55 – S Class Task Force

[Interlude - Worm]

Lily looked around the supply distribution area from her position at the outskirts of the perimeter, before beginning her patrol run to stop anyone from stealing supplies after the recipients left the immediate area.

The lines were long as usual. A "battlegroup" of Hydra's drones created a no-fly zone and guard perimeter over and around the station that was currently serving as the supply distribution center for this section of the city. Several portals sat under heavy guard in the center, bringing in additional supplies periodically, with PRT vehicles and humanitarian workers managing the distribution.

CRUCIBLE were ostensibly only here in Boston to provide logistics support, but to Lily's eyes, it looked more like an occupation of the area, sans human soldiers, given the way they massively outnumbered and outgunned the PRT's own personnel.

But nobody complained about it, least of all Lily. The security presence provided by CRUCIBLE had proven a strong deterrent against opportunistic villains, and they retreated orderly out of the city after each deployment, going through their portals to wherever they normally stayed.

For Lily, it was a welcome reprieve compared to the night time patrols, where the frequency and severity of crimes was nothing like she'd ever encountered in New York.

With the cape name Flechette, she was one of the more experienced Wards transferred into Boston to shore up the roster, but there was still a manpower shortage.

Boston was a large city, and most of the civilians had been evacuated out of the city during the Simurgh battle so they were able to return alive.

The problem was that there'd been too much property damage and stopped economic activity, leaving people out of work or out of homes in disproportionate numbers. Most of the university buildings owned by Harvard, MIT, and Boston U were also completely ruined, as if the Simurgh deliberately wanted to wreck these institutions of higher learning.

Flechette had been in the actual Endbringer fight itself too, and when the Simurgh had gone through the portal, she'd almost had the hope that it would be a good day, much like most of the other capes present. Weld, the Case 53 Ward whose body was all metal, had been quite optimistic as well, coming out of a victory against Echidna.

But then when the Simurgh returned, it had all gone up in smoke. Literally. The Endbringer had not only brought back Echidna and the clones that CRUCIBLE had been transporting, she had also brought with her an entire CRUCIBLE armory stocked with bombs and various other dangerous Tinkertech.

In a matter of minutes, the Simurgh had swept through the city raining hell everywhere while Echidna rampaged again and her clones started using the Tinkertech to fight.

Thankfully Scion had already been nearby and it wasn't long before the Simurgh was chased off and Echidna was dealt with, but even in that short period, the entire landscape of the city had changed and far too many capes had died.

The exotic effects of Bakuda bombs now littered the city, with capes caught in the blasts becoming permanent monuments to the devastating battle if they weren't completely disintegrated. The airport and harbor were both damaged enough to be out of commission so getting anything, people or goods, shipped in was difficult. An enormous crater had replaced the southern Harvard campus thanks to a nuclear bomb that had been detonated there.

A lot of people were afraid to return even after the PRT used Tinkertech to clean up the radiation, but they had little choice. Boston was a major city, giving it up to quarantine was an option that nobody wanted to take.

Many people outside of Brockton Bay had blamed CRUCIBLE in the immediate aftermath when the details of the bombs had gotten out, but when the CRUCIBLE leadership did not re-appear for weeks and their unpowered forces still in Brockton Bay admitted that they had lost contact as well, the public largely became mournful that it was yet another case of a rising positive force for society getting destroyed by an Endbringer. Their stuff had done a lot of damage, but how was anyone supposed to secure it against the Simurgh?

For Lily, it was also deeply disappointing that she might never get the chance to meet Araliac and Skitter. She had seen their videos and they were seemingly girls close to her own age. Powerful, confident, heroic in a way that went beyond the typical, even among Wards. They'd struck out on their own and made it look easy.

Fortunately, CRUCIBLE survived against all odds. And with their assistance in Boston, it seemed like the perfect chance to seek them out.

Except neither of the two teenage leaders appeared in Boston, and despite their obvious capacity to bring order to the city. And Hydra was rather difficult to approach, because he was either here with a large group of combat drones or otherwise just left a communications drone for transport requests.

The hero team had provided no other assistance with the actual patrolling of the city, with Hydra leaving immediately after the supply handouts were finished.

It was especially frustrating because the criminals had seemingly realized the same thing—that CRUCIBLE forces would leave immediately after the handouts, and then they could attack people for supplies with only token, undermanned Wards and Protectorate patrols to stop them.

That left Flechette with quite a lot of work on patrols that were a lot more violent and exhausting than she was used to back in New York.

When she'd asked Armsmaster about it, he'd informed her that CRUCIBLE had not been authorized to do more because the PRT did not want them to expand their presence outside of Brockton Bay. She hadn't felt comfortable enough around the man to try and get more details.

She'd already started to have second thoughts about accepting this transfer. The mood in the city was depressing and it didn't help that the Wards team had a weird dynamic. Weld, the Case 53 metal man, had been made the leader after surviving the battle. Lily knew him before from their inter-city training exercises, anditwould have been nice to have a familiar face in her new team, but after Weld's father figure Bastion and most of his old teammates died, he'd been stuck in a funk. All work and no chill, while the few other transfers didn't seem to know how to adjust to the magnitude of things here either.

Then there was the other half of the team which consisted of Brockton Bay Wards that did patrols with them but got to go back home to go to school and their much nicer facilities in the Bay HQ. Which became a source of jealousy for the other transfers like herself that had to live in Boston.

In short, nobody really got along. There was barely any conversation, and she had no friends to do anything with. Lily didn't like it at all.

The opportunity of being admitted to Harvard and MIT, the top schools in the country, after reconstruction was finished, now seemed more like a bad lure than an actual reward. They definitely had the funding and the motivation from their alumni donors to rebuild…but what would the early years be like, inside a city that felt so lifeless and broken?

As the supply distribution wrapped up, Lily heard Vista's voice on the console.

"Flechette, can you come back to base now? Weld just told me your schedule is being cut short today and re-assigned," said Vista.

"Roger that. Heading back now."

So she quickly made her way back to the new temporary PRT HQ building, using her Tinkertech arbalest to fire her chained bolts that stuck into the walls of buildings. With her power to make inorganic material she touched ignore selective laws of physics, then bond into the material it landed in, plus her enhanced sense of timing, it was easy to get just the right purchase for a swing.

It was the only part of her new assignment that was fun—there were a lot of wrecked buildings around and nobody would complain about the property damage when most of these would have to be demolished anyway. So instead of merely going from rooftop to rooftop running on her chains, she could actually find taller buildings to anchor herself for a big swing through the air, it almost felt like flying.

When she got back she found Weld in the lounge waiting for her.

"Lily, the Director wants to see you in his office. Get cleaned up if you need to first. I'll fill in for you from here," said Weld.

"Okay. Do you know what it's about?" Lily asked.

"I've been told that you've received an offer. For what, I don't know. Classified, apparently," said Weld.

Lily made her way to the Director's office and entered as the door was open.

"You wanted to see me, Director?" Lily asked. The Director was rapidly typing away on his computer and glanced up at her.

"Yes, Lily. You've done a lot of good work since you've arrived, and your track record even before this was great. I probably don't need to tell you this, but there have been a lot of eyes on your career, especially with how your power can harm Endbringers and your fine control of it," said Armstrong.

Lily nodded. She'd known that, had even been given a similar speech from her old boss before the transfer, painting it as an opportunity to get more experience in a city under crisis. They thought she could become a top player in the Protectorate in a few years.

"Which is partially why you're receiving a new offer, a potential re-assignment that could catapult your career forward, with corresponding risks. Before I tell you what it is, I must be clear—this is classified. You cannot speak about it with anyone else, even your teammates, unless they are directly involved, or until we give you the clear."

"I understand," said Lily. She wasn't sure what to feel about it yet, so she just gave a curt response and let the Director continue. A new offer sounded like it could be good for her, but it was strange to get a reassignment so soon after the transfer.

"Alright. I'll cut to the chase. CRUCIBLE is assembling a new S-Class Task Force. The primary objective of the group is to devise strategies to fight Endbringers, in collaboration with the PRT and the Guild. You have been nominated to be the PRT's main representative in this task force, working as a permanent exchange officer under the CRUCIBLE command. That means you would move into their facilities, train with their team, and liaise with other PRT personnel as necessary to coordinate defenses for upcoming Endbringer battles. Anything that helps to reduce damage from Endbringers would be a win—but we're not expecting anything specific on that end. Your main purpose would be to help maintain good relations between our two organizations and observe CRUCIBLE operations to promote mutual learning and understanding."

"…Wow. That sounds incredible," said Lily with an excited smile. She had wanted to meet the CRUCIBLE team and now this opportunity just fell into her lap. But then she felt a bit strange.

"But why did you nominate me, sir?" said Lily. "I mean I knew there was interest in my powers for being able to hurt Endbringers, but it never actually made that much difference in the fights so far. I thought something like this would only happen after I became a Protectorate member, at least. Especially if I'm supposed to be the main representative for the PRT in what sounds kind of like a diplomatic role?"

"Normally you'd be right, this is too dangerous for a Ward and it's more suitable for a ranking member of the Protectorate. But there's special circumstances. For one, you're already emancipated, so you can be treated as an adult for a decision like this. Two, all our ranking Protectorate members are already busy with other work and can't make such a large time commitment for this kind of long-shot initiative. The last and most important reason though, is that CRUCIBLE requested you by name. It's not me that nominated you."

"CRUCIBLE did? Why would they pick me? I haven't even met any of their team," said Lily, with both excitement and confusion. Had they seen her performance during the first part of the battle against the Simurgh? But she hadn't thought anything she did was noteworthy.

"Polychromic believes that your power could be instrumental in fighting the Endbringers. He didn't provide any specifics, but you're probably aware of his reputation as a possible Thinker/Trump by now? For the PRT, this is also a chance to see what he can do with a cape whose abilities were already well documented."

"Wow," Lily said again. "So If the rumors about him boosting his team's powers are true, then I might be able to do a lot more damage to the Endbringers." Then she could develop her powers to become as powerful as the other members of CRUCIBLE, maybe even as powerful as the Triumvirate. Though she kept this last thought to herself.

"Don't get too excited. We think he's more likely to be a very powerful Thinker rather than a direct power-boosting Trump, and we've never succeeded in doing any significant damage to the Endbringers since they appeared. It'll be a long shot no matter what. Anyways, you can take some time to think it over if you need to," said Armstrong. "There's no hard deadline for a decision because it's a standing offer from CRUCIBLE, but they've told us that they would strongly prefer if you could start training with them as soon as possible, as they think the next Endbringer attack could happen in less than a month."

"Less than a month? But isn't that too early based on their schedule?"

"The last one seemed to have been delayed, so it wouldn't surprise me if the next one came early," said Armstrong.

"I'll do it, then," said Lily. "I'll join."

"Are you sure? Don't you want to think about it first?"

"I'm sure. If they think I can be of help, then I want to do my best," said Lily. She did not mention that it would almost certainly be preferable to the lifeless work she was doing now, nor how she wanted to meet the CRUCIBLE team anyways.

"Alright then. In that case, I have some files on CRUCIBLE for your review, to help you prepare. These are also classified, mind you—so don't share it with anyone. When you're ready to go, head to the portal station and tell Hydra's communications bot."

O O O

ALLIES; CRUCIBLE

A parahuman organization of heroes which first appeared in April 2011 in Brockton Bay, dramatically sparking off and concluding a gang war resulting in the CRUCIBLE's de facto control of the whole city with no substantial criminal opposition after one month.

While officially designated an allied group with no open hostility with the PRT, the group has engaged in tactics that have been deemed inappropriate for a hero group, including the hoarding and manufacture of weapons of mass destruction, refusal to hand over captured villains, subsuming a villain organization (Coil's Mercenaries), among other breaches of regulation and protocol.

During the Simurgh Battle of Boston, it was revealed that CRUCIBLE had access to extradimensional and extraplanetary territory and resources. Reports from Eidolon and Legend indicate that the group possesses at least one drone-operated alternate dimension Earth base with fully self-sufficient resource extraction, processing, manufacturing, logistics and support facilities. The industrial and military capability of this single base was estimated to be comparable to a modern city-state, but with exponentially greater growth potential, autonomous operations run by potentially self-replicating drones, suspected artificial intelligence, and advanced spacefaring vehicles. A lunar structure was also telescopically visible from Earth surface with unknown capabilities.

The group survived the targeted attack by the Simurgh and later reached an agreement with the PRT to adjust their operating procedures for more close cooperation with the PRT.

Due to their extraordinary power, contributions against the Endbringer and towards relief efforts, and impact on reducing crime, the group has tentatively been accepted as a valuable ally despite the previous friction and ongoing suspected indiscretions.

Warning: In the event of relations deteriorating to open conflict between CRUCIBLE and the PRT, the threat level would be at minimum S-Class, with several members potentially warranting S-Class threat ratings on their own. Additionally, due to the impossibility of identifying the full extent of their territory, or accessing it, the group possesses an asymmetric strategic nuclear first strike capability through use of portal technology. Such a conflict may not be winnable and all alternatives must be considered before any initiation or escalation of hostilities.

Known members: Polychromic, Araliac (Panacea), Skitter, Hydra, Ostinato.

POLYCHROMIC; real name unknown

Classification: Thinker 10+ (sub: Trump 4+, Master 3, Stranger 2)

Founding leader of CRUCIBLE, highly charismatic, assumed male in early to mid twenties. Believed to possess extremely advanced precognitive, postcognitive, analytical, social, and esoteric Thinker powers, including interference against other Thinker powers. He planned and executed strategies leading to the efficient defeat of multiple high threat villains and their organizations, in addition to alerting the Brockton Bay PRT branch of numerous previously unknown infiltrators. He is also credited as the brain behind a plan that allowed CRUCIBLE to survive against a targeted attack by the Simurgh. His social and empathic ability may be powerful enough to exhibit a Master-like effect or counteract other mind influencing powers, which led to the former Panacea's abandonment of her family within days of their first meeting. His analytical powers may extend to powers and power interactions, resulting in enhanced development of allies' powers and power combinations. Also professed to possess other "minor" powers which have not been revealed.

ARALIAC/PANACEA; Amy Dallon/Amelia Lavere

Classification: Striker 9+ (sub: Tinker 4+, Trump 4, Master 4+, Thinker 2, Brute 2, Mover 2)

A teenage girl, the daughter of the villain Marquis before his defeat and her adoption by the Dallon family. After operating for several years under the name Panacea and volunteering her healing services to thousands of patients while in the family team New Wave, she suddenly attacked and subdued her family after meeting Polychromic before going on to become one of the three founding members of CRUCIBLE. Can heal any conventional disease or injury, has complete control and understanding of biology with a touch, including the creation of large numbers of artificial lifeforms with abnormal biology. Has created human-sized insectoids controllable by Skitter and suspected to have created special bugs serving as relays to enhance Skitter's range. Can also create biological power suits, flying pets, and fast acting airborne chemical/pathogenic agents. Biokinesis is suspected to include brain modification, and may retain control over creatures created.

SKITTER; Taylor Hebert

Classification: Master 10+ (sub: Thinker 4, Brute 3, Striker 3, Blaster 3, Mover 2, Stranger 1)

A teenage girl, one of three founding members of CRUCIBLE, originally believed to have arthropodokinesis within a range of several city blocks, she later gained access to relay bugs to expand her range and artificial human-sized insectoid creatures produced by Araliac. Her current range can cover the entirety of Brockton Bay, with no known limit on further expansion, and can be additionally projected remotely through portal technology. The artificial insectoids are strong enough to be considered Brutes, possess a variety of dangerous biological attack mechanisms, and can carry other people as flying transport. The quantity of bugs controlled has no known limit—all arthropods and insectoids within her range should be assumed to be under control to a high, possibly individual, level of precision. She can also gather information, communicate, and form human-like shapes as avatars through her swarm. Due to a bullying incident prior to her debut as a hero involving a probationary Ward who has since been discharged, she may have strong negative feelings towards the PRT.

HYDRA; real name unknown

Classification: Tinker 12+ (sub: Master/Thinker 10, Blaster 10, Mover 10, Brute 4, Striker 4, Changer 2)

A mysterious Tinker, assumed male of unknown age, who first appeared during the Simurgh Battle of Boston, controlling large groups of advanced Tinkertech drones and making use of dimensional portal technology. Has never been seen in person. This member is presumed responsible for building the CRUCIBLE fully automated drone-operated alternate dimension Earth colony/base and lunar facilities, including suspected self-replicating strong artificial intelligence that allowed simultaneous deployment of large numbers of highly coordinated unmanned drones and robots with specialized purposes. Has demonstrated capability to mass manufacture both conventional technology and Tinkertech, including nuclear and comparable weapons of mass destruction.

Ostinato; real name unknown

Classification: Master 8

Revealed as a CRUCIBLE member and a talented pop singer during the celebratory convert when the group returned to Brockton Bay following the Simurgh Battle of Boston. Those who hear her song fall under her thrall and the effects may override other mental influences. It is believed that her singing voice during the first Echidna battle, projected through electronic speakers, subdued and calmed most combatants on the battlefield, including Echidna clones and berserk capes affected by the Morrigan's Scream. Ostinato is suspected to be Paige Mcabee, formerly known as Canary, the rogue singer that was sent to the Birdcage for sexual assault with a parahuman power. Canary disappeared from the Birdcage after seizing control of Teacher's thralls and killing the other Master, coinciding with an assault from unknown forces that overcame all Birdcage defenses and monitoring systems, possibly with the aid of CRUCIBLE portal technology and Hydra's advanced Tinkertech.

O O O

Lily had to stop and reread several times as she went through the files, out of shock at what was in there.

The way these reports read, it sounded like the PRT was afraid that the slightest provocation could lead to an apocalyptic conflict with CRUCIBLE.

It was a bit frightening now that she had read the extent of what had been kept secret from the public.

What were the PRT thinking, sending her into this alone, just handing over these files and not explaining how she was supposed to deal with any of it? It was too far above her paygrade, especially if her role was supposed to be more about maintaining good relations than actually fighting the Endbringers.

The ratings on every member were off the charts. She had expected it somewhat, but to see it on paper as the PRT's actual assessment, and the little details that really put things into context…Polychromic talked Panacea into attacking her own family? The rebranded Araliac was the daughter of a Birdcaged villain, suspected to be able to modify brains? Skitter could control every bug in her range, like literally millions of them, individually, and she had a grudge against the Wards for bullying?

That was already enough for Lily to start freaking out a little—what if Skitter held the grudge against her for being a Ward too? But then add in the nukes, and that they might have broken out a human Master from the Birdcage…

But they were still heroes, right? Maybe she was just overthinking it. Or maybe some of the information was wrong? A lot of it seemed like information the PRT only suspected, rather than confirmed.

She wasn't going to back out of it, so she would just have to brace herself. Everything would be fine, she told herself, as she headed towards the portal station.

O O O

[Kaleidus]

I smiled to myself as another plan came together.

In between climbing the Tower there were a lot of breaks, and because of the strange time differential plus the effect of time not moving much while I was waiting for creation dust excess to recover, I was able to make several trips back to Worm to handle several issues of interest to me.

The agreement that the rest of the team had negotiated in my absence to limit CRUCIBLE activities in the US worked fine with me, since I didn't really care about taking any more territory on Earth Bet when we already had exclusive access to other dimensions rich with unclaimed resources.

There were capes that could come in useful if we recruited or captured more villains, but that was also low priority since powers couldn't be taken to other planes.

What did interest me though, was acquiring more Endbringer flesh. I had no interest in fighting the Endbringers aggressively or hunting them, considering that they might retaliate if I did so, and there wasn't a 100% guarantee that the Simurgh couldn't get to the secret worlds we had if she was serious. There was also the matter of new Endbringers possibly getting dimensional crossing powers if our dimensional tech proved to be too problematic for the existing Endbringers.

I knew that some of the later Endbringers which appeared probably had to do with how humanity found new ways to fight them, especially Scion who killed Behemoth. Later Endbringers gained teleportation to avoid Scion, and what was to say that they couldn't gain powers to overcome the dimensional barrier or Teacher's device as well?

No, I couldn't solve the Endbringer problem—if anything, I was still sticking to my original idea that in order to make sure I wasn't a target, whatever I did had to result in more chaos for the world, not less.

It was unfortunate that the Simurgh attacked us anyways, but considering that she left Brockton Bay alone and seemed to wait until I left…and didn't attack again as soon as we came back…there was a possibility there that she was just letting me off with a warning of sorts.

To analyze this, I reviewed with Offensive Bias the state of the world and tried to get a large-scale sense of the "chaos" or "damage to civilization" that our organization was contributing to or mitigating.

And surely enough, the Boston battle had much worse effects on the US than the canonical Leviathan battle. Even our control of Brockton Bay was arguably a net negative for the rest of the country. We'd gotten rid of crime in our backyard, but gang fights had gotten more violent everywhere else. Independent heroes became more aggressive, villains more ambitious—everyone wanted to be like us and seize control of a city or wipe out their opposition.

Even in Brockton Bay, although we'd gotten rid of crime, economically things weren't getting any better. Medhall collapsed after Kaiser went missing, and there were numerous other problems that resulted from us abducting all the other villains. A great number of people had actually decided to leave the city because our mass surveillance and Skitter's bugs especially unnerved people, so Skitter toned it down and stopped controlling all of the bugs inside people's homes and offices, but since it was now known that she could, it hadn't really made people any more comfortable.

When put into that context, it seemed clear that the fight against Behemoth might be my last chance to get "easy" access to Endbringer flesh, before the teleporting ones, or even ones adjusted to our dimensional strategies appeared.

I'd tried to find the homeless guy that could talk to Scion but hadn't had any luck with it so far since I couldn't remember any distinguishing features about him. So if Scion killed Behemoth then things were going to get a lot more difficult. Plus, I'd sent that message to Contessa about Eidolon's power, which was a double-edged sword. At the time, I hadn't known that I would want a lot of Endbringer flesh, but now both Eidolon and the Endbringers might be powered up.

All in all, I decided to treat the Behemoth battle as the last opportunity to get a large amount of Endbringer flesh for Derflinger.

Hopefully, it would actually be Behemoth and not something different again.

Now I just needed to wait in Worm for a while until the attack. Of course, I wouldn't go out into the frontlines to fight these monsters—not that I had anything that could fight them, which is why I needed a new pawn in the form of Flechette, whose power could charge inorganic objects with a Breaker effect that was absolute, designed for Entities to fight each other with, capable of going through Endbringer flesh or even kill them if it hit the core.

On her own, she couldn't do very much, but with the right support, she was perfect for harvesting flesh without destroying it.

O O O