As soon as Owl and Skitter leave, all of us breathe easier. Everyone is still shaken fairly badly though. We'd been repeatedly briefed about Owl, but I doubt any of us thought it would be this bad. Thank God Panacea was here.

I scan over my teammates to see how they're doing. Clockblocker got batted around pretty good, he's still a little shaky even after being healed. That's definitely going to have to be checked later. Gallant is off to the sides, furthest away from where the Undersiders were loaded up and taken away. It's hard to tell through his armor, but I can definitely tell that he's already taking the Undersider's injuries personally. I'll need to talk to him after this. Kid Win and Vista are the only ones that came out of this unharmed, but they had perfect views of Owl's butchering of the villains. They both look pretty shaken, Vista seems to be holding it together better than Kid though. Browbeat actually got pretty lucky in the fact that Grue knocked him out before Owl went ballistic. I feel bad for being a little jealous of that.

I wish I didn't have to see any of that.

Damn, this debriefing is not going to be fun.

I round everyone up and we start to head back to HQ.

I try to give a summary of the robbery to a PRT handler, but I'm sent to Director Piggot's office right away.

I knock on the door when I arrive.

"Enter." I hear the Director growl out.

I walk in and approach her desk. "Aegis reporting for debriefing ma'am."

She looks me up and down with a frown. I still have a little blood on me from the fight. "Aegis, good. I've heard a couple things about today's operation, but just to be certain I want you to walk me through the event. Now."

I swallow, and begin telling her about the bank robbery. As I tell her everything that happened, the director slowly turns her frown into a glare.

"Has Clockblocker gone to the infirmary?"

"No ma'am, he insisted he was fine. He went with everyone else to the Wards room."

She's silent for a minute. "Aegis, I want you to go back and tell Clockblocker to report to medical for observation. Then collect the rest of your team and report back here. We will be going over the team's response in depth."

Oh no. "Yes ma'am." I turn and leave. Usually 'in depth' means we are going to be chewed out. Badly.

I enter the Ward's area and tell Dennis to go to the infirmary. He protests, but he's still a little woozy and doesn't put up much of a fight. Then I grab everyone and head back. We enter and stand at attention.

"Alright, let's start from the top then. Who decided to switch Clockblocker and Aegis' costumes?"

I step forward. "I came up with the plan. Considering who we were up against, I wanted to be able to take out Hellhound's dogs with the least amount of trouble."

"While normally that would be a good strategy, you forgot one important thing. Your teammate isn't a brute!" Piggot scowls at me. "You can take a lot of abuse, but Clockblocker can not. He's in the infirmary right now. From what you told me, the Undersiders figured out your plan. If they didn't, he could have lost a limb, or even his life. If an enemy thinks you are a brute, they will fight you like you're a brute!"

I can't meet her eyes, not with the thought that I could have gotten Dennis killed because of my plan.

"Next, Glory Girl was on the scene. Does anyone know who contacted her? Was she in the area, or was New Wave responding to the crime?"

Gallant clears his throat. "I contacted her ma'am."

She turns to him, and the heat of her glare goes up a few degrees. "Why did you contact her, and who gave you permission to do so?"

I can hear him gulp. "I thought that with the Protectorate being out of town, we could use the back up. I, uh, I didn't receive permission to contact her. I notified her on my own."

"I would almost rather have you get a hold of Kaiser for a hostage situation than have Glory Girl be involved, Gallant!" He goes to object, but she cuts him off. "Do not defend her. We were lucky she didn't do anything stupid and that no one got hurt. She is brash, and has a hard time listening and taking orders during the best of times. Two months ago she took down a mugger, and in the process caused $12,000 in property damage. For a mugger! We're even luckier that she decided to go in through the back instead of just going through the roof to secure the hostages. On top of not thinking about that possibility, and not realizing Glory Girl's penchant for mass property damage, you still contacted her without permission from Console or your team leader. You're not the team leader yet Gallant, and if it were my choice as to who fills that role, you wouldn't be anytime soon. At least not without much more intensive training, am I understood?"

Gallant for a moment looks like he wants to fight it, but decides to not and replies in a defeated voice. "Yes ma'am."

Soon I'll be graduating to the Protectorate, and Gallant will take up the role of team leader. Just like how I took the role after Triumph left the Wards. Even if he's only going to be leader for a year, it's still going to be hard on him.

The director gives him a hard look for a second, then as if seeing something we can't, she gives him a sharp nod. She turns to me. "Aegis, why did you accept help from Owl and the new cape Skitter?"

"You, and the multiple briefings, told us that her meeting the Wards was inevitable. I thought that accepting her offer to help would also cause less problems in the long run, and would be less dangerous than running the risk of making her angry. Skitter was also able to provide us with valuable information on what the Undersiders were planning, information we wouldn't have been able to gather otherwise."

She gives me a nod. "Good, that was one of the few well thought through decisions. Although it almost ended poorly, that wasn't a fault of yours in this instance." She glances at something on her computer with a frown. "Now lets get to the main problem, the confrontation with the Undersiders. When they stormed out of bank it devolved in to an almost standard cape fight. You all were winning against Hellhound's dogs, Clockblocker managed to tag two of them. The last one was being ridden by Hellhound herself. Am I correct so far?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Good. At this point the rest of the Undersiders exit the bank to join the melee. Browbeat, you head off alone to confront them, and are subsequently beaten and knocked out. Charging off alone, to fight three capes alone, was foolish. Because of this you will be going through additional tactics, teamwork, and supplementary hand to hand training. Is that clear?"

Browbeat shuffles his feet slightly. "Y-yes, ma'am."

"You're still relatively new to the program, so hopefully we will still be able to beat the foolishness out of you. I am more disappointed that none of the rest of you moved in to assist Browbeat, not a one of you." She levels a withering look at all of us, as her voice picks up and is filled with restrained anger. "He is your teammate for Christ sake, treat him like one! Kid Win, you could have provided long range support. Vista, as soon as you saw Browbeat start to lose, you should have done something, anything! From moving him away from danger, to making any of his hits land quicker than his opponents would have expected. Any sort of help. Therefore, all of you will also be assigned mandatory teamwork and tactics training. And I don't want to hear a peep or groan out of any of you! We don't leave our team behind to fend for themselves. Am I being clear enough!"

We're all taken aback. "Understood ma'am." The rest of the team follows my lead and voices affirmatives.

"After that, Hellhound engages Owl, and we're back to Gallant." The Director says with false cheer. "So Mr. Stansfield, please explain to me the reasoning behind trying to shoot a villainous cape with a rage inducing blast."

"Well ma'am, it, uh... I was gonna." Gallant stops and takes a deep breath. "I don't have a good reason, ma'am."

"Damn right you don't, and most likely didn't at the time either. In fact, from now on you are banned from using any power of yours that would cause someone to become angry. If at any point you think you will need to influence someone like that, you need to request permission from a superior to do it."

"But what if we're in combat and can't make that request?" Oh Dean, why?

"In combat!? Like earlier, when you almost got your whole team killed. Do you happen to mean that kind of combat? I want you to stop, shut up, and look at every one of your teammates. Now."

Gallant looks defiant, but thankfully stops himself from doing something even stupider. He looks at all of us slowly.

"All your teammates, standing around you, except Clockblocker. Now imagine one of them is missing from this meeting, because they lost a limb, or their life. You didn't just miss a shot Gallant. You missed a shot, and hit Owl. You and your team were so unbelievably lucky today. Instead of me having to deal with a dead Ward, I just have to deal with four traumatized minors."

"They're alive, and they're criminals. We came away with few injuries, and all the hostages came away unharmed." Dean please stop digging your own grave. Even Vista is looking at you like you're an idiot. I need to try to talk with him after this, at least to try and calm him down.

The Director gets a down right evil smile plastered across her face, that slowly shifts to a frown again the longer she talks. "Oh yes complete success. And you're right they were absolute criminals. Tattletale has robbed a couple places with no other violent crimes on record. She gets to walk away with only one arm. She's crippled for the rest of her life. Grue has less crimes on record than Tattletale, and is taking it fairly well, but he keeps checking his leg and keeps rubbing his jaw. He still feels the pain even though he's fully healed. Hellhound is wanted for a murder, but we're fairly certain it's related to her trigger event. We also have good reason to think that she has a minor mental disability. She was being eaten alive, and is still shaking in her cell. When a blonde guard passed by her cell earlier, she almost had a panic attack. Regent is wanted for a couple muggings. Honestly he's taking it the best out of all of them, but he still twitches at the sound of footsteps. So tell me Gallant, does the punishment fit the crime? Did any of them deserve that?"

Dean at least has the decency to look ashamed. "No, no they didn't."

"If Panacea wasn't there, Grue would have possibly died, and Tattletale was looking at some rather serious blood loss. You may have come away unscathed, but what about everyone else. I'm highly disappointed in what happened today. You may have stopped the robbery, but I'm still going to consider today a loss. There were to many mistakes, any of them could have cost someone's life. For the next week, all of you will report as you would normally, but all patrols are cancelled and replaced with mandatory training and counselling. Now I want all of you to go back to the Wards common room and plan with each other on how to do better and make sure something like this does not happen again."

In rather low spirits, we all exit and head back. Gallant follows at the end with his head hung low.

"Ma'am, all Protectorate members have returned and are present." Armsmaster announces.

"Good, hopefully nothing else will happen now that you all are back. As is, there has been an important update concerning Owl. We have a confirmed identity on the person Owl has claimed as a 'friend' in the City." Director Piggot states, then shuffles some paperwork before grabbing a page and reading off it. "It is a girl named Taylor Hebert, 15, attends Winslow High School. She is the daughter of the de facto head of the Dockworkers Union, Daniel Hebert. Today during the bank robbery, Owl was spotted with the new cape, Skitter. A master who is able to control insects. This is the second time that Owl and Skitter have been spotted together, and act relatively friendly towards each other. Through a visual profile built from Armsmaster's helmet camera, as well as information from undercover agents, comparing Skitter to Taylor Hebert comes to a perfect match."

Miss Militia speaks up quickly. "Ma'am, doesn't doing any of this break the unwritten rules."

"Break them? Ha, we're driving a bulldozer over them. Normally, yes we would abide by the rules, but as of now Taylor Hebert is a person of interest. As the person now closest to Owl, if something were to happen to her we would be in a massive amount of trouble. If she were to, god forbid, die, we would most likely have to sound the Endbringer sirens."

"The sirens? You're joking right, please tell me you're joking." Assault asks with a strained laugh.

"No I'm not joking. From the current information we have on Owl, if Taylor Hebert were to die, she would rampage. We don't have the manpower to stop her. All we could do is wait for reinforcements, and try to keep civilian casualties to a minimum. If the gangs were to join in and help us we still wouldn't have a guaranteed victory. Owl has lost control a hand full of times in the past. There are generally no survivors. For now we are coming up with plans for if something like this were to happen. We want to avoid having to use such plans what so ever, so Miss Hebert will be placed under watch. And protected."

"Right now, Dragon and I are working on development for an anti-Owl weapon, so far development has been slow going." Armsmaster puts forward with a hint of annoyance slipping into his usually flat voice.

"It's a start, keep me updated. Are there any other concerns?"

Before anyone is able to voice a question, the whole building shakes. Then a raucous boom goes through the room. Everyone in attendance immediately goes on alert.

The director turns and looks out the window. "What in the hell." She sees smoke raising over the city, then more explosions start going off.

She grabs the phone off her desk and punches on a couple buttons. "Start mobilizing, everyone. On duty, off duty, everyone! I want to know what the hell that just was now!" She then turns to the heroes. "I want all of you out there now. Try to find out what just happened. Keep in radio contact, help emergency services when possible. Someones making a move, and I want that threat out of the way now!"

The heroes salute, then turn and rush out the door. Director Piggot sits and starts making, and answering, an endless stream of calls.

My phone rings. I look at the id, then answer. "What do you have?"

"Sir, the Undersiders have been captured." The voice on the other side informs me.

"That's unfortunate." And it really was. "What about the other mission?"

"It was a success. The target was secured without issue and is being moved to a secure position as we speak."

I allow myself a smile. "Good." I hang up. Now the loss of the Undersiders is so much less of an issue. I close the other timeline, and open a new one.

I start going through PRT reports. I get up and grab the rifle in the cabinet.

It seems there's a new cape in the Bay. I go to the door and open it.

This 'Owl' may turn out to be a problem. The guard turns and sees me with the rifle. "Sir, is everything okay?"

In fact, she may turn out to be quiet the inconvenience. I raise the rifle, and shoot him in the face.

Well, she will either come under my sway, or fall like so many other obstacles. I step over the corpse and head further into the base.

I start to pull up more information on this Owl. I start a fun game of seeing how far I can kill my way through my own base.

"Ma'am, Velocity radioed in with information on Owl."

I lean forward. "Put him through."

After a second the radio picks up. "Ma'am, I just found Owl and Skitter. It seems they just fought a cape, most likely Oni Lee. Oni Lee seems long gone though."

"What is the status of Owl and Skitter?"

"Skitter seems to be slightly beat up, but otherwise fine. Owl was just basically a pair of arms and a head when I arrived, but she seems to have gotten better."

I groan. "Better how?"

"In less than a minute she reformed her entire body. I have helmet cam footage for confirmation. Now they're leaving, Owl is carrying Skitter. It seems she fell asleep."

"Follow them. Mark where they go. If they stop somewhere for the night, make a note of it and head back to HQ."

"Understood."

The line goes dead. I turn back to the email I received from the Chief Director. A very problematic email.

I give a groan and rub my temples. "Oh, she's trying to kill us." I think up a way to break the news of our most recent orders.

Then I call all the Protectorate heroes except Velocity back.

"Alright everyone, I have bad, and even worse news." The director starts off.

I'm standing next to Assault. After he told me Owl's proposition, I almost killed him. He just laughed the whole time.

"The bad news. We've been ordered to be even more hands on with Owl and Skitter." She takes a deep breath. "The worse news. The Chief Director has informed us that to accomplish that task, we need to have one of you make contact with Owl personally, in your civilian identity."

I'm stunned, everyone is stunned. This plan is insane. What!

Assault bursts out in laughter. I hit him. He folds over and laughs harder.

"Assault!" The Director yells.

He slowly straightens and the laughing dies down to giggles. "Sorry, sorry. But this has to be a joke right. After the day we just had, this is pulling one over on us right?"

"I'm serious Assault. These are our new orders, all the way from the top. Now, because of this I will be needing a volunteer. Someone to, give up their identity." She finishes weakly, knowing none of us want to go along with this.

"What if I did it." Miss Militia says.

Triumph turns to her. "You're good with people, but the Wards need you to. You lead them well and they rely on you." He says warmly.

"I don't lead the Wards, Armsmaster does."

Assault gives her a look. "He may give them orders, but they look to you if they have a problem. No offense big guy." Armsmaster just grunts.

Dauntless looks at them, then turns to the Director. "I could do it, yeah."

"I will volunteer." Armsmaster cuts in.

"No." "Dear god, no." "Sir, please don't." He gives another grunt.

Miss Militia replies to Dauntless. "You're still fairly new, and this is a big decision." He looks a little wary at that.

While everyone starts to compare pros and cons, I step up to the desk. "Ma'am, I'll do it." Then I take off my helmet.

"Puppy no, you can't." Assault grabs my shoulder.

I pat his hand. "It's okay. I don't do anything during down time anyway, so I don't have to worry about losing my identity. Plus I already have experience working with unsavory types." Then give him a little elbow at that.

"Oof, you wound me." Then he reaches up. "Well I'm not letting you do it alone." And takes of his helmet.

"You don't need to do that." I try to insist.

He just laughs. "I'm not letting you walk into danger alone. Besides we both know I'm better with people."

I shake my head. "Fine, but you're still not accepting Owl's suggestion."

The Director coughs lightly to get our attention. "I'm glad that you both have come to a decision, truly this is a big step for you to make so thank you. Now what is this now about Owl's suggestion?"

I look away and can't help but blush, and Ethan just laughs.

"Doctor, Owl is now in Brockton Bay." A man says.

"We predicted this would happen, sadly it is ahead of schedule."

"Then I'll have to update the data." There's the clacking of a keyboard.

There's a pause. "Does this disrupt the experiment?"

"The Bay experiment? No, that's the whole point. Although she did put Lung into a coma."

A third voice cuts in, another woman's voice. "Damn, he should have been sent to the Birdcage. Is he recoverable?"

"Possibly, but Owl herself is an adequate replacement if he can't be brought back to working order."

"That and at least she may terrorize a few people into triggering, two birds, one stone. Alright keep me updated if anything drastic happens. Door."

An: I like and dislike these interludes. It's fun to have these things happening in the background. Shifty plots and all. It's not as fun though because now I have to think about things more. Ugh, the perils of deciding to write a fanfic. Oh well, at least it's fun.

Also I recently helped another author with their story. White Mage by Lights and Sparkles. It's a Worm/sorta Final Fantasy crossover where Taylor can only use healing powers. If you like stories about alt power Taylor check it out. I like it for the direction it's going in and the limits it places on Taylor and how she will be working around it.

Anyway I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter.

-Killa