4.7

4.7

As the rain began to come down more heavily, you couldn't help but sigh. It had been a few days since it had last rained, and you had hoped that as you came in towards the better parts of spring and summer the majority of the bad weather would have passed you by, but that was the danger of living somewhere with no extremes. Maybe the winters didn't reach searing cold, but the spring never truly shook off the chill either.

Armsmaster, for his part, seemed entirely unworried. You supposed waterproofing was one of the first things that any tinker worth their salt would ensure was entirely covered in their power armour, if they were so inclined to build such a thing, and someone who had been in action as long as Armsmaster had probably come up with a way for his suit to remain undamaged at the bottom of the ocean or in the vacuum of space – not that you felt as though he would be particularly willing to test it out any time soon.

Much of the crowd, aside from a few notable instigators who sat with their hands zip-tied and awaiting the police, had dispersed and you found yourself stood in front of the Memorial Hall, the flat metal plate erupting from the ground still shielding the doors, and wondering about where to go next.

The obvious course of action was to follow them.

Evidence that the Richard Anders' Memorial Hall was a hub of Empire activity was no completely impossible to ignore. Skýla had sensed some strangeness coming from there earlier in the day before the Medhall explosion, and now Kaiser saw fit to distribute his propaganda from the steps. Either the city truly paid no attention to such things, or people already knew that the place was a centre for fascist gatherings, or people were stunningly unobservant. It wasn't possible for you to be the only one who had figured things out. In fact, it seemed more plausible that you were simply the last person to do so.

Going after them made sense. Nobody in their contingent could fly or, to your knowledge, teleport, though you assumed that the existence of Cricket's strange teleportation device meant that maybe making such assumptions was foolish. There was a good chance that if you moved quickly, one or perhaps several of them could still be within the Memorial Hall itself, and getting to them while there was a chance at an arrest seemed imperative.

Expressing this thought to Armsmaster, however, was much less straightforward than you had thought.

'Everything you're telling me makes sense,' he pointed out, tone measured, 'but the reality is that we can't simply charge into a private building on suspicions unless we have reason to believe somebody is going to come to harm. We would have to obtain approval from the PRT.'

'Private building? I thought the Memorial Hall was owned by the city. Anyone can go in.'

While you weren't entirely sure if that was actually true, it was how things usually operated. Renamed from a pre-existing building after refurbishment in the wake of Richard Anders' passing years ago, the Memorial Hall was, in some ways, more like a utility building. People gave speeches there, particularly in the wake of things like the mayoral elections, and on occasion awards were given out in the central hall that allowed for a few hundred people to sit. Once, with your middle school, you had gone in to witness a debate of some kind, though you had been so excited you had barely paid any attention to the arguments being put forward.

But more often than not, it was used as a glorified meeting room for big shots, or a space that could be rented by anyone with enough disposable income to make King Midas blush; you had even heard that it was used as a pool hall, once or twice. Just going inside didn't even require booking.

'Though admissions are usually open, the hall is technically still owned by the Medhall Corporation, of which Richard Anders was the founder.'

All of your suspicions dropped into focus.

You never considered yourself to be a particularly smart person, though you knew that you were no more stupid than anyone else. Someone who was intelligent through hard work and the occasional knack for things, rather than a natural genius; strategic, perhaps, and decent at planning on the fly, but not really the kind of person who could sit down with a mystery novel and solve it before the end.

For something like this, however, you hardly needed the reasoning powers of Sherlock Holmes. In fact, you had already been fairly sure of the truth – this was merely confirmation.

There remained no doubt in your mind that Max Anders was Kaiser. Medhall was simply too tied up in things, and Armsmaster having supported those suspicions over the previous days left you with too much pointing in that direction to ignore. And if Anders was Kaiser, it made sense that Medhall was not only employing elements of the Empire – something which you already knew given the brutal murder of Justin Bormann the previous day – but functionally acting as the legal arm of the Empire. The entire thing was a front, and the Memorial Hall was no different. A shell that hid the danger inside.

Something didn't quite add up, though. When you had seen Max Anders after the Medhall bombing, he had been many things, but one of them was not spectacularly tall. The Kaiser who had been giving a speech had been the tallest person on the platform by a comfortable margin, and without a podium in place you had been able to clearly see that he hadn't been standing on anything.

Was Max Anders wearing risers in his costume? The thought seemed absurd, as minor as it was – puncturing the entire pseudo-chivalric menace of the Gothic armour and its brutally spiked exterior. You took it as a reminder that behind the myth of the monster, Kaiser was after all just a man. You had seen him bleed already, in fact. Even you still wore your glasses inside the helmet. Just humans wrapped in bizarre circumstances.

'Medhall, again.'

You took a moment to arrange your thoughts. If you knew that Medhall was basically just shell for the Empire, then Armsmaster had surely come to similar conclusions – recently, if not years prior.

Which begged the question as to why the PRT had done nothing about it if they knew or, if it was truly a new discovery, why so little was being done. Surely a warrant to search could be rushed through if necessary? Maybe interventions taken to identify other members of the Empire and track them. Certainly, confronting them in their own personal lives might violate some unwritten rules, but Iron Rain had made it clear how little she respected those and if she wasn't going to stick to it in light of Bormann's execution, why would the PRT restrain themselves from cracking down on her in specific, if nobody else?

'Given all of this,' you put the question to Armsmaster, 'and our suspicions do you know Iron Rain? Who she is, I meant.'

'I believe that I do.'

'And can you share that information?'

'I cannot. I have to admit, Penumbra, as much as I don't like it, that I am still on reprimand with the Director and the Protectorate is watching me closely. While it brought Coil in, my mishandling of the situation shone an unpleasant light on certain aspects of my leadership, and I can't afford right now to give out any information of higher clearance without approval.'

'And yet you know who she is. So why aren't we doing anything about it?'

'You know as well as I that there is supposed to be a certain level of distance between the parahuman and the person. It's a safety precaution for the heroes that shields as us much as the villains; if we begin to cross the line and seek out confirmation of who Iron Rain or Kaiser might be out of costume then they feel threatened and no longer have to hold back from performing their own investigations. In a city like Brockton Bay, it wouldn't be long before they had their own sources of secrets and while I don't fear being confronted in my office, nobody wants Kid Win or Clockblocker to find their home under assault by an angered villain. It's for the best that we keep the facade.'

Frustration mounted. The issue would be paradoxically less frustrating if it was simply wrong. You'd be able to chalk Armsmaster's reticence down to his stubbornness and the inflexible failures of the rules, but in this specific case you knew that there was merit to his words. That didn't mean you had to like any of them.

For the solution to be so close and yet so far was infuriating. You could go now and snatch Iron Rain out of wherever she was, putting her in a cell and cutting threats short, but to do so would be to invite Stormtiger to make his own move; hell, with Iron Rain out of the picture, you wouldn't put it past Kaiser's Empire to attempt something equally stupid for their own sakes. A public declaration of their newfound unity.

Nothing good could come of that.

'Learn it legally, then. We have half the Empire in cells, can't someone interrogate them?'

'People have already been speaking to them, Penumbra. Despite being villains they have certain legal rights.'

'Nobody is saying that they don't, but couldn't we press them a little bit? Good cop bad cop or something like that. Lie to them. Imply we know stuff they don't.'

Armsmaster, for the first time in the conversation, gave off an aura of his own irritation. Thus far he had been holding his cool well, and you were honestly impressed. Even just a month ago he would have been snapping already, but whatever reprimand he was under and whatever conversations Dragon had been having with him had made some sort of difference.

That did not, however, mean that his tether was infinite and you felt as though you were reaching the end of it at a rapid pace.

'We will try speaking to them again. I have something which might make the conversation more productive, though I can't guarantee any results. Until that's been done, I can't guarantee or approve any sort of further action.'

'Sir, I asked my power,' you moved in, closing the gap between the two of you somewhat. The streets were still largely emptied, the rain counteracting the movement of the clock to keep people indoors, but you didn't want to be overheard. 'Iron Rain is going to strike soon. Later today, at some point. She's not going to take this lying down – we are on a time limit.'

His square jaw twitched, and you were sure that you would hear grinding if your ear were closer to his mouth. The fact that you had already informed him of that seemed to have slipped his mind or, if it hadn't, he had seen no need to factor it into his immediate decisions.

'I'll make enquiries when we get back and talk to the Director. You are not to take further action until you receive further information. I believe you, Penumbra – your power has served us well before – but reckless action costs lives and cases. We won't be taking rash decisions.'

'Yes, sir.'

Deciding that it was a good idea to give the older man some room, you moved away from him and towards Miss Militia and Dauntless, who were stood together talking. Triumph was still present, but was occupied speaking to some of the zip-tied civilians, presumably trying to figure out exactly what they knew – if anything at all – before the police arrived and whipped them away to their own cells. Communications between the PRT and BBPD were unreliable at best, and there was no telling if any important revelations from a parahuman perspective would be picked up on and transferred once non-powered authorities took over that particular aspect of the case.

Shortly after you moved over, allowing both yourself and Armsmaster to stew in your thoughts, the police arrived and took over the scene, establishing an informal perimeter with their vehicles before removing Triumph from his supervision of the detainees.

The crowd had never been truly enormous, given the impromptu nature of the speech and the early hour, but there had been a few dozen people there at its peak and seeing only six or seven people loaded into the squad vehicles made it clear that things hadn't gone the way they should have.

And of those arrested, not all of them were even the Empire's supporters. You could see at least one of them had been a member of the opposing group, and that stung just as much.

The problem came down to how to get information you already had without using the resources you couldn't be permitted to use. How could you find the Empire association with Medhall in such a way that you could plausibly brief otherwise in the official paperwork and in the public speeches that any major arrest would inevitably produce. How to figure out identities and locations without simply relying on common sense. The entire system of the rules seemed arcane enough to shield villains from most forms of negative action while being just robust enough to provide heroes with a carrot that made it worth holding on to them.

It did, however, provide a possibility of investigation; if you chose to use your civilian identity, perhaps you would get a similar degree of shielding. Things would have to be rapid, though, and effective. While you were fairly sure that Kaiser, in his ridiculous false patriotism and sophistication, speech giving and grandstanding on lofty ideals, would refrain from attempting to kill you outright even if he knew who you were, Iron Rain wouldn't. If you were to expose your civilian identity then the only acceptable outcome would be Iron Rain's arrest, and preferably Stormtiger and Cricket's with it, to ensure her entire faction was wiped from the Bay.

But it seemed possible, and the more you thought on it the more the idea came together. Rachel had been the first to detect the strangeness of the Memorial Hall, purely through her senses. If she had access to that same level of sensory enhancement without transforming into anything visually telling, you and her could easily go out together and navigate the city in civilian guise and try to find some leads; starting from the Memorial Hall itself, you had faith that she would be able to track Kaiser's group in the same way that she had apparently tracked Hookwolf from the warehouse to the Boardwalk.

It would involve unmasking to her, but at this point, you felt that wouldn't be a problem. She was a rough person, that was true, but she seemed like she had her priorities roughly in order and you had already unmasked to Director Piggot, a woman whose edges seemed far more likely to cut than Rachel's did, even if her cut came off the battlefield.

Regrouping with the parahuman forces, you put the idea to Armsmaster, whose rigid contemplation appeared not yet to have ended.

'I'll speak to the Director, and update you. Make no moves until you receive confirmation directly from myself or another Protectorate member.'

Nothing more was to be said, and you made your way back to the headquarters of the PRT without much further discussion. There was a solemnity to the group, absurd juxtaposed with the brash colouration of the group and the obnoxiousness of Dauntless and Triumph's costumes – you wondered where on the scale you fit. On the one hand, your costume was, as many others had pointed out, notably similar to Eidolon's and his outfit had never garnered any disrespect. It was, in fact, by your own evaluation, slightly nicer than Eidolon's – the drape of the hood slightly less pointed at the peak and the deep purple of the fabric a much more pleasant shade than the Triumvirate member's green, a colour which was quite nice in darker lighting but which always appeared too much like a pool table at major events with the lights on high.

But compared to Armsmaster's metallic sleekness or even just the rugged professionalism of Miss Militia's outfit, there was something extravagant about the entire outfit. More tasteful than Triumph's lion head, you were sure of that, but perhaps there was something in you that yearned for being a show-off. That the cloak was gently iridescent did little to dispose of that notion.

Once you arrived at headquarters, you did a mental checklist of what needed to be done. First things first, you were going to contact Vicky; while she hadn't been part of the operations thus far, she still deserved to know what was going on. From the looks of things, the Empire's factions were on a collision course and with Kaiser's agitations you weren't sure how much the PRT was going to be able to stand back. Making sure that New Wave were informed was vital. It wouldn't take long, and could be done while making your way towards your second point of action.

Having informed Vicky, you had to seek out Rachel and inform her of the potential for you to be going out on patrol, and find a way to reveal your true identity to her in a way that wouldn't yet do the same for Regent. You were growing to trust the sarcastic teen slightly more, given his repeated successes in the field and in circumstances where he could easily have feigned a lack of responsibility, but there was a significant gap between having operational faith in someone and wanting to trust them with your personal life.

Rachel, someone who had never truly had a personal life – at least not since becoming a teenager – was a different matter. Part of you wondered whether she even cared about finding out, beyond how useful it might be for the mission.

Thirdly, and perhaps the least importantly, if you didn't hear back from Armsmaster by early afternoon, you were going to seek out Dauntless.

While it was true that you didn't want to go behind Armsmaster's back, it was also true that Dauntless had proven himself slightly more open to pushing the envelope in the past and while he might be ultimately subject to Armsmaster's decision making he had nearly as much leeway as you did in terms of your own Ward status. His reputation preceded him, and he clearly didn't have much of an issue with defying protocol if it meant securing safety and security with regards to a major threat.

Not bothering with PHO, you simply called Vicky. It was roughly lunch time and there was a solid chance that she was out of classes, potentially even headed towards the college classes that occupied so much of her afternoons. If you couldn't get through you would resort to messages but speaking was almost always quicker.

Thankfully, she picked up quickly.

'Ta- Penumbra? What's wrong?'

'Nothing right now, but things are heading in a negative direction. I've just attended an Empire rally outside of the Memorial Hall; Kaiser and his henchmen spreading the usual garbage. They made their getaway but there's good evidence that things are going to go from bad to worse.'

'Worse? What do you mean?'

'Well, you know how they blew up Medhall? That's was Iron Rain. That Medhall worker who got murdered? That was Iron Rain. Kaiser tried to get Cricket, then gave this speech, and Iron Rain's going to be furious, we're trying to figure out how to get around things.'

Silence came over the phone for a moment, before Vicky's slow voice emerged.

'And I'm finding out about this now rather than last night why?'

You cringed internally. You'd never wanted to keep things from her but things were happening pretty fast and you already knew she had things going on. She didn't need your problems on her plate, too.

'I'm sorry, I wasn't even thinking like that. Things just keep happening one after the other and you're already dealing with stuff – you have your meeting with Gallant and Panacea tomorrow, right?'

'Yeah but,' an audible huff came down the phone. 'You know what, it's not a big deal. Nobody's hurt, we'll talk about it later. For now, what do you need me to do?'

While you appreciated Vicky's pragmatism, you weren't particularly looking forward to that conversation. Though, in a way, you were – while nobody ever liked being set straight, it had been a long time since you'd had friends who were willing to just tell you how things were up front and still be your friend after. Honestly had been synecdoche with cruelty for too long.

'Right now, you don't have to do anything in specific. Just let everyone else in New Wave know what's going on, tell them to keep their eyes open and to be safe, and tell them that I'm trying to get the PRT to pursue leads. I can't really say more than that.'

'Deal. And in return, if things go crazy you're gonna call me and I'm going to show up. Deal?'

'Deal.'

Inviting your best friend along to help combat two superhuman Nazis – and possibly more than two, depending on who else showed up – wasn't most people's idea of true affection but anyone who knew Glory Girl knew that she'd be upset if you let her miss out on purpose. The entire thing was likely going to be a contest between her and yourself to see who could punch a hole in Kaiser first.

'Oh, by the way,' you asked, a thought coming across your mind unprompted, 'while I have you here can I ask a question? It's kind of stupid, I know.'

'Sure, shoot.'

''Next week, I promised that I was going to do some stuff on PHO, answering questions and stuff. Do you mind being online when that happens, to moderate?'

The moment was awkward and you knew it, but you held out. Perhaps if you didn't say anything, you would be able to pretend that it never happened. The question had come to mind with no detectable origin, and you had to ask it lest you forget; ultimately, you really did want her there even if now was probably not the time.

'Yes, Penumbra. I will do that. Why are you telling me these things so late?'

There was a bemused exasperation in her voice and you knew that if you could see her, she would have a grin across her face. Conversation was about the flow for Vicky, and turning the tides was always something she had enjoyed; you usually just let her do it, since you had no real concern over such things, but in this particular case you didn't have the time to surf that wave.

'I have no idea, it just came to me. Look, I've got to go – I'll let you know if anything new comes in, okay?'

'Sure, talk later.'

Hanging up, you kept moving. It was strange how conversations could go by so quickly, and you didn't have time to contemplate it as you came upon the Wards' adjacent room – the one that Rachel and Regent spent most of their time occupying.

Moving in with purpose, you only saw Regent. He had his mask off again, but didn't bother putting it back on this time; he seemed resigned to the knowledge that you'd seen his face. Frankly, without a name there wasn't much you could do with it, and even with a name he'd been living at PRT headquarters for a few weeks now. As far as you could tell, there wasn't anything for you to do with it. He was one of those parahumans whose powers had devoured his private life, it seemed; you wondered if things eventually got that way for everyone or not. Armsmaster seemed to live in his suit, doubly true now that he could sleep in it, and you couldn't imagine Miss Militia cooking dinner in a domestic situation. The concept of Alexandria taking off her costume and going to the grocery store felt like a bizarre comedy. Eidolon was more of a concept than a person, in some ways, at least as far as his public image went.

Strangely enough, you could easily picture Legend doing those things. You didn't know if he had any children, but you could imagine him pushing a child on a swing or sitting with the other parents watching a school play without much issue. There was something soft about him, tangible in a way that the other Triumvirate members didn't allow. You wondered how Hero might have been, if he had made it. Would he balance things out, adding another parahuman to the mix who was just a person? Or would he have let his suit become his self, and set things off balance.

Smarter people than you had asked the same question and it wasn't easy to answer. Who knew what things would have looked for the Protectorate if not for The Siberian Incident.

'Where's Skýla?'

The laconic gesture towards the bedrooms was enough for you, and you followed his pointing finger through to the hallway that led to a set of rooms, similar to those in the main Wards hallway that you had slept in after the Hookwolf debacle. You wondered why there was a separate unit like this. Perhaps, when the building had been built, there had been an expectation that there would be more Wards needed, or potentially guests from time to time, and that had simply never come to fruition. You wondered why that might be the case, if it were true.

Only two of the rooms showed any signs of usage, and while one of them was completely unadorned, the other had scratches by the handle; the sort of damage that might happen if you were partially transformed while trying to open it.

Taking that as your cue, you knocked on the door and waited. Very little came as a result, so you knocked again, this time more firmly.

Before you could knock for a third time, it swung open and Rachel was stood in front of you, wearing her long shorts and a tank top that clung to her tightly. You realised dimly that it was the first time you had seen her without either her coat or costume on – other than, you supposed, that time she had been frail and stood besides a hospital bed. That had understated the size of her; she wasn't chiselled and defined, but she was large and powerfully built, and you got the feeling that even if she had no powers at all she would have been something of a menace to deal with in a fight, at least for anyone without brute powers.

Maybe in another life, you supposed.

'What's up?'

Her voice was thick with sleep, and you noticed her blinking eyes and quickly realised you had woken her up.

Looking into her room behind her, you could see more evidence of it. The vast majority of the space was spartan to the extreme; she looked as though she had never used the desk, and the chair in there seemed similarly abandoned. Of the drawers, on the top one of three seemed to have been used, and was half open with some wires hanging out of it – the headphones, you recognised, from the audio books device you got from the library. The bed itself was a mess, looking like a cross between the aftermath of a hurricane and a sleeping pit, with more pillows than you had known were possible and myriad blankets piled atop one another in a tangle of fabric.

You got the feeling that if you looked in the rest of the rooms down the hall, you would find several of them stripped of their bedding.

'Good morning, may I step in?'

'Why?'

'I need to talk to you about something private.'

'Fine.'

You stepped in past her, and pulled out the chair at her desk before sitting down. She shut the door behind you and followed you in, before slumping down on to her bed. You were glad that the kinks in the relationship had been ironed out already, because trying to go through a conversation like this while she still half-hated you would have been a nightmare.

'The Empire had a big display this morning, and we think they're going to make trouble. Iron Rain's going to attack later today.'

You had her attention already, eyes suddenly focused, and you pressed on.

'I've put in a request for myself and you to go scouting to find them, so that we can stop them before they get a chance to do whatever it is they're planning. Armsmaster said it's going to be considered and we'll find out if we're permitted, but I wanted to let you know before we got confirmation so you could be ready.'

There was a strange stillness about Rachel's posture as you spoke, tense and ready to strike like a serpent, and you felt an urge to back away. Though you resisted it, you understood why: she looked dangerous.

'We going to fuck them up?'

'Just find them. Then we're get told if we're allowed to fight.'

'You know, that's my problem with this place.' She fell back onto the bed fully, half vanishing below the quilts. 'All talk, no action. You kicked Hookwolf's ass, you could do the same to the rest, so why don't they let you? Give you two hours, you could drag them back. I'd help. What the fuck are they waiting for?'

Explaining why not would have been much easier if the same questions hadn't been running through your own head lately. Trust Rachel to be the one to put them into reality, though; she didn't seem like someone who had no filter as much as she seemed to be someone who had rejected the concept of a filter in the first place. Not a lack of but a lack of use for.

'I'd tell you if I knew. Armsmaster said there's some legal stuff, but hopefully they'll get back to us soon. Anyway, the point is that we would be going in undercover. Civilian identities, no masks. Obviously people know what you look like, so we would have to be careful but we don't want the Empire to know we're on to them. We find them, we report back.'

Inhaling deeply, you prepared for the next step.

'Which means I would be out of costume, which means I need to show you my face.'

You dropped the surprise and were, in turn, surprised by how little Rachel reacted. You knew that she'd had no such barrier in place for a long time, and you knew that she apparently knew Regent's details – and presumably the other Undersiders too, now that you thought of it – because of his comfort in wearing no mask with her around. That she wouldn't really process the magnitude of the gesture for someone like you, though, hadn't quite registered.

Thus far, the only people outside of your immediate family that you had unmasked to were Vicky, Carol, and those who were present when you unmasked for Director Piggot. In the latter case, it was a requirement. None of the official Wards even knew your real face and name, and neither did half of the Protectorate; you'd never even met Battery yet, and you weren't sure she would even know your voice.

Ceasing to wait for a cue or reaction that would never come, you removed your helmet without pre-amble and without ceremony, blinking stiffly as your eyes attempted to focus without your glasses on. You weren't going to try and retrieve them, still slotted into the helmet.

'I'm Taylor, nice to meet you.'

'I've already met you. Why are you blinking so much? Are you gonna cry? Don't do that.'

You couldn't help it, and you laughed loudly. The sound made Rachel jump a little, but you couldn't make out the details in her face through the combination of your poor vision and the disruption of your laughter; there was no way to tell how she was taking it, but it couldn't be that poorly.

Every time you'd unmasked, it had been to less fanfare than you expected. It was getting to the point where you felt as though you could probably unmask in the middle of the Boardwalk to eat a burger at Fugly Bob's and half the crowd wouldn't even notice. Hyperbole, perhaps, but it really was stunning how little import the gesture seemed to have for some people.

Settling after a moment, you put the helmet back on if only to gain your clarity of vision back, and took a moment to catch your breath.

'I'll be honest, that's not how I expected it to go, but thanks for that,' you sighed. 'I needed a laugh. Never change, Rachel.'

'Wasn't planning on it. You telling Regent?'

'I wasn't planning on it either, at least not yet. We've been around the Memorial Hall as a trio before, if all of us go then they'll put two and two together, but I haven't been there in my civilian identity in months and nobody will recognise you, I think, so things should be disconnected enough.'

Rachel didn't challenge that, and seemed happy enough to go along with the plan even if she wouldn't necessarily have drawn it up that way herself. You were grateful, because you got the feeling that at least in this moment, with the Empire in the centre of the cross-hair, any plan that Rachel drew up would involve rather a lot of internal organs being made uncomfortably external.

Your phone buzzed in your pocket, and you fished it out, clicking to answer.

'Hello, Penumbra.'

You kept your voice even as you could, given how out of breath you were only moments earlier.

'Hello, it's Miss Militia. Armsmaster wanted me to pass on a message: you have been approved for civilian scouting. The terms are strictly non-engagement. If you find anything relevant to our search, you are to notify Console immediately and take no further action until instructions have been issued. You are to have your costumes on your persons at all times, in case of the need for changing in the field. If, and only if, you can locate a clear definite hotspot, verified using your thinker power, Director Piggot is prepared to authorise a raid under Doctrine #18 despite the lack of a formal warrant. Do you have any questions?'

'Yes, only one: where is Armsmaster?'

'Armsmaster is on his way to interrogation. He has received authorisation to question the Empire's captive members and believes he has some way to ensure that he gets the truth out of them.

Anything else?'

'No, thank you.'

'You're welcome. Good luck, Penumbra, and make sure to call in if you need any support. Stay safe.'

The phone clicked and you looked up to see a questioning look from Rachel, head tilted to the side.

'We're off on a hunt.'

You quickly understood why most people didn't smile with all their teeth exposed – and indeed, why most people's teeth weren't uniformly pointed.

Rachel was scary.

Actions Remaining:

- Do a PHO Q&A

- Do First Aid training with the PRT on April 8th

- Try your thinker power on Endbringers (after the Empire is done with)

- Consult the others on strategies for engaging the Empire

- Get in touch with Dragon to talk about the Birdcage

- Try and get Tattletale called in for analysis and information she may have on the Empire

- Follow up with Vicky after she and Gallant talk to Amy

Possible Example Actions:

[X][ACTION]Split up while on patrol to cover more ground

[X][ACTION]Stay together: you need Rachel to track more effectively

So the suggestion to take Rachel on a scouting mission was approved and that's happening. We're off out and we're going to see if we can find the Empire. How do we go about it? Any places in particular we should look? Any strategies we should use or avoid? Bothering with disguises or no? Do we stick together or try and split up?

Meanwhile, Vicky is mildly annoyed that we haven't kept her up to date about all of this, but understand that in-world this has all taken place over a short time and stuff just keeps happening. We've been talking to her, but not giving her the details on everything. Still, tomorrow (in world) she's scheduled to have her talk with Gallant and Amy. Anything we're planning to do regarding that, or just leaving them to it?

What are we doing?