Startup 1.6

Author's Note:  This is a long chapter, courtesy of it being this arc's last one.

There are going to be two interludes, a general one that shows different POVs of different characters, and a (my favorite) PHO one that shows the general reaction to the MC's actions.

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[April 13th 2011 ; 09:00 PM]

Water, death, destruction.

It is what he lived, the salty liquid burning his throat.

Someone lifts him up, losing their life for his sake.

He screams, a Monstrous being has killed his savior, it stares him in the eye, only to get occupied by another.

He screams and screams, until his voice is hoarse, his ears ringing

And then he wakes up.

I lethargically shut down the alarm, letting out a tired sigh.

It was that dream again.

That night haunted me for 7 years, I covered my face with a hand. "At least it's not every night nowadays."

I started my morning routine, made a simple breakfast, and opened up my laptop to get in tune for the day, a warm hot chocolate cup in his hand.

At this point, after Kelton was officially hired as CEO, I hired myself as the Chief Research Officer of Uplift Industries, this meant that while he owned the company, most day-to-day decisions could and should be headed by the more experienced CEO.

That doesn't mean he was busy, Harrison's people were inspecting several of their newly owned properties, and he was responsible for organizing the matter of Product development and setting up the official assembly lines.

The official first products of Uplift Industries were made to be great initial money-makers without affecting local businesses. I had presented many ideas to Kelton, but in the end, we chose a very efficient electric engine, capable of replacing local gas equivalents in most machines, including most if not all vehicles, without losing any of its effectiveness.

The goal is to sell them to major motor companies who would be able to use them in their products, for example, a company like Mercedes would only need to make minute changes to their car blueprints to be able to make a brand-new electric car.

The presence of Behemoth meant that the electric grid had to be upgraded significantly to deal with his attacks meant that it was equally suitable for supporting the usage of electric vehicles.

Speaking about Behemoth, I have upgraded my signature solar panel to a greater degree, and we are planning to manufacture them too, selling them to the government and companies in bulk to use in the reconstruction of Behemoth's aftermaths while marketing a civilian option capable of sustaining a normal-sized household with only 3 panels as long as there's low coverage.

Our last initial product is a highly precise scanner, capable of detecting human presence behind significant amounts of debris, and uses an optic filter to produce layered electromagnetic waves capable of making a comprehensive scan of the human body and uses the common hospital triage assessments (RED-YELLOW-GREEN) to indicate the general health of the recipient.

It is obviously a more advanced version of the one in my Drone since I made the latter with literal scraps, and we predict selling it to the government to help with rescue operations, and to the majority of hospitals and medical centers to basically replace most of their scanning apparatus.

I had spent until 3 a.m. corresponding with the team about the specifics, they didn't actually need me there, but a few remarks here and there would surely help, I thought.

I couldn't do much, Harrison and Kelton were busy vetting an HR team so that the HR team could start hiring the other teams, they settled on one of Kelton's acquaintances, a woman called Alex, I didn't care for her last name.

I also spent some time in PHO answering questions and started an introduction thread. Still no message from Weaver, which I found concerning, but while she was a decent kid, I can't actually upturn my whole life just to investigate what's going on, who's to say she just doesn't want to talk to me? 

I had gotten antsy over these last two days, and apart from my last excursion I'd been bogged in corporate matters, so I wore my heroic outfit, with my trusty Gun & Drone, and headed out to patrol.

I thought it would be better to do so next to my new properties. The goal here is to pre-emt any fights that may result from my presence before actual production starts so that by the time we do, people would already know not to fuck with the area.

This time I received a lot of recognition, so I met a lot of people taking pictures an ABB & E88 wannabes fleeing at sight.

It was quite fun actually, My drone didn't detect any major activity and I got to talk with a lot of people, so after a very tame three hours I decided to head back, it was on my way home that the action actually began.

It all started when my Drone detected a disturbance headed directly towards me.

"[SUSPECT ACTIVITY DETECTED: DISTANCE 37 meters, SUSPECT:Unknown, DESIGNATION: Victim.]"

So there's a victim in distress? I should probably head fast then. 

I super-jumped upwards (Yeah, I call it a super-jump, bite me.), and looked toward the source of the commotion, only to see a 12-year-old girl frantically running around on the sidewalk, I didn't bother muting the 'swish' of my jump, so she swept her gaze upwards to see me, an overjoyed expression slowly replacing her desperate features.

I looked behind her, there were no visible threats in her vicinity, but it looked like she was visibly exhausted and stressed, so I thought that it would be better to approach and ask her.

I shifted the vectors, rocketing toward her position with blinding speed, and brought them to a halt just as my feet hit the ground in front of her, provoking a yelp from the girl.

I put on my friendliest smile as the Drone slowly manoeuvered itself over my shoulder.

"The numbers didn't lie!" She blurted out before I could speak. "You were here!"

My face squirmed in confusion. "Huh?"

Her happiness doesn't last long, as she desperately grabs my sleeve. "You have to help me! The bad men are coming for me!" She exclaims.

At that moment, a PRT van just happened to turn inside this particular street and into my sensing field, I had noticed minuscule traces of the same dimensional shielding found in Armsmaster's Tinker tech inside several gun-shaped objects, but I know for a fact that PRT troopers don't use Tinkertech guns.

My face turned grim, I didn't have time to think, so the most expedient action to safe-keep their target was to grab her from her waist, enveloping her in my reflection field.

Her yelp was somehow accompanied by a sigh of relief, but I didn't bother to investigate, as I boosted my next step straight toward the van, I decided that the best way to protect the pubescent girl on my arm was to get rid of the threat, being held by me, enveloped in my reflection field, is the safest place for her anyway.

Whoever was in the van was very quick, as before I could put my hands on the vehicle, several laser beams penetrated the hull and headed with precision toward me. It took me less than a fraction of a second to understand what they were, so I didn't bother to dodge.

The van was already moving when this happened, so when the beams got reflected they missed the people who tried to shoot me, although one did manage to take one of their tires out.

"HIT IT!" I heard someone from the inside shout.

But by that time I was already at kicking distance from the car, and you know what I did? Ya guessed it!

PRT vans may not be Tinker-made, but they are certainly built with the highest standards in mind. So when my boots landed on the side of that truck, the kick's kinetic energy amplified and expanded over the whole right side of the car and sent it sliding down to the sidewalk, the people inside stayed quite unscathed.

Unscathed, but disoriented, so the first man inside who got enough bearings to pull himself out got extremely comfortable with the barrel of my gun and got promptly taken out by a laser bolt. I held the unconscious man by the nape of his neck and laid him off to the side.

I stuck my face inside the car, my hair cascading down Spider-Man style. 

There were three remaining men in the back, and one in the front, both one in the front and one in the back were quite unscathed and pointed their guns at me, of the two remaining ones, one had a hole in his thigh that the other one was treating with a bandage.

I dodged two consecutive beams using my super senses, chuckling all the way.

"Ooooh, feisty!" I exclaim, and then I shoot all of them in the face.

I climbed out of the van, jumping to the sidewalk. "Drone, call the PRT hotline please."

"[Affirmative.]"

I almost forgot the little kid on my arm until she wriggled out.

"Brockton Bay PRT" A sound echoed from the drone.

"Accelerator here, I just detained an authentic PRT van used by highly trained operatives, I think they were trying to kidnap a kid, named.." I look down at the girl.

"Dinah Alcott." She answers.

"You heard her, I'd like to get them detained as soon as possible, and warn any PRT troopers that I will keep an eye on them, just in case."

"Sir, this is... highly unusual, I'd have to bring this up."

My senses pick up something. "Yeah, sorry. You have to send someone, I'm pretty sure one of Squealers Tanks is coming straight toward me." I turn toward the invisible vehicle. "Are the Merchants also coming for the kid?" I muse loudly.

"9.38% percent chance the Merchants are here for me." Dinah suddenly blurts out, after which she holds her head and winces.

A Thinker? Is that why she was targeted?

"Hey, kiddo, you ready for another ride?" I ask, after which she winces.

"Don't ask me quest-!" She starts to speak but is interrupted by me putting her under my arm.

Skidmarks (heh) magically show up on the street as a screech reminiscent of a car drifting echoes through the area.

I can feel the monstrosity's turbos light up as it rights itself toward me, while the path between us lights up with a violet hue that seems to give it even more oomph.

The invisible truck collides with me. "GOTCHA BITCH!" A screeching male voice sounds from some sort of megaphone.

I don't bother dodging, as all the force of the impact caused by the collision between me and the gigantic invisible truck gets reflected back. The vehicle doesn't actually flip, which is reasonable considering it's actually Tinker tech even if it is made from substantial materials by a drugged-up woman, but whatever is camouflaging it is definitely damaged, as I get to finally see who stood behind the wheel.

Unsurprisingly, it was Skidmark, the African-American leader of the so-called Archer's Bridge Merchants, a Gang that is infamous for one thing and one thing only, drugs.

Skidmark wears a mask that covers the top half of his face, the lower half of his face is dark-skinned, with badly chapped lips and teeth that look like shelled pistachio nuts, his health was clearly affected by his Meth addiction.

[Skidmark Picture]

His power is to create blu-violet forcefields that can deflect stuff, it isn't top-tier by any margin, but it can be surprisingly difficult to deal with as the villain -despite being a drug addict- has quite a degree of low-cunning in its usage.

Skidmark seemed to have sped away from his friends, as several cars straight out of Mad Max just came out of the same intersection, one of them wasn't even a car as much as it was a mech holding slime.

[Trainwreck Picture]

What can I say? They're the Merchants.

Skidmark manages to reverse course even while he is disoriented while another masked woman climbs out on top of the car, holding a big ass gun-like contraption attached to the roof of the van.

[Squealer Picture]

The contraption visibly charges up with an electric charge as the car it's on top of joins the others, the mech guy however pumps out big amounts of steam that propel him even more forward, another dude jumps out of a jeep, completely covered in random debris and trash, that must be Mush.

[Mush Picture]

Out of all the different threats, I think Mush can be the most annoying, his ability to grow from trash and debris means that he can continuously grow into a bigger danger as long as the fight goes on. 

The Merchants came here clearly prepared, as while Mush wasn't quite completely that big, he was completely covered, so a single shot probably wouldn't be of use.

So I boosted my vectors enough to practically dash across the street, and before Mush could react, I had already passed by the slime-mecha guy and kicked a significant amount of trash out of his face.

His power seemed to work instinctively as the uncovered part already started being covered by some other debris on other sides of his body, but it was useless as I had already rested the bore of my gun against his temple and hit the trigger.

Mush's body crumbles to the ground, so I turn toward the steampunk mech who turned toward me, a metallic gun outstretched in order to punch my head out of its socket.

Whoever is piloting this thing is probably a Case-53, so my gun may not work against them, but seeing as they are slime, they probably need the mech to do anything.

So I let the blow land, causing the backlash to render the metallic arm useless even though it was still attached, and retaliated with a punch straight through the glass showing the slimy face of the cape.

The glass was not glass after all, but some sort of structured crystal that looked like it, it was way more than bulletproof, but its nature meant that a focused kinetic blow would be more effective, so I amplified the force of my punch and concentrated all of that in a single point, causing the whole thing to shatter.

I stuck my arm inside, grabbing the guy on a random spot, he was not slimy per se, but more like a single mass made of tissue, without any sort of bone. I pulled him out of there.

"Let go of me you fucktard!" The man screamed. 

I raised a brow and dropped him to the ground. "Bad slime! Can't you see I've got a kid here?!"

Before he could retort with anything clever I had manoeuvered my body in front of him, shielding him from Squealer's huge electrolaser.

Well, I say. Even with the long as fuck charging period, her big ass gun could pack a punch, a high-pressure plasma blast carrying a huge electric charge. If It hit a human they would definitely get obliterated, but I wonder, what would it do to the monstrosity she calls a truck?

That shot could have killed a mid-level Lung easily, but I understand electro-lasers quite well, so all it did was reflect itself back, I had consciously bent the trajectory of it so as to not kill her and her boyfriend, but it clearly did a lot of damage.

The vehicle was clearly somewhat insulated against EMPs and electrical damage, but her own weapon was hit too hard for her defenses. The impact had blown out the glass parts of the van, blowing Skidmark and his potty mouth out of it. Squealer gets electrocuted by some of the charge, falling unconscious on top he her broken heap.

The electro-laser had put a hole in the steampunk mech, rendering it useless, so with judicious use of my power I slapped it out of the walk and calmly walked toward the downed Skidmark.

He had obviously softened his fall by using one of his fields but he was still quite hurt, clutching one of his sides with a pained expression.

He grabs a rock as a field begins to form in front of him. He then throws it with a wince.

The rock accelerates at the speed of the bullet, but the dumbass missed, he was close, but it wasn't going to hit me at all.

I augment myself in order to grab the rock. "Seriously, you could hurt someone." Dinah nods while hanging off my arm, creating a comedic situation.

"You motherfucker! I'm going to ______ your _____ _______ ________." I literally muted the soundwaves of his profanity before they reached the girl, couldn't have her learning words that could make a sailor blush, after all.

I had enough of his shit, so I sent a bolt toward his skull. I had made sure to envelop my field over his to make sure the laser shot didn't get interrupted, but it turns out they're only capable of affecting physical objects, huh...

They're like an enclosed kinetic field that affects a fixed force on any physical matter that is on its radius in a pre-fixed direction, the light is because the excess energy gets turned into harmless electromagnetic waves, as in violet-blue light, depending on the strength of the force added to the objects inside.

"I wonder if I can make something that can mimic his fields." I wonder.

The child, Dinah, preemptively winces at my question, only for her face to morph into confusion. "I can't see it." She murmurs.

I softly put her down, and the moment she gets out of my field she puts a hand on her forehead.

"Headache?" I ask.

"100% chance it is a Thinker headache?" Her expression worsens. "Please- Please don't ask me questions." 

So a Thinker ability that can answer questions with percentages, sounds like an extremely potent power, no wonder she's got people trying to kidnap her.

"I see." I bend down to her eye level, putting a hand over her shoulder. "How about now?" I extend the field over her.

Her hand unconsciously slides from her forehead. "What did you do?" She asks. "I can no longer see the numbers."

"Just a trick of mine." I smile. "Look, can you explain the situation to me? The only thing I know is that there were some bad guys after you."

She nods. "One day, I started numbers whenever people ask me questions, but- but the more I asked the more my head hurt, I told everyone! But they didn't believe me!" She started getting emotional. "Dad and Mom thought I was making excuses not to go to school, and then-and then the numbers started going bad!" 

She began to cry. "A bad man was going to get me, he was going to feed me Candy and ask me questions! I asked the numbers, they said everywhere was bad, the Wards, New Wave! I- I saw you on PHO and I asked the numbers, and they said you could save, me, but then after yesterday they weren't sure, so I ran away, and I found you, and you *hic*saved me." She clearly was terrified for her life, so I just hugged her and let her let it out.

"It's okay, it's all going to be alright. Shhh, Shhh..." I rubbed her back reassuringly, but she only cried more.

I spent time holding a crying Dinah on my arm while I moved the unconscious body's net to the sidewalk, everyone was quite unscathed except the injured fake PRT trooper and Squealer, so I put those two together so that they could get medical attention.

The drone had come back after the end of the festivities, so I asked it to call the PRT, again.

The person behind the phone clearly recognized my number. "Accelerator! Could you elaborate on what happened?"

"I just detained an authentic PRT van with several professionally trained operatives, they had Tinkertech laser guns so I suspect that they're some of Coil's mercenaries, and then I had to contend with all of the merchant capes, including an unknown slime case-53 steampunk tinker, I captured all of the powered members, their goons did escape though."

"Wha-*ahem* Accelerator, all of our Protectorate were occupied with something outside the city, while the Wards are still dealing with a Bank robbery by the Undersiders. We managed to free up two PRT trucks which will have to be enough."

This sounds more and more planned as time goes on. 

I look at the PRT vans. "This doesn't seem to be a coincidence, I will be temporarily taking hold of the kidnapping attempt's victim until I am sure of her safety, I will also accompany all PRT vans as they detain the suspects."

I grab the Drone and pull it closer. "Tell the troopers that are on the way, that if any of them try something, I will break their arms and legs." I pause. "Understood?"

"Uh- Yessir."

That was the last thing I heard from the other side until the PRT vans pulled up.

Two of the troopers ignored me as protocol in order to detain the mercenaries, I grabbed one of them by the arm while Dinah distanced herself as much as possible from them due to their similarity with the people who tried to kidnap her.

"I'm coming with you, so don't try any shady shit."

One of them seemed angry in response, but his friend held him off and just wordlessly nodded in my direction, and then they detained the 5 people.

Another PRT trooper, presumably their leader, approached me. "You must be Accelerator. I'm Officer Dayes of the PRT, a pleasure to meet you." He extended a hand.

I reluctantly shake it. "I want to warn you, again. I'm not leaving either my charge or those mercenaries until I'm sure that they will be detained. The Merchants you can handle however you like."

Dinah's hold tightened at my words.

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[April 13th 2011 ; 07:03 AM]

Sure enough, I had kept watch over the mercenaries like a hawk while keeping Dinah enveloped in my field.

I left the mercenaries to be detained until the Protectorate team had come back, and then Velocity took them off my hands.

Dinah's parents were called for her, and the mayor too! Turns out she is his niece or something.

They came in escorted by Triumph who seemed to be quite distressed himself. 

Her mother ran at her daughter the moment she caught a glimpse of her, closely followed by her father, who clearly held back his tears in order to seem dignified.

"Dinah! Are you fine?!" Her mother asked, but Dinah just cried tearfully and hugged her fiercely.

While THAT was going on, the mayor -having better control of his emotions- approached me and extended a hand.

"You must Mr. Amel, thank you for saving my niece."

I shook his hand. "No worries, Mr Mayor. Your niece is a brave young woman, she came to me of her own accord, it could be more appropriate to say that she saved herself."

Dinah had briefly calmed down and explained the situation in more detail. Basically, what happened is that she was triggered with a power that allowed her to see the possibilities of certain actions, it worked especially well with questions, and she was almost self-mastered into answering any that asked of her, refusing to do so just exasperated her headache.

She could ask 5 questions right now every day without any discomfort, which grows the more she uses her power, as her limit used to be 1 question per day at the beginning.

She got bad headaches at school, what with people asking questions left and right, and was sent home sick after days of complaints to the school staff, her parents didn't believe that she actually had powers even when she answered their questions with precise percentage points, but after more time with the headaches they sent her to the hospital to get tested.

The hospital did an MRI, obviously, but whoever did so hid the results and obviously informed whoever tried to kidnap her (Probably Coil), and Dinah from that day forward noticed that the results of her questions started to become bleak, since if she focused enough, she could actually see the timeline where a certain scenario happen instead of getting just a number.

She uses her power to try to escape the scenario where she gets kidnapped, and her power informs her that the possibility of getting kidnapped doesn't get much better when she informs New Wave, that her parents die if she convinces them, and the possibility of getting kidnapped actually gets worse if she joins the Wards.

Until she saw the news of "Accelerator" getting Lung, and desperate as she was, asked her power what the possibility that she'd be safe if she told me, and the result came at an unprecedented 78% percent, which according to her, was more than double the next best possibility.

Then, two days after that happened, she couldn't see me clearly in her predictions, and any questions she asked about me had so many possibilities that she thought something had gone wrong.

It was today, in this desperate mindset, that her power informed her that whoever wanted to kidnap her would make an attempt that day, so she forced her power to glimpse through all the different possibilities to find me, and sure enough, she did get to me right before she'd get nabbed by those mercenaries.

The thing that was stuck on my mind was that she couldn't directly ask questions about me since yesterday, and the only thing that I think could be responsible was my meeting with the PRT, upon which I managed to detect how Tinker powers would send signals to the brain through inter-dimensional signals.

Maybe Thinker powers gather information through similar methods? And that my understanding of them allowed me to control their vectors, ergo. making my field reflect all similar signals?

I closed my eyes and concentrated on my reflective filter, and sure enough, there was an enormous amount of inter-dimensional quantum waves colliding with it, some were stealthier than others and tried to disguise their signatures as benign radiation, but they were clear as day to my power.

So I'm immune to Thinkers now? That's neat.

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[April 13th 2011 ; 07:23 AM]

It didn't take long for Director Piggot to invite us to her office, Mayor Christner was adamant in his desire to follow, so her secretary had no choice but to oblige.

Armsmaster was also in the office, we gave each other respective nods, although I did notice that he was somewhat tense.

Director Piggot was attached to a dialysis machine, her chair reclined in a comfortable position. It is quite strange that she would need it with Panacea a phone call away...

"I'm sorry to meet you in such a ... compromised position." She said. "I would like to discuss the events of the day;"

I couldn't let out a word a word before the mayor. "Yes, and I would like to have an explanation as to why trained mercenaries tried to kidnap my niece in an authentic PRT. Van." He let out.

I had already sent a report through one of their PRT officers, so both she and Armsmaster should be quite familiar with what happened today.

"Whatever this is, this was planned, the Protectorate heroes are all off-town, the Undersiders publicly rob a bank against their usual modus operandi, and several small-time skirmishes occupy the rest of the PRT while people disguised as them attempt the kidnapping." I shrug. "For all I know, the Merchant attack could have been a miscalculated attempt at keeping me busy too." 

"Whoever is this is smart and resourceful, they could be a Thinker or be employing one, but most importantly, they have infiltrated the PRT to a big degree, both his knowledge of your heroes' schedule and his ownership of a real PRT van point to having someone at the high echelons of the local branch as a mole, for all we know, THEY could be working in the PRT in their civilian identity."

Both the director and Armsmaster seem thoughtful at the possibility. 

"Ms. Alcott is seemingly a very powerful Thinker, whoever is responsible could have been hiding until they realized the degree of her potential, but to do so they'd have to be capable of gathering information about the specifics of her power without anyone knowing, which points toward supernatural methods." Armsmaster turns toward his Boss. "If they used mundane methods, we would have already detected them, or that person has a Stranger power that keeps them hidden." He finishes.

Director Piggot stays silent, letting the beeps of her machine be the only thing heard in the room.

"She can't stay here." She finally says, looking at the mayor with her steely eyes. "If the perpetrator could have moles within most major organizations in the city, if he could know so much about the PRT and have the power to access medical records and hide them completely, let alone his relation with the Undersiders, who knows what other methods he may have access to?"

"Whatever happened, this was a great colossal blunder from that person, he was clearly attempting to use covert methods to get at Ms. Alcott, but he failed so spectacularly as to show his hand for the first time. We don't know how he'll react, but we shouldn't cross out the possibility that he'd actually try something drastic."

"So I think both Ms. Alcott and her family have to be moved to another city until this blows out and we catch whoever is responsible. We can't risk her or her power falling into his hands." She softly taps the table. "With her guardian's permission, I'll contact Chief Director Costa-Brown and arrange her transfer promptly, can we do that?"

After some consideration, the mayor agrees and heads out to inform his sister's family.

After Mr. Christner's departure, Ms. Piggot turned to me. "Now, Accelerator, are you aware that Weaver joined the Undersiders in an attempt at playing hidden spy?" She asks.

"Uh- What the fuck?"