Brockton Bay's Marvelous Mage - Chapter Ninety Nine - PRT and Empire Interlude

PRT

Director Piggot sat at her desk, scattered pictures spread around the work surface, covering other case files and documents. The images showed a large metallic tree growing through the front walk of a collapsed house. They were shot from every conceivable angle and were meticulously labeled.

The images showed that the tree shone in some spots, like a polished mirror, while other places were rougher, textured by the dozens of rifles, shotguns, pistols, and piles of ammo that had been purposely fused to the tree. It gave the tree a molted, craggly look, almost like sections of it were scaly and rough, while the rest was clean and shiny. 

Of course, even the surface around the guns retained the texturing of a tree, looking and feeling every bit like Oak bark, as if it was just another normal tree, not some cape-created abomination. All signs pointed to the tree being alive, the samples they had taken all showing the same results. At least, they did until they withered, crumbling to dust just a short while after they were taken. Every cutting, leaf, or coring disintegrated before any meaningful study could occur beyond recognizing that they were alive.

The only thing that survived being removed from the tree was the "fruit" it bore, the Stars of David that hung from its branches. None of them were viable seeds and were, in fact, solid metal. At least Arcanum seemed to take one aspect of their rules seriously and hadn't created something that could self-propagate.

Not that it mattered. Arcanum had entirely shattered any illusion of what he was really capable of in the process of growing this living, metallic abomination. He was clearly a biotinker, with all the baggage and paperwork that came with it.

Piggot cursed under her breath, starting to gather up the pictures, stacking them into a single pile. Before she could finish, her phone beeped, the voice of her secretary coming through a moment later.

"Director, Armsmaster and Miss Militia are here to see you," The younger woman explained. 

"Let them in," Piggot responded immediately, sliding the half-finished stack of images to the side before she leaned forward, bridging her hands silently as she waited.

After a moment, the two heroes filed in, sitting down after a muttered and spoken "Ma'am," followed by the older, larger woman gesturing to the two chairs in front of her desk. When they were settled, Director Piggot wasted no time cutting to the heart of the matter.

"Did you find anything?" She asked bluntly, watching the pair of Parahuman heroes. "Anything dangerous or worrying at all?" 

After it was clear that samples of the tree were quickly turning to ash when removed from the tree, Armsmaster requested to study the biotinkered creation on location. Miss Militia, along with two squads of armed PRT officers, had been his backup.

"The tree does in fact seem to be a fully metallo-organic organism," Armsmaster confirmed. "It also seemed to heal from harm rapidly quickly. The hole I cut into the side to recover a sample of its core healed within a minute. I do not know if that would continue at the scale of attempting to cut it down, but it was enough to note."

"Any signs that it's dangerous?" The Director repeated.

"Directly? Physically? No," Amrsmaster responded simply. "Ignoring the obvious deviation, its internal structure is identical to that of an Eastern White Oak, which, as you can imagine, is no threat. However, my sensors did detect the same low-level, anomalous energy reading all of his creations have. Whether that means the tree was simply made with the same tools, or it has some sort of hidden function, I cannot say." 

Piggot leaned back in her chair heavily, ignoring the strained sound the backrest made as she did. Her eyes stuck to one of the better images of the tree, reaching out to tilt it so she could see it better. 

"Miss Militia? You spent time a significant amount of time around it," She pointed out. "Anything you would like to add?" 

"First, I would like to go on record pointing out that, despite the worrying precedence this tree sets, Arcanum has shown no desire to harm anyone who is not clearly a villain and has shown remarkable self-control when that line isn't clear."

Miss Militia's statement caused Director Piggots' eyebrow to raise, but the PRT leader reluctantly nodded in understanding. Her point was valid, though she was very capable of remembering Arcanum's impressive restraint and patience on her own.

"That said, I do understand why the protocol for biotinkers is in place. And I would say that... this is out of character," She responded. ". Arcanum is results-oriented. Showing off like this and creating a spectacle? I wouldn't have thought it was something he would normally do." 

"Agreed, which means something happened, or there was a reason for it," Piggot pointed out. 

"It is possible he may be Jewish," Armsmaster pointed out, both Miss Militia and the Director turning to look at him. "or, perhaps that the New Wave and Arcanum alliance is looking to purposely agitate the Empire."

"Well, if he was looking to agitate, it worked. Reports all over Empire territory show barely restrained activity," Piggot said. "This is a powder keg to begin with, and he just lit a fire around the barrel."

"...We are going to have to adjust his rating," Armsmaster pointed out after a long pause, all three of them considering just how precarious and dangerous the situation was.

"Unfortunately, we can no longer hold off on the Biotinker label," Director Piggot said, nodding in agreement to Armsmaster's statement. "This is too far to hide behind a plant-based striker effect. How high should his rating be?" 

"With this, I would put him at a tinker seven or eight," Armsmaster said with a frown. "The breadth and complexity of his creations seem to be on the rise. Between his own creations and what he has made for others… The gloves he gave to Velocity alone should be rated Blaster/Striker/Shaker five or six. The capability to just hand out what equates to full powersets at that level, especially considering that what he makes lacks the need for regular maintenance. The lack of build-up for each creation is also incredible." 

"Are we officially changing our assumption that he is a tinker only and that all his other abilities stem from that?" Miss Militia asked. "That is something we need to make an official decision on if we are going to design countermeasures." 

While Arcanum had shown no signs of hostility, even when they had pushed him unfairly, the fact that he was being officially labeled a biotinker meant they were obligated to at least design containment procedures. With the metal tree, there was no way to deny it any longer.

"Yes, with the caveat that we cannot be one hundred percent confident he has not modified himself directly," Piggot added. "As poor as that sounds attached to his Biotinker status, we cannot remove either. We will make it clear that he has never shown hostile intent to anyone beyond villains."

The three discussed the Arcanum's rating for another hour, before finally settling on Tinker eight, with an attached Brutem Striker and Blaster five. They agreed that his ability to create empowering devices seems to be connected to his specialty, earning him a Trump four, and his teleportation being proven to be global made him a Mover seven. His Striker five rating also covers his healing. With the reveal of his metal golems and "guardians," his Master rating was changed to a scale of five to seven, depending on who he was with. 

The fact that various ratings had jumped up several points was actually another tally on the Tinker theory, since it was common for tinkers to ramp up as they got to know their abilities and their production capabilities improved. 

They also spent some time devising a containment strategy in case Arcanum were to suddenly go crazy or cross the line from rogue hero to dangerous vigilante. This was more of a brainstorming session than policy production, so the ideas were kept pretty vague. They would design actual containment procedures with a much larger group, including PRT forces. 

Containment procedures were serious business, so a large portion of the Protectorate would gather to discuss their options before submitting them as an addendum to Arcanum's file. 

The meeting ended after that, with Armsmaster leaving for his lab and Miss Militia going to check up on the Wards before heading home for the day. She was off duty for the remainder of the weekend. 

Unless, of course, more trouble arose, and she was called back in.

Empire

The Parahuman members of the Empire gathered in one of their few meeting places, this time a secret room locked away in the upper levels of the MedHall building. The room was wide open, looking every bit like a meeting room from a supervillain's base, complete with a long, overdramatic metal table and throne on one end for Kaiser to sit in. The table had several empty seats, two of those spots having been empty for longer. 

"Unacceptable! Four of our ranks are gone, out of our grasp, and we had no idea it was happening!" Kaiser shouted. "How did we not know about this sooner!? We spend millions on bribes, and we only learn about it nearly days later?"

A glass of expensive whiskey flew across the table, narrowly missing an already agitated Cricket, the scarred woman not even flinching. For a moment, Kaiser fought to collect himself, the large iron blades around his chair humming as he did. The table was silent as he seethed, no one willing to interrupt his anger. 

"Have you confirmed they are no longer in the holding cells?" Kaiser eventually asked, focusing on Victor, his breathing slowly lying leveling out.

"Yes, they were transferred to Baltimore PRT holding facilities," Victor repeated, tugging at his black and red domino-style mask, which curved around his face. "One of our plants reached out to us and provided a copy of Rune's transfer papers. They are in Baltimore, awaiting their hearing." 

"It seems that Arcanum is determined to make himself a target," Kaiser said with a scowl, sitting back down on his chair, a large iron throne at the head of the table. "What about this tree?"

"At the moment, the PRT is investigating it," Victor responded. "It would be unwise to try and remove it now, especially before they can confirm that it doesn't have any dangerous additions." 

"What sort of additions?" Kaiser asked, his eyes narrowing.

"If what the PRT suspects is true, then Arcanum is a powerful Tinker, with a specialty that includes at least some amount of biotinkering," Victor explained, crossing his arms in front of his red-black chest plate. "They don't know his limits, but have labeled him a tinker eight, with a host of attached ratings. It's safe to assume if he wanted to trap the tree, he is perfectly capable of doing so." 

"We can't just let it fucking stand there, it's a fucking insult! Like he's spitting in our face," Hookwolf pointed out, anger and frustration apparent even from behind his metal wolf mask. "Get some dumbass from the recruits to hack it down. If it offs him, we can use him as a martyr."

"... we can't assume it will come down that easily, but the idea had merit," Kaiser responded, a hint of surprise leaking through. "If we find someone young, the public would be outraged…"

"Then we can hunt the fucking kike bastard down! " Hookwolf added, spitting on the floor beside his chair. "Fucking prick… We should fucking hang him from his own fucking tree!"

"This is obviously an attempt to lure us into attacking him," Victor pointed out, ignoring Hookwolf's rant. "He is poking at us, trying to force us into responding."

"Dumbass is asking for trouble. I told you, we should have killed him after he killed Alabaster!" Hookwolf shouted, slamming a fist on the table. "But no, you were all too worried 'about what he was capable of.' Well, good job fuckheads, you gave the tinker more time to build up!" 

For weeks following Alabaster's death, Hookwolf had been chomping at the bit to pay Arcanum back. The pale-skinned regenerator had worked with Hookwolf frequently, and their unique brands of insanity worked well together. Unfortunately, Kaiser had held them back, quoting a lack of understanding of Arcanum's power. To somehow kill the unkillable reeked of Trump, and considering how badly he had injured both Rune and Krieg in the same fight, Kaiser was concerned killing the rogue hero would cost them too much. 

Then his healing prowess spread, making him a much more dangerous person to target, at least from a PR standpoint. On top of that, his defeat of Lung was followed by the creation of his golems. Every time Kaiser started to feel confident they could strike at the hero, he pulled another twist out of his hat. 

The most frustrating thing of all was that Hookwolf was correct, they had given the tinker the most dangerous thing they could, time. Now, Arcanum had had nearly a month to build up and had clearly set his sights on the Empire. Worse, they had sacrificed men to confirm he was based in the forest, only to realize it was pointless. The first rule of fighting tinkers was never to attack them at their base.

"What if we targeted New Wave?" Menja suggested, her sister nodding. "They are a softer target, a target we know well. If we shake them up, they may pull back from supporting Arcanum." 

"They would only ambush us," Victor countered with a frown, titling his head after a moment. "Unless… we attacked while they weren't expecting it, and therefore were not prepared to need reinforcements..." 

"No, that would mean attacking them 'unmasked,'" Kaiser said, leaning forward. "We cannot do that, not while many still remember Fleur. They will not believe the same lie twice, not when we are all directly involved." 

"Then we need to overwhelm them, both New Wave and Arcanum," Victor responded with a shrug. "Even with his golems, Crusader was close to overwhelming Arcanum. With enough players on the field, we would come out on top, no matter who they pull in for reinforcements."

"Let me take a crack at them, I can handle the prissy bitches," Hookwolf said confidently. "Me, Cricket, and the boys will make them regret messing with us."

"I would think we would need more to overwhelm than just you and your dogs," Victor responded, shaking his head and rolling his eyes. 

Once again, Kaiser mentally cursed Krieg for bringing Crusader with them when he got captured. Crusader was often their problem solver for many issues, his ghost extremely flexible, and with a little warm-up, easily capable of overwhelming their enemies. With him gone, they would have to rely on unpowered gang members. Even worse, now he was utterly out of their reach, a tool they couldn't just rescue in a few days. He knocked on the table, silencing Hookwolf and Victor, who had continued to argue.

"We will strike them with overwhelming force, with as many assets as we can bring into play," he said. "A show of might, of what happens when people stand against the Empire. Then, once Arcanum is dead, as is only right since he killed Alabaster, we will hang him from his tree, before we cut it down and throw it and his corpse into the ocean."

Victor nodded in simple understanding, while Hookwolf chuckled menacingly, rubbing his hands together in excitement, eager to extract his pound of owed flesh.