3rd November, 2011- Armsmaster
"Your son has a problem, Mr. and Mrs. Veder."
Their faces slid from pleasantly interested to an expression that confirmed they knew exactly what he was talking about.
"This isn't just about him getting along with the other Wards, which he doesn't. Or correctly obeying orders, which he doesn't. It's his flagrant lack of understanding of how to go about doing these things, because I can clearly see he wants to. His social and emotional intelligence are at complete odds with his working intelligence, which by all accounts is extremely high. We've been told his marks are improving dramatically at school, and his self-defence instructors here report that he has been improving at a staggering rate," Armsmaster steepled his gauntleted hands. "How long has he been like this?"
Damien frowned slightly, staring at the conference room table. "Forever, more or less? It's just how he is. I was a bit like that myself, at his age, but it's just recently he's gotten a whole lot more confidence."
"He was quieter, before he got powers," Veronica added. "But I wouldn't consider his personality to be a bad thing-"
"Nor would I," said Damien.
"He just takes after us, all he needs is to get some real life experience."
"I don't think he's even that bad, certainly not enough to call us in for a meeting like this."
"His only real problem is that he very much likes to share what he enjoys, and what he likes is a bit niche for most people. But that's not even really a problem."
"He's actually gotten a bit better since joining the Wards, wouldn't you say darling? About… three? Three percent better?"
"Near enough, and anyway, he has friends at school and once he goes off to college he'll meet even more people who're into all the memes and video games he is so I'm not seeing your issue here, Armsmaster."
He had expected them to be biased toward their misbegotten son, but this was a ridiculous level of justification.
"Even putting aside his peer relations, if he wants to work as a public hero he needs to be able to present himself in a respectable manner; which at the moment he is just not capable of doing. Or doesn't want to do, rather, as he does understand the concept. But when it comes down to it, he fails. Maybe it's a stress related issue and this is his way of dealing with social anxiety, but whatever the reason, unless he can conform to our public relations guideline we will have to permanently bench him. Keep him relegated to internal work until he's capable of presenting a good image," Armsmaster leant back, separating his hands. "I'm not sure if you're fine with that, but he certainly isn't. He's chomping at the bit to get into the field and as much as our hands are tied by PR regulations they are just as tied by the Youth Guard."
Veronica crossed her arms, "and it would cause issues here if you were to keep restricting him, so you want us to try and handle the discipline?"
"Sort of," Armsmaster nodded. "We'd rather try a soft approach before dipping into anything even bordering official. And we do want him to achieve his goals, but at the moment his behaviour doesn't allow that within our framework."
"And if our stern talking to doesn't work?" Damien asked, bushy eyebrows furrowed.
"Nothing punitive," Armsmaster held up a placating hand. "Nothing remotely close to that, worst case scenario he gets assigned a lot of mandatory training sessions designed to help promote a heroic public image. Best case he might get some mentoring from one of our senior Protectorate members, so he can see how they work in person and hopefully learn from example."
"Ok, none of this sounds like we needed to have this talk, let alone face to face, if you already have all this in place," Veronica mirrored her husband's frown. "What's the real issue with him being a bit awkward?"
If there was an understatement of the year award that would win, Armsmaster thought as he rolled his eyes behind his visor.
"His power," he said. "Your son is like a second coming of Dauntless, possibly even better than that. And Dauntless is already predicted to rival the Triumverate given enough time, your son could get there even faster. Our power testing indicates he was telling the truth about his limitless potential, we want to capitalise on that. And we can't if he behaves the way he does. If we want him to be up there with the likes of Legend he needs to know how to talk to people, and as far as I can tell the only Ward who doesn't mind him is Gallant. If only one of a youth peer group he has such a large common ground with can put up with him, how can he work within a much more diverse adult working environment?"
"Depends on if he wants to," Veronica said. "When he's done with high school he might move way out of state for college; where Coil can't get to him. If he wants to quit being a Hero and do an Arts degree that's fine with us."
How absolutely abhorrent, they would let him squander his gift. What was this sickening unconditional support of the boys' stupidity?
"Have you ever had your son tested?"
"Yes, we have, thank you," said Damien in a tone that made it clear the thanks was sarcastic. "And he's fine."
Of course he was.
"In any case, from the beginning Greg has expressed a desire to be a hero of Triumverate calibre, it would behove us all to do our level best to help him get there."
"We'll talk it out with him, see how he feels. If he says he wants to be like that, then of course we'll do our best to help him."
Armsmaster breathed a secret sigh of relief, thanked them and handed them over to their PRT escort. He really didn't know what was worse at this point, that someone like Greg was going to reach that peak instead of him; or if he'd fail to get him there.
5th November, 2011- Missy Byron
"I love you so much that I just can't resist you," Missy sang under her breath, flipping the page on her shamefully girly magazine. She hummed the rest of the bars, having forgot the lyrics.
She sighed at the vapid advice column, none of this would help her.
Loud, muffled voices suddenly broke her out of her reverie. Why there was loud voices she had no idea, no one was out in the main common room but Greg setting up his computers. He had somehow convinced Dean, Chris, Dennis and Rory to have a 'LAN party' with 'the RTS version of Space Opera', whatever that meant.
The voices got louder and less muffled, sounding exactly like Armsmaster asking 'what do you mean you cancelled your appointment with your combat instructor?'
Oh this ought to be good, Greg deserved a dressing down. She tossed her magazine over her shoulder and crept to the door, easing it open. A quick flex of her power pinched the space between her room and the end of the hallway to a mere inch, letting her peek into the main area.
Armsmaster was looming over Greg, fists clenched and Greg was sitting there looking utterly flabbergasted.
"Just relax bro."
"Do you have any idea how much I've sacrificed!?" Armsmaster suddenly bellowed, throwing his hands up. "Setting up everything for you, going above and beyond, calling in favours and working overtime! You'd throw it back in my face you ungrateful little shit! All that potential, wasted! At least Dauntless understands his responsibility, but you wouldn't even care if you did! You want to be Triumverate? You can't take a single day off, you think I've had a day off in years? No!"
Missy drew back, a sick feeling clawing in her guts. Greg didn't deserve this. This was the kind of shit she came here to get away from.
"Because you can't do that when you're clawing your way to the top! Rested back to normal every day? Negative status effects gone? You have it easy!"
Missy peeked back around. At some point Greg had started crying, tears streaming silently down his face as spit began to fleck Armsmaster's neat beard. And here she was, hiding around the corner; as usual.
"Even Dauntless has to suffer like the rest of us while you waltz through your day, blithe and blind to your gifts! What is wrong with you?!"
Greg gave a sniffling sort of whimper to which Armsmaster literally growled.
"Just sort yourself out!" he barked and stormed out of the Wards area.
Missy stood there for a moment to the background of Greg's sobbing. Even if he was really annoying, this wasn't right. She slunk out from behind the corner and beelined over to him.
"Are you ok?"
"I'm an idiot sandwi-ih-ich!" Greg bawled wretchedly in his horrible nasally nerd voice.
She sat down next to him and awkwardly put a hand on his shoulder, "he shouldn't have yelled at you."
He immediately wrapped her in a crushing hug and jammed his face in her shoulder, crying even harder. Missy tried not to cringe and pull away, even though this was her favourite shirt being covered in his blubbering.
"Why, uh, why was he so mad? I've never seen him lose his nuts like that before."
"Probably the sleep deprivation and amphetamine comeda-ah-own!" Greg sobbed for a few more seconds then immediately stopped. "Forget I said that, Emily made me sign a thing saying I wasn't allowed to tell people what's in Observe windows."
God it was weird hearing the Director being called Emily, "ok, but can you let go of me now?"
"Mou," Greg huffed. "I guess."
He was taking way too long to let go. "Get off!"
"But it was a nice hug!" he protested, finally dislodging himself and retreating to his seat on the sofa.
"You got snot all on my shirt!"
"So? It's just snot, it washes out. Besides, I wouldn't care if you wiped your face on my shirt."
"But that's gross."
He shrugged, now sporting a big silly grin, all evidence of being upset vanishing. "Could be grosser. Your power could be excreting effluvial grime, you could be like Gregor the Snail."
She didn't know what effluvial meant but it sounded bad. "So are you, like, ok now?"
"Hmmm, yeah. Armsmaster didn't really sound like he was mad at me, I think he's just grumpy today," Greg said airily.
No. No, Greg.
"Right, well, I'm going to go change my shirt. You, uh, have fun with this," Missy gestured to the computers.
"Kk, you wanna play? You have much experience with RTS games? This ones pretty high level despite its basic setup but what I really like about this one is the setting. See, you have all these different factions fighting over swathes of galaxy with self-perpetuating armies of murderbots. While that doesn't sound like much the cutscenes on single player mode really sold me on the setting."
Missy closed her eyes, opened them, and stared at the ceiling as Greg droned on. This was going to be her whole afternoon, she just knew it.