Jack put down his plastic fork and suppressed an expression of disgust. There wasn't any obvious reason to keep up a polite appearance - the overcrowded hospital cafeteria didn't have any people of influence he had to impress - but that was no reason to get lazy.

Panacea had been right on all counts, about his hunger to replenish his lost body mass and about the best ways of fulfilling it. He had eaten the chicken parmesean, a barely acceptable salad, the chicken parmesean again, then finally tried the eggplant dish and found it exactly as inedible as advertised. He would have to go back for another meal. The pasta was looking increasingly appealing, but Panacea had apparently given his body a twenty four hour modification to rebuild his tissue with fat and protein; it would be shameful to waste the opportunity to use his healer-tuned metabolism to get a permanent gain in muscle mass.

Hah. Two days ago he had the willpower to tear apart his limbs to hurt Leviathan. Forcing himself to eat another subpar salad should be no obstacle.

Jack made his way through the crowd to the salad bar. The cashier waved to him as he passed. The cashier had given him an odd look the first time, noticing the generic mask the PRT had given him that made it clear he was a cape, and then had given him another odd look the third time when it became clear he was going to keep returning for meal after meal. But the cashier must have chalked it up to cape business and let it pass without comment. The workload was high enough in the wake of Leviathan's attack that the employees didn't have time to indulge their idle curiosity.

By the time Jack finished paying for his salad his seat in the cafeteria had already been taken. The rest of the cafeteria was filled to capacity. He could probably leverage his status as a cape from the Leviathan battle to get someone to give up their place, but-

>> He dismounted from his motorcyle and strode into the shadows below the underpass, scanning the area for threats. Good. No unwelcome surprises. Only the boy in a plain white mask. He approached the boy and spoke. "I'm glad you decided to come-"
<<

The crowd near the doors parted to reveal a tall figure in blue power armor striding toward him.

"Armsmaster." said Jack. "I'm glad to see you."

Armsmaster gave a small smile. "Jack Slash. You're looking much better than the last time I saw you."

Jack nodded. "Panacea and Good Girl do good work."

"I've reserved a small conference room for us to have a discussion." said Armsmaster. He glanced at Jack's plastic container of salad. "We can talk while you eat." He paused. "If you don't mind."

"That's fine. We have a lot to discuss." said Jack. He smiled. "We fought an Endbringer together but we've never really talked. I've been looking forward to this."

The 'conference room' was a cramped break room, barely large enough to fit a table, a few chairs, and a vending machine. He should have known. In the aftermath of the final wave, what the news reporters were calling Leviathan's 'Deathflood', hospitals had been overloaded with patients. When it came to requisitioning space in a hospital, even a Protectorate team captain's influence only went so far.

Armsmaster stood upright, his power armor too heavy for him to sit in the chairs. Jack placed his salad on the table, then after a moment's consideration he chose to forego the food and stand as well. He needed to project confidence and power, and their height differential was large enough as it was with both of them upright.

"First things first." said Armsmaster. He reached to a compartment in the back of his armor and pulled out a slim laptop and a PRT-issue smartphone, placing them on the table. "We at the Protectorate take care of our heroes. This is a gift to you from the Protectorate to help you reconnect with your loved ones and friends from Brockton Bay, as well as the heroes you met during the battle. We're providing the same to the other Brockton Bay heroes who lost their homes and property in the attack, along with cash payments and free sessions with our employment and financial advisors. We will also provide you with access to our staff psychologists and counselors, should you request it. Should you disclose your civilian identity to our staff it will be kept strictly confidential. We have reserved a temporary room for you at the local Wards headquarters until we can help you find you more permanent accommodations."

"I appreciate it." said Jack. The laptop looked like a new model, not tinkertech but top of the line.

Armsmaster nodded. "It's the least we can do, in recognition of your accomplishments. I've rarely seen anyone match the courage and determination you displayed against Leviathan, and your actions were critical to our victory. We saved millions of lives, if not tens or hundreds of millions, by killing the Endbringer before he could carry out further attacks.

"On a more immediate note, what we accomplished together captured the public imagination and will put us in the spotlight of the media. Chief Director Costa-Brown has scheduled the two of us for a videotaped interview tomorrow morning, with the highlights to be disseminated through official channels."

He paused to let it sink in, before continuing. "In light of our success, there are ongoing discussions in the higher levels of the Protectorate and the PRT about changing our policy toward the Endbringers. One option, the one I favor and that I intend to advocate in our interview, is to use our new weapons to take the fight to the two remaining Endbringers and kill them before they have a chance to adapt. Either prepare calculated ambushes for their next appearances, or if at all possible, attack them before they approach population centers while they are in hibernation.

"After studying my video records I suspect that your power may have the range to reach the Simurgh in the thermosphere. Properly designed railguns empowered by Fletchette can do the same. From your behavior during the fight, I take it you're on board with joining forces again to kill the Endbringers?"

Jack grinned. "Absolutely."

Armsmaster smiled in return. "Good. I already have ideas for improvements. More powerful weapons, ones you can use without damaging your tissue. My workshop was destroyed in the attack so progess will be slow. It will be weeks or months before I can get a new workshop outfitted with the proper equipment. Thankfully I always back up my notes to the onboard computer." He tapped the side of his visor. "A basic step that too many Tinkers forget. I already have sketches for new weapons designs, depending on what our testing reveals about the particulars of your power."

He opened the laptop and called up a series of technical diagrams. "One design is to increase your efficiency tenfold by growing nanothorns radially, much like spokes on a wheel, such that a single point of contact with the central shaft will allow you to project all of the 'spokes' at once. One of our biotinkers says that she can give you regenerating patches of tissue on your arms, tissue with pain receptors removed and a high density of touch receptors to help you calibrate your contact with the thorns."

"Impressive." said Jack. "You're going to collaborate with Good Girl? With the two of you working together, with you as her mentor-"

>> Armsmaster gritted his teeth. Hero could be irritatingly dense behind his nice guy persona. The man already took enough credit for his work simply by being his mentor. Accepting his offer of collaboration would only make it worse. "No, sir. With all due respect, I feel that I should stand or fall on my own merits-"
<<

"-that might be just what she needs to restore her confidence in heroism after losing so many of her teammates. I've given her permission to give me augmentations to help me use your weapons, but she said the PRT would be reluctant to let her go forward without a veteran Tinker on board."

Armsmaster nodded. "I had envisioned us working independently, but collaboration is also a possibility, depending on the design. I have another design for a weapon that generates a continuum of thorns from nanoscale to microscale to macroscale, effectively a 'dial' allowing you to choose thorns with sharpness and density to suit your current situation. You would attack Endbringers and dangerous villains at full strength and attack common criminals with blunt-edged weapons that do concussive damage. Nonlethal means of attack should be one of your first priorities, because they're what you'll need for 97% of your takedowns as a Ward.

"I have more designs prepared, but the specifics will depend on your powers testing-"

Ha. Characteristic of the man. So focused on his newfound passion, on the goal of killing the Endbringers that finally seemed within reach, that he launched into detail about his ideas for tinkertech weapons and set all other matters aside. Didn't think to tell him about the state of Brockton Bay and the other heroes, didn't ask after his family and friends...and didn't remember that Jack was an independent cape. Armsmaster was so blinded by their successful alliance during the fight against Leviathan that he simply took it for granted that Jack would join the Wards.

Did he want to join the Wards? To join the government system? It would have advantages. Alone, his power was weak. Too many villains could defend against it, like Oni Lee and Cricket, or were effectively immune, like Hookwolf. But as a Ward his power wouldn't be weak anymore, because he would have access to Tinkers like Armsmaster and Good Girl as his allies. He would get weapons and augmentions custom-made to be compatible with his power, ones that would give him the same strength he used to hold back Leviathan.

Being a Ward would have a second advantage as well. He had found that his greatest strength was as a member of a team, as the leader of a team. Gathering information about other capes, about their powers and habits and psychology, and then turning that knowledge into plans to combine the strengths of his allies to strike at the weak points of his enemies. With the Wards he would be guaranteed to have a large team and he was confident that he would quickly rise to a leadership position...

...but all of those seeming advantages would be utterly worthless if they cost him his freedom. His means of expression. His reason for being a cape. As an eminent intellectual once said, it was better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.

Admittedly, being a Ward wouldn't make him a servant. His reputation meant that he would take on a position of power and influence, and he was confident in his ability to grow his reputation and rise further once he joined. But the height of his rise, the peak of his power, would be strictly limited. He knew it well enough from his own research, from Sophia and Parian's first-hand experience. The government system was designed for the sole purpose of controlling parahumans, putting them under the rule of non-powered humans. From the criminals sent to jail or the Birdcage, to Rogues made to follow restrictive business laws, to the Protectorate and Wards who were run by the PRT.

The PRT was the ultimate authority on every action the government heroes took, and membership was discriminatory, strictly limited to non-parahumans. Even if he put in years of effort, even if he rose to the level of the Triumvirate, even if he killed all of the Endbringers one by one, the best he could do was rise to a Protectorate position like Armsmaster's. A team captain, a leader of a small band of parahumans. And he would only be a leader in a very limited sense. Yes, he would have a degree of freedom in directing his team's operations in the field...but the true power - the power to set policy, the power to decide rewards and punishments, the power to overrule any of his decisions, the power to choose members of his team - would always lie in the hands of the PRT. He would be little more than their tool.

As distasteful as it was, he might be able to stomach being a tool of the PRT if their goals were aligned with his own. But the PRT's goals...they weren't entirely wrong, but their methods were hopelessly naive, inefficient. The case of Brockton Bay made it clear as day. His own actions, along with his benefactor, had cut the rot out of the city more effectively than the combined forces of the PRT, Protectorate, Wards, and New Wave. And the reason was simple: the heroes beholden to the government didn't even try to end the threat the villains posed. They were content to play a game of cops and robbers: respecting the 'unwritten rules', blinding themselves to information about the villains' civilian identities, limiting their arsenal by aiming to capture instead of kill.

It was only to be expected. The PRT had too many incentives to want the villains to exist. The PRT had fallen into the trap of all large organizations: starting with idealistic motives, but gradually coming to crave nothing but its own continued survival. The PRT needed to fight villains, yes, to put on a good show for the public to secure a steady flow of cash and jobs from the government. But if the PRT ever took the lead of vigilantes like him and ended the threats, their very reason for existence would disappear, and so would their money.

So the PRT only went all-out against high-class villains who threatened whole cities, while letting 'small time' villains go free to be recurring punching bags for their heroes. Letting innocents get addicted to drugs, raped, and killed by scum like the ABB and the Empire, in exchange for giving their heroes a few more moments of glory. Exactly the opposite of his motivation as a vigilante. He hunted villains without money or a job or any other ulterior motive to drive him. He did it in his free time, at his own cost, and out of his own desire.

Worse, the PRT misled the public about their true motives. The PRT's press releases implied that the reason they they gave mercy to villains was in the hopes that the villains would reciprocate by defending the city during Endbringer attacks. That was a good idea in theory. In fact, he and the other heroes had only been able to slay Leviathan with the assistance of scores of villains.

But the slaying of Leviathan proved once and for all that the PRT went about their campaign of mercy entirely backwards. It was only natural that the strong villains would be the greatest help against the Endbringers. The critical support against Leviathan had come from the Society, the S-class threat strong enough to take over whole countries. And the weak local villains that the PRT chose to spare? They would have been mere lambs to the slaughter against an Endbringer. In the end, the PRT's mercy for small time villains had done nothing more than pointlessly subject Brockton Bay to decades of crime.

Which meant that working with the PRT would be...an extremely bitter pill to swallow. Yes, his temporary alliance with the PRT's pets was what had given him the power to fight Leviathan, had given him the thrill of fighting alongside the world's greatest heroes and making an Endbringer squirm. But he had done that as an independent cape. He wouldn't need to become the PRT's tool to fight the other two Endbringers, either.

Besides, even if he wanted to join the Wards, it wouldn't do to join them at the drop of the hat. It would be better to show reluctance, to make them try to convince him. With his new reputation, he would have leverage. He could get them to cede him concessions.

"...Ah. The Wards." Jack said at length. He frowned. "You're speaking as though I've already been inducted as a member."

Armsmaster cut off his monologue on powers testing. "After your performance against Leviathan, there's no question you'll be offered membership."

"I understand that I'll be offered membership, Armsmaster, but..."

"I didn't take you for the self-deprecating type, Jack Slash. You've proven yourself worthy. You told me you were a hero who protected innocent lives, and your actions proved it. Surely you see that joining the Wards is the best way to continue. You'll have resources and the support of a team. My personal support as well, in the likely event the PRT assigns you to my command."

"It's not that I don't want to be a hero. It's just..." Jack shook his head. "I'm still processing it all in my mind. Everyone's told me about a video, that I'm famous, but I haven't seen anything yet. All I know is that our victory came at a great cost. That my city was destroyed, everything around it, cities around it even. I don't know if I have anything left. I don't know if there are even any Wards left to join. What happened, Armsmaster?"

Armsmaster several seconds to muster a reply. "...I see. The doctors didn't think to tell you. You have the rough outline correct. I'll give you the damage assessment in broad strokes."

His voice took on a solemn and formal tone, as if he was reciting a speech from memory. Or as if he was using his visor to call up a press release and reciting it word for word.

"May 15 was a bad day. The worst day by far for an Endbringer attack on American soil. Leviathan's dying flood leveled Brockton Bay and everything else within a twenty mile radius, did severe damage to Boston and Providence, and sent floodwaters for more than one hundred miles to New York City and beyond. Our Thinkers project hundreds of thousands of deaths, with several times that number of displaced refugees.

"The casualties among our defending capes were also the worst on record in the Americas. The only means of escape from the final flood were powers granting invulnerability or high-speed flight, and we lost most of our flyers early in the battle to lightning bolts and water jets. We lost nearly seventy percent of our defending force: 23 confirmed survivors and 53 deceased. Two capes, Sponge and Weld, are missing and presumed to be alive and buried underwater in the rubble of Brockton Bay. It may be weeks before we can locate them to get them out.

"The casualties were also the worst on record in terms of the quality of the heroes we lost. In most Endbringer fights the strongest heroes have the best chance to survive, but in Brockton Bay Leviathan used new weapons to attack our heroes before they knew how to defend themselves. We lost our leader, Legend, and team captains from seven other major cities..."

- Topic: What's next for the Protectorate?
In: Boards World News Main (Public Board)
Bagrat (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Posted on May 16th, 2011:

Our heroes have won their greatest victory in the war against the Endbringers. But we lost many of our best heroes and team captains, the leader of the Protectorate, Legend, among them. The At what cost victory? In memoriam thread is for mourning and for piecing together the picture of who survived.

This thread is for looking to the future. Where will the Protectorate go from here?

(showing page 86 of 99)

- The_Easy_Winner
Armsmaster should be the new leader! He'll replace Legend on the Triumvirate. Imagine Alexandria dual-wielding Armsmaster's mega-halberds. Badass!

- ozypandias
Ice_Nine: Eidolon should be the leader because he's strongest? Don't be naive. Strength and leadership are entirely different things.

No, Eidolon should be the leader because he has the best powers for leadership. He spends his time in Houston using his phenomenal cosmic power to stop bank robberies. What a waste. Imagine if he was the leader and sat in an office all day letting the other capes protect him for once. He would be free to use three A-class Thinker powers at once in killer combos. Predicting crime and distasters, optimizing hero recruitment and allocation, fixing the bureaucracy while he's at it. After a month with him at the helm the Protectorate would shed its cruft and become a well-oiled livesaving machine.

- Yael Schmitz (Cape Parent)
Alexandria would be an excellent new leader. Her team has reduced organized crime in Los Angeles to almost nil and most of her Wards have grown up to be fine young men and women and great heroes in their own right. She has exactly the work ethic and solid values that we want to instill in all the heroes of the Protectorate.

So many of you raised Eidolon and Armsmaster as choices but I can't see it at all. Look at their interviews and their approval ratings, then compare them to Legend's. They are good heroes but their personalities don't fit the position.

- CapeJunkie112358 (Veteran Member)
The_Easy_Winner: Nah. Armsmaster's not Triumvirate material. If his armor gave him flight and better damage resistance...maybe.

Yael Schmitz: Right. Leadership is about personality, not raw power. Legend was the leader because he was a great guy who everyone loved. Armsmaster is ****ing hardcore but he's got the personality and people skills of a brick wall. Alexandria and Eidolon are smart, even wise, and Alexandria knows how to handle people to get things done...but they're not nice. The next leader will be someone like Chevalier or Exalt. Charismatic to inspire the troops and down-to-earth enough that you'd like to have them as company at your dinner table.

Hell, if you want to put a Tinker in charge, pick Dragon. She's a great hero with Triumvirate level power and better people skills than 99% of human beings. Why isn't anyone bringing her up as a candidate? She'd be the easy pick if the laws didn't discriminate against AIs. If that injustice makes your blood boil too, sign my petition!

- Lost_Luster_2001
Alexandria is the greatest hero of our generation and the only real candidate for the new leader. Alexandria took the lead in founding the Protectorate back in the nineties. Everyone knows that she has always been the brains behind the Triumvirate. Legend for his public face, Eidolon for raw power, and Alexandria for the brains. For her, becoming the next leader is simply stepping into her rightful place. She'll keep the Protectorate running without missing a beat.

CapeJunkie112358: People like you are part of the problem. You admit that Alexandria is the woman with the best qualifications, the power and people skills and wisdom for the job. Then you somehow you come up with flimsy EXCUSES why less qualified men like Chevalier and Exalt should take charge. Exalt? Really? Your one "argument" is that Alexandria isn't NICE enough. Oh, dear, I'm so sorry that she wears black, and that she says what she means, and that she executes vicious murderers with her bare hands instead of using pretty laser beams and shiny swords. I'm afraid I can't hear your complaints over the sound of Alexandria kicking an Endbringer's a** while your great "charismatic leaders" flailed ineffectually with their powers and then flew away into the sky because they weren't accomplishing jack.

I'm sick of people dismissing Alexandria with the tired double standard that women have to be NICE while men get a free pass. It's why people like you constantly push to put more men in charge and fetishize a fake woman like Dragon instead of giving REAL women an opportunity to advance.

- cheesefan17 (Unverified Cape)
CapeJunkie112358: Yeah! We need our leader to be inspiring like Chevalier or Mouse Protector!

- Index (Veteran Member) (Archivist)
Whoever becomes the new leader, they should put all the new anti-Endbringer heroes on the same team. Get them all to train together 24/7 so they can kill Behemoth in the next attack. It wouldn't even be hard to arrange. Keep Fletchette in New York. Have Armsmaster replace Legend as the New York team captain and bring Jack Slash with him as a Ward. They can bring one of the healers too, Panacea maybe, to keep them in good shape.

cheesefan17: NOT Mouse Protector, dear God! Have you ever talked to the woman? Can you imagine her giving the report to Congress?

- Besigue
Index: No way the PRT is going to keep Fletchette on a normal Wards team. Do you want to take the risk that the Endslayer gets shot by some random crackhead in a drug bust?

Fletchette's going to be under guard 24/7 until the next Endbringer attack. Chevalier becomes overall leader, Prism takes over for Legend in New York, Armsmaster replaces Myrrdin in Chicago and brings the rest of the Brockton Bay heroes with him. I'll bet you a hundred bucks that's how they do it.
User was warned for this post; prediction markets are not permitted. - Fafniring_About (moderator)

Armsmaster dropped his formal tone, spoke with more life in his voice.

"Our heroes of Brockton Bay did remarkably well. A fifty percent survival rate, 12 out of 24 defending capes confirmed alive. With Aegis and the New Wave we had an unusual number of heroes resilient enough to survive to the end of the battle and capable of high-speed flight to escape the flood."

"We were saved by Aegis, then?" said Jack. "Or Alexandria? I'd like to know who to give my gratitude for the rescue."

"No. One of the Society's flying suits."

Armsmaster opened the laptop on the table and called up a video-

The video was taken by a fisheye camera mounted on Armsmaster's visor, the view sharp and clear despite the dim lighting, and tinted in odd colors - probably an enhancement for night vision. On the rooftop next to Armsmaster's feet was a pathetic wreck of a creature, face with too many eyes and mandibles and red, raw scales clustered over the stubs of its many limbs. Himself, after his transformation and his sacrifices. He hadn't been feeling any pain at the time, hadn't realized he looked that bad.

Watching was like returning to Brockton Bay again at the end of the battle. A glowing blue ripple passed through the air above the bay. Leviathan's portal opened and his massive wall of water began to flow. Only seconds remained before it would crush them all.

Armsmaster's point of view shifted madly as he looked for any resource he could use, anything to save them. His gaze landed on Alexandria, flying straight into the air with Fletchette. Occupied evacuating their highest-priority asset. Then Eidolon, who floated in the air with his arms folded, seemingly impassive, a cloud of multicolored sparks gathering around him. Shadowy tendrils like tree branches stretched out from his body, spearing through the water towards the portal. Occupied trying to contain the disaster.

Finally Armsmaster's view zoomed in on a flock of a half dozen Society flying suits making their escape, most of them carrying their non-suited allies. Their suits weren't designed for long-range flight, it seemed, and they were having trouble gaining altitude fast enough to escape the wave.

Two of the suits veered off course toward Armsmaster. The hero picked up Jack in his arms and held him to the side, coordinating their rescue. One suit to carry Armsmaster, the other to carry Jack. The suits hit them full force.

After frantic seconds where the viewpoint moved wildly in all directions, the view stabilized. The suits had adjusted their trajectories to move upward and away from the wave. For nearly a minute the suit continued to ascend, barely keeping pace with the oncoming wall of water. The water grew closer, forty feet away, then thirty feet, then twenty feet-

Then the water disappeared. Jack realized they must be far in the air, nearly as high as the clouds. Armsmaster's view tilted downward and showed what had become of Brockton Bay. The city was simply gone, drowned as thoroughly as if it had been transported to the seabed. The portal seemed to be slowly shrinking with time, either through Eidolon's efforts or from its power source running dry, but it was still gushing water at a tremenous rate.

Armsmaster's view shifted again, back to the sky this time. Zooming in to look at small specks in the air, the other flyers, counting the survivors...

Jack stared at the screen, transfixed, as it finally struck home. It really was all gone. Everything he had known. His home, his school, the barbershop where he got his haircuts. All of his friends from school, probably, or nearly all. Everyone who went to the Endbringer shelters, for certain, they wouldn't be able with withstand the pressure. Nearly all of the capes he had met in the battle, the ones who didn't have flying allies to save them. Even...

Jack tore his gaze from the screen and looked to Armsmaster. "Who else made it? The other heroes, the rogue capes?"

"The New Wave evacuated their surviving members." said Armsmaster. "Glory Girl and Lady Photon rescued Panacea and Flashbang. Brandish turned into her energy ball form and let the wave hit her full force. She survived but was dragged underwater for miles and ended up in Providence." He paused. "What's left of Providence. She's remaining there for the time being to help the survivors with search and rescue.

"For my Protectorate and Wards, Aegis evacuated Vista despite severe injuries for both of them from the water jets. They're in this hospital recuperating, eighth floor. Battery and Shadow Stalker were evacuated by the Society, along with the rogue Parian. They're in Boston now."

A broad grin spread on his face as an undercurrent of tension dissipated in an instant. Both of his teammates had survived the massacre. Far better then he had any right to expect. He struggled to stop himself from showing too much relief on his face. As far as Armsmaster knew, Shadow Stalker and Parian were nothing more than acquaintances he had met for a few minutes before the Endbringer attack.

"That's...that's a great relief. Shadow Stalker was my inspiration to become a hero. I was afraid I lost her before I had a chance to truly know her." Jack paused. "The Society sent a flying suit to evacuate her? Why? Because she was the one who trapped the Endbringer?"

"No. One of the Society capes, the projectile-launcher who was helping Fletchette attack Leviathan, was hit by the first lightning strike and taken to our hospital for healing. When the final flood approached the hospital he evacuated the surviving capes by shooting them into the sky like bullets. A method of last resort. Most of the capes died on impact when they landed, or survived the impact but drowned before they could swim to solid ground, but some had powers that let them survive."

Ah. Shadow Stalker's gaseous form, Battery's temporary super strength and speed, and... "Parian? I didn't think she could survive a fall from the sky."

"Apparently she wrapped herself in cloth and then used her power in mid-flight to sew it into a parachute."

Jack laughed. Wonderful. When he first met Parian she had been afraid of combat, afraid of using her powers for anything more than her fashion career and her part-time job creating glorified anamatronic dolls. He had needed to coax her every step of the way. To do her thinking for her, to come up with ways to use her power in combat, to practically hold her hand as she made her first kills. Now she had taken his lessons to heart better than he had ever expected, becoming a battle-hardened veteran in a single day. A hero with the courage to fight Leviathan, with the skill to occupy him for more than a minute with only her fabric constructs for protection, with the cool head and creativity to improvise a parachute while falling from the sky. Absolutely perfect.

Armsmaster typed on the laptop for a moment and called up a photograph captioned "Victorious heroes (and villains) return from battle." It showed a view from the top of a building on the outskirts of Boston, the streets covered in floodwaters more than ten feet high. Swimming through the water was the Society's massive beast, more than forty five feet long now from head to tail. The water around the beast was suffused with a cloud of deep red - blood leaking from its wounds? The beast carried a strange tableau rooted to its back. A platform colored with a black-and-white checkerboard pattern, centered around an elaborately set dining table that looked like it belonged in a five star restaurant. Presumably a creation of the Society's landscape-warper, the one who had imprisoned Leviathan in the crystal bowl.

The heroes and villains were sitting around the dining table, having a conversation over slices of a cake which they had somehow acquired. The villains sat on one side of the table. Two women in Society uniforms, and a third woman in a frilly purple dress. Next to her was a...shape that was presumably a Society member but was so warped that it was hard to tell where it ended and its surroundings began. Parts of it seemed to be missing, limbs dissolving into fractals or fading out of existence.

On the other side of the table sat Battery, Shadow Stalker, and Parian, waterlogged but intact. Battery was fiddling with her tinkertech backpack, sparing a glance upward to look at the half-collapsed buildings around them. Perhaps meeting the gaze of citizens who had survived the flood. Shadow Stalker had shifted the bottom part of her mask out of the way to eat a slice of cake, and seemed to be in the midst of an animated conversation with the Society members. Parian had cluttered the tabletop around her with bundles of her cloth and was using her power to sew them into small dolls. Jack tapped a key on the laptop to zoom in. An elf, an octopus, two girls in frilly dresses, a vampire, and a miniature Leviathan. Gifts to the Society members as thanks for the rescue? Next to Parian was the giant, pale form of Narwhal, the leader of the Guild. Narwhal sat with an awkward posture, her blood-soaked torso covered in layers of forcefields, as though her power was the only thing holding her body together. Parian was using a fork to feed Narwhal a small piece of cake.

Such a bizarre mixture of devastation and normality, and in the midst of it his allies were making themselves known to some of the most influential capes in the world, heroes and villains alike. Absolutely perfect, once again. Jack smiled, and another laugh sprang to his lips-

>> "I'm saying it's pointless, Dragon." said Armsmaster. "You of all people should understand. Hero lost his life in the line of duty, fighting a villain to save civilians. We should honor him by saving lives, not by standing in an empty field and giving formulaic speeches."

"Your focus on saving lives is commendable, Armsmaster," said Dragon, "but remember that saving lives is a means to an end, not an end in itself. What do you save a man's life for?"

Armsmaster opened his mouth to answer, but Dragon continued. "You save his life so he can live his life. So that he can live together with his friends and family, so that he can celebrate with them during their triumphs and comfort them during their tragedies. Now that Hero is gone, the best thing you can do for him is to be there in his place for his loved ones, to support them in this time of tragedy. To help bring back the life in their eyes and let them feel joy again. Much like I've been doing..."

She trailed off, but her implication was clear. Much like she had been doing for him...
<<

Of course, it wouldn't be perfect for Armsmaster. Jack couldn't stop himself from smiling, but he managed to dampen his smile and turn it into an expression of concern. "It's good news to hear that they survived. The rest of your teammates, did they..."

Armsmaster paused. "They're the only survivors."

"I'm sorry. I didn't know them well. I can only imagine what it must feel like to lose your long-time comrades-"

>> Armsmaster stood at the edge of the small plot of land, avoiding the other guests at the funeral. This was the part he hated the most. He had already tortured himself enough about the loss of his mentor, about his own mistakes in the battle, reviewing his recording over and over again. It was the curse of a Tinker to have mistakes that were always fixable, to always a reason to regret. Then the funeral had forced him to relive that regret when he gave his speech and spoke to the man's family. That was bad enough. Now he had to relive it again and again every time another guest approached to give him their 'sympathies'-
<<

"-so I won't do any more than give you my condolences."

Armsmaster nodded stiffly. "Thank you." His head drooped and he spent a moment in silence. Then he raised his head and spoke. "We can still rebuild. I'm making the case to keep our team together and start over in a city where a new vacancy has opened up. Myself and Battery for the Protectorate, and Aegis, Vista, and Shadow Stalker for the Wards. Parian has expressed her interest in joining the Protectorate as well. I'll be interviewing her when I fly to Boston in ten hours."

Armsmaster gave Jack an evaluating look, then continued. "My team as it stands is strong in close- and mid-ranged combat and movement abilities, but weak in long-ranged combat. You would make an excellent addition, and that's without taking into consideration the equipment I can provide you."

"I'm glad you think highly of me, Armsmaster." said Jack. "I wish I could give you a decision now, but there's something more important for my future that I need to resolve first. The most important thing." He leaned forward. "I heard that you've been searching for surviving family members of the Brockton Bay capes. Do you...do you have any news for me? About my family?"