By wizerd00 on Sufficient Velocity
Many thanks to mp3.1415player for the brilliant story to play in. Hearing allusion to more combat-oriented members of the Family gave me an idea.
"Ok. Next item."
Director Piggot was having a weird day. Other, more optimistic individuals (Assault's annoying grin flashed briefly in her mind before being ruthlessly suppressed) might have called it a good day, but not her. Good things were happening because of something the Family had done, and there was always some cost involved later. So far that cost had been purely on her own sanity, but that was all the more reason to stay alert.
Sometimes she almost wished one of those lizards would do something bad, just so she could stop waiting for the other shoe to drop. That urge, too, was always ruthlessly suppressed, because Director Piggot wasn't stupid.
"As expected, yesterday's Family raid on the Merchants has caused every known criminal organization within two hundred miles to go into what our FBI liaison called 'brown pants mode,' Renick continued. Piggot could appreciate his unfailing ability to deadpan reports concerning the Family. It was an art.
"This has mostly resulted in criminal groups, powered or otherwise, choosing to bunker down and not move at all. FBI and ATF are looking to capitalize on this, and have already planned and executed several large-scale raids on unpowered groups nearby. The fact that they managed to do this in less than 12 hours notice is, in fact, a new record, and a House committee has already been formed to investigate allegations of wrongdoing because of it."
A few people snickered, but most took his monotonous words at face value and were clearly writing this all down. Piggot wanted to start clapping.
"Regardless, they have contacted us in order to continue this success with groups that include parahuman muscle. Upon further discussion," he nodded to Piggot and Armsmaster, "we have chosen to support several plans that they have put forward for locations outside of Brockton Bay. Your handouts will contain the specifics, but we've divided the Protectorate team into smaller groups for each operation. The teams are as follows: Assault and Battery for the Teeth raid. Triumph and Velocity for the alleged parahuman group that the ATF are after down south. Armsmaster will be working with elements of New Wave to hit the Mafia target, and Miss Militia will likewise be providing oversight to the Family contingent to support whatever the hell the CIA are doing in New Jersey."
Militia, who before now had been listening calmly, jerked, looking horrified.
"Ah, Deputy Director," she began, "Surely I could be of more use somewhere, ah, anywhere, else?"
Assault snickered, because he was Assault, but even Renick looked amused. "I'm afraid not, Miss Militia. It's been noted that you're still not entirely comfortable around the Family members, and with how big a part they're playing in keeping the city safe, it was decided that you needed more chances to acclimate to them." He smiled pleasantly.
'Art,' Piggot thought again.
Militia looked stunned for a moment, then whirled around to glare at Armsmaster. "You did this," she accused him, even as he looked up from the paper he had conveniently been reading previously. "I make one quip about how nice it is to not have to sleep, and you do this to me." Her face was a mask of betrayal.
Armsmaster, bless him, looked her in the eye and denied everything. Nobody believed him. Even Battery was smirking.
"Back on topic," Renick drawled, "When we called the BBFO office to request their assistance, Saurial told us that she and the other known Family members were unavailable, except for Kaiju, who she can't contact because she, and I quote, 'completely lost track of her.'"
Militia twitched. Armsmaster looked up with the first interest he had shown in the entire meeting.
"Did they give a reason? They're usually able to send at least one member. I think this is the first time that we know of where they were all out of the city at once."
Renick nodded. "Yes, she said that they had all been called home for an," he checked his notes, "annual review."
Armsmaster nodded sympathetically.
"Wait, who am I working with, then?" Militia asked, frowning. "Did they reschedule the raid?"
Renick managed to combine the best parts of smug and solemn. "No no, they volunteered the time of two new, well, to us, members. Said that we had seemed interested in meeting combat specialists previously."
Militia signed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "I hate you all."
It took a bit of coaxing to convince herself to leave her jeep after she had parked. The command post was an otherwise nondescript warehouse, remarkably devoid of external activity, but Militia couldn't help but imagine the doors bursting open to reveal a building full of extra dimensional horrors ala Lovecraft. Or, she thought darkly, remembering the Merchant raid, the windows. Or the walls. Or the ground.
She shook her head wildly and got out.
Thankfully, the only occupants of the building were humans. Stuffy, overly paranoid CIA humans, but humans nonetheless. Specifically, a Special Agent Smith, though why the CIA thought this operation needed pseudonyms was beyond Militia's wildest guess. Or maybe his name really was Smith. She was tempted to ask, but he immediately started playing power games by giving her subtle orders and talking over her answers to his own damn questions.
She'd have been more upset if she didn't know what was coming. The time they had given to the Family operatives was a single minute away, and 'Smith' was going to be experiencing the Family's special brand of nonsense soon. So she spent the time pretending to listen and wondering what kind of entrance "Ouro" and "Boro" were going to make.
She was disappointed to hear loud banging on one of the loading dock doors. She had been quietly hoping that they would simply appear and make Smith lose his mind (or bladder). Still, everyone had gotten all hushed and nervous as one of the suits opened the door, so maybe it wasn't all bad.
She blinked along with everyone else when the open door revealed a completely empty parking l-
"Hello, human friends!" a loud voice boomed behind them, and she, Smith, and a dozen overly serious suits made identical "Eeep" sounds, followed by everyone spinning around with guns drawn. Or materialized, in her case.
What she saw was the stuff of nightmares.
Two massive eyeballs gazed back, one green, one blue, with black sclera. The pupils had no irises, and instead covered nearly the whole surface with intricate, geometric patterns that Militia couldn't quite focus on. What she could focus on was the bodies; each eye was surrounded in a scaly gray shell, and more or less composed the entirety of each body.
That, and the tentacles. So many tentacles, sprouting from all over the shell and covered in the same matte gray scales.
All this information she took in in an instant, before some idiot actually pulled the trigger.
In the time it took her to register what had happened, a tentacle blurred in movement, then stopped, holding up a still-smoking pistol.
And a recently fired nine millimeter round.
Instead of letting everyone stew in silent fear like normal horror movie villains, the green one immediately turned to his now-armed comrade. Armed. Militia suppressed a manic giggle.
"Brother! Saurial was very clear that we are not to startle the humans! You should not be so loud!" Green, at least she assumed it was the green one, admonished, his voice noticeably higher but just as loud as Blue. Blue cocked his head quizzically, though since he was a spherical, tentacled eyeball, he just rotated a bit. The realization that she understood the body language made Militia want to cry. She spared a glance to Smith, who was looking at his empty hands and gibbering quietly.
Guess he must have been the shooter, Militia snickered to herself. These Family members, that were still arguing, had at least not let her down there.
"Brother, I made sure to bang on the wall before we came in. They were well aware we were here," Blue was replying indignantly as she turned her attention back to the bickering elephants in the room.
"Brother," Green's voice all but drawled, "They shot you."
Blue just waved him off. "They tried to shoot me. With this quaint little slug thrower, no less!" While speaking, he went to a table and rapidly disassembled the entire pistol, going so far as carefully arrange small piles of gunpowder next to the slugs, shells, and firing caps of each individual bullet. All done in a momentary blur of gray.
As they started discussing the merits of chemical propellants in kinetic energy weapons, Militia decided that she'd had enough. So, despite survival instincts screaming to run and hide, she morphed her weapon back into a knife, and clapped her hands loudly.
"Hey!" She yelled. Both lizards? Eyeballs? Bugbears? Stopped talking and immediately moved close, eyes focused directly on her. In a monumental expression of will, she didn't even twitch.
"We've got a job to do today. Seeing as how Special Agent Smith here," all eyes turned to the now prone agent drooling on the floor, "is out of action, I'll be taking command. Anyone got a problem with that?"
The other agents, eyes moving rapidly between Smith and the Family members, stayed silent.
The… whatever they were managed to nod without possessing necks.
"Oh, you are Miss Militia!" She couldn't quite tell if he hadn't known before she had spoken up. "Excellent. We were instructed to differ to you in all human matters," Green went on. "I am Ouro, he is Boro, and we are happy to be allowed outside to assist you!"
Militia opened her mouth to ask why the fuck they weren't normally allowed outside when Blue, Boro, she reminded herself, spoke up.
"Is it true you can materialize any weapon you understand?" He sounded way, way too eager for her tastes, but Militia slowly nodded. He beamed, his eye literally glowing more brightly for a moment. "Fantastic! I've had some ideas ..." he quickly moving an appendage across the floor, and Militia gaped when she realized he was rapidly etching a design schematic into the concrete.
It got worse when she realized she could understand it.
"Like so," he finished proudly, moving back and using two tentacles to present his finished work like some sort of magic trick. "I have adjusted the design to be simple enough for human comprehension. Would you please try to materialize it?"
"Brother!" Ouro cried, waving his tentacles around and causing every human nearby to take a step back. "We are not allowed to give weapon designs to humans! Remember what happened last time?"
Of course, even as Boro began defending himself, Militia had seen enough to ask the most pressing questions, like, "what the hell is a sustained fusion chamber," and "won't something like that set the atmosphere on fire." Altogether reasonable questions, she felt. Which was why her panic was all the more intense when the damn weapon materialized in her hands. After barely a single glance, where normally it took hours.
"What have you done?" She shrieked. More a sob, really. "This thing could wipe out a city in one shot! I'm not supposed to have weapons like this! You've turned me into a nuclear power."
Ouro reached over as if to pat her on the shoulder, then thought better of it as she jumped at the movement. "Ah, you too?" He asked sympathetically. "We are also forbidden from constructing the most interesting weapons. Boro over there once made a mass driver that could hit a target anywhere on the surface of a planet. Of course, the damage to the planet itself was, ah, extensive. Enough that Kaiju became very upset when we set up a demonstration. And of course, when Kaiju is upset, Saurial is upset, and that's just terrifying." Both eyes drooped simultaneously. "So now planet-scale mass drivers are off limits. So really, we understand your pain, we do."
Boro nodded and, once again, the body language took a big chunk out of what little remained of Militia's sanity. Then he sniffled. "It's just not fair! If you're fighting for real you'll have to re-build the planet anyways."
Miss Militia twitched. Again.
"So it doesn't even matter if you shear off a few bits of the mantle. Plus, nobody expects that kind of thing. It was perfect!" Boro was wilting now. Ouro patted him on the back.
"But." She paused to collect herself, then soldiered on. "You don't even have a fucking nose!"
They both blinked at her, which was its own horror scene, but Miss Militia was far past the point of acknowledging that. "Brother," one of them, she didn't even care any more, said. "She seems rather agitated. Are you sure this is the Miss Militia Saurial spoke of? I was under the impression our contact was rather level-headed. Certainly polite enough not to mention our inability to smell."
"I don't know, Brother," the blue one replied. He leaned forward and sniffed deeply. "She seems to be-"
"Nope." Miss Militia threw her hands up. She was done. Completely fucking done. Fuck these lizards, fuck Armsmaster, fuck everything. She turned on her heel and walked out of the door. "You can handle the raid yourselves. I'm out." She didn't slam the door, but that was only because it had one of those air pressure things. She certainly tried.
A deep voice called out to her right before the door closed:
"Ah, we already did! That's why we were late!"