Director Piggot looked around the room and its occupants. "This is an assessment meeting only. We are just trying to get a handle on the new cape and what we know about her so far."
"Which one? The Master or her Minions?" asked Assault.
"Do we know if the minions are real or projections or?" prompted Director Piggot.
Armsmaster looked up from his tablet. "On January 9th, I was present at the first of the minion encounters. At this point the Master involved was simply referred to as 'Mother' by the minion present. Blonde hair, blue eyed, female parahuman of approximately twelve years age. High level Alexandria package. She stated she had come to the assistance of the Brockton Bay Police Department because 'Mother would want her to help' - I arrived after she had disarmed and subdued several members of the Empire 88. She politely declined recruitment at that time and flew off at extremely high speeds when I pressed for details on her 'Mother' and the dangers of being an independent cape."
"Police report indicates that the girl refers to herself as 'Supergirl' and that she took a .50 caliber sniper round to her head with only minor indication of that hurting," said Miss Militia. "She then tied the barrel of the rifle into a knot."
"So... projection?" asked Director Piggot, trying to herd this group of cats.
"No, a hair was left behind from when she was shot," said Armsmaster, clicking a couple of things on his tablet to bring up a display. "She has a DNA-equivelant."
"Translation?" asked Director Piggot.
"Not human," said Miss Militia.
"She's Kryptonian. A copy of an extraterrestrial named Kara Zor-El from a different Earth."
Everyone stared at Assault.
"What?" asked Assault.
"And where did you get that theory from?" asked Director Piggot.
"I asked. She was waiting for her mother to get out of school, where apparently that 'mother' has been bullied for several months by three girls. I got us milkshakes and we got to talking." Assault shrugged. "I filed a report on it last week. Didn't anyone bother to read it?"
Everyone stared even more at Assault.
"What?" asked Assault again.
"So this... Master?" asked Armsmaster.
"All of these little girls are copies of heroes from other worlds, other Earths, except that they're all around twelve and they all regard the girl being bullied as their mother. And she apparently wants them all to behave themselves and keep their existence quiet because she's worried about them. Except that as they are almost her own age, heroes by nature, and concerned about their mama - they go sneaking off and doing things." Assault shrugged. "Kids will be kids. Capes will be capes. Anyone want that last cinnamon roll?"
Battery grabbed the last cinnamon roll and bit into it while glaring at Assault.
Assault pouted. Nobody cared.
"What other minions does this Master have?" asked Director Piggot.
"Batgirl, who apparently is some martial artist stealth type," said Assault. "Toni - who is apparently a Tinker. Oh, and apparently they've been trying to get the local PD and the PRT interested in all the bullying because it's a point of frustration with them that all they're attempts get them blacklisted or banned from forums."
"Why us?" asked Director Piggot.
"Because one of the bullies was named Sophia Hess and this was all in my report. It was why I flagged it urgent. Seriously, did nobody read it?" asked Assault. "Damn, not much motive to fill out paperwork for a change if this is all the result is."
"Wait. You were there with her, waiting for the Master to get out of school?" asked Armsmaster. "You know who the Master is?"
"Yeah, but you know - there are rules about outing someone who hasn't actually done any crimes," stated Assault. "They aren't self-replicating. Give them another six years or so and they might be able to replicate in the human manner - I didn't press for details but they certainly look like real girls. They're also independent - Batgirl got into an argument with Supergirl when she showed up and Toni made all sorts of threats to me if anything happened to their mother. It was cute."
Armsmaster hmphed. "Found it."
"My report?" asked Assault.
"It looks like it hit some automated routing problem and was never delivered," said Armsmaster. "File size might have been the culprit."
"Probably registered the file size and who it was from and decided it had to be a prank," grumped Director Piggot. "Okay. Assault - you've met them. What was your take on this group?"
"You've got a girl being bullied by a Ward who hasn't gone out for revenge despite being fully capable of it," said Assault. "Iron Maiden, that's Toni by the way, is a power-systems Tinker. Batgirl can handle stealth. Supergirl could reduce Winslow to rubble in minutes. Meanwhile, their mother is a Drunk Scientist."
"A what?" asked Director Piggot.
"Apparently like a Mad Scientist Tinker except she's only a Tinker when she's drunk. Been hitting her father's hooch. Lightweight too, as expected from a fifteen-year-old. One-tenth of a glass of whiskey and she's suddenly making stuff that she has no recollection of when she's sober. Then passing out for the night." Assault shrugged. "Toni apparently started hiding the alcohol when she realized what was going on."
"So what do we put down as this new cape's power? Wet tinker?" asked Director Piggot.
"Found it," said Armsmaster. "Supergirl is a comic book superhero, so is Batgirl. Toni and her Iron Maiden persona are from a rival comic book company. All are from the 60s before such entertainment dried up. Toni is Tony Stark who is Iron Man. Gender shifted as well as age on the last one."
"Yes, I found that but there were consistencies in their stories that just sounded too complicated for just scanning stuff off of a comic book," said Assault. "So she's some sort of Shaker/Tinker. Able to get ahold of materials that she can then use to make these duplicates. Who show every indication of being independent of her."
"A 'Drunk Scientist' you said," noted Armsmaster.
"Well, 'Drunk Inventor' might be more appropriate," acknowledged Assault. "When I heard Toni talking about it, my impression was that she'd get drunk and enter a Tinker fugue state. Easy to foil though, either get her enough alcohol to break the fugue or keep alcohol away from her in which case she doesn't make anything."
"Yet, in the meantime, we have a girl reportedly being actively bullied by a Ward who is capable of making minions with powers," pointed out Director Piggot.
"Yeah, we should probably get on that. Soon. Before one of those independently acting minions sees their Mommy getting hurt and decide to do something about that," pointed out Assault.
"'Sophia Hess' you said," noted Director Piggot. "Who is it that she reports to and is supposed to be keeping track of her?"
"Agent Simmons," provided Assault. "It was in my report."
"So, tentatively Trump-Tinker," said Miss Militia. "After we've put out the metaphoric fire before it reaches the metaphoric explosives we can decide more on the new cape."
* Hebert Household *
"Sure I could build power armor," said Toni as she put aside a socket wrench and felt around for a screwdriver. Finding it, she mostly vanished under her current project. "The problem is that we're twelve years old. We're all going to be outgrowing outfits and struggling with all sorts of changes in our measurements. Power armor has to wait until after we're done growing."
"I get that, but..." Barbara Gordon made a gesture to indicate the vehicle.
"Your dirt bike is over there," said Toni, a hand coming out from under the "car" to indicate a tarp-covered object.
"Woop! Score!" said the redhead as she checked it out. "No missile launchers?"
"On the budget of 'whatever I can find and fix'? No," said Toni. "I'm still working on investments. I may have to let her get drunk again so we can have someone who is a financial specialist. Or hacker. Or just someone to help me with this stuff."
"The budget sucks, but we eat a lot so it's even worse than it could be," grumbled Barbara.
"Maybe we can get her to invent something so we're at least older and not having to deal with being severely underage," said Toni.
"No, that's liable to get the PRT more paranoid than they usually are," said Barbara, slinging the backpack to the side and beginning to undress.
"It's a dirt bike. Has sound suppression systems, but it's NOT something you can take into fights," pointed out Toni from underneath the vehicle she was working on.
"Yeah, let me just get my costume on. Such as it is. I'll wait till dark before trying my bike out. I just want to be ready for when Mom gets out of school."
"It's fine," said Toni from under the vehicle, cursing briefly as her tool slipped and she bashed her hand.
"It doesn't sound fine," noted Barbara.
"Look, my only objection to an accelerated maturity is that if we're older than Mother - we're also more likely to be more developed considering the way things go. And she has a number of body-image issues."
Barbara glanced down at Toni's legs from where they were sticking out. "Teenagers. Body-image issues come with the territory."
"Yeah, well, thanks to the Three Targets, I mean 'Those Three' and their various accomplices, Mother has it especially bad. Okay, now I just need to put this plate in place to cover the hoses..."
* Winslow *
Taylor took a step back.
"Now now, Taylor," said Emma, flicking the battery-powered shaver on and off. "Think how much time you'll save not having any hair to take care of."
Taylor tried to run. Sophia's fist met her solar plexus and a moment later Taylor was being held down.
Taylor tried to draw breath. If she could breathe, she could scream. If she could scream, Kara would hear.
No, she had to remain quiet. Nobody could learn about her "daughters" or they'd take them away. Or kill them.
* PRT ENE HQ *
"And... there we go." Armsmaster tapped a couple of controls. "There's no reasonable expectation of privacy at a public school excepting certain rooms so a stealth drone is fine."
"What's that crowd over there?" asked Miss Militia. "Between the building and that shed."
"Zooming in, and..." Armsmaster stopped talking as the image swelled on the monitor.
There was silence in the room.
Assault broke it. "You know. I didn't expect immediate results but there you are."
"This was just to show the ability to do it without immediate detection," protested Armsmaster, though he was privately very pleased with the efficiency here.
"I think Stalker just dislocated her victim's shoulder. Excuse me," said Miss Militia.
Assault practically jumped out of Miss Militia's way as the camou-wearing cape headed towards the door. There was a time for joking and there was a time not to draw the ire of the woman with all the guns.
"Where's Velocity?" asked Director Piggot, her own voice seemingly calm.
"Off duty. His night shift rotation was last night."
"I've already flagged him for an emergency response," said Armsmaster. "Miss Militia is almost halfway there."
"This is in her civilian ID, so we can't do anything about the bulk of this mess, but I want to send a copy of this recording to BBPD - list it as testing of the drone technology and we didn't expect to find... this," said Director Piggot. "If we do it without flagging it as coming from us, they can act on it. No conviction based on this, but if they use this to get a warrant and start looking into things..."
"Why is she just taking this instead of screaming or fighting back?" asked Assault.
"Can't tell from the footage," said Armsmaster. He stiffened. "High speed object on radar flying from approximate position of subject's house."
"Supergirl," predicted Assault. "Any resources we can get on scene to keep this from becoming a pre-teen cape with a murder charge?"