Taking the Stage Chapter 3 (Original chapter Chapter 148)
That Evening
Director's Office, PRT ENE Building
"We're all here? Good." the large, overweight woman sitting behind a desk said tersely. In the room with her were Armsmaster, Miss Militia, Aegis and Deputy Director Renick, all of whom looked uncomfortable. "Can someone please tell me WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TODAY?!"
The shout from Director Emily Piggot made Aegis and Renick flinch back, and made Miss Militia look uncomfortable. Armsmaster's only sign of displeasure was his mouth tightening slightly.
"Aegis, I have read your report, as well as the reports of your fellow Wards." Piggot said after calming down slightly. "While I could point out many failures on your parts, you were taken off guard and were overwhelmed by superior numbers and by someone who had planned things to perfection, or so it seems. Reluctantly, I can find no reason to censure you or your team, and you did react as trained and per protocol."
The Wards Leader looked relieved at that and said, "Ma'am."
"Armsmaster, you have had over six hours to run tests and forensics. Please tell me that you have some results." the Director said, shifting her sharp gaze to the Protectorate leader.
"The villain responsible for the attack, calling themselves Phantom Renegade, is a Tinker of some skill, about Tinker 4, if not Tinker 5." Armsmaster began. "Their specialty appears to be, at first glance, of great similarity to my own, miniaturization and efficiency. After reviewing the footage from Kid Win and Gallant's helmet cameras, their specialty is more likely to be 'equipment and weapons befitting of a magician' than my own. The level of complexity and sophistication in the tinkertech shown indicates that it is exceptionally powerful and broad. Had she wished to make use of some more deadly variants of common stage magician tricks, such as the 'escape from a box impaled by swords' trick, we could have had dead Wards today."
"Yes...evidently the humiliation of Shadow Stalker was this 'Phantom Renegade's' only goal; the Wards and PRT Troopers were just collateral damage when they got in the way." Piggot said sourly. "Something of a blessing, I suppose. What can you tell us about the takeover of the mall's security?"
"As best as I can discover, the security of the mall, as well as power, utilities and fire suppression, had been subverted for at least a week prior to today." the Tinker stated gravely. "Unfortunately, that was all I was able to discover. Just as the pseudo-containment foam dissolved into nothing immediately prior to my arrival on the scene, the control systems of the mall's network were purged of any foreign data streams and physical signs of intrusion. Even Dragon cannot recover anything more than scattered and broken pieces of data from the network now."
"Nothing? Two highly proficient Tinkers turned up nothing?" Piggot demanded.
"It is likely that Phantom Renegade expected our involvement in the aftermath of the incident and prepared thorough countermeasures to prevent us from gleaning anything from samples of her tinkertech." Armsmaster replied crisply. "From what Dragon and I have determined, the manner in which Phantom Renegade's 'cardbots' and pseudo-containment foam destroy themselves is by being reduced to their component molecules as a result of an energy wave on a particular frequency and wavelength. I suspect that all of the tinkertech they use will have such a device installed within it."
"So Phantom Renegade is highly competent, highly paranoid, highly skilled and has an axe to grind against Shadow Stalker." the Director groused. "Just wonderful. Miss Militia, what has Shadow Stalker said about this 'Phantom Renegade' character?"
"She was...recalcitrant at first, Director." the other woman said diplomatically. "After a while, she admitted that she had a run-in with Phantom Renegade just over a month ago, when she snuck off to do a solo patrol on the Broadwalk when she was supposed to be patrolling with Clockblocker. She was swiftly defeated by them and was left alone with the threat that she would 'rue the day she dared think of herself as a hero' much as she was today."
Miss Militia crossed her arms. "That brings us to the most troubling aspect of this entire incident. From what I can gather, the sole reason why Phantom Renegade became a villain at all is to torment and punish Shadow Stalker for her 'crimes'. As only the Protectorate, Aegis as the Wards' team leader and yourself and Deputy-Director Renick are aware of Shadow Stalker's list of crimes prior to joining the Wards, it can be assumed that whoever Phantom Renegade is, he or she is either one of Shadow Stalker's victims, or possibly a friend or relative of one. A worse possibility is that they are someone she didn't help due to her predator-prey outlook."
Piggot felt a headache clamoring to be felt. "I should have thrown the book at that thug as soon as she was brought in, manpower be damned."
"Regardless, PHO is exploding with new threads about Phantom Renegade's attack on the Wards." Armsmaster grimaced. "There's also the chaos caused by Über and L33t in another mall at roughly the same time with their Mario Cart crime."
"Urgh, those two..." Piggot grimaced. "Compared to one of the Wards being called out as being so unfitting to be a hero that someone went villain specifically to draw attention to that fact, those two are irritants, nothing more. Moving on, how did Phantom Renegade foam the Troopers without being seen to do so?"
"Dragon has worked that part out thanks to information that Miss Militia supplied to her from her 'talk' with Shadow Stalker." the Tinker had a touch of pride for his fellow Tinker at that. "Dragon?"
Three of the screens mounted on the wall for such occasions lit up, one showing the computer generated face of a woman with mousy brown hair and an average appearance. The other two screen showed the frozen images at the start of the attack by Phantom Renegade.
"Director. Aegis. Deputy Director. Miss Militia. Armsmaster." the world's preeminent Tinker greeted the people in the room.
"Dragon." Emily nodded. "What do you have for us?"
Dragon's face shrunk until it only filled a small part of the screen, with a 3-D floor plan of the mall in question's atrium appearing instead, with stick figures of the Wards and PRT Troopers in the places they had been at the same time as the two videos on the other screens.
"The attack started when a suitcase was thrown into the atrium of the mall through the skylight." the Tinker began. "The suitcase was in fact twelve drones that transformed from a suitcase, which deployed themselves in a circular orbit of the atrium's roof after feinting a dive-bombing attack on the Wards. From there, they started to spew out a screen of smoke which cut off any view from the outside and vice-versa."
On the screen next to her face, wire models of the drones flew about and the area beyond the atrium proper darkened, indicating the effect of the smoke. On the two screens with the POV of the two Wards, the smoke appeared.
"From what I can tell from Kid Win's visor footage, the smoke is only slightly altered from a regular smokescreen. It's darker than normal, so the naked eye can't see through it, and night vision has no effect." Dragon stated. "Unfortunately, Kid Win has no infrared vision installed in his visor, which should be remedied at the next possible opportunity."
"I'll help him to do it." Armsmaster promised.
"At any rate, it is likely that here is where Phantom Renegade first used their control over the mall's security systems to block any alarms or landline phone calls being sent out by the security staff." the Canadian Tinker continued. "Additionally, most of the footage from the security cameras shows the wall starting from several minutes prior to the attack. A physical check of the cameras shows that the old-style box-type security cameras were pointed at the walls. The few modern cameras that the mall had installed were simply turned off at roughly the same moment as well."
"Wasn't blocking the landlines a bit pointless?" Renick asked with a frown. "As I recall, it only took two minutes for the guards to realize that their internal and external landlines were useless and for one of them to call the Protectorate."
"The two minute delay was important, as Phantom Renegade proved." Dragon refuted. "To continue the chain of events, Phantom Renegade then hijacked the tannoys in the atrium and deployed soft light hologram projectors from internal spaces inside of her drones projecting a hologram of themselves in front of the Wards and PRT Troopers. All of the Wards, the PRT Troopers, and even the few civilians who had yet to evacuate, looked up and around at it, which was exactly what Phantom Renegade wanted."
"How...a distraction." Armsmaster interrupted himself. "They probably prerecorded the hologram in advance, with several responses to possible questions and actions on the part of the Wards and PRT Troopers. And while the Wards and Troopers had their attention fixed on the flashy hologram..."
"...Phantom Renegade struck." Dragon agreed. "According to Shadow Stalker, the weapon used to deploy the pseudo-containment foam used against the PRT Troopers is a pistol that fires playing cards filled with the stuff. It's almost entirely silent as well, which means that with their prerecorded voice booming over the tannoy, they basically set up the Troopers to fail at their command."
"Which they did with a click of their fingers..." Piggot muttered irritably. "Dragon, have you determined Phantom Renegade's gender yet? Referring to the villain as 'them' and 'their' all the time is becoming tiresome."
"Running through the footage with my program for determining such things...has rendered an 'inconclusive' result." Dragon admitted. "Phantom Renegade doesn't walk or run at all throughout the entirety of their appearance; when they move, it's via flight. I doubt that it's a deliberate act on their part; it just happened that way because of how events panned out this time."
"Of course." Piggot shook her head wearily. "Nothing can ever be simple with Parahumans. Continue please."
"Of course. At this point, the hologram wavers, which I believe indicates that Phantom Renegade changed the recording to a specific recording, anticipating the questions, protests and exclamations of the Wards in general, and Shadow stalker in particular." the Canadian Tinker said with a frown on her 'face'. "The smokescreen then gathers at a single point, the corner of the handrail of the topmost shopping floor of the mall. It is here that Shadow Stalker fires a tranquilizer bolt at Where she estimated Phantom Renegade would be, only for it to be repulsed from the smoke, possibly from some form of particle hardening device that turned the smoke into the equivalent of steel or something similar."
"Then Phantom Renegade dispersed the smoke, revealing themselves in person for the first time." Piggot finished grimly. "Following on from that, they used some sort of electrical manipulation tech in their gloves and suit to threaten Shadow stalker and shoot another bolt out of the air before deactivating it and foaming the Troopers. Move on."
"Very well. Immediately after this, Phantom Renegade pulled a remote seemingly out of nowhere and pressed a button on it, activating her 'cardbots' and had them attack and foam the Wards, aside from Shadow Stalker." Dragon said, a curious glint in her electronic eyes. "When a Ward was foamed by one of them, the entire cardbot was consumed, body, weapons and all, and turned into foam. I'd be interested to discover how they did that. Making a ConFoam grenade that leaves behind no shrapnel after it is used would be highly beneficial."
"It would make them far more efficient." Armsmaster agreed.
"Be that as it may, is there anything further relevant about Phantom Renegade's attack on the mall worth mentioning?" Piggot interrupted what she knew from experience to be a long discussion about how Phantom Renegade's tech worked. Damn Tinkers...
"There is, actually." Miss Militia spoke up. "The last Ward standing, Shadow Stalker to one side, was Vista. Phantom Renegade seemed to go out of her way to praise Vista for her skill and determination in the face of overwhelming numbers. Dragon, can you tell from the footage if she was merely being sarcastic or if she was being honest?"
"Armsmaster has lent me the lie detector program that he has been working on, and I've been able to refine it slightly, as well as adjust it to possibly be used on audio recordings." Dragon replied. "The voice disguiser used blurs the results somewhat, but overall, Phantom Renegade comes away at being 96-98% truthful. They are only very slightly exaggerating things when it comes to Vista."
"So...Phantom Renegade doesn't dismiss heroes as a whole, merely Shadow Stalker for personal reasons." Renick mused. "I think they went out of their way to state that it was her that they disliked, not the color of her skin."
"Yes, they seemed a little offended at the comparison to Nazis that Stalker made." Piggot noted. "Speaking of Stalker...what progress has been made with analyzing her costume that was...altered...by Phantom Renegade?"
"It is some form of highly powerful paint, Director." Armsmaster reported. "It subsumes anything black placed in contact with it and turns it that...loud shade of pink. All attempts to remove it with conventional and industrial chemicals have failed and attempting to re-dye or repaint it black have failed as well. Moreover, it isn't just Shadow Stalker's costume, mask and armor that has been affected; even her underclothing has been dyed pink."
"Her bra and underwear." Dragon specified. "Fortunately, it hasn't affected her skin whatsoever, so maybe it's limited to only fabrics and paint. I would suggest we have it written off as a casualty and simply have a new costume manufactured."
"Agreed. Have the old one burnt." Piggot ordered briskly. "So then...after defeating Vista and Shadow Stalker, and turning Stalker pink, Phantom Renegade flew out of the skylight of the atrium and seemingly vanished from sight, releasing the people they had trapped with their faux-foam almost immediately afterwards. I want ratings for their Tinker power."
"Mover 4 for the flight." Aegis, who had been quiet until now.
"As is the norm." Armsmaster agreed. "Striker 2 for the electric gloves, with Blaster 2 for being able to project it."
"That shield they used to block Stalker's last bolt warrants them a Shaker rating, Shaker 3, I think." Miss Militia said. "The drones are possibly appropriate for a Master rating, but only Master 2 or 3."
"There hasn't been any signs of them using a device with a Stranger power, or that give them superhuman strength, although I suppose it's only a matter of time before they builds the former." Dragon noted. "It would fit in with the 'magician' theme that their specialty seems to follow, as would devices with a Breaker-like effect. As for Trump powers, that's only as a Tinker. I think we can also rule out Changer powers as well. Thinker powers are a possibility as well."
"Give Phantom Renegade's Tinker rating a point in all categories at least, even those we may rule out." Piggot ordered. "That takes care of the villain portion...now we have to consider the Wards."
"All of them fought to the best of their abilities, and there wasn't any way for them to retreat." Miss Militia pointed out. "Vista can't easily use her power with living beings around, and she didn't dare try to use it when the smoke around her blinded her vision. And aside from Shadow Stalker, Gallant and Kid Win, none of the Wards possessed ranged capabilities, meaning that they had little option but fight off the cardbots in hand to hand, which was exactly what Phantom Renegade wanted in order to trap them."
"Kid Win quickly discovered the weak point of the cardbots and informed his teammates, what few of them remained free at that point, in a timely manner." Armsmaster added. "We need to address the issue with a lack or weaponry on the part of the Wards. Had Phantom Renegade not been as hyper-focused on Shadow Stalker and as willing to abide by the Unwritten Rules, we may have lost all of them today."
That sent a chill down everyone's spines. Any number of groups, such as the Fallen or the CUI Military, the Yàngbǎn, favored kidnapping young Parahumans in order to brainwash them to suit their needs. It was for that reason that most Protectorate Wards were wrapped up in cotton wool as much as they could. In Brockton Bay though...
"I'll put in a request, but I doubt that anything will come of it." Emily sighed heavily. "Glenn Chambers will likely smack it down as always...but I want you, Armsmaster, to write up a proposal to build tinkertech weaponry for them, miniaturized and concealed inside of the armored portions of their costumes as a last-resort measure. Word it carefully, get Dragon to help you with it, and make it sound so very reasonable and logical that dismissing it out of hand would make the one doing so sound stupid."
"Ma'am." Armsmaster nodded sharply.
"Alright then, anything else?" Piggot asked, really needing to go and get some dialysis done soon.
"Director, Über and L33t have just posted the next episode of their show." Dragon said tersely. "Included at the end is most of the fight between Phantom Renegade and the Wards!"
"...fuck." the Director said mildly.
Earlier
PHO Private Message System
Conversation Members: L33t (Verified Cape), Über (Verified Cape), Phantom_Renegade (Unverified Cape)
L33t (Verified Cape): Yo Phantom. This you?
Phantom_Renegade (Unverified Cape): It is indeed.
Über (Verified Cape): Damn, you gave those Wards a drubbing.
Phantom_Renegade (Unverified Cape): You...were watching? How?
L33t (Verified Cape): I have more than one type of flying camera, you know? The second one isn't one we use often because it's a bit...temperamental.
Über (Verified Cape): To translate, L33t can only build one of anything, and the closer something is to something he's built before, the more likely it is to malfunction and possibly blow up.
Über (Verified Cape):The Snitch (Camera 1) is a semi-autonomous drone with a limited AI that we use for our videos. The camera we left behind on the off chance you would do something awesome (Camera 2) is a stealth drone with a very limited amount of programming to follow and record the actions and surroundings of a single predesignated person, in this case you.
L33t (Verified Cape): Dude, you just used your powers to learn how to talk technobabble, didn't you?
Über (Verified Cape): Shut it man...
Phantom_Renegade (Unverified Cape): OK, so that explains that. What do you two want to talk about?
Über (Verified Cape): Are you kidding? You stomped the Wards like they were toddlers and we have footage of it. What do you think we want to do with it?
Phantom_Renegade (Unverified Cape): You...seriously want to put me on your channel? Why?
L33t (Verified Cape): Do you realize how few fights the Wards get into? Let alone how many are actually funny to watch and have been recorded? You didn't hurt them, only made them look like they were fighting blindfolded and tied up. It's gold.
Über (Verified Cape): Of course, we're not asking you to give use permission for free. We'll give you a share of any donations we get on our site from the moment we upload the vid. It makes Edge Stalker look completely incompetent, so if you want to humiliate her more, this is the way to go.
Phantom_Renegade (Unverified Cape): Well...hell. Why not? Make sure you post my name; I've heard about what the PRT did to Chubster. Not me, thank you very much.
Über (Verified Cape): Yeah, he got a raw deal. Met him a couple of times, he's a pretty nice guy.
L33t (Verified Cape): The PRT screws EVERYONE over, dude. Even the Wards are paid peanuts and are basically unarmed unless they absolutely need a weapon of some sort for their powers to work, and even then it's almost impossible to get approval for anything good, and don't get me started on what Tinkers are allowed to build. I took one look at the regs for Tinkers in the Protectorate and said nope.
Phantom_Renegade (Unverified Cape): Huh...good thing I decided to go villain then. By the way, what's Cape gotta do to get verified on this site?
The Next Day
Warehouse, Docks, Brockton Bay
After I had fled the mall victoriously, I had retreated to my base and built something that I should have considered from the get-go: an invisibility generator. Rather than add it as something else to lug around though, I'd designed it to be added on to my cape, with the main generator visibly looking like a miniature version of my mask at the base of my throat as a buckle to keep my cape fixed around me.
I'd been on a Tinkering high and created a few more cool devices before running out of raw materials, which sucked, but I was in a good mood so I headed home and finished my next couple of days' worth of work for my GED in a flash before starting up my outdated piece of shit computer and accessing the web to browse PHO, as well as make an account for my alter-ego.
Looking through the threads that were blowing up, I'd had to whistle at the speed that people had found out about my little performance. Then I'd gotten into that PM session with Über and L33t and given my permission to have the video those sneaky guys had taken via that drone that they'd deployed.
THEN the threads on PHO had REALLY blown up.
Some where critical of me, such as Bagrat and a fair few who were (Verified PRT) or (Verified PRT Wife/Husband). Some were laughing their asses off at my act and performance, especially how I easily made the Wards look like bumbling children.
Those I didn't mind so much. The Nazi idiots coming out of the woodwork to sneer at Shadow Stalker and threaten me because of what I'd said about Kaiser and Hookwolf were irritating, not to mention some idiot called Void Cowboy accusing me of being an alien, of all things. Thankfully, once he started to get really ridiculous, Tin_Mother hit him with the banhammer for a good month.
Before I'd logged off, L33t had asked me to meet him and Über here so we could talk about their favour that I owed them. Apparently they were planning their next caper already. What busy people.
So here I was, floating inside a warehouse, dressed in my costume, with my invisibility field on and waiting for the Gaming Capes to show up. While I waited, I practised taking out my gun from my hammerspace pocket and then sending it back in. in all honestly, I'd almost fumbled it when I'd tried to take it out against the PRT Troopers. The pressure of sneaking around so many people and my first crime had been more than enough to give me nerves. Fortunately, I'd caught it before it hit the floor and shot my special cards at the backs of the PRT Troopers.
Pausing in my actions as the side door of the warehouse opened and two people entered. They were dressed in suits like you'd see at a fancy party and had face masks on them, making them resemble Pierce Brosnan and Sean Connery.
"A James Bond game this time?" I asked as I deactivated my invisibility field and floated to the ground.
"Yup." 'Sean Connery' replied. "It's going to be two, technically. Both Nightfire and From Russia with Love. I had these outfits already made, and I can build most of the gadgets we need, but there's something that I can't do."
"We want you to make a bunch of these." 'Pierce Brosnan' said, pulling a photo out and handing it to me as I landed nearby.
Taking it, I saw it was a picture of what looked like an outline of a briefcase, lid folded out, with small chain-gun attached to it.
"This is...a briefcase gun?" I asked in surprise.
"A portable sentry turret, disguised as a briefcase." 'Sean Connery' replied. "In Nightfire, they're used against the player by NPC's in Single Player, and the player can use them in Multiplayer. In From Russia with Love, they're exclusively used by the player. I can't make multiple copies of the same thing, or things can go wrong."
"So you turn to me." I concluded. "Well, first off, you'll need to provide me with materials; I just tapped out of my current stock yesterday. If you want the to look as authentic as possible, then briefcases to modify as a base would be best. Also, I won't make chain-guns; I can make them look like chain guns, but they won't be firing bullets. I can make a kind of projectile that fires a version of my containment foam that I used yesterday. How does that sound?"
"We have briefcases; it was one of the things we stole yesterday from the mall." 'Pierce Brosnan' said. "Thirty of them, but we only want fifteen sentry turrets; the rest are yours if you want them. We can also provide you with the materials to build them."
"That sounds perfect." I agreed.
"Also, thanks to you, we've received loads of subscriptions and donations." 'Sean Connery' chimed in eagerly. "Your cut is $1500 and counting, just so you know!"
"S-Seriously?!" I jerked in surprise. "How the heck did you get that much?!"
"We're watched by people all over the net, not just in Brockton Bay." 'Sean Connery' chuckled smugly. "And featuring a new Cape with dramatic flair like you really made the views and donations go up. There were a lot of requests for another performance by you, actually."
"Huh." I said as I turned the idea over in my head. I wasn't necessarily against the idea; so long as no one was seriously hurt, what did it matter to me if they broadcast me humiliating Shadow Stalker across the net? It deepened Stalker's humiliation, and it would probably earn me some cash if Über and L33t were willing to fork it over to me.
"OK then. First things first, I need those briefcases and parts." I said briskly. "When did you say you wanted them built by?"
"No deadline." 'Sean Connery' replied with a wave of one hand. "We got enough stuff to sell on the down-low to last us a good while."
"'On the down low'? Dude that's such ancient slang I'm half-expecting to see you tottering around on a cane." 'Pierce Brosnan' scoffed.
"Ah shaddup."
Almost giggling at the interaction between the two Gamer Capes, I managed to restrain myself and say, "Well then, shall we get started?"
So a lot of analysis and talking in this chapter. It may not be to your liking, but please bear with me.
Also, Dasgun, can you please review with more than emoji? Please and thank you.