The Protagonist System

203 Various Interludes

If Dragon hadn't been so focused on odd cape activity, she might not have noticed the innocuous reports filtering in from other countries. She might have been based in Canada, because that was her birthplace; but, she was a digital existence and had her proverbial fingers in several pies, thanks to the various orders she had received over the years from many people in authority.

Since she had been alerted by Atlas and his cryptic comments, her widespread search had noted the absence of reports about certain actively destructive capes from around the world, despite there being reports about them before midnight. That alone wasn't concerning by itself. It was the many sightings of villain capes either disappearing through purple portals or ghostly figures appearing from those portals and the villains dropping dead.

It gave Dragon a way to track where Glaistig Uaine had gone after the Birdcage had been destroyed, except the villain had never had a portal power like that and no one inside the Birdcage had one, either. There was almost no rhyme or reason to the pattern, until she found the delayed reports from both Freedom, California and Eagleton, Tennessee.

That set her on a path to look at all of the world's S-class threats and Dragon spent a good ten minutes tracking the reports down and compiling everything and she felt dread fill her digital heart. Something or someone had systematically removed all of the world dangers that routinely caused death and destruction to humanity.

After confirming that, Dragon diverted her resources to look for threats just below that level and tried to focus on the more important city centers. It wasn't long before she found what she was looking for and her searches showed her exactly what she had been worried about. None of the major local villain threats existed anymore, either.

New York, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and even Brockon Bay, had all of their major gangs neutered or removed completely. All of the villain capes were either dead or missing, leaving a huge hole in their criminal infrastructures that wandering gangs like The Teeth would swoop in and easily take over.

When Dragon checked The Teeth's last known whereabouts, Boston, she wouldn't have noticed the reports if they hadn't had the same signature evidence as the other crime scenes. The Butcher, the most notorious cape alive for their personality living on in the cape that killed them, was dead. Their body was found strung up and pointing at a warehouse.

The report then said the inside was like a slaughterhouse with half-decayed pieces of animals filling the place with several human bodies, including the torso of a blonde girl with no legs. There was also an abandoned wheelchair and a half-burned body that couldn't be identified.

Dragon checked her references for capes and compared the descriptions of the bodies and found several matches for the group called The Travellers. They had been causing deaths and missing persons across half the country, usually wherever they went, and now Dragon knew what happened to them and those they killed. They had kept the victims with them and slaughtered animals for some reason.

When she finished her investigations, as complete as she was going to get them in so short a time, she notified The Guild's leader Narwhal about her findings, since it had been her that Atlas had asked to look into the police reports in Montreal where Dragon had found Heartbreaker's death record and his compound abandoned, except for a pile of dead bodies in a bed.

Narwhal sighed and told her to pass it along to the Chief Director of the PRT in the US and she hoped Dragon wouldn't be kept too busy for the next few days. Dragon hoped that as well, especially after the successful defense of Brockton Bay from the gang riots, her planning there had given most of the capes the easiest time they ever had when dealing with the population.

The thing was, Dragon now knew why there was no villain cape response at the time and that there would never be a villain cape response, because all of the capes had been either murdered or disappeared. She did not look forward to how Emily Piggot was going to react to that news.

*

“I need a sit-rep now.” Chief Director Rebecca Costa-Brown ordered as she sat behind her desk after she initiated the organization-wide video conference call. She had previously talked to Dragon about the current situation and did not like what she had heard.

It had taken half an hour to have general orders sent out to every PRT and Protectorate office in the United States, and their affiliates in other countries, to check on the status of their cape populations and the results should have returned by now.

“It's all true.” Her deputy director said and all the heads of the PRT branch managers and Protectorate heads nodded. “Every major cape that could have caused trouble are either missing or dead.”

“How did this happen and no one noticed?” Costa-Brown asked.

“We noticed.” The man that used to run the containment zone in Eagleton said. “Whatever EMP was set off, tinkertech or whatever, it knocked everything out in five miles and scrambled it. Even hardened electronics designed to survive a nuke going off have failed, including every member of the Machine Army. Pulling anything affected apart and trying to restart it, doesn't work. It's completely fried.”

“Because of that, you couldn't physically contact anyone until hours later.” The next director said, being the director that he had contacted.

“It was also marked as eyes only, since the threat was so potent.” The man added. “I expected an alarm like this to be sent out hours ago and I still barely managed to log in on an old laptop.”

“Are things really that bad there?” A director named Tagg asked, disbelief in his voice.

“Considering water, power, sewer, and all basic necessities are computer controlled? It's actually much worse than whatever you think is happening.” The man said.

There were a lot of surprised faces on the other directors after hearing that.

“I've been sending my troops out to commandeer buses and larger trucks to evacuate the mile and a half of suburbs outside the containment wall. It's slow going, because disaster relief in the area is non-existent without any working rescue vehicles.” The man explained. “We're also stripping any food stores and supplies we find to gather into a central area to distribute them safely.”

“Jesus Christ.” Someone whispered and no one admonished them for it.

“I've sent in what I could; but, he's right. There are no rescue services at all in the area. Unless you bring your own things to start creating those resources to replace everything, there won't be.” The second director said.

“As far as I'm concerned, the area inside and around Eagleton is dead. The entire infrastructure would need to be rebuilt from the ground up and we all know that's never going to happen.” The man said and everyone nodded, even Costa-Brown.

“Has anyone heard from the station out at Ellisburg?” Emily Piggot asked and more than a few silently cursed at being reminded of that hellhole. “I haven't had any luck contacting them.”

“I have.” Costa-Brown responded. “The reason they've been out of contact is because they've been celebrating.”

Stunned silence answered her statement.

“I had Alexandria check the place out personally.” Costa-Brown said and didn't smile, despite her being the civilian identity of that cape. “Nothing happened to their equipment, so you can relax.”

Emily let out a relieved sigh and no one held it against her.

“They were celebrating because Nilbog is dead and all of his created creatures fell apart and died.” Costa-Brown informed them and more than a few of the directors gasped, Emily included. “After the meeting, I'll send out the footage that Dragon compiled from all the security cameras trained on the town.”

“Oh, thank god.” Someone else whispered and Emily nodded. Having that huge threat to the world gone was a huge relief to all of them.

“An experienced biohazard team will be deployed in the morning and will gather whatever evidence they can just inside the wall and will immediately retreat for both tests and decontamination.” Costa-Brown said and everyone nodded.

“What about the reports out of Madison and the other Simurgh sites?” Director Armstrong from Boston asked. “Is there any news or are things the same there?”

“The same, unfortunately.” Costa-Brown admitted. “Dragon was able to compile a very comprehensive list of sites and capes where any incident happened and none of them concerned any of the domed cities where the Simurgh victims reside.”

That news made all of them frown.

“Perhaps this new threat, or cape, or whatever it is, couldn't access inside them? All the other places have only been walled in and not fully domed like the others.” Someone suggested.

“I doubt that access was the restriction.” Narwhal said. “They took out the Birdcage as well.”

A collective gasp came from everyone except Costa-Brown.

“What do you mean they took it out?” Director Tagg asked, his eyes narrowed.

“As in, it's no longer there. The prison itself is completely gone, as are all the inmates.” Narwhal said and several of the directors cursed and ranted for several seconds.

Costa-Brown let them get it out of their system before she spoke. “Before you blow blood vessels wondering when the prisoners will return to their home cities, you should know that all of their chips and trackers are offline.”

Relieved sighs came from everyone, even Tagg, because the only way for them to go offline was for them to die. The explosives would have killed them if they tried to remove them.

“So, does that mean whomever or whatever this was, they were trying to help and not send the entire world into a panic?” Armstrong asked.

“It seems that way.” Costa-Brown answered.

“Was it Scion?” Someone asked.

“No, he's still floating over the Indian Ocean watching the blue whale migration.” Costa-Brown responded.

Someone chuckled. “He does that every year.”

No one else said anything, because the strongest and oldest cape on the planet could do whatever he wanted, and he did. None of the normal directors knew that he was also the cape that was going to end them all at some time in the future.

“Is there anything else that stood out?” Costa-Brown asked and they all shook their heads. “Then I'll call this meeting to an end. Stay vigilant. Director Piggot already reported the riots in her city when they learned their villain capes had gone missing.”

A few people acknowledged her and nodded at Emily, then Costa-Brown dismissed them. She stood up from her desk and called for a door and stepped through and into Cauldron's secret base on another Earth. She only had to wait for a moment before the rest of the group entered the room through the normal door and their own white floating doors.

“I assume you have news?” Legend asked as he sat down at the table.

“Who's the threat and where are they?” Eidolon asked and sat himself.

Doctor Mother and Contessa sat down across from them and Numberman sat beside them.

“All the reports of missing and killed capes is true.” Costa-Brown said and then blurred for a moment and was now dressed as Alexandria. She sat down and sighed. “We've lost hundreds of potential assets and no one knows what happened to them all.”

“I thought you said there were reports of Glaistig Uaine taking some of them out?” Eidolon asked. “I wouldn't mind trying myself against The Faerie Queen.”

“You would only add to her collective and make her completely unstoppable.” Contessa said and Eidolon crossed his arms and glared at her.

“She already has all the powers of everyone that was inside the Birdcage, since she collects every cape that dies near her.” Doctor Mother said and looked at the report she had brought in with her. “She has been seen in different parts of the country and the world last night and she had dozens of ghost capes around her instead of her normal three. If you die near her, you will give her access to unlimited powers.”

Eidolon sighed with disappointment and nodded.

“What are we going to do about this?” Legend asked. “New York has been a little easier to control after people started to realize the big threats we usually deal with are gone.”

“There's really nothing we can do.” Numberman said. “On the positive side, all the villain accounts I handle for their organizations have defaulted to our ownership.”

“Transfer everything to safer accounts, just in case someone near their organizations wises up and tries to clam them for themselves.” Alexandria ordered.

“Already done.” Numberman said. “The only ones I couldn't fully claim were in Brockton Bay and under Coil's control.”

“Were they legitimate business contacts?” Doctor Mother asked.

“No, his mercenary discretionary funds and some was siphoned from his employee payroll.” Numberman said. “It was quite the little heist, actually.”

“Can you reverse it?” Alexandria asked.

“Yes, but it's not necessary. It's barely a tenth of a single percentage point of the total assets we've acquired.” Numberman said.

Eidolon chuckled. “You admire their audacity to pull it off and not get caught.”

Numberman smiled and nodded. He always enjoyed it when someone used numbers to game the system. He had only noticed because of how clean the transfer had been instead of Coil's usual tactic of throwing money at something to get what he wanted.

“I have Dragon hunting down as much as she can about the new threat.” Alexandria said and they all nodded. “As soon as she has something, I'll let you all know.”

“Will we be recruiting them?” Legend asked. “If they can handle S-class threats so easily...”

They all turned to Contessa and she shrugged. That was not a good sign, because it meant she couldn't see the new threat or path their actions, which meant Cauldron had to be a little more careful about everything they did from now on.

“Then this meeting is adjourned.” Alexandria said and stood, blurred for a moment, and was dressed as Director Costa-Brown once more. “Have a good evening.”

Nods and waves responded and she called for a door to go back to her office. She had some paperwork to catch up on before she headed to her civilian home. There wasn't any real reason for that, except to maintain that she was a normal woman and not an immortal teenager with super strength, flight, and nearly complete invulnerability.

*

Director of the PRT ENE branch of the Protectorate, Emily Piggot, called it a day and went home. For the first time in as long as she could remember, she wasn't tired. In fact, she didn't feel like getting her dialysis done right away, since her kidneys were not screaming at her to do it like usual.

She entered her bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror, only to have her eyes widen. She leaned over her sink and stared at the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, only there were a few less than there should have been.

Emily knew how many there were because she counted them every morning. Her age and grumpiness made it a requirement for her to keep track of how much the job wore her down a little bit more every day. Dealing with some of the capes and their antics was grating on the nerves and she fought her instincts to just yell at them to smarten up, stop their foolishness, and get on with their lives.

There were a few gems out of the rabble, Emily had to admit. Miss Militia for one, because of her professionalism and adherence to the law and her orders. Battery was another as she tried to keep her fool of a husband under control. Vista of the Wards was also quite professional, her only downside being that she wanted weapons and to be out on the streets fighting criminals constantly.

Surprisingly, the new cape Atlas had been fully cooperative with them and didn't hold any animosity against them, despite his treatment. He even filed a pile of paperwork and reports without complaining about it, which put him ahead of her opinion of most of her own capes, actually.

Emily chuckled at that thought and stripped off to shower. She washed herself all over and noticed a few less stretch marks. It started her worrying, especially with a new healing cape in town; but, there was no area of effect and she had stayed well away from Nostrum and never once touched her. That meant she needed to be checked out by a doctor and she hated doctors.

She dried off, grumbling the whole time, and didn't bother dressing in anything but underwear before she climbed into bed. Tomorrow was going to be another long day and Emily was not looking forward to it. She fell asleep and completely forgot that she should have hooked herself up to her dialysis machine first.

In the morning, Emily wondered why she didn't feel sick and went to remove the tubes and things, only to remember she hadn't hooked herself up to them. She cursed at herself for being so stupid and looked at the time. She had to skip it for now and showered, dressed, and went to work. She called for an appointment to get checked out that afternoon.

Emily successfully hid her shock at the doctor commending her for being so diligent with her dialysis and that her kidneys were working at almost 50% capacity, which was above their projections for this month. She accepted his praise with a grunt and left to go back to work.

She would need to keep an eye on herself to see if she kept getting better for no discernible reason and would keep diligent about being anywhere near either of the healing capes she knew about. Her coffee was a little stronger today and she sipped it happily as she tackled the paperwork that had gathered overnight, not realizing the stronger coffee was to cover up the taste of the diluted healing potion.

Emily would never know that several PRT officers had snuck into her personal break room to steal cups of her stronger coffee, too. It was potent and gave them lots of energy to keep going throughout the day and no one noticed how it refilled by itself when no one was looking.