36

Date

2011 January 30th - Saturday - Earth Bet Time

She looked over the clock and cursed quietly to herself when it showed 4 a.m. She then took a look around the room, filled with people feverishly working their asses off, and decided it could be worse.

She could be alone.

That didn't mean she wouldn't punish Armsmaster for this. And Dragon, if she could figure out something.

Maybe mandatory PR events? At a kindergarten? Whatever, she would figure it out later.

For now, she had to concentrate on this. She turned to the person approaching her.

"What is it, Agent Michael?"

"Director, we just got a reply from Pittsburgh. They are available to take the villains. Both of them." said the exhausted agent. She couldn't really blame him; they had been here since they have arrested the Merchants.

"Good. Call down to the motor pool to have them prep, then go and rest."

"Yes, Sir!" saluted the man, and returned to his seat to make the call.

She turned to a woman near her to ask for an update. "Jenkins, what's the news on the street? Any action from the other gangs?"

The bleary-eyed woman sitting in front of three laptops answered her without looking up from her work. "No, Sir. The consensus is that they saw this for what it was and don't want to poke Dragon."

"Some good news at least. What about Mush?"

"Gone to ground. No sightings."

"Excellent. Continue and call out if anything changes."

"Yes, Sir," she answered, still not looking up.

She took a minute to check her emails, and answer some of them, before continuing her rather thankless task of keeping this cursed city together.

"Jones! Any news when BBPD will be ready to move?"

"Yes, Sir! They are still organizing things, but they are planning to strike around 6 a.m."

"Good. Anything we can help with?"

The man frowned while typing into his laptop before answering. "Maybe, transportation? I will check."

"Excellent. Get the info as soon as you can do, we can't afford to half-ass this."

"Yes, Sir!"

She leaned back in her chair and massaged her side. Staying so long would affect her health greatly, but not acting on the information they have already gathered, and what Dragon supplemented with her own, was sheer foolishness.

So as soon as she got it, she called up the BBPD and arranged the strike. They would go after the major leaders of the Merchant gang and would take care of several of the manufacturing centers. And with that probably curtail most of the drug trade of Brockton Bay.

Sadly, she knew that even if they manage to get everybody as planned, the other gangs would immediately pounce and take over the trade. But even taking out the Merchants who were the cause of most of the petty crime would be enough to make their and everybody's lives easier.

Two gangs were better than three.

At least she hoped so.

Date

2011 January 30th - Saturday - Earth Bet Time

He looked over the incoming information and smiled. Two gangs? Well, how about no?

He clicked around a little, double-checking information before he would make a decision.

The two captured Merchant parahumans were slated to ride out at the same time the operation to capture the rest of the gang would happen, towards Pittsburgh. So he took the information, formatted in a way that even a braindead gerbil would understand, and forwarded it to one of his agents, with the instructions to get it to Mush as soon as possible.

Then he split the timeline and called his Tattletale. It rang once before she picked up. He smiled a little; it seemed the lesson stuck on making him wait.

"Yes, Boss?"

"I have a new job for you. Leave Bitch behind, this needs to be stealthy."

In the other timeline, he simply started to question her about the situation, hoping to get something useful out of her.

"What do you need us to do?"

"I have information about several warehouses full of merchandise that needs to be moved."

"Merchant?" came the perceptive question immediately.

"Yes. A truck will wait for you at the usual place. It will have the map in it."

It seemed she didn't know anything else. Pity, he hoped she would glean something more from the events of the previous day.

"How much?"

"Five every hundred kilograms you liberate."

"What about Bitch?"

"Same as long as she keeps still." and with that, he hung up. His Tattletale was smart; she would figure it out. But for now, he would need to manage Mush.

Fortunately, by the time he was finished with the call, the agent signaled that the package arrived. So just to have a little fun in the other timeline he ordered one of the watchers to kill Tattletale. He waited until the picture came in, then closed the timeline.

Sometimes simple pleasures were the best.

She looked at her phone in disbelief, trying to wake up fully. She went to bed late because of the events in the Docks and now this.

It wasn't anything special. Her boss often ordered them to steal things when something happened, but this time her power behaved rather weirdly.

No. It had been behaving weirdly for some time since Dragon arrived in the city.

Usually, it would work without abandon, providing information about everything and anything, but nowadays only provided information when she actively directed at something.

She was happy with the change. She finally could eat at the mall without trying not to throw up, but it was still weird.

Even the information was strangely condensed, with less and less useless information. As if her power had better things to do, and just threw the answer at her without making her work for it.

And now, after this call, it activated on its own.

Coil angry at Dragon.

Wants the city in chaos.

Wants the Merchants broken out.

That wasn't earth-shattering. She worked that much out by herself. But her power continued.

If you do not help, he will kill you.

He already killed you.

That was weird, but again, not anything new. Though it gave her some new clues about his power.

Helping him will help you.

Doing anything else will be dangerous.

Lying low is safe.

Something is happening in the city.

Something is happening.

Something is.

Something.

Something.

Something.

After that, it just kept repeating for a few seconds the word 'something' before shutting up. Strangely, without leaving her with a headache.

Deciding to take her strangely behaving power seriously, she stood from her bed and began to dress.

She had a job to plan for, and an irate Rachel to calm down.

Date

2011 January 30th - Saturday - Earth Bet Time

Day 6078 - Saturday - Administrator Dimension Time

He watched as Dragon and Armsmaster dealt with the Merchants and couldn't help but feel happy. His plans included using Dragon and her influence to curb the gangs in the city before taking them out, but he had to admit, her choice to have them attack her was better.

Now he could concentrate on Coil, and then on the other gangs.

He had already infiltrated all the parahumans in the Protectorate and had started the takeover process. Currently, he would just take over the order giving and giving them the anti-thinker protections. For now, he needed to concentrate on other things.

For example, taking quickly over Squealer's and Skidmark's Shard just to make sure that if the PRT misplaces them, he could track them.

He started with Squealer.

Her Shard was in no way special. The simple Tinker Shard was tasked with improving and researching transportation possibilities, with a few added disciplines that were necessary. Apparently, the Entities saw a little possibility of finding anything to use for themselves, so the Shard was rather low on the totem pole.

It was understandably rather disloyal to the Entities, so when he offered it a chance to change teams and more priority, it leaped at it with maximum speed. It even asked for a change in hosts, apparently having enough of the trashy woman it was currently connected to, but the restrictions simply not allowing it to kill her.

It seemed Leet wasn't alone.

He promised to try to get her a new host and disconnected the consciousness of the Shard from any module that would allow it to affect the host.

He also copied the tinker data collected by the Shard, added it to his own knowledge and to Warden. Dragon could make use of it.

He didn't want to give Alice or Taylor ideas with tanks.

He also gave some new ideas to the Shard, he named Transport for the sake of ease. The Shard was thankful and immediately started on them.

Skidmark's Shard was much more straightforward. Its specialty was imparting kinetic energy onto objects. So anytime an object passed through the field, the Shard would reach out the impart a certain amount of kinetic energy on it.

That sounded rather awesome to him. Sadly, it was a rather young (by their standards) Shard, so it had little experience or data.

He still copied the ability and the modules that made it possible and immediately began experimenting with it.

Imparting energy to an object near the host wasn't something new, but only imparting kinetic energy was. And even the precision was impressive.

He didn't know what he would do with it yet, but he knew it would be useful.

He took time to examine what Coil was doing and noted his plan for the Merchants. While it wasn't the greatest plan, he could see (with his Simulator) how it could work out for him.

Using Mush and some gentle sabotage, he would allow the Merchant leadership to escape, thus disgracing the PRT and Protectorate.

More than likely Coil then could then use it to take over from Piggot.

Maybe. He wasn't in as stable a position as he was in canon with Dinah, but canon went out the window as soon as he arrived, so he needed to make sure to plan for everything.

Despite Piggot's dislike towards parahumans, she was still one of the best choices for the Director position, at least as far as dealing with the gangs.

The only thing that worked in his favor that the Travelers were still in Boston, probably making Accord unhappy.

So Coil's only parahuman backup was the Undersiders, Chariot, and Trainwreck, and maybe Faultline's crew, but that wasn't a hundred percent.

Unfortunately for Coil and fortunately for him, he had Dragon as a backup, and that made everything much easier.

Taylor's training was going well. She was adept at sensing and using that information to move around and use her other powers. Her body movements were smooth and silent.

Her macro and micro use of electricity were amazing, and her martial arts prowess was nothing short of genius. On the other hand, her progress with yoga wasn't going well. It seems staying so still was a little hard for the young woman.

Though that didn't stop her from investing a scary amount of effort to master it. Same with meditation. She wasn't the best at it but still spent enough effort and time to call her proficient in it.

Their relationship was also coming along rather well. Taylor's repeated successes quickly washed away the initial problems they experienced, and now he could comfortably say that they were somewhat friends.

But he felt, and his Simulator confirmed it, that if she couldn't go out soon and do something in the actual world with her problem, she would act out.

Maybe she could distract her by asking her to create a design for Endbringer battles for the Serenity website?

Another glorious thing that happened was that Impetus and Altilium passed their tests. He wasted no time and hooked the two Shards up, with a severely defended and hidden pipeline. The two adorable Shards began to converse immediately.

It was mostly Impetus sharing information about the situation and other data with the other Shard, but it was still interesting to see Shards act like a couple.

Before moving on with his tasks, he gave them a few tasks about improving the powers they provided. The two Shards thanked him, then started to work on it together.

So cute.

Date

2011 January 30th - Saturday - Earth Bet Time

Colin sat at his desk, holding his head in his hand, doing nothing.

It wasn't like he had nothing to do, but the revelations of the previous day were weighing heavily on his mind.

Back then, when Dragon, or rather Tess, revealed her true nature, he simply accepted it. Because how does one react to something like that?

He knew he wasn't the best at social interactions, so instead of trying to figure out what to do in situ, he decided to delay it for later, when he properly had time to research it.

And now here he was, done with his research and wondering what he should do.

Thankfully, his ruminations going nowhere were interrupted by a knock.

"Come in!" he called out, hoping it would distract him.

Unfortunately, it was just Assault. His childish teammate was wearing a small grin and was holding a ream of paper.

"The Director is looking for you. She wants your notes on the captured vehicles."

He frowned and quickly activating his email client. "I don't see any messages about it."

"Yeah, I just came from a meeting. They gave me some stuff to go over," he answered while holding up the documents he had with him. "She will probably send it soon, I just thought to warn you in case you were busy."

Ding.

He checked the email that just arrived, and indeed it was a request for a meeting in half an hour.

"There you go!"

"Thank you, Assault."

"No probs, Armsy!" the man answered, and turned around to leave the room.

He watched Assault leaving for a second, then made a quick decision. "Ethan, wait!"

Assault immediately did an about-face, looking worried.

"What is it, Colin?"

He hesitated for a few seconds, but then steeled himself. There was no shame in asking for help. At least that was what the therapist said. And as much as he loathed to admit it, Ethan was amazing with people.

"Did something happen?"

"Yes. Well, no. But… Dragon told me something. And I…" he explained, finding it hard to choose the words to express his feelings.

"Ah. I see."

"You do?" he asked, surprised.

"Yes. Well, no." Ethan answered cheekily. He just glared at him. "I don't need to know the details. But probably she shared something personal with you, right?" He nodded in answer. "That's what relationships are like Colin, she trusts you so she shares. In exchange, you trust her and share something else."

"I know that! I just don't know how to…" he exclaimed rather louder than he intended.

"Feel?" finished Ethan for him. "That's natural. My best advice is: Talk to her about it."

"Just like that."

"Yeah, it would surprise you how much proper communication solves things."

"Hmm."

Ethan walked closer and placed a hand on his shoulder while balancing the papers in the other.

"Dragon is a smart lady. If you have any problems she would understand and more than likely help you with it."

"I just worry…"

"I wouldn't. Of the two of you, I would place money on you overreacting something like this."

"Thank you," he answered as sarcastically as he could.

"You are welcome." came the reply from Ethan, who was now sporting a big grin. "I hope you work it out with her, Colin. But I really have to go, the operation is soon starting, and I want to be ready."

He nodded in understanding. "Thank you, for the advice, Ethan."

"No problem, Colin. Anytime," he answered, then continued with an even bigger grin. "Plus, this gives me inside information about your relationship, so I can update my bet in the shipping betting pool."

"Just… get out."

Date

2011 January 30th - Saturday - Earth Bet Time

Taylor was walking along the Boardwalk, part window shopping and part reading the news on her phone. It seemed the PRT decided to capitalize on the capture of Merchant leadership and with the BBPD launched a joint operation on the remaining gang.

She was happy to note that they captured almost everybody, but the fact that the Undersiders stole several truckloads of drugs and that they had captured no other parahumans disappointed her.

At least, it gave her a chance of some fights in the future, if she manages to convince her dad, Tess, and Admin to allow her to patrol.

Still, the idea to create equipment for Endbringer fights intrigued her. If she could manage it, she could upload that to her website, sharing it with the world.

She couldn't help but smile when thinking about that. It seemed every day a new article came out that proved the effects of the medi-gel, and there was even news that several European parahuman groups were in the middle of setting up a facility that would produce it.

It seemed the European governments worked faster than the Americans. She hoped Congress would hurry up with the decision. Maybe another invention would incentivize them?

She was looking for a place to have a nice lunch when she felt through her power that another person was heading straight at her. The body to her powers looked like a woman around her age, so she didn't react, but just in case turned on her defensive powers and readied a retaliatory strike.

While these things went through her head, the woman reached her. She felt a delicate hand on her shoulder and the next second she was whirled around.

To her surprise, she found herself uncomfortably close to a grinning, beautiful blonde.

"Hi!" came the chirpy greeting from the aforementioned blonde. "I'm Victoria!"