PRT ENE HQ
Like any other day, today had started with an epic shit show due to the fact that parahumans couldn't rub two of their brain cells together and apply common sense. Apparently, Armsmaster got in his head that either Maeve Vinson, Charlotte Moore, Alice Key, Julia Booth, and Taylor Hebert was not only a parahuman, but as well as an accomplice of what we were assuming was the new Butcher. The fact that those women simply happen to have similar hair that, unfortunately matches that of the female cape that accompanied the man who 'kidnapped' the Butcher couldn't begin to be a coincidence for the socially crippled man.
When he had given his report about the lack of success when he attempted to 'have' a 'civil' conversation with the said women, the entirety of the room had rolled their eyes at him. It took Emily all her strength in not hurling whatever was within arms distance at the stupid man.
"Armsmaster, effective immediately you are off this case. Instead, Miss Militia with the aid of Battery will now be handling it instead. You, Assault, Dauntless will instead be redirected to other fronts that will need your expertise."
She acted as if she did not see the clenching of the man's jaw at what was effectively a reprimand in disguise. But really? What did the man expect? A cookie? for what specifically? Oh, I know, in order to violate all the rules and laws in order to bulldoze his way into the lives of a bunch of young women for a few minutes of fame. And judging by the reports in front of her, some of these girls had not been having the greatest of times.
Taylor Hebert, sixteen years old Winslow student. Her father, Daniel Hebert a high ranking member of Dock Workers Union was currently in Brockton General, he had recently been released from the ICU after the Teeth attacked the DWU. According to the crime scene investigator, it was a miracle he managed to last that long before help arrived. Any seconds later and Taylor Hebert would have been an orphan instead of being the daughter of a single father.
Maeve Vinson, nineteen years old student at BBU. She recently lost her youngest brother due to that explosion downtown and to make matters worst, her older was critically injured in one of the Teeth senseless spree of violence. He had lost a leg but luckily, Panacea was able to get to him in time to save his live.
Alice Key, dead husband.
Julia Booth, dead boyfriend and miscarriage.
Charlotte Moore, rescued from one of the Teeth rape parties two days before the Butcher's kidnapping.
And yet, the idiot thought it was a good idea to go and bother these individuals in order to come wag his tail for a gold star for a job well done?
Yea, and people ask why she can't stand parahumans? it's shit like this that forces her to wonder why she really bothered taking this job.
"Now here is what we are going to do in the mean time..."
...
Winslow High School
While Taylor was busy with class, Alvin had decided to do something about the situation. And while she didn't ask for it, he took it upon himself to fix it and the girl out of this shit hole.
It was with the upmost confidence the he walked up to the disinterested security guards, the one who acted as if he was covering the broken metal detectors at the door but clearly showed the lack of maintenance on it as well as on any part of the building, which only served to confirm any doubts that this was a shit hole of the highest caliber.
Winslow was approaching the bottom of the barrel of modern education, in America, which was already pretty low down there all things considered. Being located in a city that was arguably one of the most volatile and crime ridden didn't do the school any favors but that didn't change the reality. Winslow was to the education of future generations as plastic waste was to sea life.
A secretary covered a desk near the secondary entrance for staff and visitors. It was 09:20 in the morning. The students had just started their first lessons and with no appointments looming it was relatively quiet for Winslow's administrative staff. The secretary was therefore surprised to see a young man passing through the door into the hallway. He was mid twenties, slender with red hair and a pale complexion. He was dressed in a low quality suit, but it seemed new and fit him fairly well regardless.
"Hello," he said with a pleasant smile and with what the secretary was surprised to see was a British accent of some sort. "I am here to see the Headmistress, sorry, Principal."
He internally smirked at the fact that nobody ever expect a British accent when dealing with a nobody, he had the idea to act out a scene he read in a fanfiction in his previous life. While it may seem reckless, with his powers he knew that it would go well.
The woman at the desk frowned, knowing already that there were no appointments that day except for a staff meeting after hours. "Do you have an appointment sir?" She asked, already guessing the answer.
Alvin smiled ruefully. "I am afraid I don't. It is fairly urgent though, could you please contact Miss… Blackwell, I believe it is, and tell her I'm here to meet concerning miss Sophia Hess. I'm happy to wait if she's not available immediately, but it is fairly urgent and I need to speak to her as soon as humanly possible."
Miss Hess was Shadow Stalker, the secretary knew that much. All the staff had been told the secret. Whatever this man was here for was above her pay grade and thus clearly was something the Principal needed to handle.
"Okay sir," the secretary replied as she reached for her phone. "May I have your name please?"
"Oh! My apologies," Alvin said in fake embarrassment before replying with a fake name. "My name is Mister Carlill."
The phone answered on the third ring.
"Yes?" the Principal asked curtly upon picking up, which was Blackwell's usual manner of speaking even to her staff.
"Hello Principal Blackwell, yes I have a man here, a Mister Carlill asking to speak to you. He says it's urgent, concerning miss Hess."
There was a pause on the line before she answered.
"Send him to my office," Blackwell ordered and then the line went out.
"The Principal's office is on the third floor, turn left and it's room three B," The secretary said. "The stairs are on the left side down that corridor," she pointed to the swing doors to her side.
"Thank you," he replied with a slight nod of the head and a smile. "Have a nice day," he said before going in the direction the secretary indicated.
He was very polite, the woman thought as she went back to her computer.
Principal Blackwell waited anxiously for the mysterious Mister Carlill to arrive. A stranger calling about miss Hess? it wouldn't be someone from the PRT or they would have called ahead, perhaps they wanted this meeting to be kept off any records. Or it may be something more sinister, or even something completely unrelated, she should've asked for more details but Hess was a priority regardless so she would have to speak to him. She would need to stay on her guard.
A polite knock came at the door.
"Enter" Blackwell said authoritatively, winding herself in and trying to put on an official air.
A skinny, ginger haired man entered.
"Hello, he said, "are you the headmistress?"
Blackwell nodded and stood up as the smiling man offered a hand across her desk to shake. Blackwell was taken aback by the sudden move but quickly composed herself and took the still proffered hand.
"Have a seat," she said to retake control of the situation. It was looking already like this man might not be from the PRT, he was far too young to be one of their people who were usually in their thirties or older.
"Thank you," Still smiling he pulled up one of the cheap uncomfortable chairs Blackwell kept in front of her desk and sat down.
"I suppose you want me to get to it," he said. "My name is Mister Carlill, and as I said I am here concerning miss Hess."
"Yes?" Blackwell demanded. The man's overly friendly demeanor was already annoying.
"Yes well," Alvin leaned back in his seat slightly and frowned down at her desk before looking back at her with his previously pleasantly friendly expression once more present.
"I know what you did."
Instantly the tension in the room went from next to nothing to thick enough to cut with a knife.
"You will have to elaborate," Blackwell responded carefully. Maybe the man was fishing for information. He hadn't indicated he knew about Shadow Stalker's secret identity yet, maybe he just had a suspicion?
"Sorry," Alvin's friendly smile returned. "Right let me get to the point, what I want is fifty thousand dollars to be delivered by you yourself to me this Friday. If you don't, I will release Shadow Stalker's identity to the press."
"What?" Blackwell demanded incredulously. "I don't understand what you're talking about.
"Let's not beat around the bush," Alvin in disguise said frankly. "I know Sophia is Shadow Stalker, no need to deny you do too. You'd have to know as she's one of your students and the PRT would need you on side to organize various things for her Cape activities."
Blackwell didn't respond for several seconds, thinking about how she could play this.
"Why are you threatening me with this?" She finally asked. "I'm not her handler. We aren't the important ones here."
"Ah sorry," Alvin said in a cold tone. "I'm threatening you, you and your staff to be clear. Because if Shadow Stalker's identity were revealed it would result in this school shutting down, and most likely you and your staff going to prison."
"I don't see ho-"Blackwell tried to argue but the man cut her off.
"Oh it's quite simple really. I know about what happened with miss Hebert. I know everything. I know you knew about the bullying. I know you let it happen to keep miss Hess and her friends happy and on side and I know you threatened to withdraw payment of miss Hebert's medical fees after the locker incident to keep her quiet. That's…" he began counting off with his fingers.
"Failing to carry out your role as educators and possibly child endangerment for letting the bullying continue as long as you have. That'd be called negligence in court at the very least I imagine, maybe child endangerment. Then there's the whole blackmail thing. Well that's blackmail, of a minor, with her medical bills, for injuries sustained as a result of your negligence, from a position of power over said minor. I mean, how quickly can you say 'open and shut case?' All of that's before we even get to the Parahuman side of things."
"You can't prove anything." Blackwell argued. "It would be your word against mine. It wouldn't even get to court without Hebert's agreement."
"Oh yes," the still smiling Alvin agreed. "But it won't matter in the court of public opinion will it? The press will love it. 'Violent teen superheroine carries out bio-attack on local school'. The headline alone… But that's only where it'd start you see. Youth guard would have to get involved immediately and would no doubt start their own investigation and discover any evidence they needed themselves. Telling your staff to let miss Hess continue her campaign against miss Hebert, tut-tut. One of them will break, and admit it if only to save themselves." The man leaned back as he continued to narrate.
"They'd go on to crucify you on anything that will stick, and some of it will stick. Either way your odds of remaining in education would be nil even if you somehow escaped prison. They might struggle to get one on the PRT, but they'd happily make an example out of you."
He stopped talking, waiting for her to respond. His pleasant smile and long since stopped seeming quite so kind.
He was right and they both knew it. That is exactly what would happen if he went to the press. They had narrowly averted disaster by threatening miss Hebert with withholding the covering of her medical bills, but now this absolute stranger had figured it all out. There was nothing she could actually do to stop him.
"Where do you want the money?" Blackwell bit out.
"Here's the address and other relevant details of where we will meet. Please do remember that I do have fail safes in place in the event I die or get hospitalized. We don't want you getting too… excited after all. Don't think about calling the PRT or police either. If I get arrested, I'll only wind up telling them everything, and you still lose because they'll still legally have to act on what I tell them."
He handed her a piece of paper from inside his suit jacket. Opening the folded paper revealed an address. He'd prepared it in advance, the bastard. Mister Carlill leaned back into his seat and sighed heavily out of the side of his mouth, cheek puffing out as he sat and thought for a moment.
"Oh yes I also want you to transfer miss Hebert to Arcadia. I don't care how you do it but I want miss Hebert telling her dad by the end of this week about her sudden burst of luck."
"Fine, I'll see what I can do" Blackwell bit out. "If that is all, please leave."
"It won't be 'see what I can do', it will be 'I will make the transfer happen, thank you, sir'," Alvin said with a hint of amused condescension. "Terrible lack of respect, and a poor work ethic. No wonder this school's going to the dogs." Blackwell grit her teeth at the insult, resisting the urge to answer back and risk making him demanding more money. The bared teeth in the smile of the other man as he met her eyes with his own said he knew exactly what buttons he was pushing. He was daring her to respond.
"But… I suppose there will be one more thing. Do you know what a trigger event is miss Blackwell?"
"No I don't" She tersely replied. It was something to do with superpowers but it had never really mattered for her to know the ins and outs of the superhero world. Most people only knew that Capes existed and running away was the right thing to do if they were a villain. Mister Gladly could likely explain it to her, being the teacher for Parahuman studies.
"It's what happens when someone, usually a teenager undergoes a horrific life altering event and gets superpowers. That's how superheroes, or more often supervillains are made. The odds of having a trigger event during such an event are pretty low, but hey between you and me... Are you sure you want to take your chances that miss Hebert isn't going to return to school with superpowers, and revenge on her mind? Because that'd probably result in the same outcome as if I went to the local papers, assuming you survived the experience of course."
Alvin in his Mister Carlill person put back on that infuriating smile and reached out to Blackwell's desk, smacking it gently with his palm a couple of times. "Food for thought I think." He got up to leave.
"Hey, could be worse. I might have wanted more than just fifty out of the three hundred grand that you lot manage to get for having Sofia in this shit hole. You know the one that you shared between you, that handler." he chuckled as he passed through the door, but doubled back briefly before leaving. "I suggest you get working on that transfer quickly. I'm not a terribly patient man."
Blackwell watched him leave in silent fury. She managed to last over a minute after he left the room before she screamed.