Lt Susan O'Donnall sits in a secure meeting room as she waits for the rest of the PRT senior staff and the Protectorate representative to arrive. While she's waiting she does a final read through of her reports on the Bank incident as well as her notes on Ice Queen. Not that the girl lives up to the Queen part of the name.
A faint whine of servo's has her looking up to see a tired looking Armsmaster walking into room and settling down into one of the reinforced chairs the PRT keeps for situations like this. "Morning."
Armsmaster looks up from his tablet, "Good morning Lieutenant."
"You seem tired."
Armsmaster nods, "I had two hours sleep on the plane back. I've been dealing with urgent paperwork all last night, along with a patrol."
Susan nods and indicates her large mug of coffee, "Do you want me to call in a coffee for you?"
"Not right now. I've scheduled a 90 minute nap for after this meeting, that should carry me through the day. What happened yesterday?"
"Short story?" Armsmaster nods, "A villain pulled a gun in a bank robbery, and then everything went to hell. The only reason Ice Queen and Glory Girl survived is that Panacea was at the scene. The Villains got away with over 40 thousand dollars, and Kid Win and Gallant are both benched until their armor is repaired. I'm just glad I'm not the New Wave liaison, I swear I heard Lt Smalls screaming when I passed her office this morning."
Armsmaster frowns, "Shouldn't you have rendered assist… Oh, it was a figure of speech. I'm sorry."
Susan waves off the apology as Deputy Director Rennick walks in with his own mug of coffee and mutters, "Morning."
Both Susan and Armsmaster look over and return the greeting.
Rennick sits down at the head of the table, "I'm afraid it's just us as Director Piggot is under dialysis, and Lt Smalls sent me an e-mail to say that she's taking a couple of officers to the Dallon's to give Glory Girl an official warning about Excessive Force. Armsmaster, I understand that the Director sent you her official debrief of the Wards after they returned from the bank, as that's likely to be the shortest report."
Armsmaster grunts as he looks down at his tablet, "Director Piggot didn't give me much in the way of debriefing, only to say that Kid Win is under probation for three months for deploying untested tinkertech, and the entire wards are being docked 25% of their pay until the fine for the damage Glory Girl did to the bank is paid off. However, my plane arrived in time to debrief the Wards properly with Miss Militia. The villains that robbed the bank were the Undersiders, and they appear to have a new member that can animate ropes. Tentatively we're calling him Snake Charmer because of the way the ropes behave. There are some additional notes on the other members in the written report. Clock Blocker and Aegis decided to swap costumes, so I've marked them down for some additional training on checking that sort of plan against console. Their teamwork and planning obviously need more practice. On the injury front, Gallant suffered from a fractured rib when one of Hellhound's dogs landed on him, and is signed off duty until he's seen by Panacea or three weeks, which ever is sooner. Aegis needed to stay in overnight as he had a punctured lung, detached retina, and a broken back. The on site paramedics signed him out at 6:30 this morning."
Rennick sighs, and Susan can't blame him as Armsmaster's report doesn't actually tell either of them much. "Lieutenant?"
Susan looks down at her own report, "According to the bank's security, the security footage shows that the Undersiders entered the bank at 1434 through the rear door. Until we get a copy of the off site logs we won't know how they got through the door without setting off the alarms. Our supposition is that they used the SWAT override. If that's true we need to flag that for internal review, as it's supposed to have a positive confirmation from the precinct dispatch. After that, they made their way into the security office and pulled the guard and security tapes. Fortunately they weren't aware of the laser disk backup, so we have security footage up to 1451. From there Hellhound sent her dogs forward through the bank while Grue and their new member, Snake Charmer wasn't it? While they grabbed the Manager and office workers from the two side offices.
"At 1435 the Undersiders reach the lobby and spend a few minutes cowing the civilians and getting the rest of the employees onto the bank floor. They then start to empty the vault at 1439. At 1448 the Wards turn up outside along with Glory Girl, at this point PRT support is still 5 minutes out. At this point, Grue and Hellhound both leave the bank to engage the Wards, while Snake Charmer stands by the front doors and sends some of his rope snakes out into the street to back them up. At the same time Panacea sneaks into an office.
"At 1450 Panacea attempts to disable Tattletale with a fire extinguisher, only for tattletale to step out of the way and pull a gun. Less than 30 seconds later Ice Queen stands up and the security system goes dead."
Rennick nods, "Thank you for providing a timeline of events, do you have anything else?"
Susan swallows hard as she nods and moves to the next sheet of paper, "According to the witnesses, the inside of the lobby expanded and contracted once as though, and I quote, 'The entire building was breathing'. As Ice Queen stood up, she also levitated around two dozen quills or spines from her backpack which spread out behind her in a fan shape. When she was half way between the counter and tattletale, she stumbled then sent one of the quills down the corridor towards the vault. When tattletale tried to talk after that, she sent a second quill to sit beneath tattletale's mouth and told her that she was talking. I have varying accounts of what Ice Queen said, but it amounts to accusing the Undersiders of being no better than school bullies that are trying to justify themselves. It's at this point that Glory Girl bursts through the ceiling of the bank and causes 4 broken bones, one laceration, and multiple counts of bruising from the debris. This is not counting the collapsed sternum, 6 broken ribs, and concussion she gave Ice Queen when she punched her. As a final fuck you, Ice Queen then stabbed Glory girl with the remaining 23 quills, three of which snapped on her shield, while the remaining 20 perforated her torso, and would have proven fatal if Panacea wasn't standing right there. At this point the Undersiders outright fled the scene.
"Looking at the x-rays taken when Ice Queen was brought into our facility, a consultant doctor said that Ice Queen probably suffered one, maybe two, collapsed lungs before Panacea stabilized her. Glory Girl herself needed 24 pints of blood infused, before Panacea was able to finish removing all of the quills. Even with that, she is going to be dangerously underweight for several weeks."
Susan moves onto the last of her reports, "Moving onto Ice Queen's psych profile. Bear in mind that this is an initial report, and I am not a trained psychologist. Ice Queen is a well adjusted young woman."
Armsmaster interrupts, "Well adjusted? After skewering Glory Girl like that?"
Susan nods, "I asked her for her witness statement before she found out about Glory Girls status. She believed that Glory Girl was backup for the Villians, just in case there was a cape in the crowd. She also didn't get involved until a gun was drawn, and acted to protect both Panacea and the other hostages. Finally, one of the witnesses reported having a pleasant conversation with her while waiting in line. Additionally, when she woke up in the infirmary she showed no signs of panic or distress beyond those that could be attributed to her injuries. She was polite and well mannered, and willing to talk once I informed her that her identity was kept under an alias. Her own witness statement matches up well with the other witnesses, showing that she wasn't trying to dissemble.
"During informal conversation during the drive to her chosen drop off location, Ice Queen also revealed that she recently started home-schooling after serious bullying at school. Additionally, a soft sell of the wards was not met with any form of disdain, and the first thing she asked for when she woke up was to speak to her father. So, yes, well adjusted."
Armsmaster nods, "My apologies."
"Continuing with my report then, despite how well adjusted she is, it is clear that she is still suffering from trigger trauma, along with lingering trauma from her encounter with Lung. I was able to indirectly confirm that she was the cape that faced Lung, though I didn't press for any details."
Armsmaster and Rennick nod, and Rennick lets out a sigh of relief, "Thank god for small mercies that she decided to stab Glory Girl then. If she hadn't we'd have a bank full of corpses."
Susan nods, "Finally, I get the feeling that her powers are more complicated than they look. It's just a gut feeling and it's not in my report, it's just the way she spoke about things."
Rennick nods, "Thank you for that, I'll pass your reports onto the analysts so that they can add it to her file. What are your recommendations if we meet her in the field?"
"Talk first. Despite how strong her powers are, she didn't start to act until a the situation escalated with guns. That's something we've had to teach most of the wards, and some of them are still too eager to get into a fight. Honestly, I'd be very surprised if we ever see her out in costume."
Rennick nods, "Armsmaster, any thoughts?"
Armsmaster looks down at his tablet for a couple of seconds before looking back up, "Were you able to recover any of the quills?"
Susan nods and looks through her notes, "Ice Queens backpack contained another 53 pristine quills, they have been passed onto the labs for analysis. While I'm looking at this section of notes, we were also able to get a positive blood sample for Regent, as he left most of the quill in the wall. Not that he'll be happy with snapping off the bit of quill he did, as the paramedics report that they're like porcupine quills, in that they have microscopic barbs that make pulling them out difficult, while pushing them through is easier."
═══════ ೋღ ღೋ ═══════
"Victoria Dallon, what on earth do you think you were doing yesterday?"
Vicky looks up from the box of a dozen donuts she's trying to cram down her throat before they leave for school, "I was…"
Carol Dallon, her mother carries on before she can get more than a few words out, "And Amy, why didn't you stop her?"
On the other side of the table, Amy looks up, "I didn't…" before trailing off as the doorbell rings. Both of them breath a sigh of relief as Carol stands up from the table before marching to the front door.
In the silence the TV switches over to a reporter near the bank, "This is Louie Holland reporting for NBC News. I have with me a survivor of the bank robbery yesterday. Mr Little, we've already heard about the robbery but what happened at the end there?"
"Well, Glory Girl burst through the ceiling and immediately charged one of the two people who actually stood up to the robbers…"