#Interlude Mission aftermath

Raynor POV (Police)

I couldn't believe this, how could everything go so wrong in less than a few hours. I had tried to keep the kid outside the most dangerous areas while following behind the radio signal of the walkie-talkie. I had always been a bit of prepper and old tech fanatic, radio was my bread and butter and modifying walkie-talkies to send text messages was one of my easiest tricks. I found it ironic just how easy it had become to hide communication using old tech, simply because people didn't even think about using the old stuff when there was so much better available. Even the PRT didn't have a habit of checking for radio frequencies, there were simply to many just blasting any area, the number of old and alternative radio shows still podcasting despite no actives listeners had listened for months was staggering. This was literally pre world war tech and people treated it like an old hobby, a waste of time practiced only by those who had missed the train of modern technology. Admittedly I wouldn't have gotten into the habit if I hadn't had colleagues in Boston talk about Accord using it very effectively in some of his plans. The radio and the secret communication was the only thing that had went right today.

I was delighted when I saw the kids note, it reaffirmed my impression of him being able to plan his moves ahead and adjusting to changing circumstances, which sadly made him more competent than half of my colleagues and 2/3 of all PRT and Protectorate personal I had ever met. Parahumans who actually used something other than their powers where rare and even rarer where they able to keep to a plan. Every parahuman had at least an emotional trauma and most had serious anger issues. The kid had surprised me in how calculated he had appeared, even though I tried pushing his buttons multiple times during our short conversation. He might have appeared to trusting, if I hadn't spied his snakes watching me, not just when I intruded in his apartment but even before that. Forcing me to reveal myself by slithering at the farm had been genius on his part, he had known I couldn't keep my communication quiet after he lead me to the secret entrance and knew showing myself to be in league with a parahuman would at least reduce suspicion on me for being better informed about the complex than anyone else.

I wish I could say the way I had handled the kid had been the greatest fuckup of my career, but while it came close, at least none of my men had died. The death of colleagues was way to common in my line of work and I had lost 3 of my subordinates over my career. Every one of those days was worse even though today had given me a completely new respect for the PRT and their ability to mostly keep the Wards in line. How a single preteen parahuman could get into so much shit in a single day was a mystery. First there had been the 'Going' he had sent me after I had given him a few suggestions to get him out of the fought over areas of the city. I had thought that giving him something to do while the Empire continued their aggressive attacks would keep him away from combat. Give him a few spy missions, maybe something about the school he will start at, that will keep him occupied with gathering information, make sure he stays away from the Docks and ABB territory while keeping him busy, was what I had thought.

I had forgotten that all capes had a seemingly supernatural ability to attract trouble, that had been more than foolish of me. How the kid had even ended up in the richest part of town, close to the house of the majors brother and his family was another mystery I just couldn't get my head around. That wasn't on any path to the outskirts of the city or even close to any other objective I had given him. I couldn't fault him for intervening, I normally would applaud his heroism, but I couldn't shake the feeling that something else was going on, something parahuman was messing with the city. Protectorate capes out on a publicity event was normal for this city, PR was a mayor time sink in this city, but the whole roster being gone at the same time only happened once in a blue moon, that the Underside, a very minor smash and grab specialized group of teenage parahumans would rob the central bank, was a change in modus operandi for them, but not impossible by itself, after all they had been steadily escalating, even provoking Lung during their last big heist.

But that every Ward, PRT and Police squad in the more wealthy areas of Brockton Bay just happened to be occupied by a what now appears to me a minor incident with zero casualties, while kidnappers in PRT uniforms where going after the majors nice, doing their best to kill the parents in the process wasn't just impossible, it was a set up. The real question was if the Farm had been part of the whole operation, who was behind it and which had been the true goal of the mastermind. The data stolen at the bank hadn't turned up any red flags so far, not that they would be informed if anything had been discovered, parahuman crime was the PRT's domain, but if what the New Wave girls had said during their interviews was true, than the Underside had a very powerful tinker who could have possible gathered data or great importance without anyone noticing. Another possibility was that the mastermind had aimed to use the majors nice to put pressure on the Major to introduce a certain police of push an agenda. If parahumans had been present at that attack it would have been reasonable to suspect the Empire, but any gang in the city could have hired mercenaries and the Empire had enough capes to leave some as backup, they had been suspiciously quiet today anyway.

The next most likely suspect would have been the ABB, but with today's revelation at the farm this seemed unlikely, but who outside the big gangs had the power and cloud to pull an operation like this. The only reason why it hadn't worked was that a freshly triggered cape had been veered of his route on a scouting mission I had sent him one to protect him from all of this. I had known the kid to be at least competent enough to deal with minor issues, but what he had shown today went above and beyond I could have realistically hoped for. Instant tinker healing that didn't leave behind even the most minor of scares and according to every doctor and even Panacea herself the victims where now healthier than the average citizen could hope to be at their ages. Even those who had only been in close proximity but not healed directly had recovered to an astonishing degree. If I didn't know the kid to be responsible, if not for the tracks left behind by his snakes and the eyewitness reports I wouldn't have thought him to be capable of this. Benjamin had not only stopped a kidnapping and saved the lives of hundred today, but he had also single handedly dismantled a tinker lair not even a month after his trigger. And this was under the assumption he had triggered together with his sister and not at a later date. I didn't know enough about cape powers to get a good estimation just how powerful he was, but he was at least an exceptional tinker with either a precognitive power or a technological equivalent.

But nothing, not even the hundreds saved justified that I had sent a kid into a deathtrap. I hadn't known, I had thought he would be saver there, but nothing could excuse the traumatic scenes he must have witnessed healing those surgery victims. Even worse he had had to remove bombs from the heads of some of the victims, a child being forced to do brain surgery in a combat zone while wading through the blood of countless victims while his creations fought against a psychopath and her army of hardened gang bangers. A single missed bomb, an smarter than average gang member or a remote trigger for any of the bombs and I would be looking at his corpse right now. I had sent a kid into a warzone and while he das survived those memories, the smell, taste and feel of blood would never leave him, I knew that form experience and I had never been forced to to impromptu brain surgery. This was even worse because I couldn't stop, I couldn't leave the kid to his own devises it this was the kind of trouble he got in without even trying, I owed him my allegiance not just because of my failures, but because he had proven himself to be a true Hero a truly good person. I couldn't let him be destroyed by the blood mill that was the Brockton Bay.

He would live and prosper, even if I had to throw away everything else. I would get him all the information he would ever need, I would be his support and if need be his life shield from danger. What had this world come to, that a single preteen was more capable, more successful in a single day than the entirety of the cities protectors in weeks. This farm had existed for years and it took less than a day of semi dedicated effort by a single parahuman to get rid of it for good, this building would never be used again.

I went to get another coffee, the cleanup at the farm had lasted into the early hours of the morning and my squad was still busy questioning the victims and finding temporary accommodations for more than one hundred people who had nowhere to return to. It was with grim satisfaction that I noted that we could allow those people to sleep in unoccupied cells for a night, because none of the ABB captors had survived the self destruction of the base. The only one to escape had been the cape and the kill-order for her had been signed not even an hour after the discovery of what she had done. I could only hope the bounty hunters would arrive fast enough, so she wouldn't have time to set up a new lab somewhere else, but realistically I knew that there with the resources of the ABB and the help of Oni Lee there was no chance of that.

Collecting the dossier I had compiled on everything he knew about Benjamin, his sister, the PRT approach to new Wards, the rehabilitation program of Shadow Stalker and the current situation of the Bay, I decided to pass it on to Benjamin before going to bed that day. Benjamin had gone above and beyond and now it was my turn to repay it in the best way I could.

POV Coil

He closed another timeline in which he had tortured Tattletale to death, not because he wanted answers, he had gotten those from her hours ago, he was simply trying to calm his rage in the best most fun way he could. Having the ability to do anything without ever suffering the consequences of his actions, because the actions simply had never happened in this timeline had increased his depravity in ways not even the most psychotic serial killers could imagine. He had tasted virgin blood, feasted on eyeballs of toddlers and done countless things which would break the minds of Satanists and the fallen alike. Only when he had gotten bored of it all had he chosen to aim for domination and power in the real world. These days he could barely spend any time satisfying his urges, the price of his masterpiece. A masterpiece which had just been delayed, maybe indefinitely. A fucking child, a cutesy little shit had destroyed the work of months, everything had been so perfect, the PRT had been even more stretched than usual because that new air controller wasn't playing ball and he had tried his best to slow down the resolution by causing all kinds of incidents, his Tattletale had for once worked perfectly, preserved her team despite fucking with Lung and even recruited a new member without his interference. The plan had been perfect, no Protectorate, no Wards, no PRT, even New Wave had been caught in the bank robbery and all available police forces had been kept busy. And than this fucking girl, in her purple snake outfit had shown up and destroyed his trained mercenaries like they were nothing more than training dummies.

He had underestimated her, he should have forced Tattletale to research her beforehand, but there hadn't been any time, her depute had been to close to the bank operation. Her appearance and successful heist alone had forced him to spend massive effort to keep the Protectorate capes from leaving behind some of their members to deal with the new thread, but he had thought her a villain, a small annoyance at most and now his plans lay in ruins. She would pay, they all would pay, no one took his pets and got away with it.

The painfully thin and sickly looking man smiled eerily, like a demon that had just found a new prey. Behind his back lay the bloody remains of a team of mercenaries that had failed their task.