knew had to be based on something more than he thought so.

"I mean, that sounds like it'll take forever. Don't you have to work?" She asked.

"Even if I'm healed, I am supposed to have medical leave. It gets ignored a lot here in Brockton Bay, but I can afford to take a day to take a trip down to DC. It's like an hour by plane from Boston. So once I convince Armsmaster to work on you, I'll drive over to Boston and catch a flight."

He was actually serious. He wasn't even going to wait until he saw if she stuck around after the promised Tinkering. He was already planning to take moves that would destroy his life if she did what she'd planned to do and run.

She didn't deserve this. He didn't deserve what she was going to do to him. God she hadn't felt so bad about anything since she'd been accused in front of everyone of stealing the equipment the city needed to stay above water level.

Was this what her dad had said about finding a reason to be better. She'd thought he meant kids. Not that those were possible for her anymore. But she wanted to be worth what he'd risked for her. She wanted to be the sort of person he obviously believed she was.

She knew she couldn't leave when the younger daughter walked in. She had to be maybe fourteen or fifteen, and it was clear she adored him. She could imagine all to well the sort of hell the girl had gone through.

"I want to join the Protectorate." She heard her voice before she knew she'd spoken.

He blinked, a look of surprise quickly vanishing under a layer of concern. "Millie. You have to know that the Protectorate is dangerous. And your power… If you get hurt like you have been before."

"I know that. I need to stop running. I want to help. I want to repay those risks you took for me." It sounded stupid.

She didn't want to repay him for the risks. She needed to be close to him. Maybe if the girls liked her, she could work her way up to being their adoptive mother.

She was pretty sure she couldn't have kids anyways, not when she was pretty sure none of her body was organic anymore.

Getting a ride to Boston was easy enough. The van containing the senior elements of the Troopers that Boston had lent us had an open seat. And they were perfectly happy to let me sit shotgun, since the seat was mildly more cramped than the others due to the mobile terminal that was mounted there.

Which meant that I was able to work through the paperwork on the PRTs end to sign up Gwen Fraser as a newly minted member of the Protectorate. I'd gone with 'Hideaway' as a tentative codename, since there was a chance that Karen would try to stick her with something stupid just to annoy me or her.

It also meant I had all the access I needed to put together a proper report on Millie's condition, including pulling the handful of warnings that had been ignored about her fascination with Tinkertech.

I wanted what I presented to Senator Armstrong to look like she was a child unwittingly exposed to a substance that was highly addictive. It was effectively dropping her former supervision under a bus, but since that prick had been charged for the death of a Ward from a drug overdose, it wasn't particularly hard to do that.

I expected that if push came to shove, I could make it very messy because as far as the public had ever found out, the Ward in question had retired. And their civilian identity had no listed cause of death. The death on its own was bad enough, but the coverup made it absolutely nuclear if that were to make its way out in an open court.

Getting a plane ticket to DC wasn't hard either. And since the PRT had been nice enough to issue me the correct permits after I'd shot Calvert, I didn't have to go through the TSA screening. Since I didn't have a bag, there was nothing for them to inspect.

Which left me in the Senator's office just before lunch. That seemed to be where my luck ended, as Senator Armstrong was a very important man. Or at least very busy. His secretary was quite annoyed that I was entirely willing to sit around and wait for him to have a moment, to the point where she decided she didn't want to inform him I was waiting in his outer office.

Considering I wanted to make a good impression, I sat patiently waiting for him to step out. It was at least easier because someone had left behind a half finished book of sudoku puzzles.

The Senator did eventually step out of his office, in the company of a man I recognized as Uppercrust. He looked far less tired than he had before Amy had healed him, and the two were laughing like old friends.

Considering Uppercrust had quite a bit of wealth and Armstrong was staunchly against the restrictions that had been imposed on Parahuman powers, there was every chance they were at least well acquainted.

"Steven, I think you have someone who's been waiting for you. We have a few minutes before our reservation anyways, you might as well see what he wants." Uppercrust prompted.

Armstrong did seem surprised to see me. But he did turn on the charm as he shook my hand.

"What can I do for you mister? I'm afraid Dorris didn't let me know you were out here, so you've caught me by surprise."

"McDonnel. John McDonnell. I work for the PRT as a Strike Commander, and there was something that came to my attention that I think you need to see." I said as I offered him the envelope containing both a printed copy and a digital copy of my report, though the digital files also had a significant amount of supporting evidence.

"John McDonnel? Late of the US Army? That John McDonnel?" He asked.

"Yes sir, Mr. Senator." I replied, producing the DoD ID to match, along with the PRT ID for him to examine.

"John, how about you join my friend and I for lunch? We can discuss your matter there, it has to be serious to have you coming all the way to DC. Last I heard, which was a briefing this morning, you were one of the top men in Brockton Bay." Armstrong tucked the envelope under his arm immediately, giving Uppercrust a quick look.

"I'm sure they won't mind an extra person, and I wouldn't mind lending you my driver to get you back to your hotel once you've finished with Steven." Uppercrust offered magnanimously.

"Very kind of you, but this is a day trip for me. I'm on medical leave for the day, but with the situation how it is at home, they can't afford to have me out for long. But they couldn't deny me a day after yesterday." I replied.

"Well, he'll be just as capable of dropping you off at the airport then."

Uppercrust had us driven to what looked like a hole in the wall from the outside. If I didn't have my abilities or my experience, I would have missed the concealed reinforcement and defenses. Likely he was involved in the restaurant in some manner, which employed a doorman with a linebackers build.

"Senator Armstrong. Jack." The doorman blinked as he looked at me, a look of intense concentration on his face as he studied me. "Is that Staff Seargent McDonnell I see? Or did someone actually manage to pin a commission on you for once? Or is this a prelude to you running for office?"

"I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage, if you'd be so kind as to refresh my memory?" I didn't recognize the doorman, and what I was picking up from him didn't give me a whole lot to go on.

"Ah, I suppose you wouldn't recognize me. You pulled me and my boys out of one hell of a hole, and we were all worse for wear. Don't let me take up more of your time, I wouldn't want those sharks you're with to get peckish. They might take a bite." He gave a toothy grin as he opened the door to what looked like a traditional English gentlemen's club.

The room was dark and smoky, with the smell of well prepared meat pervading the space. A waitress met us, a brunet in a neat and modest dress that fell well past the knee. Uppercrust whispered a few words to her, a request for a private booth, and we were led to a corner booth was well away from the other occupied tables.

There was also a series of traditional and Tinkertech anti-snooping devices built into or around it, such as a white noise generator between it and the nearest table.

"Bring a menu for Mr. McDonnell here, it's his first time." Uppercrust requested of the waitress. "And our regular order for the two of us, if you don't mind."

Senator Armstrong sat before he opened the envelope. He pulled out a set of reading glasses before he started to go over the papers. There was a shaded desk lamp in the booth, making it quite apparent that this was far from the first bit of business the booth had seen.

The waitress delivered a rather simple and plain menu. It consisted of mostly simple items, steaks, potatoes, sandwiches, a list of scotches labeled only by their flavors, and wines only by what they paired well with.

The only real evidence on the menu that it wasn't any other steakhouse was the total lack of prices. I expected that what with all of the amenities the membership fees for a place like this were significant. Well, that and the section of cask ales on the menu.

"Order what you like, I can easily afford to buy lunch. Consider it a token of my appreciation for your service." Uppercrust said.

Armstrong was engrossed in the report, and based on the force he was turning the pages with, he was getting quite angry. I had written it for such effect, but I'd expected the Senator to not be so easy to rile up with the suffering of two children, especially because there was so much time since then.

"McDonnell, I'm going to go to the White House after this. What happened here is a failure on every level, right up until it landed in your lap. I appreciate you bringing it to me first, because if any indication of this leaked to the media we wouldn't have a Wards program." Armstrong said as he set the report down.

The waitress appeared as some silent cue, bearing drinks for Armstrong and Uppercrust, along with a pitcher of water and a glass.

"What can I get for you honey?" She asked.

"That depends, have you got real sweet tea? I'll take that if you have it, and I'll take a double cheeseburger with bacon and a fried egg. Pickle, ketchup, mayo, just a hint of garlic. With a side of steak fries." I rattled off.

"Absolutely we do honey, might be the only place to get it this far north. Now, how would you like your burger? And your bacon and egg for that matter."

"Medium rare, crispy, and with a liquid yolk if practical."

"Be right out with your drink, I just need to put this ticket in so the chef can get it started."

Armstrong went over the rest of the report after that, as well as placing quite a few calls where he asked for various people to pull every document they had and check them. Some of the names I recognized, most notably the on-paper head of the Wards program.

He also was rather polite in explaining that he needed a meeting with the president. And that he didn't really care that his afternoon was blocked out for meeting with the French ambassador. It would only take half an hour, and it absolutely couldn't wait.

"Your weapon if you please Mr McDonnell." The guard asked, holding out a moderately sized lockbox.

I dumped my handgun and the spare magazines for it, as well as a few pocket knives and a Leatherman into it without a second thought. The guard retrieved the Leatherman and put it back into my hand. Then he rapidly wrote out a hand receipt for it.

He had to be one of the Marines then, the Secret Service was far less organized about these sort of things. At least if they had any resemblance to the Secret Service at home. I still didn't know how they'd managed to miss the building they were guarding being shot at for months.

"Thank you Sir, they will be returned when you're done here." The marine snapped the lockbox closed, handing it to another guard that stowed it beneath the desk she was seated at.

"What? I don't even rate a pat down this time? And Sandy's on shift." Armstrong joked as the marine rapidly wanded the both of us.

"Reese doesn't want the scandal of a marine sexually harassing a Senator, so Sandy's been told she's strictly hands off for you sir." The marine replied with a grin. "Now, what brings you here on such short notice?"

"Can't say. It needs to not get onto the chiefs phone, so I'd appreciate if you keep this visit on the down low." Armstrong said.

I nearly winced. If you wanted to make absolutely sure that everyone in the corps would know by tomorrow, then you told a marine to keep it quiet. But it probably wouldn't get to the news, and I supposed that would be what mattered.

We were shown into the oval office, where it was rather clear that it had been staged for photo ops. There was a French flag across from an American flag against one wall, along with trays of elegantly arrayed finger foods that I could tell weren't actually edible.

"Alright Armstrong, what the hell couldn't wait?" President Cruise asked.

Armstrong handing him the summary from my report, having underlined a few sections in red pen and scribbled his thoughts on the likely reaction into the margins.

"I think you're being a bit pessimistic about it being a big enough scandal to bring down the administration, but the fact we kept Costa-Brown on is damaging if this gets out. Unfortunately, there are other factors in play that mean I can't do anything about her." He said as he rapidly skimmed the summary.

"I do have to agree that it would be the straw that breaks the camel's back, if it comes out a Ward died because there wasn't any oversight on their oversight, and that another one became a wanted criminal that's been on the run from the law for more than a decade because she had her face effectively shoved into a big box of drugs. And then the entire thing was covered up is the cherry on top. That's the killer." He practically growled out the words.

"If they hadn't actively buried these, then they would be in a better position for them to come out. But since they did, there's basically no possible way to spin this that isn't incredibly damaging. We have to make it public, but in a quietly declassified sort of way, not in a press conference kind of way." He paced the room, clearly concerned predominantly with the implications for the Wards program, and the feeder system for the Protectorate, and the protection they offered from Endbringers or other threats.

"Alright Armstrong. How do we handle this? If you're here, you already have a plan."

Armstrong took a few moments to pour the president a drink from a decanter on a sideboard, pressing the glass with a few fingers of liquor into his hand. "First things first. We make sure the situation can't blow up. You issue a pardon to the girl, you issue this man a pardon. He'll take them with him, anyone tries to pull something stupid, you come down on them like Legend on Leviathan. Then we find out how bad it really is. That way, we have a paper trail that shows we took action the moment we knew, in case it blows out before we're ready."

Armstrong refilled the now drained glass in the presidents hand. "Then I find the driest most boring copy writer I can to make our entire investigation into boilerplate on the order of the instructions for how to pour piss out of a boot in 200 pages. Then we drop it quietly in the middle of another crisis. Someone will pick it up eventually, but everything will be days or months old then. Not a fresh scandal they can get a scoop on."

President Cruise looked at me. "And why does he need a pardon?"

"Under some interpretations of the law, reporting this to Senator Armstrong rather than going through the DC office is illegal. On the other hand, that's only the case if the PRT is immune to the whistleblower protections. And if I don't have qualified immunity. And if this entire thing doesn't fall under the necessity doctrine." I shrugged.

Frankly, by the letter of the regulations, I was covered. Since we didn't have any social workers for ENE, the chain of reporting misconduct was broken. It's my expectation that bringing a few more Capes into the fold of the PRT would cause the higher ups to forgive a number of sins.

It wasn't like the purpose of leaving ENE shorthanded still existed. With Coil gone, the Empire effectively broken, and Lung keeping his head down for the moment, Cape feudalism was not something Brockton Bay could offer them. No matter how stupid that experiment had been in the first place.

You only had to look to Africa and their endlessly shifting Warlords to see how poorly the entire feudalistic practice worked when you added in the lack of impulse control of Parahumans. Or hell, you could look at a number of the Quarantine Zones, since they also largely devolved into endless fighting squabbling between Capes. Or the Birdcage.

Now that I actually thought about it, I couldn't articulate a single reason why they had thought it was a remotely good idea to run this experiment. Which probably meant that it was a means to an end being justified to credulous fools and idiots that didn't realize the world around them was already demonstrating what they wanted to test.

"Alright then. What I'm going to do is issue two blanket pardons. So if you have any traffic tickets, feel free to not pay them. It's traditional to be petty over little shit like that. And then I'm going to give you an order. You find any problems, you bring them to Steven right away. Speaking frankly, there's a number of cities on the edge of being abandoned because we just don't have the manpower to try to enforce the law. It's why I okayed the damned probationary program in the first place."

The president pulled two form pardons from a drawer, one which was well stocked. I hadn't heard of conditional presidential pardons, but I suspected they were the secret backbone of the PRT's programs to recruit former Villains for the Protectorate or the Wards.

Once the papers were signed and dated, he had Senator Armstrong sign the papers before he photocopied them. He made three more copies. One for the White House files, one for Senator Armstrong, and one he sealed into separate envelopes from the originals.

He also took a moment to write a short apology for the mishandling of the entire situation, it was generic, it was formulaic, it was trite. But it was a letter from the President of the United States.

"Give the girl her envelopes. I'll trust your judgement in how to do that, since I've already trusted it far enough to write those in the first place. You keep yours. Try not to use them if you don't have to. I'd prefer no one know to be asking questions about any of this. But I'm familiar enough with your reputation to know which horse to bet on." President Cruise instructed.

"Yes sir. Thank you, sir."

She had to ask herself. Would she ever get a better opportunity than this? She'd thought she could make a go of it herself, could just make a living working on cars. No need to fight, no need to struggle.

Just a simple honest living that didn't involve spreading her legs. Or getting beaten when she didn't.

But just like every other time, the world had other plans for her. Pretty much everything she'd owned had gone with that garage. So she'd cobbled something together from what was left, or what she could find in dumpsters.

By the time she'd finished, it had seemed like a good idea to get back at the parts store that always ripped her off. She hadn't eaten in two days, and hadn't slept in longer. It had been the start of her slow slide.

A slow slide where she'd been torn between so many choices. Drugs were cheaper than enough food to make her stomach stop hurting, but she had seen what her mother had been willing to do for another hit. She'd held her baby sisters as they struggled to live after they'd been born addicts.

And now she got to watch as Armsmaster, Hero's implied successor, worked to fix another girl with the sort of tools she'd only dreamed about.

They'd been dropped off at the PRT building so that John could hitch a ride to Boston. She wasn't actually sure if she was under arrest at this point, and she hadn't wanted to ask and remind them that she should be.

"You'd get like 10% more speed out of that flight system if you angle that booster correctly." She blurted out before she realized she was telling Armsmaster what to do.

He set aside the controls for the many armed robotic rig that was apparently part of how he maintained the amazingly tiny mechanisms of his equipment. The kid, who's name she really wished she remembered, squinted into the void of her back. It looked like he had forgotten that Armsmaster had sync'd the cameras on his fancy robot to a series of screens.

"That is the optimal angle for maintaining flight with the least required energy." He replied, quickly sketching up a drawing and series of calculations that she assumed showed his point.

Her estimate when she thought about it that way matched with that. But the point of building something to fly wasn't to get somewhere with the least amount of energy use, especially not for a Hero.

She got up from where she was seated, which was a section of the Tinkertech lab in the PRT HQ building that she hadn't spotted anything delicate or expensive in. She wasn't sure it was a good idea for her to be improving the bitch that had wrecked her last car, and nearly gotten her killed by the Nazi fucks.

But this was probably the only time she'd ever get to show Armsmaster she wasn't a retard. It wasn't like her mom had drank when she was pregnant with her, unlike some of her sisters.

"If what you want is to hang around in the air maybe, but if you're trying to go somewhere, then getting there faster is better. I mean, your bike can hit 300 miles an hour, but it would use less energy if it had a top speed of 60." She argued.

"My bike has a top speed of 195 miles per hour, but I do understand your point." Armsmaster started working through amended calculations she frankly didn't understand.

That was the real magic of Tinkertech, what made them powers. She had to admit she'd never finished her schooling. She barely knew how to read. She got lost on anything more complicated than multiplication.

But her power gave her the intuitive understanding of what this and that meant, at least when it came to things that moved. She knew that Armsmaster was one of the only Tinkers in probably the entire world that had bothered balance that intuitive understanding with an actual education on what the fuck he was doing.

The benefits of growing up with Legend and Hero checking in on you. She couldn't even be mad that he got those benefits, because he was a better man than she'd ever be. Even if you ignored her lack of cock, which was kind of a core qualification to being a man.

"Kid Win, can you see about what it would take to put a multi-position energy and control connection into that? She's right about the speed increase, but I'd rather not give up the increased loiter time if we can have both." Armsmaster admitted with the tone of the reluctantly impressed.

"I can do it. It'll need one hell of a pivot mount, since it needs to be able to move under full load if you want it to be actually useful. You got anything simpler around here I can use to make parts?" She confidently stated.

She had no idea how the hell any of the fancy automated equipment worked. A bunch of it she couldn't even start to figure out what the hell it was. Give her a clapped out Bridgeport, an ancient shaper, and a grinder and she could figure out how to make anything. At least if she had the time to do so.

Armsmaster scratched his beard for a moment, clearly thinking about her words. Then he snapped his fingers.

"I've got just the thing. I haven't used it in years, but it should still work. I just need to remember where I put it." He replied, suddenly moving to root through cabinets and shelves at a pace that she mostly associated with meth heads who'd just gotten a fresh dose.

He eventually plucked a sizable box that looked like it had gone through more than a few fires, been shot, and bore the sort of scorch marks she associated with lasers. Despite that, there was no sign of the box having deformed in any way. She could see a number of seams on it, where panels opened or closed, along with a single inset button.

Armsmaster pressed the button, and the box opened with a subtle hum. The panels flipped, slid, or hinged out of the way to reveal lenses that began to glow with light. Then holograms formed, making a series of floating controls and a transparent lump of material.

"Teaching aid Hero built. He didn't have the time to teach me how to work the machines personally, so he did the next best thing. It translates the intuitive knowledge of making components for Tinkertech into a series of instructions for the machines. I made sure I had time to teach Kid Win personally, and these days we actually personalize the equipment in labs. But it should be good enough." Armsmaster said casually, as if something Hero made wasn't a priceless treasure.

It was incredibly easy to use, and she found it accepted every form of command she could think of, including managing to make sense of voice commands. It took her barely more than ten minutes to design the parts she needed to make the thruster mobile, and barely longer than that for the machines in the lab to spit out the parts for Armsmaster to carefully install.

After that, the three of them fell into a natural rhythm of working over the designs. She was rather limited in what she could do to help outside of the mobility systems that Millie had incorporated, but there were a surprising number of them built into the girl.

Melody had woken up with a pounding headache and a growling stomach. She was on a slab of a bed where she couldn't tell where the mattress started or ended, and the room was warm enough she hadn't been cold despite the lack of blankets. Or clothes.

She had underwear. It wasn't hers, but it was clean. Which ruled out the ABB. Even if her memory was shot, she remembered that their brothels were filthy places. The Nips had loved their sex slaves, raping their way across China in a way that the Chinks were more than happy to return when Japan had collapsed.

They were filthy animals, totally unable to realize that attacking a superior people and power would end in their defeat. And they'd completely fucked up the entire war by getting the United States into the war on the opposite side.

She blinked as the halos of light in her vision dimmed enough for her to actually figure out where she was. The fucking PRT had managed to capture her. She just had to sit tight until they transferred her, then Brad and Kaiser would rip them apart and free her.

She didn't remember how in the hell she'd been captured. It had to have been something stupid, considering she didn't hurt anywhere. But she had no idea how long she'd been out for.

She jogged around the confines of her cell, ignoring the hunger in her belly with the same willpower that had always allowed her to power through her cage matches. It was that control that separated people from animals, the impulse control that was an alien concept to so many.

It was too bad the schools in Brockton Bay were fucking terrible. So many of the idiots, even in the Empire, didn't actually understand the simple realities of biology. The Chinks, Japs, and Gooks were animals, even if they could be domesticated. The coloreds were sort of mixed.

She actually liked some of them, even if they belonged in Africa like the rest of them. Though she supposed Alabaster and some of the others that were mixed through no fault of their own could stay. Their parents might be race traitors or rapists, but children didn't carry the sins of their parents.

She realized that something was wrong when she finished her jog in only a few minutes, sweating like pig. Her stretches told her she wasn't anywhere near as flexible as she should be, at least outside of her hips. She could still effortlessly manage a standing split.

Bastards hadn't left her artificial larynx anywhere in the cell, but from memory they had mics in the cell, so she might as well rasp out what she wanted. If they tried to ignore her, then she could always write it out. She doubted any of the simpletons guarding her cell would know ASL.

"Fucking feed me, I'm starving!" She demanded.

A few moments later she realized with horror that it was her original voice, the one that had gotten her twin recruited to the church choir, and eventually led her right into Haven and their bullshit. The voice that losing had broken her.

She'd been damaged goods. No longer fit to marry. That had left her suicidal for a time, even after she triggered.

She had only recovered when she'd realized she could still be useful. She might not be able to be a proper housewife, but she was gifted with ability to fight. Her body was a weapon, one to be wielded against the lesser races that couldn't help but be distracted by it.

She took a frantic inventory of her body. Every scar was gone. Every blemish. Every victory. Every lesson.

Her spiral into despair was interrupted by one of the faceless goons from the PRT bringing her a meal tray. She was pretty sure it was a damned dike from the build, even if you couldn't really tell for sure what sex they were under all the armor. She could guess based on how short the bitch was, and how round the chest was with the armor thrown on.

It looked like plain prison slop, just one step nicer than she had gotten in juvie. And there was a hell of a lot more of it than she was used to. Too much if she wanted to stay in shape. But she was starving.

Surely it couldn't hurt. She'd been injured, and getting her flexibility back would take a lot of energy. She needed to exercise, stretch, and heal. But she also couldn't become a fat sow.

Or was she supposed to now?

Her scars and deformities were gone. Had Panacea fixed all of her? Could she actually have kids? Was her duty to her race to be fruitful and multiply? Could she even do that here? It wasn't a coed prison, she was in a cell all on her own. And the only Parahuman prison in the world that was coed was the Birdcage.

"Come get your food Cricket. I'm not going to stand here all day looking at you and holding this, I have far better things to be doing." The women ordered her.

Women shouldn't be giving orders. They should take them. That was their purpose.

Her mental complaints came to a screeching halt as she realized again that she was a woman. Not a broken thing, but a whole woman again.

She meekly accepted the tray, doing her best to remember how to eat in a properly demure fashion. She hadn't thought she'd ever need to remember that, but at least she didn't have more than a single spoon to contend with. She even remembered to bite back her complaint about the poor quality of the spoon.

"Pardon me. Could I have some clothes? It's not appropriate for a lady to be in her underwear in front of anyone but her husband." She tried her best to sound appropriately ladylike.

It was harder than she'd thought, since her tone carried a bit of anger she didn't manage to bury. The guard standing there froze for a bit. Then turned around and left.

She hoped there would be clothes. She felt naked. Which was a strange feeling when she'd ended up entirely naked and not minded when she'd been in the pits. But that was the old her. The broken her.

She hoped this was just a dream. She didn't want to have to figure out her life if she was actually whole again. If she wasn't broken. If she could bear children. If she could be married. Could date.

Emily dearly wished she could just start drinking. Her plans to transfer the Empire members in her custody had been abruptly put on hold because Cricket had abruptly started behaving entirely differently.

Which had triggered having the entire cell block locked down under M/S protocols. Those came with an immense amount of paperwork, and made it so there was absolutely no hope of being able to use her cells any time soon.

On the bright side, she was going to have several more Capes to throw at the problem that was Brockton Bay. One of them was even suited for investigations, a niche that she'd been asking for anyone to fill her entire tenure.

With the stupidity of how changes had been made to deal with Parahuman powers and their related crimes it was nearly impossible to arrest a Parahuman in their cape identity unless you caught them in the act. Allegedly it was a measure to protect people from being falsely accused when anyone could have a Changer or Stranger ability to make them look like someone else.

In practice, she subscribed to the conspiracy theory that the bill had been purposefully manipulated to tie the hands of the PRT. She knew damn well that in the early days they had been rolling around with live weapons at all times, and that lethal force was the expected reaction to having someone use a power or a gun on them.

She hated the change. But there was nothing she could do. The most she had been able to do until recently was push for her Troopers to be qualified as often as she could, and to allocate what budget she could towards practice ammo. As well as to sign off on issuing live weapons whenever the option presented itself.

The argument was that there was no way that the villains would be willing to help defend the city if they shot them, and that rogues would find themselves pushed to the villains by the violence. But the inability to control the gangs did far more harm, especially because very few villains bothered to do anything but make things worse when it came to the Endbringer fights.

Putting aside her bitterness about not being able to just shoot her problems, having a cape like Hideaway on her roster gave her a lot more options for investigating crimes, and actually having the charges stick. She could potentially place an entire ambush team into those areas and be able to catch the slippery little shits like the Undersiders or Circus.

She'd have to figure out what it would take to let her put Hideaway on the street before Image got to debut her, since the knowledge that the PRT had a Stranger like her on their roster would keep the criminals on their toes.

It was too bad she couldn't demote John for his stunts with the helicopter, but she could pretend. He might understand if she demoted him for the helicopter bullshit, then promoted him back again for not just rescuing those girls, but also securing at least two new Capes for the roster.

She also wanted to demand to know where the hell he'd learned to do that. According to the crew from the helicopter, he'd handled the entire thing like he'd been born in the air. Between that and the level of skill he'd shown in coordinating the various operations said he wasn't just the sort of small arms repairman that his discharge paperwork showed.

But she had confirmed the DD-214 and other paperwork were legitimate and correct. So she'd stopped digging. But that wasn't going to stop PHO, who had started to speculate that the PRT had poached Uber from Leet when their show had vanished.

She had to admit that Uber probably would make a passable Trooper. If only he didn't have the problem that he used his power for everything, and that his power only applied to one thing at a time. She'd learned that limitation when he'd become an expert at bomb defusal to deal with a device that Leet had made when drunk, that the pair's roommate of the time had called the bombsquad over.

She was still pissed that she hadn't been able to get either of the idiots in prison for that one. She kind of hoped the knuckleheads had been blown to hell with their bomber friend, but she probably didn't have that sort of luck. It was like there was something out there protecting Capes from the consequences of their own stupidity.

But that left PHO trying to break into their personnel files to find out the truth of if the PRT had suddenly made a dramatic change in policy to allow Parahumans to work for them, rather than the Protectorate or the Wards.

The answer was no. And that by the definition of protected classes, Parahumans weren't one. It wasn't legally discriminatory to refuse to hire them, as countless lawyers had been forced to eventually admit. It was just difficult for anyone but a government agency or a company like Medhal to actually screen for them, and it wasn't normally considered to be worth the expense.

PHO was unlikely to get anywhere, but Thinkers and moles for various gangs probably would. That was why she bothered to look at the site, it was why they had interns reading through endless threads. It was why the Wards were permitted to have official accounts. It was a space where the users that posted publicly provided clues for the lurkers to put into more serious investigations.

Well, that and it had an endless supply of gifs of Parahumans getting hit in the nuts or face planting.

She wasn't thrilled at working with a thug and a criminal, even if all they were doing was taking his money and providing a veneer of respectability. But her superior had reminded her that for all that he had fallen, he had been the Dragon of Kyushu. That Lung had once fought Leviathan to a stand still single handedly.

He might still have some amount of love for his homeland in his heart, considering that he had suggested that they hire the recently infamous hitman using his money. It was better than the other options they had.

The country was surviving, dependent on the charity of nations that weren't ruins, but it was surviving. They just lacked any significant reserves of foreign currency they could afford to spend on anything but the needs of their citizens.

And hiring someone to kill the second most important, or maybe even the most important figure in the Yangban would be costly no matter how easy they found it to be. And she doubted it would be easy for anyone to kill him.

What was left of the Imperial family after the CUI had stolen so many in the attempt to force them into marriage in order to undermine international support of Japan had even granted their full backing. Any possession of the Imperial family was up for barter, even the most sacred of national treasures.

If he demanded an entire island as his kingdom, that was a price they were prepared to pay.

They simply could not afford to constantly have their people and their Heroes stolen, their Villains brainwashed and empowered to further damage the country. They could not afford for the CUI to continue to kill them slowly by stealing everything they couldn't defend.

If they lost even just a little more ground, they would no longer be able to supply large regions of their territory. The CUI would be able to seal the seas from cargo ships, and they had no naval ability to break through such a blockade.

But she was discomforted that her request for a meeting immediately had him indicating that he was sending an associate who was already nearby. The idea of international contract killers in her country was chilling. Especially because the only people who might have interest in hiring any killers to work in her country that could afford the prices were the CUI.

More disturbing was the implication that he was part of an organization. That there was more than a single assassin making his mark on the global stage.

The girl, and it was very clearly a girl, came through the gate of the secluded temple they were using for the meeting. Her clothes were spotted with blood, and there was a gun slung across her shoulder. The blood was unmistakably fresh, a brilliant red. Gloves caked with gore were stuck into plastic bag stuffed into a pocket.

"Sorry I'm late! I got hung up with some pushy guys that invited me to have some fun, but apparently their idea of fun was different than mine. Don't worry, I brought you a present to make up for it." The girl spoke flawless Japanese, and she obviously thought nothing of turning up to a meeting still covered in blood.

She tried to comfort herself that it had probably been rapists. They were an increasingly common problem as every passing year brought fewer convictions while the crime rates soared. She wasn't succeeding. Her countrymen were an endangered species, their population shrinking every year.

Then the crazy girl handed her a collection of what she thought were the remains of trackers that the CUI implanted into their assets. Even with them still being sticky with drying blood and gore, she found she didn't mind the bloodthirsty smile nearly so much.

"So, whatcha want that can't wait for the Commander to be available? He really prefers emails to face to face meetings you know, and he hates having his time wasted." The girl didn't even hesitate as she made an implicit threat.

"My government, the Imperial family, and the one known as the Dragon of Kyushu wish to hire him. The Yangban and the CUI prey on us every day. We wish him to remove the one known as Two, the keystone that allows them to take our people and brainwash them to join their forces. We are prepared to pay any possible price you ask of us." She barely managed to keep her voice strong for the final sentence.

The girl bounced in place, humming to herself as she considered the request. The increasingly wide smile made her believe she might have made a terrible mistake. She had thought that the associate would be male. And sane.

"Well, since you're broke I guess it's going to be mostly barter. We can start with the five million Lung gave you as a deposit, along with total immunity to your laws. I want Amakusa Island and two dozen sexy nuns too."

She blinked. There had been no mention of how much money Lung had given them. And then the mention of a collection of islands that had been stripped bare by Leviathan. At least the nuns were vaguely connected to the former demand.

"Oh, and a cute princess. The Commander will figure out the rest of your bill when he's done killing him. Might be extra cost options involved." The girl continued as if demanding a princess was perfectly normal.

Her phone beeped. It was the number associated with the Gunman. It was a short text message.

'This is why you don't demand an in-person meeting with no notice. I reserve the right to let her set the final price. Just deal with the deposit for now.'

That left her to wonder how much of the insanity was a show to make her regret that her government had tried to use the demand of an in-person meeting at their convenience as a reflexive gesture of enhancing their reputation. Considering Parahumans, she really couldn't be sure of anything.