Greg Vs Raid 9-2
The main conference room inside the PRT building stank of industrial bleach and something else, something metallic and rank.
Joy.
It was no great secret that Leviathan was hell on infrastructure, the Endbringer deserving the title City-Killer of course, but it was apparently an unmentioned fact that surviving the aftermath left you with something else to deal with that couldn’t be solved with simple (if expensive) rebuilding.
Seven days about to creep into two weeks since the day Leviathan’s waves turned from apocalyptic to an annoyance, and still the whole building carried that salt-copper taste that the cleaning crews couldn’t quite manage to scrub out from the air vents.
The Director allowed herself a quiet grunt as she resettled into her chair, ergonomics doing nothing for the low throb in her side that meant she’d pushed dialysis back too long again.
Unfortunately, while the arc of the PRT’s schedule was long, it certainly didn’t bend for organ failure any more than it bent for Endbringers.
Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead like a fly dying to an insect trap, casting everyone in attendance in that bureaucratic shade of pallor that made even the healthiest among them look like a zombie.
Piggot’s gaze flicked to the man in question, Shawn Lilywhite looking like he’d rather be napping than in yet another meeting. “Dauntless, I assume you’re still with us?”
The man-mountain in question, the second-tallest blond cape in town only behind one Neil Pelham, blinked a few times and picked his cheek up from where he’d been resting it on a raised fist. “O-of course, ma’am.”
“Good. Let’s keep it that way.”
Dauntless nodded and dropped his hands down, gaze doing the same till he was simply staring at the table’s surface, replaying footage that only existed behind his eyes. The polished table reflected faces she’d been studying for years; faces that could turn her into paste without breaking stride, faces that smiled and nodded and filed reports while keeping their real thoughts locked only behind professional courtesy.
Thinned eyes flicked over to Assault, the armored cape in red smirking back at her. Well, not all of them.
The wannabe jokester had his arm in a cast, half-slumped in his chair like a marionette with half its strings cut. The usual overdone energy that made him a hassle to share a room with had curdled into something sullen and worn, ironically making him less tolerable. Battery sat beside him, scowl etched so deep it seemed carved in stone, the youngest cape in the room coiled tight enough to snap.
Miss Militia sat with that familiar rod-straight posture, but the tightness around her mouth had carved deeper lines since Leviathan. Hannah rarely slouched, rarely showed weakness, but fatigue had a way of settling into the small muscles anyway, something Piggot knew very damn well.
Two weeks of cleanup duties and the dark-skinned woman looked like she’d been chewing glass.
As for Armsmaster…
Her eyes flicked over to where the leader of the Protectorate sat almost perfectly motionless, blue and silver armor reflecting the overhead lights as it compensated for almost every movement the man could make.
It had the unpleasant side effect of making him look like a bearded statue.
Which…
Which honestly wasn’t far from how it felt when it came to dealing with the man.
“Let’s not waste time with pleasantries we don’t need.” The words came out as rough as she needed them to, because if there was one thing she knew, it was that rough worked well at cutting through the bullshit and getting people to sit up. “Triumph is stable, still undergoing a full battery of tests. Still under Master/Stranger protocol. Velocity will take time. Skull fractures don’t heal on schedule.”
She didn’t blink as Armsmaster slid a tablet across polished wood, only glancing down as it came to a stop right in front of her. Statistics stood out starkly in front of her, numbers and figures that should have been catastrophic, weren’t. Numbers that made this look like a win (of all things, a win?) instead of barely managed disaster.
“Lowest casualty rate in Endbringer history. A miracle, according to national news.” She let that word hang, each of the threee syllables coming out sour. “Let’s be honest, nothing else but to do, we all know who the public’s thanking for this… miracle.”
The main screen flicked to life, Gregory Lucas Veder’s smirking fifteen-year-old face filling the wall. Sixteen now, Piggot mentally corrected, glancing at the birthdate that was explicitly seven days ago. Unlucky thing there.
Clearly not that unlucky, considering he survived.
Hardkour. Void Cowboy. White Knight. Each name was marked below his real one along with matching images to go along with them; three different masks for the same mess of a teenager who’d somehow managed to punch an Endbringer in the face and win. “The boy.”
Battery’s hiss carried enough acid in it to strip paint. “So it’s true. The kid who’s been giving us headaches for months-“
“Is the same one who did that, yes. No need for rhetoricals, Battery, you’re looking at the facts already.” Piggot shook her head as one fat finger found another key, the full rap sheet replacing the photographs.
The Director didn’t even need to look, having seen everything on the board multiple times already. Multiple counts of destruction, aggravated assault, vigilantism stood out on the extended scrawl like one of those space knight movies, and at the very top, in stark red was the most important once: Homicide. “Let’s be perfectly clear about what ‘giving us headaches’ entails.”
Assault lifted his head up. “Does this info come with his address?”
Piggot shot him a look, not even bothering to blink. Whatever Assault had to say would no doubt be inane and annoying and she had no interest in sparing herself the effort to even ape confusion. “Why?”
Are we not supposed to send him a complementary fruit basket?” Assault continued, one hand raised as if confused. “With a card that says ‘Thank you for kicking Giant Monster ass’.”
“What are you talking about? Kid’s got a rap sheet bleeding red.” Battery leaned forward, still dripping venom for the kid she had a vendetta against. “We shouldn’t be thanking him.”
Piggot knew very well that Dani was not one to let go of any humiliation, especially not one from a villain. The man in red sitting right next to her made it clear the lengths she would go to pay that back. At least she probably won’t marry this one.
Her husband nodded as he let out a low, slow hum, clearly skilled in the art of irritating his significant other. “You’re right, puppy. Thanks just aren’t enough, not for something like this. You think he’s too young for a strip club?”
The young woman clenched her fists tight on the table. “This is not the time to fuck around, Ethan. He killed Calvert, and he’s running one of the biggest gangs in the city.”
“Great.” Assault’s voice dropped, words falling flat as the bounce left him. Piggot couldn’t see his eyes but the man’s body language said enough as he turned his attention back to the table and away from his wife. “Just… great. The hero of the hour is also public enemy number… what is it now? Three? Four?”
“I’d argue closer to seven, being honest,” Armsmaster joked, Piggot barely managing to tamp down her eyes from widening as she turned to the armored man. “He and his organization have demonstrated significantly more restraint than any previous iteration of the pan-asian gangs in this city.”
“Restraint.” Dauntless finally looked up from the table, the tired man ready to speak up. “That what we’re calling it when a kid builds a giant robot out of scrap metal and nukes an Endbringer?”
“It was not a nuke,” Armsmaster’s correction was explicitly not a joke. “… a nuke would have done far less damage.”
“The specific yield of whatever he used is not under debate,” Miss Militia cut in, the woman pulling her bandana down and away from her mouth before she began speaking. “The preservation of civilian life was. And his intervention… as unorthodox as it turned out to be, made that possible.”
“Are all of you joking right now?” Battery cut in again, the woman clearly riled up by something or another. “He killed Calvert.”
“And saved us the trouble, good fucking riddance, c’mon.” Assault shifted again toward his wife, his casted arm finding new angles to avoid the table edge. “Calvert was Coil. Coil was a snake and the bastard was never on the level. He played us like he was Charlie Daniels. Any of you not breathing easier with him looking like a Firestone brick right now? I mean…” His good shoulder rose and fell in a heavy shrug, the red-armored man letting out a long breath. “You gonna act like you missed that tape too? Unless the kid planted a car bomb, he didn’t even kill the bastard, but we’re still putting the heat on him for it. And as for the gang…”
Ethan Crane simply gave another shrug.”Eh, kids run with gangs sometimes. He’s still a kid.”
“A kid who took over the Azn Bad Boys,” Piggot’s correction came out flat, and as matter-of-fact as anything else said today. “Let’s not forget that part. He isn’t some rogue vigilante who stumbled into an Endbringer fight. An active, expanding gang leader.”
“Still a kid.”
“I don’t think you understand the situation, Assault.”
“Trust me,” he smirked back, “I do.”
Right. Trust the man who’d spent years as a villain before an oh-so-convenient conversion to the side of the angels, sitting there with his arm in a cast from the same fight that made their current problem into a local deity. “He already assimilated a third of the ABB’s old territory since taking it over,” Piggot bit out. “Since his showing with Leviathan, expansion rate’s accelerated and recruitment’s skyrocketed. We’ve got news of four different capes under him now, more than the ABB has ever had. Armsmaster?”
The armored cape nodded, taking that as his cue to add what he knew. “Disaffected youth, former ABB muscle, and with the way things seem to be progressing, potential recruitment of non-Asians. All of the above likely to outright expected. Give him another two months, his new-model ABB controls the full quarter the old one used to.”
“Good,” Ethan scoffed. “Better them than the Nazis. At least the kid doesn’t seem to have a political agenda beyond… what? Punching things and liking cartoons?”
“A gang is a gang is a gang.” Battery’s voice carried that tight disapproval that the woman never seemed to relax out of costume, as if competing with everyone for the potential of biggest hard-ass. Truthfully, it was a competition she had never lost to Armsmaster till recently. “They deal in extortion, prostitution, narcotics, and violence. Doesn’t matter what flag they fly.”
“No evidence Veder’s operation involves narcotics, or any of the former three anymore for that matter.” Colin’s mechanical tone cut through the rising tension like a diagnostic report, which probably wasn’t accidental. On the best of days, the man treated human interaction like a debugging exercise. “Analysis of their territory indicates sharp decrease in drug-related crime, organized prostitution, statistically significant increase in… forcible removal of dealers affiliated with other organizations.”
“Last I checked, Veder’s crew also hasn’t been firebombing minorities.” Assault’s observation carried that edge he got when the jokes stopped being sufficient cover. “Violent thugs, sure, why not? But equal-opportunity violent thugs. “
“That is not the point!” Battery’s snap could probably be heard in the next room, glare aimed at her husband like he’d personally betrayed every principle she’d ever held. The woman never did understand that principles were luxury items in this job. “He is a murderer and a crime lord consolidating power right under our noses! We can’t just let that stand!”
“And what do you suggest we do exactly, Daniella?” Ethan’s tone shifted, Piggot’s eyes narrowing at the harshness in his voice she’d never heard from him in the years she’d known the man. Even his wife sat up straighter, the other cape almost glaring at him as she stared open-mouthed. “Send him a strongly worded letter about how you don’t appreciate his actions? Tell his mommy on him and get the kid grounded? Go down there yourself and arrest him?”
Battery’s glare only tightened at the last sentence. “…why not?”
“Maybe because it took a whole team for you to bring me in, and,” He shook his head, throwing a searching glance around the tabel, “I don’t think we’ve really got any Leviathan-level firepower to spare. I get it, I do, you’re mad about the last fight but do us all a favor and let it go already.”
Battery clenched her fists and stared down her husband like he had just slapped her. “How can you say that?”
“I kinda just open my mouth, does it on it’s own,” Assault closed his eyes and sighed, that last joke clearly unintentional and proving his point. The man tilted his visor back and looked the smaller woman in the eyes. “Look… I… I get it, but it’s been almost two months. He gave us the runaround, yeah, but we’re big boys and girls. We saw the light show he put on. If, and big if, we don’t die, the boy who nuked an Endbringer isn’t going quietly, and the public would crucify us for trying. We’re swimming in shit right now, and you wanna climb out through what? The sewer?“
“However crudely he makes it,” Miss Militia cleared her throat, voice cutting through the potential domestic dispute, “Assault has a point. White Knight is, for all intents and purposes, untouchable right now, unless we get him into a sit-down talk. Any move we make against him would be seen as betrayal. We’d lose what little public trust we have left.”
“So we do nothing?” Battery asked, her eyes narrowing. “We just allow a teenage kingpin to build an empire because he happened to save us from something worse?”
Shawn cleared his throat, and the room went quiet again as Dauntless decided to take the initiative to say his piece. “During the fight, before… everything. He saved me. And the people on that bus… well, he dropkicked a city bus back into position. Excessive, sure, but it worked and… besides, it was Leviathan. Neat and clean doesn’t save the day. Later, I saw him save Aegis and Triumph. Reckless, disorganized… but he was doing good, prioritizing rescue over engagement. Acting like a hero. I think we can at least try to sit down with him.”
“Acting like a child with a god-complex, more like,” Dani muttered with a volume that wasn’t quite under-her-breath, and there was that bitter edge again.
Not that she could throw stones, but still, Piggot could recognize it.
“His file indicates a thinker ability, ‘Analyze,’ the keyword Dragon’s drones heard him subvocalize,” Colin spoke up again, seemingly ignoring Battery’s grumblings, “It seems to activate a sort of long-distance psychometry, granting him information on people and objects. This is likely how he identified Calvert as Coil.” Armored fingers worked across controls, bringing up data streams that probably made sense to him and nobody else in the room. “As for his other abilities… the list is extensive and growing.”
Footage filled the main screen, shaky amateur video from phones and security cameras, each clip a reminder of how completely they’d lost control of the situation; Half-flying figure wreathed in red-orange fire, ablast of flame turning a water echo into steam, the sixty-foot mech constructed from shipwrecks and scrap metal.
And last, but certainly not least, the building sized energy pillar searing across the city skyline.
“Primary power appears to be self-enhancement, something we have him on record declaring as ‘Reinforcement’. It pushes strength, speed, durability into high-end Brute and Mover categories, scaling to unknown degrees, at the cost of his own vitality.” Colin gestured toward the mech footage at his side on yet another screen, the man almost hesitant. “Then there’s the matter of… this… thing. We’re considering it a high-level Shaker ability, like an immense over-scaling of the standard ability of Mechant cape Mush. We have him on record as defeating Mush a few weeks prior to Leviathan. What this implies for the scale and progression of his abilities is… hard to fathom.“
“And the final blast?” Hannah’s voice came out hushed, the concept of payloads probably running through her head as she fiddled with her bandana.
“Unknown.” Colin’s admission of ignorance was rare enough to make everyone pay attention, spreading outwards like a wave of shock. “Energy output of that final beam exceeded almost anything I’ve recorded before. Apart from some of Eidolon’s most powerful attacks.”
Silence settled over the room, the weight of implications sinking in. Wonderful. Exactly the kind of problem that made this job so fucking rewarding.
“His power is reactive. Escalatory.” Colin pressed on, flicking through screen after screen showing exactly what he meant. “Every conflict serves as a catalyst. Each one escalates his strength and widens his versatility. It’s likely that fighting Lung originally might have granted him this rapid pace of growth or this might have always been his likely trajectory if placed under enough pressure. My initial assessment was that we needed overwhelming force in order to prevent escalation. Break him before he could realize his potential.”
That silver visor swept the table, lingering on each face, until he inally settled on her, which meant this was about to become her problem officially instead of just practically. “That assessment is now obsolete. The ‘potential’ we were worried about? He’s already there. Reached it. To the point that we would need the Triumvirate or mass reinforcement to properly take him in.”
That potential…
What they’d been worried about. The same potential Colin had been so confident they could contain with proper application of force and tactical superiority.
Satisfaction tasted bitter, but it was satisfaction nonetheless. “You were the one with the plan, Armsmaster.” Her voice came out quiet, each word filed sharp enough to cut through that blue armor and find the man underneath. “The one who believed we could take him down with overwhelming force before he got in over his head. You believed pushing conflict early was the only way to prevent breach of unwritten rules, to stop him from growing stronger.”
Authority settled into the space between them, weight of institutional power backed by the satisfaction of being proven right about cape overconfidence. “So I’ll ask you again. How do you intend to bring the brat down now?”