Interlude Armsmaster

Walking into his lab, Armsmaster was irritated. He had just arrived from a meeting, and while, for the most part, he was there as head of the Protectorate and nothing more this time, he was needed.

It was a pain to have a vast majority of the parahuman's identity be exposed. The only ones safe were his, Dauntless's' and Assault's past details.

They would be transferring in several parahumans to counter the sudden power vacuum. Grinding his teeth, that was something else that annoyed Armsmaster.

He had been here for years; out of the blue, Lung, the Empire, Coil, and other criminals had been taken out. The worst part is that they were not handed over to the proper authorities and kidnapped or killed.

Taking a deep breath, he pulled out his latest project. He had noticed that the new parahuman behind the Merchants disappearance emanated from a strange field.

If he could track it, that would help him right towards the criminal, and he would be able to find out what happened. The issue was it was just not working.

He would assemble it to a point and then run it into a brick wall. No matter how he disassembled and reassembled it, he would find that final step missing.

It was like his power had no idea how to track this field correctly. That was impossible, of course, or at the least highly improbable.

As he looked into his helmet and turned over ideas on how to fix the problem, he caught a reflection in his helmet's visor. It was massive and covered in furry scales with dozens of eyes.

Turning around, he saw nothing; placing his hand on the table behind him, he relaxed and shook his head slightly. He must have been stressed out for his mind to contort reflections like that.

As he turned back to his project, he heard, and small noise, and the screen lit up. It showed that little of the energy that made up the field was in this room, and running it over his armor showed that it was higher on it.

His lips curled up as he stood up. He would need to go out and test the device in the field. If it worked, then he could organize an attack.

Placing his helmet on his head, he walked out towards his motorcycle. Tapping out a quick message that he was testing out a new tool.

Swinging a leg over his bike, the doors opened, and he roared out. The city whizzed by. Despite the dubious nature of how it had been cleaned, the city was truly nicer, for now at least.

Arriving at the Merchant base, he stepped off his bike before pulling out the small device. The UI quickly started to scan the surrounding areas, and soon enough, he had positive readings.

Setting it on passive, he hooded it up to his bike and climbed back on. As he started the motorcycle, his HUD showed concentrates of the energy field.

It led away from the empty warehouse in jumps. Where ever the energy stopped, there would be a more significant concentration before it appeared nearby.

As he followed the trail, he was almost blinded when an enormous amount oozed from an old warehouse. It was clear this was where the suspect was hiding.

Armsmaster couldn't go in guns blazing; the building had been abandoned and was the location of a suspected criminal, which removed one issue.

However, he would need to report his findings and then get permission to commit a raid. While that could generally take days or even weeks, he was reasonably sure that Director Piggot would approve it relatively quickly, given the potential threat and the opportunity to capture the remaining villains.

Turning around, he headed back to base. Using text-to-speech along with the controls in the handlebars, he started writing a report to send to the director.

Reaching base, he strode up towards the director's office. While he would generally file a meeting, they needed to capitalize on this chance.

After letting the secretary know he was seeking a meeting, he settled back to wait. Only a few minutes later, he was called inside.

Nodding, he spoke in his formal business voice, "Director Piggot."

Finishing up on the keyboard, she replied, "Armsmaster, what do you need?"

Blinking his right eye twice, he sent the report to her email while speaking. "I have the suspect's location in the kidnapping of the Merchants."

Clicking the report open, she started to read through it. Her frown grew as she reached the end. Her eye twitched as she read what had happened under her nose.

"You truly believe this one suspect to be responsible for all the kidnappings."

Nodding, Armsmaster started to lay out his reasoning.

"Yes, first he kidnapped the Merchants next, I saw him abducting the Cornell Bomber. Following that, he kidnapped Consultant Thomas Calvert."

He then took a moment to allow her to digest what he said before counting.

"Then he fought off the Empire killing both Fenja and Hookwolf. Following that, I believe he has been held up in his lab, most likely doing something to his victims."

Her eye twitched slightly, and Piggot fumed. Fortunately, something of this scale allowed her to immediately put boots on the ground instead of waiting for bureaucracy.

As she pressed the pager, another man walked in. Babbling and out of breath, the man spoke.

"One of our agents found Oni Lee."

Eyes snapping to the man Armsmaster and Piggot saw the man was being serious. Grinding her teeth, Piggot started barking out orders.

"I want you to get Assult, Battery, and Velocity on Oni Lee, Armsmaster take Miss Militia and Dauntless and two squad cars to deal with the kidnapper."

Nodding, Armsmaster strode out, his feet clanking on the floor. Walking quickly back towards his bike, he met up with Dauntless and Miss Militia.

Catching them up on the current situation, they zoomed out of the garage ahead of the two PRT vans. It did not take them long to arrive at the warehouse.

Getting off, he spoke over their comms to Miss Militia and Dauntless. "Dauntless, I want you in the sky; make sure he can't escape. Miss Militia, follow me. Trooper, stay out here and prevent any minions from escaping."

As he approached, he held out the device to make sure that this was they place. After beeping loudly, he nodded and took a deep breath before shouting. "Come out with your hands up! This is the PRT!"

He slammed his halberd into the door before pulling the weapon out and kicking the door down. As he entered the building, he saw the parahuman.

He looked young, around 17-18, and whirled around with a shocked look on his face; as Armsmaster charged towards him, he took a few steps back and transformed in a flash of blinding light.

His new form was a skeleton clad in red robes with flaming green eyes. As Armsmaster swung his halberd at the parahuman, swords appeared to bloke the swing before shattering and disappearing.

This back and forth counited as the villain dodged around his blows, summoning swords as need be. Occasionally, bullets would flow past Armsmaster and force the parahuman to avoid them.

Slowly but surely, Armsmaster was forcing him into a corner. However, the villain stumbled out of the blue, and Armsmaster's halberd caught his shoulder on a downward swing.

Contrary to his expectations, the arm was freed with ease and, upon hitting the floor, turned into a fine powder. When transforming back, most transformations healed the user, so he should be fine.

As the skeleton stepped back, his eye sockets narrowed as impossible as that was, and he flung out his left arm that was not holding the staff.

At his side, a spiral sword was conjured. Spinning towards Armsmaster was forced to quickly swing his halberd across his body to knock the blade aside.

As his expertly manufactured halberd made contact with the spiral sword, it shattered as the metal screeched and twisted around the drill-like sword. Now back peddling, he attempted to push himself away from the blade.

However, it seemed to pull him in and, with ease, bypass the armor he spent years building and improving. He gasped as he felt it enter his sternum and scrap against his heart.

It knocked him flat on his back, and he saw the figure slam through the wall and flee through blurry eyes. Pushing his hands on the ground, he attempted to push himself up.

As Miss Militia approched frantic and mouth moving, he waved her off. He was fine, just a bit cold and in a bit of shock. His armor would have sealed the wound.

Looking down, he saw the sword still jutting out of him and a conspucius lack of sealing. As he patted around the blade, he saw what had happened.

The sword had twisted away the vast majority of his armor, and it couldn't seal him up. His leg jerked as he attempted to push himself up.

He wouldn't die here! He was Armsmsater, and he faced death daily; he pushed Lung back and clashed with Kaiser. He would not fail to some new parahuman; he would not.

He would just rest his eyes until Panacea got here. Dragon was constantly nagging him to get more sleep.

Closing his eyes, a faint smile graced his lips as he imagined what Dragon would say when she saw he got more than usual sleep.