Fumiko woke up in the middle of the night.
It wasn't very dark outside, mostly due to a combination of light pollution and the presence of some of the largest casinos in their immediate vicinity.
Her mattress was hard, harder than the one home. When she asked once for an improvement, she was told that the PRT didn't have the budget to spare on such 'frivolities'.
Since there was nothing to do, she put it out of her mind, and tried to bring it to other topics. She was successful, in a sense, and was rewarded with a newly found thirst that urged her to go to the kitchen and drink something. Probably water.
Stumbling out of her room, she was greeted by the crimson glow of the always-on night light. She went to the main area, and even before she stepped in she recognized Elliott's signature.
He was the only other Ward in Vegas, and was currently sitting with his back to her, staring at the television screen.
"You're still up," she said, half a question.
"Couldn't sleep, " he responded, without looking up at her. A game controller was in his hand, and by now she could recognize the art style of Team Fortress 2, a game imported from Aleph.
Glancing away, she could still see the outline of his power around the room, surprisingly large for something that appeared harmless. She still hadn't figured out how he would be able to inflict so much damage, and hadn't worked up the courage to ask Satyrical.
Leaving the thought, she went towards the small kitchenette. She fumbled in the dark until she found the light switch, then took her glass and drank some tap water.
Still wide awake, she lent on the fridge, her mind on inconsequential subjects.
But as she looked down on the floor, she noticed a faint blue outline that shouldn't have been there.
If she was right, this was bad. All thoughts of sleep fled her mind and she almost ran into her room.
"Pick up pick up pick up-"
"Good morning." came the greeting from the other end of the line, cheerful, but the acting was deliberately weak so she would hear the underlying annoyance at being woken up(?) or perhaps just disturbed.
"There's a new cape in the city."
"So it's just a regular Tuesday, why did you call again?"
"Listen to me: they're strong. Their range extends to the building, and based on how faint it is, they're a good mile or two away. I don't want that kind of firepower to be pitted against us."
After a couple seconds of silence, he answered in a changed tone.
"Alright. Meet me in the parking lot in five."
"OK," and with that, she put down the phone, turning towards her wardrobe, which held only her day clothes and her costume.
It was a deep crimson, covering her from head to toe, leaving no patch of skin exposed. It wasn't skintight, and she made sure to request it with added armor. You could never know what would happen in Vegas, after all.
She hurriedly changed into it, and was rushing down the hallway when she saw Elliott next to the door.
"You're coming?" she asked, even as she didn't stop, opening the door and starting to rush down on the stairs.
"I'm getting ready in case things turn sour; and our coffee machine isn't worth shit."
"Be sure to leave a cup for me too."
"Maybe I will." Before she could retort, he already left her side and entered to the Protectorate quarters, but her feet didn't stop and by the time she finally came up with something she was just a floor above the meeting place.
The parking lot's lights weren't bright (thank god), and she immediately recognized Satyrical along with a group of PRT agents. Their masks hid their faces, but from their slouches she could tell they were tired too.
Satyrical didn't show it, his emotions hidden behind a well-practiced mask of joviality.
"Right! Everyone's here, let's get in the van, Untraceable will lead the way." He gestured to her, and with a flash of pride she realized that she was starting to recognize the handsigns; she went and took her place in the shotgun seat.
An agent set in the driver's seat, while Satyrical's head was between the two of them, as he sat in the back row, alone, the rest of the agents having sat down in the back of the vehicle.
"If you have any more info about this new cape, now's the time to say it." started Satyrical, as the door to the garage was opened and they exited it comparatively stealthily.
"It's not any exotic effect, just straight up kinetic energy expansion; it isn't precise either, more like a tsunami than anything." turning her attention back to the road, she signaled "Turn to right."
The colors were getting more intense; it was impossible to miss them now, the entire street being coated in that faint blue hue. If she tried, she could probably orient herself based on that alone; even without sight, she could sense it.
And she did not miss how close they were to the center of it.
"Slow down." she muttered, absentmindedly, her gaze locked onto an alleyway, a small inconspicuous hole between two buildings.
"Stop. They're in there."
"You heard her, men; get out there!" said a gruff voice from behind, the squad commander, much more invigorated now that action seemed to be near.
The agents shuffled out, each of them carrying assault rifles loaded with rubber bullets, along with a couple magazines of real ones. Two of them also had foam launchers, and the rest were holding flashlights in their unoccupied hands.
She felt a strange mix of anticipation and anxiety. It went against her nature to seek out danger like this, but she told herself that it was either this, or learning to ignore this same outline, because the Elite would never let go of a resource like this.
Satyrical and the captain went in the front, and quite surprisingly, it was the former that spoke up, thought not very loudly.
"Let's do this one by the books."
"Roger." echoed the agents. "Roger." "Roger." "Roger."
They moved to the entrance of the alleyway, the agents hidden just next to it.
The squad commander shouted the well-rehearsed but rarely used line that was in the agent manual:
"This is the Parahuman Response Team of Las Vegas. Please do not panic. We are here to help."
The parahuman's head immediately snapped up, and she was hit with how uncanny he looked. His eyes were glassy, like those of a dead fish, his skin was littered with cracks that made his otherwise human appearance look off.
"Get back!" he shouted, holding up his right hand, black appendages coming out from the place his finger joints should be; but through this motion, the tattoo on his palm became clearly visible.
The commander and Satyrical were in front of her, but her power still activated, and as she felt it taking hold, she tried to lessen it in the nanoseconds she had to react.
She was teleported next to the other agents, away from the Case 53's line of sight.
She could see Satyrical and the commander being pushed back, the latter moving for his weapon, until the former signaled to stop.
She immediately scurried closer, paying attention to Satyrical's words.
"It seems to me that we got off on a bad foot. I'm Satyrical, leader of the Las Vegas branch of the Protectorate. This, next to me, is leader of squad Delta, to whom I often jokingly refer to as Jimmy."
Throughout this whole monologue, nobody moved besides her. The Case 53 held his hand, his, fingers (?), still attached to Satyrical and the commander.
"Prove it. Prove you're Protectorate." said the boy, shakily, and with an unsaid premise in his eyes that he was ready to unleash all of his barely-understood power on them should their proof be unsatisfactory.
"We can do that." responded Satyrical, completely unfazed. Was he actually just a clone? wondered Fumiko. It was certainly possible. Maybe the real Satyrical was actually hidden among the agents. "We have here all of the armor you can see, adorned with our beautiful logo-"
"That can be stolen." grunted out the 53, but his hand relaxed a bit, and he his cracks seemed to be less numerous.
"Too true; but worry not, because we have another iconic tool in our arsenal right here: Agent Williams, come here!" It was a fake name, most agents got assigned one. Usually something extremely common.
She anxiously watched the agent with the tank at his back shuffled towards the entrance.
"We're going to just, shoot it at the wall right here, okay?" pointed Satyrical, touching the edge of the building with his left hand, to which the 53 exhibited a minor twitch, and tried to mask it with a slight nod.
The agent heard the unsaid order, and shot a small glob of containment foam near Satyrical's hand, only narrowly missing it. "Is this enough?" he asked, in a light tone "Or, do you want to test the foam? I'll even offer my glove for it." he said, and without waiting, put his glove in the foam.
It was a generous gesture at first glance, if one didn't know that he had whole crates of those gloves; each time he went out patrolling he ended up giving a few away to 'adoring fans', complete with autographs and everything.
Slowly, the 53 stood up. He was shorter than her, but she was pretty tall herself, taller than a good couple members of the Vegas Protectorate.
His appendages slinked back into his hands, but it was a slow process, full of what appeared to be spasming and shuddering. He didn't acknowledge it, his face was completely emotionless, nor did his blank eyes offer any insight as to his emotions. She had to admit, even after two years in the Wards, in Vegas no less, her poker face was nowhere near as good.
As he was coming out from the alleyway, approaching Satyrical, his right hand suddenly went up, and grabbed the glove in the containment foam; he yanked it hard enough that it tore in two, and without any apparent difficulty.
"L-listen, I'm not a villain. It's just, I already a met a cape, and she tricked me into meeting this man called Bastard Son, and I almost got mind controlled by him and I just couldn't take the risk that you were just another group of villains." The words spilled out from him like a river, and she could see the cracks changing across his skin, thickening in places, new ones forming in others.
Satyrical appeared completely unfazed.
"That must have been a troubling experience, but don't worry, you're in good hands now." He did not offer his hand, which would have usually followed, but the 53 didn't appear to notice. "We should get back to the base, get you a nice breakfast, and a good bed."
The agents recognized a dismissal when they heard one, and they began shuffling towards the van. Satyrical lead their new recruit, while she walked in front of them along with the driver.
Just as they got in, she and the driver in the front row, Satyrical and the 53 in the backrow, the former seemed to remember something:
"Is there a name you would prefer?"
For a moment the cracks worsened, but the 53 appeared to quickly get over his inner turmoil. She still cringed, almost physically feeling the rapid expansion of his danger zone. That was going to be a struggle to get used to; but just as fast as it expanded did it contract, just as he replied:
"Call me Dreadnought."
/-/
AN: Well, first arc is done, and I'll probably post it sometime in the near future, probably before I start writing the second one; I'm just impulsive that way.
Most arcs probably won't be much longer than this; this story is short, with a few plot points, a lot of ramblings on being a Case 53, and a couple intersections with canon.
A large inspiration for this fic, and for my writing in general, is Tabloid by lonsheep, and I really liked how it was kind of 'canon-adjecent', showcasing a different part of the Wormverse; the inner workings of the PRT. With this story I'm attempting something similar, with the Case 53 experiene and being a cape in Las Vegas. I'm not sure how succesfull I'll be, but if I manage to finish it at all, I'll count it as a success.