Loss - Innocence

Aegis looks around the absolutely spotless common room, the tired and dirty Wards providing a stark counterpoint. It was something he was still coming to terms with, as there was always stuff left out, the stain on the couch from one of Kid Win's experiments, or the permanent marker on the counter doors from when Clockblocker decided to confuse everyone.

"Panacea, Glory Girl, thank you both for joining us, we appreciate it. And Panacea, I personally very much appreciate you healing me up. Everyone, today went very badly and I'd like to go over what we did right, what we did wrong, and what went wrong despite doing everything right. Who wants to go first?"

Everyone just stares at him with exhausted eyes, "Ok, fine, I'll go first. We shouldn't have swapped costumes. It didn't work, and it would have left Clockblocker without even the minimal protection his costume provides."

Vista says, "We didn't have enough intel on the undersiders, so they were able to blindside us with their better planning. I'm going to have a shower and get changed."

Helplessly, Aegis looks around, "Anyone else?"

Gallant sighs, "I think Vista is right, we didn't know enough. Can we put this off until Miss Militia gets here?"

"Isn't she in Master Stranger?"

"They're accelerating her through the last few days as she's the only Protectorate member on site. It was in the e-mail we were sent after the bank. Director Piggot is apparently going to debrief us personally."

Aegis looks chagrined, as his own phone was destroyed in the fight with one of the beasts, "I didn't actually know that, as my phone was destroyed by Hellhounds dog thing."

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Piggot and Rennick both stare at a monitor that's currently showing the interior of Taylor Hebert's suite. A clearly frustrated Commander O'Donnall is typing angrily at the computer while a young girl is watching cartoons on the TV. Just visible at the bottom of the image is a monster that appears to be sleeping near the door. Both the Girl and Commander have things attached to their faces.

Rennick looks up, "What do we do with them?"

"Who's the girl?"

"According to the last call that Commander O'Donnall made, a Miss Dinah Alcott. Niece to the current Mayor, and apparently a parahuman. She is now the 4th person known to have been affected by a Face Hugger."

"Do we know what her power is?"

"Something to do with percentages, that's all we could glean from the phone, as it died during the teleport to Miss Hebert's home. Additionally, according to our analysists Miss Hebert's current form is likely to be the same thing that fought Lung and killed the gang members."

"And Lung?"

Rennick leans over and uses the mouse to bring up the transcript of the recording of Taylor's call to the PRT.

Operator:"I see, and why would you think you might hurt someone?"

TH:"I think something happened last night, I was looking for somewhere safer to put a base, and then the last thing I clearly remember is hearing someone say they wanted to kill children. I… I think I killed people, and I remember fire, and looking up at the earth and thinking it looks pretty."

Operator:"I, see, do you think you would be able to get into the back of a PRT van on your own?"

TH:"I just want my father to be safe."

Piggot shakes her head, "What's your point?"

"Where can you look up to see the earth? Probably the same place that we look up to every night and see ourselves."

"Why are you being obtuse?"

"Because our meeting is being recorded."

"Fine." Piggot shuts down the computer, "We're off the record now."

"I think she has two mover ratings for teleportation. The first is the one she uses seemingly without thought, and is only noticeable due to the slight pop of displaced air."

"Yes, go on."

"The second uses the flames we saw when they returned to her apartment. I think they can go anywhere, even the moon."

"And everyone that is part of her hive will be able to do this?"

"Yes."

"Bollocks. Right, all of her records are now eyes only. Get it all printed out and scrubbed from our servers. The same is true for everyone that is part of her Hive, as of now."

"Why?"

"We literally can't afford to prosecute her for anything. If she gets spooked or afraid, we have someone that can literally bugger off to who knows where and just return, at their leisure to do whatever they want. What happens if the E88 get their claws into her, or the Elite, Yangban, or even Geschillicraft? She can't be imprisoned, because Mover, and a Kill Order is just going to piss her off and get a lot of good people killed or suborned. The only thing we can do is try to keep her on side so that she doesn't go off the deep end."

"Aren't you being pessimistic?"

"Hardly, if Elisburg taught me something, it's that Parahumans can't be trusted. They're all fucking traumatised and even the best adjusted of them still have that lingering trauma buried deep in their minds, colouring their thoughts, and making them unpredictable. Miss Hebert's thing seems to be expanding her hive. She can either do that here, with us, where we have some control over who becomes a member. Or she can do it away from our oversight."

"Don't you think you're jumping the gun a little?"

"Miss Alcott and Commander O'Donnell are two examples just today, she could have taken them literally anywhere, and she chose her basement. I bet that she'll end up getting someone else with a face hugger before the end of the week, possibly two if we don't let her out of the building."

"What's the wager?"

"Doing the paperwork for the new parahuman department that we need to create."

"Fine, what's the department?"

"Watchdog ENE."

"We can do that?"

"We can, as long as it has a local focus. Which ours will. I've been looking at it for a few days, and their mandate will be PRT and Protectorate internal affairs, anti-thinker, and counterintelligence. Invisibility, teleportation, precognition, whatever it is that Miss Hebert does that kills bugs, and enough people to actually make a department. This is assuming that she doesn't dip any further into the bag and pull out yet more powers."

"You think she will?"

"Are you willing to bet she won't?"

"Ah, no?"

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It is with some relief that Miss Militia receives the news she's passed both Quarantine and M/S. As soon as the doctor gives her the go ahead to leave, she pops into her quarters and, with a click of her fingers, changes her outfit for a clean uniform. She then registers where she is, before sheepishly popping back to the isolation ward and walking out.

"Doctor Hope, I need to register a change in my powers."

The doctor looks up from his paperwork, "Oh?"

"I just teleported to my quarters."

"Thank you for letting me know, I'll add it to your file for your upcoming re-evaluation. It is likely that it will be annotated as part of Queenies trump power."

"Er, ok, I'll be off again then." Miss Militia pops off, marvelling at just how natural it feels to do that.

"That's because it is natural. Apparently, it's an ability natural to a species called a House Elf."

"Taylor?"

"Yep, you were thinking too loudly."

"I'll have to find a way to get a handle on that then."

"There're references to something called occlumency in here somewhere. Apparently it was used to protect your mind."

"I'll see if I can find it. I need to check my mail now."

"Ok, I'll go back to napping then."

It doesn't take long for her to check her mail, as at the top is an urgent e-mail from the Director, asking her to come to the directors office as soon as she's released. Standing up she takes two steps to the door, and with a pop she's in the secretaries office, eliciting a startled eep from the secretary.

Miss Militia mumbles, "That is far too easy." – she turns to face the secretary, and more loudly – "Good afternoon, I have an urgent message from the Director to see her as soon as practical."

"She's currently meeting with the deputy director, let me call to see if she's available."

Nervously, her power shifts her weapons around into things she can grip. A faint green glow accompanying each change.

"You may go in now."

Pulling herself together, she marches into the directors office, "You wanted to see me, Ma'am?"

Piggot indicates a chair, "Please take a seat. Miss Hebert, and now Miss Alcott are providing us with quite a thorny problem. At the same time, the arrival of Miss Alcott has opened more doors to us. Presuming we can get her parents or guardians buy in, we would like you to be the senior protectorate member of Watchdog ENE."

Miss Militia's eyes widen, and she can feel Taylor's interest, "Why me?"

"Quite simple, you're already part of Miss Hebert's hive. This means that, if we're right, you've got the same mover, stranger, and shaker ratings as she does. We can't ask Miss Hebert to join the Wards, as your personal security clearances are higher than those allowed by the Wards. Your area of responsibility would expand to include everywhere that the PRT ENE covers, which is the whole of Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire north of Manchester. As with WEDGDG, you would primarily be Protectorate and PRT internal affairs, along with providing counterintelligence and anti-thinker capabilities to the PRT and Protectorate. You may have noticed that I didn't say anything about how Miss Alcott came to our attention, just as I assume you're aware of the fact that Commander O'Donnell is now a parahuman. Tentatively a case 62, as Miss Hebert is a case 61.

"You don't have to decide now, as we haven't even contacted Miss Alcott's parents, and we won't until she is free of the face hugger. I'd rather not have them screaming at my staff about getting the monster off her face. Is there anything that you'd like to add?"

Miss Militia thinks for a moment, "I believe that we will need a Tinker budget as well."

"Depending on what comes from Armsmaster's investigations, that may actually be impossible. We'll discuss it further when those results come back."

"Thank you for the consideration. I may send you some questions later as I think of them."

"Please write them down and hand them to my secretary, anything to do with Miss Hebert and her hive is now classified as eyes only."

"Won't that cause problems with record keeping?"

"Yes, but a small inconvenience for us is a massive hurdle for intruders. Consider it your first lesson in anti-thinker and stranger techniques. If it requires physically being in a location to read a document, then that document is inherently more secure than one on a network. Not secure by any means, as the only way to truly secure something is for it to not be written down. That's probably enough for this meeting, we now need to debrief the Wards after the bank heist this afternoon. Conference room 3 in 15 minutes."

Miss Militia stands, "Yes Ma'am."

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Miss Militia is waiting in the conference room when the Wards, along with Glory Girl and Panacea, all walk in. With a smile that reaches her eyes, she walks over to the two visitors and takes off her gloves.

Reaching out with one hand towards Glory Girl, she says, "Thank you for sticking around. I'm sorry it has taken so long for this debriefing to be arranged."

"Don't worry about it, it was a good excuse to hang around with Gallant."

"Ah, yes." – she then turns to Panacea and holds out her hand – "Thank you too for sticking around, and for also healing their injuries after the…"

Miss Militia trails off, as Panacea's eyes glaze over and she says, "It's so beautiful, I can see it growing in you. Morphing to match you as much as it's changing you. I wish I could see the source material."

Wide eyed Miss Militia shakes her head at Panacea and Taylor. However, neither of them pay any attention to her pleas, and there's a couple of pops as Queenie appears, places an egg in Panacea's hands and disappears with a pop.

Miss Militia sighs when she sees the petals open, even as Panacea is still wide eyed and in a power fugue, "Everyone back, you especially Glory Girl. If you interfere you are just going to get you, and possibly other people seriously injured."

Glory Girl, predictably, ignores her when the face hugger latches onto Panacea's face. Reacting quickly, Miss Militia grabs Panacea's hand and pops to the other side of the room.

"Glory Girl, Panacea is fine. However, the face hugger has seriously strong acid for blood. If you injure it, it will bleed all over her and probably kill her."

When Glory Girl instead ramps up her aura and charges, Miss Militia idly notes that she's not affected by it, while also picturing the UK Antarctic Research Station that she did her cold weather survival training at. Launching herself at Glory Girl, the two of them disappear in a gout of flame and reappear in the middle of the abandoned station.

Glory Girl, in her skimpy skirt and bare midriff top, starts to shiver almost immediately, "What are you doing, we have to get that off her. Where are we?"

"We're in Antarctica, and we're here because you were trying to kill your sister."

"I wanted to get that thing off her, not kill her."

Miss Militia pulls her mask down so that Glory Girl, no Victoria Dallon, can see just how serious she is, "Victoria, do you even know what that thing is?"

"No but?"

"It's called a face hugger. It is implanting a symbiote into your sister stomach and is harmless to her. In an hour or so it will fall off, several hours after that it's carapace will break down releasing the acid that is it's blood. Now, have you cooled down enough that you're no longer going to ignore the advice of people that actually know what they're talking about, or do we have to stay here for another minute or two?"

Teeth chattering and fingers starting to turn blue, Victoria says, "I'll be good."

Miss Militia lifts her mask back into place before flaming them to the cafeteria, where she summons her winter coat from her wardrobe before laying it over Victoria's shoulders, and then orders two large hot chocolates.

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Piggot and Rennick both enter the conference room and stop. Rennick sighs and mimes handing money over to Piggot.

In one corner of the room, Amy Dallon is caressing a face hugger with a look more commonly found on Armsmaster and Kid Win's faces when they've just discovered something, and their power is now driving. In the other corner, are the Wards.

In a commanding voice she says, "Ok, what's going on?"

Vista says, "We don't know, Panacea shook hands with Miss Militia and then got this glazed look on her face. She said something about it being beautiful and wanting to see the source material. Then this massive black monster pops in and hands her that thing." – Vista points at the open egg sack on the floor – "Next thing we know, Miss Militia is telling us all to move back and not to interfere. Vicky ignores her and tries to grab that thing, and suddenly Miss Militia can teleport, and the two of them disappear in a flash of fire."

Piggot pinches the bridge of her nose, "Ok, everyone take your seats, Rennick, phone Miss Hebert's suite and tell her to come back to Conference Room 3."

While the Wards are taking their seats, Piggot fills a plastic cup with ice water from the ubiquitous fountain, before throwing it over Amy's face. She can see the moment the cold water shocks her out of the Fugue state, and she realises her predicament.

"Miss Dallon, you are quite safe. Take a seat and all will be explained shortly. You were in a power driven Fugue."

Amy's eyes widen and she hurries to find a seat. Less than a minute later, a monstrous form appears in the conference room.

Piggot uses her parade ground voice to bark, "Human! Now!"

Startled the monster shrinks down to a young woman wearing a skirt and tee-shirt, "Miss Hebert, what do you have to say for yourself?"

"I don't understand."

"Three people have been infected by your eggs today, Miss Alcott, Commander O'Donnell, and now Miss Dallon. The first two you get a pass for, as there was no good choice, but you shouldn't have put them in that situation in the first place. However, Miss Dallon is currently scared out of her mind with one of your face huggers wrapped around her head."

"But she said she wanted to see the source material."

"Did you check to see if she was in her right mind? Did you ensure that she understood the consequences of receiving an egg?"

Taylor manages to sound very small when she says, "No?"

"Then I believe that you owe Miss Dallon an apology. Later you will need to explain to Mrs Dallon just what has happened to her daughter, and why it happened. Finally, I want you to promise that you won't deliberately expose anyone else to an egg without talking to me about it first. Do you understand?"

Taylor nods, "Yes. I'm sorry Miss Dallon, I thought you wanted to see one of my eggs. This face hugger is from a symbiotic egg, so it will make you part of my family. You'll get all sorts of cool abilities, such as teleportation and invisibility. Oh, and being able to talk to anyone else in the hive. May I go now?"

"No, you've forgotten the promise. Once you've given it, you will sit here where I can keep an eye on you."

"But Dinah."

"You can both talk now, or is the timing wrong?"

"We can."

"Where's Miss Militia?"

"She's in the cafeteria buying Hot Chocolate for Victoria."

Piggot nods as if she's just confirmed something, "So, if something did happen to Miss Alcott, you could respond in an instant?"

"I could."

"Then you will sit there and keep Miss Dallon company while she adjusts to what's happening."

Sullenly, Taylor sits beside Amy and says, "I really am sorry, I honestly thought it was something you wanted."

Amy gives her a sarcastic roll of her eyes before saying something very rude in ASL.

"Miss Dallon, I would appreciate it if you would keep that sort of language out of my conference room."

Amy flushes scarlet.

"Miss Hebert, your promise?"

Sullenly Taylor says, "I promise that I will try and speak to you before exposing anyone else to one of my eggs."

Victoria and Miss Militia both walk back into the conference room, Victoria still shivering. Following them is Rennick.

"Good evening, Miss Dallon, are you feeling better?"

Victoria nods, "Still cold though."

"Understandable," – Piggot looks at Miss Militia – "hence the hot chocolate?"

Miss Militia nods, "1997"

Piggot winces, "Definitely hot chocolate then. Be careful of your fingers Miss Dallon, it might be tempting to hold the hot chocolate, but you should allow them to warm naturally."

"Wards, normally at this point you would go through a self-directed de-brief, where we encourage you to see the mistakes you made, what you did well, and where you could improve. Instead I will say that you did well for being called out of school into a situation where you had zero intel. Clockblocker, Aegis, you know that you made a mistake in switching costumes."

All of the Wards look at her as if she's grown a second head, "What? Did you think I only existed to shout at you? Normally, this would be Armsmaster or Miss Militia's job, however events are conspiring against us, so tonight I'm your mentor. In military parlance I am you CO or Commanding officer. The only times you should ever see me normally is if you have screwed up by the numbers, or I'm pinning a medal on your chest. Armsmaster and the rest of the protectorate are all in Washington, Oregon, for their Biennial operations training update. Normally only one or two members would be pulled away for this at the same time, but that's not what happened. Instead, Miss Militia was the only member left here due to M/S screening. Then at 1545 Central Bank was robbed, which pulled all of you, with the exception of Vista, out of classes in order to respond. At 1550 Commander O'Donnell called the console to report a kidnapping in progress. We have a saying in the Army and the PRT, 'Once is chance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.' Due to the quick actions of Miss Hebert here, the kidnapping was stymied before anyone was killed. Though both Miss Alcott's parents are currently in ICU from gunshot wounds. No Miss Dallon, you may not go and heal them. Let the doctors earn their pay, you have more things to be concerned with than two people that will be fine with a few days on a drip."

Piggot looks pointedly at Clockblocker before she continues, "Without that last part of the puzzle the whole thing would have looked like a massive coincidence. Whatever they hoped to gain from Miss Alcott's kidnapping, whether it was political or financial is now impossible, as she is now a case 62 like Miss Dallon here. For your information, the PRT has different classifications for parahumans, the most famous of which is Case 53, but each and every one of you falls under a case number. Miss Hebert is the first ever confirmed case 61, her powers came from somewhere else, and she doesn't have a corona Gemma or Polenta."

Amy quickly grabs Taylors hand and briefly gets a glazed look in her eyes before they widen and she starts to sign in ASL.

"Miss Dallon, Miss Hebert doesn't understand sign language yet. Though I have no doubt that she will be fluent in it within around 4 hours. As I was saying, she does not have the key marker for the most common type of parahuman, even case 53's have a corona Gemma and Polenta. She is also a power granting trump. The reason why I'm being so open about this, is that one of the side effects of granting powers, is that she gains access to all of the memories of every member in her hive, just as each hive member gets access to her memories."

Miss Militia takes a deep breath, "The reason I was in M/S is that I was attacked by a face hugger, and I'm part of Miss Hebert's hive."

There's silence around the table, and then Vista is the first one to take her mask off, "Well, this is currently pointless. Hi, I'm Missy Byron, thanks for saving my friend today."

Taylor waves, "Dinah says hi, and she'd like to see you, my suite has loads of cameras in it, so you'd need your mask. Oh, and can you tell Mrs French that her art assignment is going to be late."

Vista starts to laugh, "Of course it's going to be late. So are you joining the Wards?"

Taylor looks sharply at Miss Militia and then looks at Piggot, who shakes her head, "There are a multitude of reasons, but no they won't be part of the Wards. They will also be outside the Protectorate as well. However, they will still be based here, so you can still socialise, there will just be things they can't talk to you about."

One by one the other Wards unmask to Taylor.


Omake

Arsenal looks down at her host as it is finally free to move around again. Seeing that it's going to walk somewhere, she pokes the bit of it's brain that triggers the teleport. Suddenly her host is elsewhere, but she couldn't see how it happened. There she goes, poke, still nothing. Ohh, Shaper's coming, maybe he can help, poke this bit here and then show this bit to Shaper.