Chapter Text
Interlude 1- Director Emily Piggot
PRT ENE Director Emily Piggot sat down wearily in her chair in a large meeting room within the Brockton Bay PRT building and looked around to make sure everyone was there. The Wards sat to her left, the Protectorate members across from her, and the higher-ups in her department of the PRT to her right, and almost all of them looked annoyed to be in a meeting first thing in the morning.
“Good.” She said, “Everyone is here, so we can get this emergency meeting over with quickly.” She passed out packets of paper to everyone there and then clicked a button, and an image of a tired-looking teenage girl was projected onto the wall a bit above and behind her. “This is Taylor Hebert, Cape name Invicta, age fifteen and she is one arguably of the most dangerous Capes that you will ever meet, -possibly one of the most dangerous on the planet- and is currently on a flight to Boston, where she will be picked up by her father and brought back to their home here in Brockton Bay. As of right now, if anyone encounters her in the city, orders are to avoid fighting her if at all possible.”
That had a number of people sitting up straighter.
“She is classified as a Thinker 7, Brute 4, Tinker 3, Shaker 1 for now, and technically only Triggered two and a half weeks ago.”
There was a moment of silence before a number of people started talking all at once. The noise, surprisingly, came more from her right side of the table, most of the Wards and Protectorate staring harder at the projected picture or leafing through the information packets, and while Velocity and most of the PRT members were trying to say something or other. Much to the Director’s relief, however; they weren’t protesting how dangerous she was saying Invicta was, but the fact that they needed to have an emergency meeting about a single Cape that they knew the identity and powers of.
Director Piggot just leveled a hard stare in the direction of those speaking and waited until they quieted down -she quite enjoyed that she could still stare adults into silence just as easily as children- before she began speaking again.
“Yes, we are having an emergency meeting about a single Cape we already know much about. Yes, this is important enough to have a meeting about. Yes, I require each and every one of you to know who this girl is, what she is capable of, and how to interact with her if any of you run into her. I require this information to be spread throughout the ranks as well. Am I understood?”
After receiving a round of nods and several variations of ‘Yes ma’am’ she clicked to the next slide showing a picture taken from above an island with three mountains, several different areas of ruins, and was surrounded by shipwrecks and continued. “Good. This is Yamatai. It is where Miss Hebert Triggered. She was being bullied in school and her father sent her with a family friend on an archeological expedition that was taking place there to get away and have some fun. She flew out to California three weeks ago and left with the crew. As they neared the island, they were caught in a storm generated and controlled by a parahuman calling herself The Sun Queen Himiko. She could jump from parahuman to parahuman and take their powers and their body -think The Butcher but whenever she wanted instead of when killed. She crashed their ship into the island like she had many others since gaining powers. She had a cannibalistic cult of followers that she commanded through another of her stolen powers called The Solarii Brotherhood, and they descended on Miss Hebert and the crew of the ship.”
The Director took a sip of water and clicked back to the picture of Taylor Hebert. “At one point early on Miss Hebert Triggered as part of a Cluster Trigger Event. Her powers include: mildly enhanced strength, accelerated healing, increased durability, enhanced mental processing speed when still, she can pick up a new language in a couple of hours, perfect memory, she no longer needs sleep, has automatic proficiency with weapons and tools, can modify and improve pre-existing weaponry, a Manton-Limited pocket dimension that she can put anything within two feet of her into, and combat precognition on the level of seeing all the ways to fail, and all the ways to win. Further details on her powers and Trigger Event are in the packets.” -The sound of flipping pages swiftly filled the room- “After Miss Hebert Triggered, she found herself surrounded by people who either wanted to kill her and eat her, rape her, ritualistically sacrifice her to The Sun Queen Himiko, or some mixture of all three. Over the course of the next fourteen days, she would fight her way through the Solarii and attempt to rescue the captured crew. Unfortunately, most had already been killed or were killed after being rescued. Over the course of her two-week-long stay on Yamatai, Miss Hebert directly killed four hundred and forty-two people, and the people killed indirectly brought the number up to somewhere between six hundred and one thousand deaths. There were several Brutes and Tinkers in that number, as well as all of the other people in her Cluster Trigger Event, though it is a small percentage as most parahumans on Yamatai are thought to have died trying to escape the island or sacrificed to The Sun Queen. She also killed The Sun Queen by shoving a torch into her face shortly before leaving the island.”
The Director paused and looked around the room at the stunned and horrified looks of the people around her. “Let me make this clear; no one is to antagonize her, no one is to try and force her into joining, and everyone is to be as polite as possible and avoid upsetting her if you can. Luckily for us, she has expressed no interest in having any kind of life as a Cape, and her codename Invicta only exists at the prompting of one of the Los Angeles Wards. Miss Hebert has also agreed to attend several therapy sessions with one of our therapists who are cleared to work with parahumans. In all actuality, you are unlikely to encounter her while on the job, so this is mostly precautionary, but with how this city is, there is enough of a possibility that she might end up involved in something that we have to deal with.”
Director Piggot stood from her chair. “That is all, you’re dismissed. Armsmaster, come with me. Shadow Stalker is becoming increasingly brutal and we need to discuss the different responses we have available to us in case she pins someone to a wall to bleed out or something equally ridiculous.”
Interlude 1.5- Brockton Bay Wards
Gallant sat down heavily on the couch in the Wards common room, thankful to not be in his power armor. He could see the same shock and numb horror on his teammate's faces and in their auras that he felt, even Clockblocker -who usually could be counted on for a joke to ease the tension- was quiet and solemn.
“Well, that happened.”
“Really, Clock?” Said Aegis, who was sitting slouched in a chair across from the couch.
“What?” Clockblocker asked, “What else am I supposed to say, what else are any of us supposed to say about all that?”
Rather than respond, Aegis just sighed and removed his helmet.
Triumph came from the kitchenette with a water bottle and flopped down onto the couch next to Gallant. “Since we don’t really have anything we can say, how about we cover Invicta’s powers?”
Vista took off her mask and flipped through the packet that Director Piggot had given them.
“In the packet, it says that Invicta said that she is: ‘three or four times stronger than I should be and it scales with muscle growth, it takes more to hurt me than would normally hurt someone, I heal really fast, though I still get scars, I can think really fast while still -everything slows down and goes grayscale and certain things light up gold depending on how I can use them, I can pick up languages really fast -like within hours or a day or two, I can modify weapons, I have an instinctual knowledge on how to use weapons and tools, I have perfect memory, I don't need sleep anymore, combat precognition, and I have a pocket dimension that I can put anything that isn't alive in.’ She sounds like she’s unstoppable.”
“Thanks, Missy,” Rory said after taking off his helmet. “Let's break everything down. Piggot said she was a Thinker 7, Brute 4, Tinker 3, and Shaker 1 for right now. Let's start with the lower ratings and work our way up. So, Shaker 1. What do we think?”
“Uhh, Shaker 1 would be her being able to put anything within two feet of her into the pocket dimension, right?” asked Carlos.
Rory nodded in approval. “Manton-limited to not including anything alive, but yes. If she wasn’t Manton-limited, she would probably be Shaker 2 rather than Shaker 1. Next, her Tinker 3 rating.”
Chris leaned back from his armor maintenance. “I know that The Director said that she can upgrade weapons and stuff, but is there anything else on her Tinker abilities in the Packet Missy?”
“Uhh, lemme check…” -She flipped back through the packet- “Yes, the packet says that she said she can: ‘ take any already made weapon and modify it to be better than it should be, make it do things it shouldn't be able to do, all made out of scrap from the island, which I had no idea how to do before coming to the island.’ I don’t think there is anything else on her Tinker powers.”
Okay,” said Chris. “Tinker 3 is one of the ratings that will probably change depending on how she can leverage it. If she can take something like a shotgun and turn it into, I don’t know, something that shoots particle beams or something it’ll probably jump to like Tinker 8. If she can only add onto the pre-existing functions, then depending on how creative she can get with it, and how far she can leverage it into other areas, it might get up to Tinker 5 or 6.”
“Nicely done Chris.” Said Rory, “Onto Brute 4, any ideas?”
Dean -having taken off his mask- spoke up next. “I was thinking about what Missy read from the packet earlier. Invicta said that her strength grows as her muscle mass does, right?”
Missy nodded. “Yeah, but nothing like that on her durability or regeneration.”
“Okay, so here’s my thought: her strength is like Lung’s.”
That got everyone’s attention on him. “Explain your thinking Dean,” said Rory.
“Okay, so she said that it grows with her, and that led me to think that she could turn it off, but she didn’t mention it, and with how transparent with everything she is being, I figured that that wasn’t it. Then, I thought some more about it and, obviously, growing in strength brought me to Lung. What if her enhanced strength either activates when she subconsciously needs it or is activated by her being in a life-threatening situation? It would make sense that she wouldn’t notice something like that because I doubt that she would have had the time to test everything or felt safe while on the island.”
The rest of the Wards were all pensive at that. “That is a great point, Dean, I’ll bring it up to Armsmaster or Director Piggot as soon as I’m able. Anything else for the rest of her Brute rating?” Rory asked.
“Um, I don’t think so? I mean, mild regeneration and durability are kind of self-explanatory. Her Brute rating might go up a point or two if she builds enough muscle though.”
“Okay, onto Thinker 7. Anything seem to stick out?”
Missy spoke up then. “Aside from the Combat Precognition, it seems to be built up out of smaller powers that wouldn’t be very strong by themselves. Thinking fast while still might get a Thinker 2 by itself, and the ability to automatically know how to use weapons would at most be Thinker 3, but learning languages really fast and perfect memory barely qualify as powers. I think the main thing to focus on would be the Combat Precognition. The Director said that she can see all of the ways to win and all of the ways to lose, and going off of the packet that’s sort of misleading, even if it’s right. It’s basically the ability to know every way a fight could go and then act through whichever one she thinks is best. If it weren’t for the combat limitation she would probably be a Thinker 10 or something.”
“Yes, alone though it's only Thinker 5 or so, with everything else padding up to Thinker 7.” Said Rory. “Good analysis Missy.”
“Damn,” said Dennis. “Invicta really fits as her name then.”
“What do you mean?” Asked Carlos.
“Well,” said Dennis, “her Cape name is Invicta, it’s Latin for Indomitable.”
Everyone stared at him for a while and after a moment he shifted uncomfortably.
“What?” He asked. “I’m taking Latin at school, I needed a language class. Stop looking at me like that.”