Saturday, January 29th, 2011
PRT Headquarters, Brockton Bay
Chris was distracted.
There wasn't anything of particular importance causing that distraction, but he was distracted none the less.
He had spent the better part of that morning, and in fact, most of the week preceding it, in his lab Tinkering. In light of the Empire's offensive and subsequent defeat, there had been calls for the Wards to be treated more carefully. Or, in Dennis' words, 'treated like mushrooms'.
Chris hadn't actually known what that meant until a few days ago - when he saw Miss Militia walking around out of the corner of his eye and spun around, expecting to find her gone like the hallucination she clearly was.
Only she wasn't. She was still just standing there, waiting for the elevator to arrive. Chris had cycled through a number of thoughts on the topic. Were they replacing her with someone else? Making use of her death to create a legacy Cape? Could the PRT be so ghoulish? Was it a stranger? Should he be radioing this in?
When the woman who looked exactly like Miss Militia, wearing Miss Militia's costume, waved at him - he decided he probably should.
That had been three days ago. It had resulted in a four hour lockdown, a two hour interview, and the postponing of all Chris' Tinkering for the day. He had never been updated on the results of the investigation, but a few days after that, it had been announced that Miss Militia had been found washed out to sea by the force of Purity's blast, and had managed to struggle her way back to shore after days of torturous dehydration.
He had asked everyone who would listen to him what exactly was going on - because he knew for a fact that Miss Militia was dead, and took tremendous offence to the entire farce - but had been told that the official story was the truth and, in the politest of terms, that he should shut up and mind his own business.
In other words, he was being kept in the dark and fed shit. Like a mushroom.
Naturally, Chris was not, in fact, an idiot. He had dyscalculia, which most certainly presented difficulties with regards to mathematical formula, but he by no means had any failings in terms of his ability to solve problems. Especially when the obvious solution was sitting right in front of him. He had managed to speak to her long enough in the last couple days to ascertain that Miss Militia was definitely who she said she was, a fact that was backed up by the PRT's extremely stringent protocols on the topic.
And he was painfully, disturbingly aware, of a conversation he'd had not more than a week ago with Nexus, over dinner.
Which, now that he thought about it, implied a much more close relationship than the tense, vaguely insulting, highly emotional event actually was.
"Chris?" Dean asked him suddenly, causing him to jolt slightly and turn away from what he was doing to stare at the entrance to his workshop, where the taller boy was standing.
"Hey. Sorry I was just-" He moved to explain, before Dean cut him off.
"Having a panic attack, yeah I know. Are you okay man?" Dean asked again with a worried look on his face. Of all the Wards, Dean seemed the least outwardly distressed by this turn of events. None of them were unhappy with Miss Militia's return. That would be foolish. No, what Chris, and the overwhelming majority of the other Wards were constantly concerned with, was the somewhat less than polite way they had last parted with Nexus.
Nexus, who could apparently raise the dead in a manner the PRT found acceptable. Nexus, who despite being fairly mild of temperament when Chris had last seen her, was probably one of the more dangerous Parahuman's he knew. Any time he thought of her, there was a knawing sense of dread associated with the act, a terrible sense of unwillingness and unease that Chris couldn't quite place otherwise.
"Yes." He lied, not wanting to get into the topic lest he become anxious again. Dean looked at him pointedly for a second, and then stepped fully into the workshop, firmly closing the door behind him and then taking a seat at the table next to Chris.
"Vicky says she's fine you know? Hasn't brought it up at all." Dean said carefully. Chris found this hard to believe for a number of reasons - not the least of which being the fact that Amy of all people had been the most critical of Nexus that night. The healer was always somewhat gruff and taciturn, but he had never seen her so openly vitriolic before. He couldn't imagine Nexus just letting that go when she so regularly hung out with the girl's sister.
His disbelief must have shown on his face because Dean cracked a wry smile before continuing.
"Vicky says that Nexus is sort of an airhead. Not stupid, just... like she doesn't care about a lot of stuff the rest of us do?" Dean explained easily, though his heart wasn't fully in it. Chris could understand why. Even if Nexus didn't take personal offence to anything he had said, all the Wards had been briefed on what Shadow Stalker had done to her. Less because it was important for them to know, and more because - at the time - the Director had no way of knowing if Nexus would take it out on them, and wanted everyone to be forwarned.
It had been one thing to know a mildly powerful Parahuman had a pretty good reason to hate them. It had been another entirely to owe that Parahuman your life. It was the constant elephant in the room wherever Nexus was concerned, made worse by the fact that she never seemed to deign to interact with any of them. Chris could dimly remember there were plans to apologize to her about it over that dinner, but even setting aside the events that followed, he sincerely doubted he would have been able to muster the energy to do so. He hadn't exactly been in the most friendly of moods at the time.
"Yeah, I guess... I mean, there are still search parties out looking for Dauntless right? So it can't be... that bad." Chris said, more to himself than for anyone else's benefit. They all knew - implicitly - that Dauntless wasn't stuck out on a piece of lumber somewhere in the ocean. Even if he was, there had been no obvious sign that anyone had actually physically gone looking for him. No, more than likely this was just the PRT's way of covering for his eventual... return.
"Yeah. Hey, maybe when we go patrolling with Miss Militia today she'll let us swing through Nexus' part of town?" Dean offered, causing Chris to both perk up and feel a churning sense of discomfort in his gut at the idea.
"Yeah. Yeah, okay. Let's do that. I can show her my new gear." Chris finally answered, mustering a weak smile for Dean's benefit.
He knew it wasn't fooling anyone. But still, he tried.
Saturday, January 29th, 2011
The Docks, Brockton Bay
The patrol was going fairly smoothly, all things considered. Joint Wards and Protectorate Patrols weren't really about stopping crime. They were about flying the flag. There was some crime, but it was all of the mundane variety, which meant that Miss Militia was more than capable of handling it.
The in house explanation for Miss Militia's new powers was that she Second Triggered. The fact that Second Triggers were supposed to be a secret that no one knew about told Chris one of two things. Either A, the PRT simply couldn't find a more believable answer than that, or B, they were covering an even more outrageous truth up.
His thoughts leaned towards the latter, not that he ever brought it up.
"It's weird seeing the Docks like this." Miss Militia noted from beneath him, where she was walking sedately along with Gallant while he continued to fiddle with his new equipment.
"It is a bit more active than normal." Gallant agreed easily, glancing up the street towards the disturbance that two of Miss Militia's new Projections had appeared to prevent two men from fleeing, seemingly without her input. It had been a day or two tops since she had been reintroduced, and PHO was already full of people who thought that this was her real power all along - since it matched so much better with her name than her previous one. The Militia were creepy in how omnipresent they were in the vicinity around Miss Militia. Chris had tried to get a feel for their effective range but as far as he could tell it didn't seem like it had one. If Miss Militia was aware of something, then so were her projections, and they acted accordingly. Rooftops filled with soldiers ready to lay down cover fire as they passed, allies were barricaded with phantom defensive emplacements as they drew to close to them, and crimes were stopped with a quick and machine like efficiency when phantom soldiers appeared behind criminals already choking them unconscious.
He'd be highly unnerved by it if he wasn't certain that Miss Militia would never abuse it.
"Not just that. The Docks are always like this - it's the civilians that are different. The number of police calls in this area was minuscule compared to the amount of crime happening here. No one wanted to cross Lung by going against him, so they just let things happen." Miss Militia pointed out.
"Without a major gang presence here, that won't work anymore. It's kind of like that all over right now. The gangs are desperate." She continued, eyes narrowing at the thought. Seemingly without thought, her hand fell to rest on the gun at her waist twitching slightly when it failed to come immediately free of its holster.
Gallant probably answer her with something appropriately concerned and sympathetic sounding, but Chris wasn't really paying that much attention to the commentary, distracted as he was by his Tinkering. Nexus' walk on air trick had inspired him a bit, so he had built something that could allow him to do the same. He wasn't really planning on using it extensively - he had a hoverboard for a reason - but the ability to quickly create a platform of hardened air he could land on in the event that he fell seemed like something prudent that he should have thought of ages ago.
He could have also just bought a parachute but well. He was a tinker.
He was so distracted by his fiddling with the programming code in his boots that he almost didn't notice the slight popping noise that accompanied his sudden displacement to... somewhere else.
"Kid Win to Gallant, I've been targeted by an unknown Mover power." He rattled off, even as he snapped to attention and started trying to get his bearings. He was inside a building - that much was obvious. Less obvious was why he was in the building. There didn't appear to be anything inside except a bunch of old lift equipment from the dockyards. Wherever he was, his Hoverboard hadn't come with him, as he was now standing in the middle of the warehouse without it. After waiting for a few seconds for a response that didn't come, he began to gingerly pick his way across the warehouse.
That caution was probably the only thing that saved his life, as a large dusty covered forklift went from being completely motionless to flying straight at him with a speed that caused it to temporarily drag across the ground, it's metal frame and complete lack of wheels causing it to screech loudly as it did so.
Now, many people might assume that he would report being attacked. And he did. Just not verbally. Because counter to what many might assume about the sort of posturing Parahuman's could get up to, most of the time, they didn't actually spend a lot of time talking mid fight. Some Brutes - like Lung - could, because they didn't really need to worry about running out of breath and getting caught - but Kid Win did. Which was why, while he was diving forward to get out of the way of the massive machine about to crush him, he slapped at his wrist, triggering a distress signal that should - hopefully - reach the PRT headquarters and allow them to locate him.
Quickly rising from his roll, Kid Win just barely had time to juke to the side and out of the way of a rubber tire as it careened past him. Which is when he got his first look at whoever was attacking him. He was wearing bulky grey kevlar with red armoured plates at choice locations across his body, and was practically festooned with pouches. Easily looming over Kid, he had the type of physique most would associate with a linebacker.
And Kid Win had no idea who he was. But judging by the sounds of gunfire and yelling coming from outside, he wasn't alone.
'High-level Brute if he can throw a machine that hard.' He thought, drawing his spark pistols and eyeing the man while setting them to a higher - more potentially lethal - setting. Carefully, hopefully without giving away his intentions, Kid Win tried to locate the door, determined to reconvene with Miss Militia and Gallant.
It probably didn't say anything good about Brockton Bay that this situation was somehow familiar enough to him to push all his other worries to the side.
Spotting the door out of the building behind the unknown Cape attacking him, Kid did the only thing he could - he started fighting.