Armsmaster sat in his office, looking through the camera footage for the twentieth time today. Specifically, he was scanning for this unknown vigilante that beat Leet. However, even after several hours, there wasn't anything that he could find about this strange parahuman. Unfortunately there weren't any cameras that caught the actual fight between Leet and who the PRT were tentatively calling 'Wraith'.
The camera footage was also tampered with. Dragon had pretty much immediately noticed it the moment they got their hands on the footage. With a bit of investigation, they found that a combined total of about 10 minutes of footage was lost from various cameras. However, they couldn't retrieve the lost data easily.
The lost footage was scrubbed from the servers using Leet's device. Dragon was currently working on trying to retrieve it, but it would take a week or two to piece it all back together. Not to mention that by the time they reached the security station, new data had overwritten portions of the remnant deleted data which made piecing it together a much harder task. Plus they had to work with the mall's servers themselves which severely limited their efforts. Luckily, Dragon did manage to isolate the location where the data should be located, so any remnant data should still remain intact while the mall shouldn't feel too much of a disruption to their usual service.
From what they managed to glean from what they did have, with the help of a Protectorate Thinktank, this Wraith was likely already inside the mall when the attack occurred. Leet's area isolation device was incredibly powerful, requiring a combined strike from Assault and Battery's force stacking combination to break through. Armsmaster and Dragon also had another task to try and reverse-engineer it for increased defenses, and maybe even scale it up to protect against Endbringer attacks.
Which was the great failing of Leet in the first place. It was not exactly hard to see that he had incredible versatility but squandered much of it in petty crime. Imagine if he had brought the proper working model of his area isolator to Dragon? How much change it could bring. Instead, they had to make do with a broken piece of technology that he would likely never be able to create again.
Anyway, due to this device, the conclusion was that Wraith was most likely in the mall. Though it was possible that they had a power to allow them to phase through the barrier. Shadow Stalker managed to get through after all, though, due to the sheer mass of Leet's zombie robots descending upon her, she was forced to retreat. It was possible that they had some sort of similar power to become intangible to physical barriers.
And if he was inside, did he also have the power to predict when attacks occurred as well? It was hard to believe that Wraith willingly camped inside the mall until Uber and Leet attacked instead of stopping them even before it happened. But even if they did phase through the barrier, they would have to also somehow evade every single camera inside the mall before striking at Leet.
A Stranger power? The Thinktank couldn't provide any conclusive readings, being mostly split between yes and no. Which didn't bode particularly well for a group of Thinkers that were supposed to narrow things down to a likely possibility. An idea that Wraith's Stranger ability also messed with Thinker powers was floated around but ultimately put aside for now. That direction only led to further paranoia and distrust. Furthermore, if there was a Stranger aspect to his power, why was the camera footage tampered with? Who else could have a stake in editing the footage?
The last part was a psychological evaluation of the vigilante in question. Violent, decisive, but also values their privacy. An idea that would be corroborated with the Stranger power theory. However, with only a single capture to his name, there also wasn't anything more to say about them.
Interrogating Leet also didn't exactly breach new ground. The villain clearly knew something, given that adrenaline and stress levels spiked the moment his name was mentioned. Anger, extremely hot and burning anger towards the mysterious cape. But despite their best efforts, they couldn't pull any information about Wraith from Leet. Armsmaster was tempted to put his lie detector to use, given that it used micromovements in facial muscles, it could be slightly altered to act as a cold-reader. But despite being given the go-ahead, he was required to wait for Leet to cool off a little more before he could start.
Given that all his tech was also destroyed when Armsmaster arrived, he couldn't exactly blame him. But something told Armsmaster that Leet wasn't going to take it lying down. A determined tinker was a dangerous tinker. There were multiple instances throughout history to prove his point. An even more recent example was the Cornell Hostage Incident. If Leet got out, he might escalate things in an attempt to 'get even' with Wraith, something that the city definitely didn't need.
The stream also didn't give much in terms of information. They managed to pin down the exact time that Leet would have been defeated. Using the time when the Drone stopped moving and the sudden shutdown of the zombie bots along with the precise start time of the stream, they could narrow down the window when Wraith would encounter Leet. Which led to another finding. All the tampering also occurred after Sudden Death was announced which rang several alarm bells in Armsmaster's head.
"But why during Sudden Death?" Armsmaster murmured. There wasn't anything special during Sudden Death compared to any other time. In fact, one could call it a much easier time since the zombies were moving as one cohesive unit compared to a smattering of smaller groups. The civilian group itself also didn't seem special. Moving randomly through the hallways in an attempt to evade the horde. All the way until one of them called–
A sound of the speakers crackling to life notified Armsmaster of Dragon's arrival. The screen flickered and the image of her face appeared on it. "Colin, you need to take a break." Her voice came over. "There's nothing in the recordings that hasn't been picked apart by now." Armsmaster gave a short huff before tearing his eyes away.
"There must be something." Armsmaster muttered. "I do not think that there's a cape that can perfectly hide every detail of their presence. What about the statements of the victims?" He asked. Although Uber and Leet struck fairly early in the day, there were still quite a number of people who were caught early on. Someone somewhere must have seen something right? Dragon had fed them through an rudimentary language processor to extract key information from it.
She took a breath. A short exasperated sound but she relented to his question. "According to their testimonies… No one noted anything out of the ordinary while they were moving around the mall. However, they were also worried about the zombie robots Leet managed to produce, so I don't think you could take it as proper evidence of his lack of presence." Dragon said. "Wraith certainly took good care of hiding themselves from any form of tracking."
Armsmaster grunted in response. Something was off. You didn't get to a rank as high as a Protectorate leader without honing your instincts as well. But he couldn't quite put a finger on it.
"We also have the statements from the final group. The one who evaded the zombies?" Dragon continued. "They pinned much of the responsibility of their escape on the man on your screen right now." Glancing behind him, Armsmaster looked at the person in the middle of shouting his commands. "According to the group, he led them to secure weapons and acted as a leader for the group, all the way up to the Sudden Death."
Armsmaster frowned slightly. "And how is this relevant?"
"It isn't. Not yet at least." Dragon admitted. "But let me explain. Looking through the database, it took a while to pin a name to his face." An image appeared on the screen. One that looked distinctly different to the person in the video. One a lot more… scarred by the throes of puberty. "Nathan Leong, former student of Brockton Bay University before dropping out."
Crossing his arms, Armsmaster's frown deepened. "You think he is Wraith?"
"This was something I discovered during an investigation." Dragon dodged the question with a small smile. "No prior records of taking any form of leadership role, and no records of any form of club activity or extracurriculars." Dragon threw up several more papers on-screen. "Teacher reports also describe him as a 'quiet' or 'meek' with several emphasising his lack of participation in class. All the way up to University."
He could see where this was going. "A trigger?"
"Possibly. A sudden dropout from school without any prior warnings provides a possible window in which a trigger event might occur." Dragon provided a written statement of Nathan's withdrawal, citing personal matters that made him unable to focus on his studies. However, outside that one contained event, there weren't any other notable documented events that would fulfill a similar criteria.
"Perhaps a undocumented trigger?" Armsmaster suggested. It wasn't completely impossible. Though certain powers were rather loud and flashy, Hellhound's and the Cornell Bomb threat came to mind, other triggers were more covered up. Although the PRT and Protectorate tried to keep on top of possible triggers, there were simply too many different ways and too many people to simply keep track of all of them.
Dragon nodded her avatar. "I thought so too. Skimming through prior incident reports from both PRT and Protectorate, there were no events that cited a man of similar build or stature to Nathan as a victim." So not a trigger due to gang activity. As a victim at least. As a gang member? Armsmaster frowned. That couldn't be it either. If that was the case, the teachers' comments of being alone for most of the time wouldn't make sense. He would gravitate to other gang members, wouldn't he?
"This, of course, doesn't dissuade the possibility that he triggered in his own home, without any eyewitnesses." Dragon supplied.
He nodded as all the information that Dragon drudged up was displayed to him. If this was true, they would have to do this with a light touch. It was for the best that the public, and more importantly, the gangs didn't find out about this.
Nathan's drop out occurred at the very start of winter break, about midway through December. Generally a slow period for everyone, gangs included as people started gearing for Christmas. An interesting time to dropout, allowing him to use the break almost entirely for whatever parahuman activities he might need.
Circumstantially, it made sense. A trigger event, either just before or just after Nathan's withdrawal from university. A sudden improvement in appearance, including shifts to facial bone structure of all things as provided by Dragon, something that shouldn't be possible without extensive and invasive surgery or parahuman powers. And suddenly a drastically different personality during his next appearance during a villain attack.
However, it was just that. Circumstantial.
Armsmaster finally asked the question that Dragon was waiting for. "So what's the likelihood that Nathan here is Wraith?"
"52.41439%" An eyebrow rose to look at Dragon. "It isn't perfect but we can use the livestream along with the remaining camera footage to get a general sense of where the group was." A visualization of the mall's floor plan was projected along with the group's route through it, plus several pictures that cross-referenced when exactly they passed each area. Red lines formed to show where the extra zombies came from before the blue lines started to diverge, with a single purple line denoting the direction Nathan was running to.
"Looking at the camera footage," Dragon extended the line before Nathan turned the corner, "he ended here, next to these restaurants." The relevant logos were thrown up as well. "The cameras that were tampered with these ones." Several more images were thrown up as the less relevant information faded away. "And here is where Leet was found." A green dot appeared in the middle of the hallway leading to the camera room.
A few more purple lines drew out, covering the locations where the cameras were. Although vague, they could be linked up with Nathan's last known position to form a line from it directly to the door leading to Leet.
"Interesting." Armsmaster murmured. "However, there were other cameras enroute that did not capture him as well." He pointed to cameras C5, E7 and a few others. "It could just be coincidence."
Dragon nodded, but red zones spilled out from the location each camera was placed. "These cameras also have blindspots that could be exploited to allow Nathan to slip through without notice. It's also because of these zones that my confidence isn't higher."
Unfortunately, the entire surveillance network was down until the PRT secured the area. Otherwise, they might be able to find more information to work with. "What of other possibilities?"
Dragon listed some other possibilities she had entertained. Specifically those of a Master victim, Stranger victim, and pure coincidence since those were the next three highest that made up the bulk of the chance.
"Master and Stranger possibilities are about 15% and 12% each with the possibility of it being a pure coincidence being 21%." She admitted. "For either possibility, it's likely that they were conducted by an unknown trigger or new villain. The usual suspects that may be able to do such a thing have last known positions that place them extremely far away from Brockton Bay."
Concerning, but not terribly so. A strong human Master was practically a Stranger in of themselves. Just look at Heartbreaker. The PRT had no idea he existed until he subverted several women and practically created a wall of unknown victims that protected him. At which point it was impossible to take him out unless they wanted every single one of his victims dead due to his failsafe.
"I think it's for the best to bring this up to the Director." Armsmaster spoke. "Nathan may or may not be Wraith or a M/S victim, but it's better to be safe than sorry." He drafted a quick email and placed a decently high importance to it. Sending to the Director, Armsmaster made his way to the door.
"I'll see you there, Colin." Dragon remarked cheekily before blinking out. Shaking his head, Armsmaster quickly made his way out of his workshop and strode down the corridor. As he walked, people immediately gave way to let him pass. A man in full power armour, power-walking towards you cut a rather imposing sight.
Grabbing the knob, it took a moment to verify his identity. Twisting it, Director Piggot shot a look towards him, then at Dragon who was projected onto the whiteboard. Entering, he took a seat opposite the Director.
"Now that everyone has arrived. Why did you call this meeting?" Piggot glanced between the two heroes.
Piggot pinched the bridge of her nose as the two capes presented their findings. It wasn't completely bullshit. There was definitely enough circumstantial evidence here to paint a compelling picture. Enough that she couldn't dismiss it outright. However, it was also possible that they were barking up the wrong tree.
"It… definitely doesn't have to be parahuman intervention." Piggot muttered underneath her breath. However, as Director of the PRT ENE, and the Director of the powder keg that was Brockton Bay, there were certain things that she couldn't ignore entirely. Like the possibility of having another cape under their belts.
But at the same time, if they were wrong and the gangs somehow caught wind of a new parahuman in town, even with zero hard evidence they wouldn't be sitting pretty. The PRT might accidentally condemn an innocent civilian into being targeted by gangs. After all, the Unwritten Rules could be… bent given the proper circumstances.
"Firstly, seal this behind Clearance Level 8," The level that only allowed the Director and the Protectorate Leader to view its data. "We do not need the gangs to go into an uproar to try to find this man."
As for this Nathan… They shouldn't escalate this too much too fast. If he was a parahuman, that would simply draw attention to him as to why the PRT had an interest in him. If he was a Master or Stranger victim, then it might spook the cape behind him and it would be a hundred times harder to capture them.
"Bring him into the PRT base for observation. Call it an aftermath report, asking for further clarification, whatever. Get him inside and into an observation room so we can run a M/S test on him as well as have a private conversation with him. But do it without alerting him, we shouldn't spook the cape behind him." Piggot eventually made her decision.
"Should we also send similar orders to some of the other victims? To make it look more official?" Dragon asked.
"If it would make it more believable, then do it." Piggot shot a glance at the virtual woman. "If that's all, I will end the meeting here."
Crystal stared at the fan on her table. The motor whirred and circulated the air around her room, creating a droning background noise that her mind anchored to. In front of her was her computer that held her notes that she was supposed to be transferring to her actual notebook. However, her mind kept drifting back to Nathan.
Love was a particular minefield that she never tried to cross before. After the murder of Fleur and her own trigger event being chased by kidnappers due to her mere status as 'the Daughter of Manpower and Lady Photon', she was extremely reluctant to truly fall in love. Anyone who did would immediately have a huge target on their backs as a result.
Though the Unwritten Rules would say otherwise, who was to stop another 'zealous gang member' from attacking them in the middle of the night? What was to stop a cape from accidentally dealing some collateral damage to threaten them, forcing her to breakaway and save them in response?
Not that it stopped people from trying to get into her pants. She was acutely aware of her appearance, and most people didn't think past the pretty face in front of them to consider the cons of being in a relationship with her. She entertained one such relationship, and the boy became an arrogant prick, wielding their relationship like a club.
Needless to say, it ended just as fast as it came to be.
As for the rest of them, she had to let them down gently. Not that it dissuaded the absolute tide of confessions she had received over the years. Even in University, it only stopped after a rumour started spreading around that she was the 'Unattainable Jewel' of the cohort. Which only really stopped the shy ones from confessing, and only left the arrogant jocks who thought it was her privilege that she would be dating them.
And to be perfectly honest, she'd much prefer the shy ones.
All in all, it was all to say she had never really fallen in love. Or even had anything past a friendship with a guy. So why was it that her mind kept drifting back to the guy whom she met at the mall? He didn't seem any different than most other guys who chatted her up. He definitely had a much more appealing face though… But Crystal didn't consider herself a vain woman.
A few flirts but nothing really egregious like dropping a comment on her breast size. Her eyebrow twitched as she remembered that particular interaction and felt the urge to blast a hole in something.
And yet why couldn't she get him out of her mind?? Crystal threw her head back with a groan. She considered the idea of a Master power before immediately dismissing it. She was definitely not going to accuse some random guy of being Heartbreaker of all people just because she had some sort of infatuation with him. For a moment, she considered calling up one of her friends to ask for help, but immediately dismissed the idea. Nothing against them, but they were very much part of the rumour mill in her college. Nothing should be said to them that she didn't want the entire school knowing by the end of the next day.
Her next idea was telling her mom or even Vicky. The first idea was dismissed, mostly because it was far too late and she was likely asleep. However, Vicky might still be awake, patrolling around somewhere. Even though her cousin practically only ever dated Dean, it was still some amount of love experience.
Now she just needed to make sure she didn't catch on…
Dialing her cousin's number, Crystal leaned back in her chair as the phone rang. After a moment, it was picked up and Vicky's voice came over the speaker. "Hey, Crystal! Whatcha up to?"
"Um…" Crystal's voice died in her throat. A sudden balloon of nervousness sealed up her voice, preventing her from speaking. Even fighting Uber again was more preferable than talking about her love life. "Hey Vick… I was just wondering…" She took a deep breath and bit the bullet. "How did you know that you liked Dean?"
"Oh?" Vicky made a soft sound of surprise. "Hehehe… Did a 'friend'," Crystal could practically hear the air quotes, "of yours found someone they liked and they aren't sure if they do like them or not?"
Despite the many jokes of 'Collateral Damage Barbie' and 'Brute-level intelligence' memes, Victoria was incredibly sharp when she wasn't recklessly throwing her strength around. A pained grimace formed on Crystal's face as she immediately regretted having this conversation in the first place. "That's exactly right." She admitted. At the very least, Vicky should have the sense to not spread this on the rumour mill.
"Uuuu….!" Victoria squealed before clearing her throat. "I mean– I'll do my best to help out this 'friend' of yours." The sound of rushing wind whipped by as Victoria flew somewhere… Pulling the phone away, she waited until her cousin settled down before starting her long explanation.
It took a good ten minutes or so before Crystal interrupted her to summarize her points. "So… spend more time with them, flirt back, and watch them interact with other girls and see how you feel about them?" She quirked an eyebrow. It wasn't… impossible since Nathan was a student in Brockton Bay University as well. Though in order to keep it on the down low, she would have to search for him herself.
Vicky sounded a bit sheepish on the phone. "There's… a bit more than that… But it's the gist of it. If your heart pounds when he's close to you, or if you feel jealous that he's with other girls, then you're definitely into him."
Hearing her state it so blatantly, Crystal felt her cheeks heat up rapidly. "It's for a friend."
"Right, right. A 'friend'. I forgot." Vicky laughed which only made her face burn even more.
Sighing, Crystal gave a brief goodbye before hanging up. Rubbing her cheeks, she shut the laptop in front of her before throwing herself onto her bed. Swaddling herself in her blankets, she cursed herself for acting so much like a lovestruck girl in some sort of drama. Taking a deep breath, she shook her head.
There was no way she was falling in love with a civilian. No way no how. Her life was far too dangerous, and there was no way that they would ever be safe. She bit her lip as she remembered him tossing the fan over to her. His smug looking grin when she caught it and said that it was for her. Then his sheer embarrassment as he practically fled from the scene after dropping that cringe line. It was almost refreshing compared to the absolute slop of interactions that she had otherwise.
"Nonono!" Crystal tossed in her bed and buried her face into her pillow. "I'm not in love. It's just an infatuation and it will fade sooner or later." Shutting her eyes, she forced herself to go to sleep, trying to drive his image from her mind.
Sitting in her room, Lisa Wilbourne nursed a growing headache. Nathan… was a concern. He knew not only who she was but how her powers worked and her team as well. A Thinker power for certain. However, when trying to pinpoint how that Thinker power worked, her power spiraled into several different paths.
And all of them contradicted the previous conclusion. The first time she used her power, it said that he was a mind reader. The second that he simply knew and that there wasn't any power that provided him knowledge. The third that he could 'see the history' of whoever he was looking at. Each conclusion being worse than the last. This had never happened before. Most of the time, she would receive relatively consistent conclusions, even if she reapplied her power repeatedly on the same object or person.
Except for some smaller details, the general idea for the conclusion should have been exactly the same. There was nothing to show that she could have drawn wildly different conclusions from the same information. This was unlike the Endbringers or Scion, where her powers pretty much decided not to work on them. It was working but providing seemingly junk information despite it. Some sort of Stranger power? Lisa gnawed on her lip as she massaged her temples.
No Stranger power. No powers. Knew about secret identi–
She forcefully stopped her power again. Her headache was seriously growing into a full-blown migraine at this point. Nothing it said provided any new knowledge to her. Yes he knew about her identity. Yes, his power was apparently impossible for her to figure out. It pained her to do so, more emotionally than physically, but she admitted that simply didn't know enough about Nathan.
For someone who valued her intelligence, that was a crippling blow to her esteem. She had to know. She must know. Endbringers and Scion? Fine, she could live with a mental model instead. Coil and his true identity? She didn't have enough information for her power to work on and he was actively trying to obscure it. It would take a little longer, but she got it eventually. But Nathan? He practically had everything displayed to her on a silver platter compared to the other two. And the fact that she still didn't know was pissing her off. Lisa didn't really care that he was probably a cape of some sort. Both of them knew that the other was one anyway. And despite knowing her identity, he didn't seem concerned about her.
He panicked when he first saw her but quickly calmed himself down and did well in deflecting and evading most of her questions. But despite that panic, her power had provided that it wasn't directed to her. At least, not entirely. But to the boss behind her. It was only after she didn't show any signs of recruiting him did he relax a little more.
Wary of Coil, huh? A sharp spike of pain hammered into her skull and she fumbled for some more painkillers in a vain attempt to dull it. It didn't work. She knew that much. But the placebo effect helped to squeeze out a few more inferences. He knew of Coil and how dangerous he was. Perhaps she could use him to break free from his control? It was something to keep in mind at least.
Spiralling in circles, Lisa could feel her power try to acquiesce to her demands. The information laid bare in her mind as her power sorted and structured them and restructured them over and over again. It was like staring at a kaleidoscope as her power worked overtime, grasping at straws.
And it very much wasn't working. Her powers were drawing conclusions that drove her mad. Statements that made no sense no matter how you looked at it. For example, when she pointed her power at how he held himself, it originally said that he was trained to do so. A weird conclusion but certainly not as bad as 'is actually over a century old' despite looking no older than twenty!
Lisa constantly had to kill off her power and recenter it, starting with known pieces of information and corralling it the best she could. Not entirely possible, most of the time her power simply ran off with its inferences but things like her focus and attention did 'guide' her power to an extent. She stared at her notes containing everything she knew about Nathan, as if trying to burn a hole through the paper, table and maybe the ground underneath.
A certain inference about his attitude did catch her attention though. Sees the world as not entirely real. A strange conclusion to draw and she quickly cut it off. However, it definitely stuck on her mind. Despite the fact that her power didn't exactly work on his power nor mentality, it worked just fine figuring out his emotions, thoughts and body language. Or at least, she hoped that it does.
A form of dissociation? Lisa cursed as another dull throb rocketed through her head. "Shit!" Taking a deep breath, she took a few moments to calm herself before continuing to fight through the pain. It wasn't some starry-eyed naivety or deep depression that pushed the truth of reality out. It was something very different. Her power filled in the cracks, pulling from his body language, his facial expressions, everything. It hurt. Badly. But she wanted, at the very least, one thing about Nathan. The person that somehow screwed over her powers in a way that no one had before.
"He–" Lisa choked back a cry of pain as she had a full migraine now. "Fuck!" Her thumbs ground into her temples in an attempt to alleviate enough pain for her to even comprehend what her power was trying to tell her. "He… sees everything as a fictional world??"
What the fuck did that mean? Growling, Lisa grabbed a nearby pillow and chucked it against the wall. The soft fabric thumped before falling to the ground. She had never had this bad of a Thinker migraine. Literally. She couldn't point to any time that she had overused her power this badly. Not when her parents literally overworked her to game the system to earn money. Not when she had stayed up late to try in vain to figure out who Coil was.
And it was all for fucking nothing! She wanted to throw something again but another wave of pain nearly knocked her off her feet. Collapsing on her bed, she took several deep breaths. There was no point in working anymore, not with her power feeling like it was trying to kill her. However, an ugly feeling reared its head in her heart. She had to know. She must know who Nathan was.
She glanced towards the scrap of paper by her bedside. His phone number, easily skimmed from his contacts list when she passed it back. Though she did use her power to pull out some digits that she forgot. If she spent more time with him, studying him. Then, at some point, her power should have enough information to produce useful information about him, right?
Taking a deep breath, she fumbled for some sleeping pills and popped them directly into her mouth. Without it, she wasn't going to have any amount of sleep tonight. Not with the jackhammer in her skull. Barely a few seconds later, darkness overwhelmed her vision and her pain was blissfully banished from her mind.