Director Piggot POV
If there was a single person on this Earth that I wish I never had to meet, it would be Taylor Hebert. Ever since she came onto the cape scene, my life had been one constant, droning headache. Her father had been taciturn with details about her. The main thing that we learned was that she had some sort of capability to form a mental connection with anyone she came across and she had wanted to do so with her father. When he'd declined, she stormed out of the house and ran away. He'd come to us, worried and practically begging for us to help her. There was probably more to the story, but that was all he had told us.
"Run it by me one more time." I rubbed my eyes blearily.
Miss Militia, God rest her soul, simply smiled underneath her mask. "Our first known contact with the individual known as Didact was approximately three weeks ago at Barnaby's Steak House. The persons who made contact were Assault and his partner, Battery." She flipped to the next page, which showed a printout from Battery's helmet cam footage of Didact seemingly enjoying a meal of steak and potatoes.
The slide flipped again, showing a disheveled looking Oni Lee standing on the table over Didact's meal. Miss Militia tapped a button, and the video started playing. Lee swung a knife at Didact, who simply dodged by leaning backwards in her chair. Lee then disappeared into a cloud of ash. "At this point, Didact expressed more concern over having her meal ruined than being attacked by Oni Lee."
"Because that's the primary concern of a safe, stable parahuman." I retorted sarcastically.
Miss Militia winced. "Given the ease with which she dispatched Oni Lee, ma'am, I'm inclined to disagree." The video continued, Lee appearing about ten feet to Didact's right. Without even turning to look, she extended a hand and tentacles shot out, quickly wrapping around Lee's mask and neck. With her free hand, Didact left a stack of bills on the table and moved towards the restrained Lee.
"It was here that Battery attempted to get Didact to hand Oni Lee over to the Protectorate. Didact declined, and shortly after, Lung showed up. He seemed cordial with Didact and Battery said that they had no choice but to let them go." The pain in Miss Militia's voice was obvious. No one was happy about letting villains go.
"Show me the next encounter with her. Where she killed Hookwolf." I was forced to suppress a smile at that. This girl may have been a thorn in my side, but Hookwolf was far larger and far more annoying. At least for now.
The slide changed again, showing a moderately well-lit street. "This is cell phone footage that someone posted on PHO of the incident. It starts out with Didact on one side of the street, and Hookwolf, Cricket, and Stormtiger on the other. The words were a little hard to make out, but we believe that they were confronting her about the disappearance of Alabaster. They believed that she was responsible for it."
The video started playing and all the capes were standing around talking. Panacea coming out of Barnaby's was what seemingly triggered the attack. Stormtiger launched a blade of wind at Didact, who leaned out of the way even while still looking at Panacea. "It's speculated that she either has greatly enhanced reflexes, or a form of battle precognition." I ignored the burning in my chest and motioned for Miss Militia to continue.
The video resumed, and Hookwolf charged. His metal body was battered aside with almost casual ease by Didact. After another moment of muted talking, there was the report of a loud rifle. I'd heard that sound before, and it was definitely an M107. Given the way that Didact's head exploded, my suspicion was confirmed.
"This is the part where things get a bit uh..." Miss Militia trailed off but still hit play on the video. Stormtiger started approaching Panacea, when Didact's headless body stood up. There was a brief moment where time seemed to drag on, then Didact screamed. Even hearing it secondhand like this still drove a chill down my spine. It reminded me of Ellisburg; of the screams of the dead and dying. The camera seemed to shake for a moment before refocusing on the fight. Didact's claws lashed out, cutting Hookwolf cleanly in half from shoulder to hip. In the same motion, Didact pounced on Stormtiger and raised the same claw for a killing blow. Cricket, having gone completely ignored by Didact, collapsed to the ground clutching her ears. "It's possible that the scream or whatever it was has a Shaker effect." Miss Militia commented.
"I wouldn't doubt it." I grumbled, adjusting my posture with a wince. "Shortly after this was when Armsmaster rode up, right?" Miss Militia nodded and hit play on the video again.
Armsmaster's motorcycle came into view a moment later. Didact paused, turned towards the hero and, as a consequence of its position, the camera. Granted it was very pixelated due to the nature of the footage, but you could still easily tell that where Didact's head had once been there was a dark hole. Didact stood and I presumed she was speaking to Armsmaster. Without a head. Somehow. As they talked, the hole appeared to be slowly filling in. "It looks like she's visibly regenerating." I noted
"That would up her Brute rating from four to five." Miss Militia paused to type something on the nearby laptop. The white board behind her held the tentative ratings that we'd assigned to Didact. Brute four, now five, Master nine, and Tinker seven. The Master rating was given because she, according to her father, had the ability to form a quote unquote hive mind which allowed free sharing of thoughts and an enforced loyalty mechanic. With this she had subverted not only Lung but his entire gang in less than a week. The Tinker rating because she'd made a suit of armor that made Dragon green with envy. Said Tinker contacted us shortly after arriving at the Endbringer fight in Australia, saying she'd gotten a thorough scan of Didact's new armor.
What she'd told us wasn't good. The armor apparently had what Dragon had described as some sort of miniaturized fusion reactor as a power source. It had a shield that Dragon had described as utilizing energized particles, some sort of long range teleportation system, and apparently used some sort of anti-gravity system as a manner of flight. All of which was decades, if not centuries ahead of what humanity was currently able to produce, even with Tinkers. And if that wasn't enough, the armor itself was made of some alloy that Dragon could only guess as to what it was.
I looked down at the still image of the new armor, wondering if I should pay a visit to Panacea just so I had the ability to get drunk again.