Hopebringer
Plenty of people get dragged into situations they really don't want to be in by ROBs, but very few get chosen by ROB's for more than basic amusement. I was unlucky enough to be one of them. Now I'm in Worm with a mission to save the world. Unfortunately, raw power isn't what works around here.
Welp, we're back and ready for more fun! Nothing to say, other than enjoy!
Chapter 8
There was a moments silence.
"Wait, WHAAAAAT?!"
"I'm sorry, did you just say you were Hero?!" spluttered Uber, "As in, the First Tinker, the member of the Triumvirate, THAT Hero?"
Ruler crossed her arms and relaxed back on her heels.
"Yep, I did indeed," she said.
"Ah...you do know that Hero's dead, right?" asked Uber.
Ruler snorted and rubbed her chest.
"Yes, I am aware," she said, "Believe me, getting ripped in half is not a pleasant experience. 0 out of ten, would not recommend."
Armsmasters grip tightened on the haft of his halberd, before he stepped forwards and pointed the weapon at the other Tinker.
"I don't know who you really are, but I won't let you get away with sullying my mentors name," he said.
Ruler stared at him for a moment, before holding out a hand. Before anyone could react, something shot out of one of the piles of junk that surrounded the work area and landed in her grip, revealing a halberd that looked a lot like Armsmasters, albeit nowhere near as sleek and with visible welds on the metal.
"Remember this Colin?" she said, "I do. It was the first project you completed on your own."
Armsmaster took a step back, shock clear on his face.
"But...thats in my lab!" he protested, "How do you have it?"
"I am the King of Tinkers," said Ruler, "My Legend is a part of every other Tinker in existence and just as the King of Heroes possesses a treasure house of Noble Phantasms belonging to every Hero to ever live, my Workshop contains every creation ever dreamed of by Tinkers, past, present and future."
The halberd glowed and shifted, becoming a dragon themed, two pronged spear with a dragon skull etched onto the blade.
"I am a Heroic Spirit, born from the legend of Hero whos name was engraved upon this land," she said, "The legend of the first Tinker, the man able to build wonders with which to save the world. A modern day King Arthur you might say."
Her helmet retracted, revealing golden hair and green eyes that made Armsmaster twitch and swallow.
"But...how?" he asked in a weak voice, "Even with a Parahuman ability, this seems…"
Ruler smirked.
"Never assume anything when it comes to Parahumans," she said, "I taught you that, didn't I Armsmaster?"
The man twitched again.
"You did," he said, "Still, if you've been alive…"
He was cut off as Ruler burst out laughing.
"Oh, I'm not alive," she said, "My body is Spiritual, held to this world by the Grail and my Masters mana. If he goes, I fade away."
"So your a projection?" asked Dragon.
"Hmm, not exactly," said Ruler, "I'm not a mindless automaton, as you can clearly see and I am the same person I was in life."
"Huh, I think I get it now," said Leet, looking thoughtful, "I'm not entirely sure how it works, but you're basically a Familiar, right? As in, you have a contract with Alucard who you serve in exchange for something."
"Thats pretty much it," said Ruler, "Heroic Spirits are often summoned in order to have a Wish granted. Its not uncommon for us to have regrets after all."
She sighed, before turning away from the living Tinkers.
"But thats enough talk," she said, "I'm sure you have plenty of questions, but they can wait. For now, let us begin."
She held out a hand and a soft breeze began to pick up, tugging at her hair as it swirled around her.
"Workshop of Tinkers, activate," she said and snapped her fingers.
Miss Militia had been a Cape for most of her life. In that time, she had met many different people and gained more than enough experience that allowed her to read almost anyone she came across, helped along by her perfect memory. As such, she had absolutely no problem figuring out that Alucard was amused by something.
"Your wasting your time you know," he said suddenly.
Miss Militia blinked.
"Pardon?"
"If Piggot really thought that we were any kind of threat, she wouldn't have allowed any of the Wards to come," he said, "Frankly, its unlikely she'd have allowed Armsmaster to come either, at least not without far more backup. No, you lot are here to try and recruit me and my team."
Miss Militia frowned. Alucard was sharp.
"Well, your not wrong," she said, "But why are we wasting our time? Surely you know that joining the Proctorate comes with plenty of advantages."
Alucard snorted.
"Like what?" he asked, "Training? Archer's an incredible teacher. Safety? My team still hasn't reached full strength and even then, there aren't many things that can hurt me permanently."
"Thats a very dangerous thing to think," said Miss Militia, "I've seen a lot of Brutes who think they're invincible get themselves killed. Theres always someone who can beat you."
"Oh believe me, I know that," said Alucard, "In fact, I'm certain that most of the people here could beat me relatively easily. I've only just started training after all."
His grin vanished as he suddenly became serious.
"Not to mention the fact that your entire organization is corrupt to high heaven.
Miss Militia twitched.
"I'm not sure what you mean," she said, her voice carefully level.
Alucard smirked as he rested a hand on the head of the girl in his lap.
"Its amazing what information you can gather with an Assassin on your side," he said, "Right Jack?"
"Right," said the girl.
Miss Militia nearly jumped out of her skin at the sudden appearance of the pale girl and the two Wards with her weren't much better as Vista instinctively stretched space to put some distance between them and Gallant nearly fell out of his chair.
"What kind of information?" asked Miss Militia tightly as her power transformed into a rather large assault rifle in response to the Strangers sudden appearance.
"Enough information to know that Coil is a lot more dangerous than you thought," said Alucard, "I'll give you what we've gathered, but please, for the love of the Root, don't jump into taking him down."
"Why not?" asked Miss Militia, "If hes as dangerous as you say, he needs to be taken down."
"Oh, I agree," said Alucard, "However, hes also paranoid to hell and back and has enough failsafes that I'm sure we've missed one and all of them are deadly enough to make Downtown utterly uninhabitable and several are dangerous enough to turn the entire city into a wasteland."
"Surely they can't be that bad," said Vista, speaking up for the first time.
"The tamest of them is the fact that his base is wired up with enough C4 to completely flatten half of downtown adn the most dangerous is a Tinker-made virus that would be able to sterilize an area of land twice the size of the city within hours," deadpanned Alucard, "The others include blackmail packets set to be released, an extensive list of the identities of Heroes and Villains from all over the country and a databomb that would completely cripple the emergency services for at least twelve hours. In short, the guys a petty megalomaniac who thinks hes a Bond Villain."
The three Protectorate Heroes gaped at the brutality Coil was apparently capable of.
"Thats pretty much why I haven't had Jack flood his base with her mist and let him and his goons choke to death," said Alucard with a shrug.
"Wait, your planning on killing him?!" gasped Vista.
"Quite frankly, thats the only way to deal with him safely," said Alucard, "Hes way too dangerous to just lock up. Even sticking him in the Birdcage wouldn't work very well since his power lets him, repeatedly try to escape and bin any plans that don't work without anyone being any the wiser. If he does get Caged, he'd be running the place or out within six months."
"Hes really that dangerous?" asked Miss Militia, trying to equate the PRT's impression of Coils status as an annoyance at best with the dangerous picture Alucard was painting.
"Hes at least as dangerous as any S-class threat," said Alucard, "True, he can't destroy an entire city on his own, but neither can Jack Slash. The man is smart, paranoid, connected, utterly without morals and considers the Unwritten Rules to be a helpful distraction at best and if it wasn't for his fail not-so-safes, I'd have already killed him."
He sighed and pulled a memory stick out of his pocket.
"This contains all the information we have on him and his organization," he said, sliding the stick across the table, "I'm nearly ready to make a move on him, but I'm not entirely sure that we can pull it off without help. Just...don't do anything stupid and for gods sake, make sure you don't put that on your system! Its got so many holes in it, I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if things were leaking of their own accord. Oh, and I strongly suggest that you make sure that Piggot doesn't have access to her side arm or any sharp objects when she finds out who Coil is. You might also want to have Panacea on standy."
"Um, why?" asked Vista.
"Because she knows the guy," said Alucard.
There was a moments silence.
"She...knows Coil?" asked Gallant, "How…"
"Its not that surprising," said Alucard, "Even Villains have their secret identities after all. Hell, chances are you know some as well. However, in this case its a bit more worrying than just having a bar-friend with a secret or something and it ties into how Coil was able to infiltrate the PRT so well."
"Hes a part of it, isnt it?" asked Vista.
Alucard grinned, showing off some rather impressive fangs that made Miss Militia twitched slightly.
"Right you are," he said, "Although I think hes retired now. Not only that, but she personally knows him, although I doubt she thinks to kindly of him considering their past."
"Who is he?" asked Miss Militia, feeling her stomach drop.
Alucard's smile vanished.
"Former member of the PRT special forces and current PRT consultant, Thomas Calvert," he said.
Miss Militia felt her stomach drop through her shoes. This...wasn't going to end well.
Taylor put her teacup down with a satisfied sigh. Despite everything, life was finally starting to look up for the girl. Well, to be fair, it had started a month ago when she first met Adrian Tepes, but she still felt it was worth saying. Since she'd met the blonde, the Trio had backed off to a degree, likely believing that having someone to collaborate Taylor's accusations could force Blackwell to actually do something (although Taylor didn't think that was likely) and even more recently had backed off nearly entirely. Oh, there was still at least one unpleasant prank a day, but they were generally the type she could shrug off, not destructive or painful. It was...nice.
Not only that, but he'd also convinced her to actually go out on occasion rather than sit in her room feeling sorry for herself, resulting in her coming to the, rather obvious in hindsight, conclusion that the Trio were a problem that would eventually be behind her. That realization had made her much happier and, by proxy, also had an effect on her Dad.
He wasn't completely back to normal, but then she wasn't expecting miracles, but he finally seemed to remember that, even with his wife gone, he still had a Daughter. As a result, she'd started coming down to an actual cooked breakfast and the two had even worked together to make home-cooked meals for dinner on occasion. There was still an obvious Annette shaped hole in both their lives, but they were starting to recover and move forwards.
The sound of a chair being pulled out across from her drew her from her thoughts and she smiled when she saw the girls who had just returned from the little cafes counter with their chosen snacks. Rin Tohsaka was a girl she had known vaguely at school, but didn't know much about, other than the fact she was constantly being hit on by one of the seniors and wasn't shy in the slightest about expressing her displeasure when the idiot pushed to hard. However, despite that violent reputation, she had proven to be an excellent friend after Adrian had introduced the two girls.
It was also through Rin that Taylor had met her other new friend, a blonde, perpetually smug girl called Lisa who seemed to take great pleasure at being the smartest person in the room. She could be rather annoying, but was also amazingly insightful and could be rather helpful. And scary. At one point, Taylor had seen the girl brutally take apart a group of drunks who had decided that the three girls might be interested in a night out and didn't seem to want to take no for an answer. By the time she was done, all three of the men were reduced to tears and apologizing profusely. It was honestly rather scary how good she was at that sort of thing.
Still, scary or not, both girls had become good friends to Taylor over the past couple of weeks and had proved to be excellent listeners and gave sound advice. Plus, having both Rin and Adrian around meant she could finally eat in the canteen without fear of any...incidence.
"Thinking deep thoughts?" asked Rin as she sat down.
"Not really, just...woolgathering I guess," said Taylor.
"Well stop it, I need that brain to help with my English homework," said Rin with a grin.
"I could help if Taylor wants to go on knitting," said Lisa mildly.
"I'd rather rely on her since she knows more about this sort of thing and you tend to get of topic anyway."
Taylor sat back as the other two girls started bickering. It was a common sight, but it was also abundantly clear that the two were very good friends, the kind that she hadn't had since Emma had inexplicably turned on her and had believed that she'd never have again. Now, despite everything, she found herself with two new friends who, despite the short time, she found herself treasuring immensely.
For some reason, that thought tickled her, causing her to burst out laughing. Lisa and Rin stopped their good natured argument to turn odd looks on her.
"Whats so funny?" asked Rin.
"N-nothing, nothing at all," said Taylor, "I just...felt like laughing."
She wiped the tears from her eyes and smiled at the two girls.
"Thanks guys," she said.
The two glanced at each other and Rin shrugged.
"Your welcome I guess," she said, "Weird girl."
Taylor just smiled and looked out towards the water, watching as the sun slowly emerged from behind a cloud and lit up the Bay and the Rig floating in the middle. Life was finally looking up for her.
A fair distance away from Brockton Bay, in a rather messy apartment lit only by the streetlamps outside and the glow of a monitor, a young woman with long, braided hair sat in her pajamas, a plate of spaghetti resting forgotten in her lap as she stared at the image taken at the scene of a Cape related incident in Brockton Bay. However, unlike most people, she wasn't really interested in the fact that Panacea had collapsed, instead she was much more interested in the man who had helped her.
The woman stared at the image for a moment, before a grin crossed her face and she hopped to her feet, ignoring her meal as it hit the ground, and blinking across the room to her closet. She opened it and shoved aside her normal clothes, grabbing her costume and quickly donning it, before grabbing her sword from where it rested against the wall and vanishing into thin air. She had to find out just what was going on in Brockton.
A moment after she vanished, her computer lit up with a priority message from the womans rival.
"Alright, please fill me in," said Piggot, leaning her elbows on her desk as she eyed the two Capes stood across from her, both of whom looked rather upset about something, "And why do you two look so down?"
Armsmaster and Miss Militia glanced at each other.
"Lets just say that we've had some...unpleasant revelations today," said Miss Militia, "Ones that really shouldn't become common knowledge."
Piggot raised an eyebrow, before reaching under her desk and activating her security system. There was a series of loud bangs as thick, metal shutters slammed down over the windows and doors, followed by a faint buzz as Tinkertech white noise generators activated. A quick glance at her computer screen confirmed that all extereia connections had also been cut, before she turned her attention back to the Capes, just in time to see Armsmaster pull a doohickey out of his armour and start prodding at it. After a moment, he nodded and put it away.
"We're secure," he said.
"I am aware," said Piggot flatly, "Now tell me whats got you so worked up."
The two Capes glanced at each other again, before Miss Militia spoke up.
"While Armsmaster was working with Ruler and the others, I took the opportunity to speak with Alucard and his teammates," she said, "After shutting down any attempt to sell the idea of joining, he filled me in one some rather...uncomfortable revelations about our mole problem."
"I thought that had been dealt with," said Piggot.
"It has," said Armsmaster, "However, it appears that that was just the surface details."
As he spoke, Miss Militia pulled a memory stick out of her pocket and handed it to Piggot. She glanced at it, then at the Capes, before plugging it into her computer and booting it up. She trusted that Armsmaster would have scanned it and the contents extensively. She started flicking through the files on it. She opened one, scanned it and paled.
"Is this…"
"All accurate as far as I can tell," said Armsmaster, "However, even if it wasn't, we cannot afford to dismiss it. Not only that, but before we can even consider going after Coil, we need to deal with our own internal problems. According to what Alucard and his friends have discovered, our entire system is compromised from the ground up."
Piggot scowled as she opened another file and scanned it.
"How in the world did he manage that?" she growled, "It would require top level clearance…"
She trailed off as she saw Miss Militia flinch slightly.
"What else did he tell you?" she asked.
Miss Militia shifted uncomfortably.
"He...told me Coils real identity," she said.
Piggot blinked, a little taken aback by that.
"He did that?" she asked, "Why?"
While she considered the Unwritten Rules to be somewhat annoying, she understood why they were in place and was well aware of how seriously most of the Cape population took them. The idea that a Cape would so casually disregard them was...a little worrying.
"He told me that since Coil only used the Rules as a shield and disregarded them completely, he didn't deserve the protection they offered," said the Military Hero.
"I see," said Piggot, "Very well, who is he?"
Miss Militia squirmed slightly under her superiors gaze, which certainly didn't help Piggots mood.
"Hannah…" she said warningly.
Miss Militia sighed and took a deep breath.
"According to Alucard, Coils true identity is Thomas Calvert," she said.
There was a moments silence as that bit of information sank in. Then Piggot went purple and slammed her fist into the desk with a loud crash.
"CALVERT?!" she thundered, "That little…"
She stopped and took a deep breath as her heart rate reached dangerous levels.
"Do you think thats likely Director?" asked Armsmaster, "You know Calvert better than I do."
"Oh yes, I believe it," growled Piggot, "I never did like the guy. I admit, I never thought he'd become a Villain, but looking at all the evidence, the backup plans and the fact that you'd need very high level access to put in a good chunk of the taps and back doors we've found, along with what Alucard and his friends have dug up...yes, I'm almost certain their right."
"What should we do?" asked Miss Militia.
Piggot was silent for a moment.
"As much as I'd like to have him arrested and tossed in the darkest cell I can find, I agree with Alucards caution in this case," she said, "Even one of the fail safes in this list going off would be catastrophic. I assume he has some kind of plan?"
"He said that he needed a few more things before he could deal with the issue, but he was working on it," said Miss Militia.
Piggot nodded, looking thoughtful.
"As much as I don't like the idea of relying on an independent for something this vital, considering that he'll be able to find out about any plans we make easily, we have no choice," said Piggot eventually, "Let him know that we will back him up if he needs it, but chances are he'll be on his own."
"Yes Ma'am," said Miss Militia.
"Is there anything else?" asked Piggot.
Armsmaster shifted slightly, before shaking his head.
"No, not at this time," he said.
"Then go away," said Piggot, deactivating her security system, "I've got way too much work to do and a session of dialysis to do to be kept busy any longer."
The two Capes nodded and left, leaving her to turn her chair to stare out over the bay. She really wasn't happy with this whole mess, not in the slightest. The idea of having to rely on an Independent, especially one that had only just debuted recently, was incredibly galling, but, as she'd said to Miss Militia and Armsmaster, they didn't have a choice. Coil was apparently much to dangerous to let remain where he was, but the fact that he had his claws so deep in their systems meant that she couldn't even call for reinforcements without him discovering it, even if he no longer actually worked in the building.
She scowled again as her thoughts shifted back to her time as a grunt alongside Calvert.
"Damn bastard, still causing more trouble than your worth," she muttered.
She allowed herself a few moments of fantasizing about putting a bullet or ten in Calverts skull, before turning her chair back to her desk and reaching for the next document in her In tray.
Sophia scowled behind her mask as she slowly followed her current babysitter (Aegis tonight) across the rooftops. She hated this kiddy patrolling she was forced to do, well away from any of the dangerous places and, more importantly, any action she might find. Unfortunately, due to her getting a little...over excited a couple of nights ago with a scumbag she'd stumbled on on her solo patrol, she couldn't risk trying to sneak off to do something actually useful. Plus, due to the recent string of murders, the Wards were under much greater scrutiny than usual.
To make matters worse. The boring patrol gave her mind plenty of time to drift back to what had happened at school earlier in the week. She could understand Madison backing out, the girl was a hanger on, not actually strong and the only reason she put up with her was because the girl was moderately useful, but the fact that Emma had also backed out was a surprise. Almost as surprising as the fact she still honestly thought the little worm actually had the potential to be anything more than a pathetic little rabbit, cowering from the lions like she did.
She scowled again as her mind turned to the pathetic existence that was Taylor Hebert. Ever since Tepes had shown up, the little rabbit had been starting to regrow a spine, something that galled Sophia almost as much as being collared by the Wards like some tame housecat. To make matters worse, her recent confrontation with Tepes made it clear that he was well aware of her identity and could easily out her if he so chose. She wasn't sure why he hadn't yet, but knew that it wouldn't take much to change that.
As a result, she hadn't been able to take out her aggression on Hebert like she normally did, hence why she'd gone overboard the other day while on patrol, which left her in the uncomfortable situation of not being able to go out on further patrols until the extra scrutiny wore of a little, which in tern meant that the constant rage that bubbled in her gut had no outlet, made worse by the fact she'd actually been scared by Tepes on the day she confronted him. Now that some time had past and she'd calmed down, the mere thought that she, someone who was a real Predator, had been so terrified of someone who befriended that weakling Hebert, enraged her more than anything else. So much so that her rage at the thought was quickly eroding the warning the blonde had given her.
One thing was for sure, she needed to do something to redress the balance or she'd go insane. The only question was, what could she do?
A loud crash suddenly yanked her out of her thoughts and she skidded to a stop alongside Aegis, her crossbow instinctively rising as she looked around for the source. It didn't take long to find it. From the looks of it, they'd stumbled on some kind of distribution center belonging to the Empire if the large number of skinheads carrying boxes from a truck into a warehouse while more armed with machine guns stood watch nearby. The presence of Victor shouting at the idiot who had dropped the crate that had alerted the two Wards and Stormtiger leaning idly against a nearby wall was also a dead giveaway.
Sophia scowled again as she heard Aegis quietly communicate their discovery to HQ. She already knew that they'd be ordered to sit tight and do nothing, despite the fact she could easily deal with small fry like Victor and the goons down there without issue.
"We've been ordered to stay put and observe," whispered Aegis, "Assault and Battery are on their way."
She was about to snap something rude back at the Ward Leader, but before she could, a flicker of movement caught her eye. She frowned as she looked around, trying to figure out what she'd seen, right before a loud crash erupted from inside the E88 warehouse, followed by panicked shouting and the sound of gunfire.
The two Wards exchanged worried looks as the Empire Capes turned to the source of the racket.
"What the fucks going on in th…" started the apparent leader of the thugs as he started towards the door.
However, that was as far as he got before a fist the size of a ham shot through the wall like it wasn't even there and sent the man flying with a loud crack and a spray of blood. A moment later, the fist was followed by a body that was two meters of pure, scar covered muscle. He was clad in what looked like a cross between armour and BDSM gear, consisting of leather straps that seemed to be trying, and utterly failing, to constrain his movements, including his face in a parody of a mask. In his other hand, he held a sword Sophia identified as a Gladius, although he clearly didn't need it if the sheer strength he showed was any indication.
The massive figure stepped out of the building and looked around, a demented grin nearly splitting his face in two as he took in the Empire thugs that surrounded him. Then, the tableu was broken.
"I don't know who you are, but you'll regret making an enemy of the Empire!" said Victor, "Kill him!"
The thugs opened fire without hesitation, but instead of being pumped full of holes, the giant just laughed as the rain of metal bounced of his skin.
"AH, so I've finally found you!" he roared, "Time to die oppressors!"
Then he charged.
Hmmm, I feel a tad guilty for this, but it does mean that the next chapter will (hopefully) be a bit quicker. I tend to find fight scenes to be either really easy or really hard. Lets hope its the latter!
No, Spartacus is NOT Adrians Servant, he had nothing to do with his Summoning. How he appeared on Bet will be revealed soon enough.
No, Uber and Leet are not aware of how the Fate series works, hes just guessing based on past experience and happens to be vaguely correct.
Conversation and reveal for the PRT and how badly their boned. On a related note, I hope I made Piggots motivation clear, although I'm not entirely happy with it. As I said in a previous chapter, this Piggot is a pragmatist and isn't dumb enough to risk tipping off a dangerous Villain just for her pride. Had Coil been less well dug in or had a few less dangerous failsafes, she would have acted differently.
Brief glance at Taylor and what shes feeling. Unfortunately, she's not going to be having a good time of it soon.
Hmm, I wonder who our mysterious woman is? Heheh, I wouldn't actually be surprised if someone were to guess correctly.
Quick look at Sophia as well. I...really hope I didn't contradict myself in that internal monologue, I don't think I did, but theres always a risk.
Anyway, thats done, so I'm gonna sign out. Don't forget to leave a review!