The main floor was where most of the usual house things were, a living room, a kitchen, a dining table, another washroom and then my bedroom. Extra soundproofed there in case I had another breakdown and needed somewhere to retreat to. The basement had a washer, dryer, chest freezer, and a recreational room Alec would probably spend most of his time in when he wasn't being forced to become a functional human being. Speaking of which, I directed everyone up to their rooms and opened portals to the loft but pulled him aside after I brought his bed into his room for him, pretending it was a chore for me got a small smirk out of him.
"You might want to sit down for this, it won't physically hurt, but emotional pain is just as real I'm sure you know." He reluctantly sat down as I got to work. As I'd said earlier his emotional cortex was practically fried from how bluntly his asshole gene donor of a father hit him with his emotion manipulation powers. Unfortunately he'd never had a 'normal' for me to base the work off of, I had to run a simulation precog power to estimate how his brain would have developed without growing up in a supernaturally abusive household. He saw my sad smile but couldn't really get it, well I hope you're ready kid. The moment I fixed the burnt out regions of his mind saw a cascade of new thoughts and feelings, and for the first time since he was four he began to cry.
"Hug?" I offered while keeping my aura low so as to not overwhelm him but still let him know I was trying to comfort him as he experienced his life explode into unfamiliar sensations like grief, guilt, and relief at being free from Heartbreaker. I think I'm getting the hang of the whole comforting crying teenagers bit. This world has so much pain that none are spared, not that home was really much better, maybe less extreme, the peaks and valleys being leveled out compared to Earth Bet. Mostly deeper valleys here to be honest.
"You gonna be alright if I go and get your things for you?" He nodded while curled up on his bed, I'd gotten him a giant stuffed rabbit that he clutched onto like a life preserver. I quickly moved over his possessions right where he wanted them, he caught on to me doing that and mentally asked to see the room with a different setup so I obliged and redecorated it for him. Unlike what he would have done before, he didn't keep asking me to move things about to amuse himself. Look at him go, learning empathy so quickly, I gave him a small approving smile before leaving him to decompress and went to help the others with some of their more unwieldy things.
Lisa was embarrassed at her conspiracy board but I just hung it up and made a couple strings link differently. I didn't actually know what I'd changed or what the colours meant, but I knew this was a more correct series of connections that she'd enjoy puzzling out. I also may have enjoyed the gobsmacked expression she gave at that. Brian was happy to not have to drive across the city from where his car was but could otherwise handle everything himself. I still gave him a hand for a while. Rachel went to check the kennels were up to snuff and help her dogs get settled in, only needing an extra portal to her makeshift dog shelter.
Aisha and I went on a bit of an adventure sneaking into her mom's house and retrieving her things. I may or may not have moved everything in the house by a centimeter, and I certainly hadn't drawn a sharpie moustache on her unconscious mother. I didn't even have to use my powers to keep her knocked out. Then we had a little chat.
"If you want I can undo the damage to your brain caused by your mother taking drugs while pregnant with you. It'll mostly just let you focus better, if you're not comfortable with it now just know the offer will always be available. I can also help you with your schooling, both getting you into a better school and bringing your grades up, either through more mundane means or by giving you a jolt of knowledge."
"So you could just teach me anything by messing with my head? What about rocket science? Or maybe brain surgery?" She meant it as a joke but I checked if I could safely implant that knowledge in her head. The main benefit to actually doing it was it would help develop trust that I would take her seriously no matter what.
The main danger was in overloading her brain with too much in too short of a time, but if I kept the instant lesson narrow enough it should be fine. Keeping it hyper-specialized would remove most of the knowledge you'd gain from learning either the hard way, but it'd let me do it in seconds. She wouldn't know physics other than their relation to how rockets worked, even an airplane would probably mystify her understanding, and she wouldn't know anything about medical care that she didn't already know beyond brain surgeries. She wouldn't have anything exotic in those fields either, just what a normal rocket scientist or surgeon could do. It was still technically quite a lot of knowledge, I'd probably have to wait weeks or even months to safely do another upload like this on her, but that should be fine.
"Sure, one rocket surgeon coming right up." Her eyes widened before losing their focus as I slowly eased the knowledge into her mind, connecting it properly to the semantic memory and also her muscle memory for the brain surgery, which actually took messing with nerves across the body to fully sink in. Turns out all that nervous tissue can still 'remember' things even if it's not packed away in your head. It took a minute all told, but I'd left the damage done untouched as she would feel that was a violation if I did it now while instead finding the new skills exciting but frustrating with her limited attention span and no real way to express them fully. She'd forgive this because she had technically asked for it, and eventually it would almost certainly lead to her trusting me enough to ask for the full tune up later.
"Now, no launching missiles into the neighbor's yard and no brain surgery unless it's an emergency."
She wanted to stay in her school though, so I'd have to trust my 'don't worry about it' field and just portal her over, not that I was at all worried about it, it was an incredibly strong Stranger power after all. Plus it would blend in easily thanks to it technically being equivalent to being picked up and dropped off for school, people just wouldn't question that the vehicle of choice was a bridge in the fabric of spacetime. I'd also tuned my precognition to keep track of if any of my foster kids were in danger, so everything should work out.
Vista was still getting used to the new dynamics in the Wards when she got a message that they were getting four more. It had only been three days since Taylor had joined and she was still meeting with PR to work out a costume and name, apparently the tall girl had gotten her contract modified by Anima so she could actually push back on what they wanted.
Kid Win was a tinkering machine now that he had his specialty and wasn't being hampered by dyscalculia, they hardly saw him with how much he was in the lab. In the rare moments they did get to see him he was far happier, a lot of the nervous energy he'd had seemed to have evaporated overnight. He must have been really worried about his specialty. Though there was a bit of a colour clash, the tech Anima had given him had a glossy purple finish to it.
Clockblocker's jokes had been more good natured after he found out that Anima had healed his dad while in the hospital. Not that he'd ever really been that mean spirited, but there was a pep in his step as he went through his day now.
More of a shakeup than any of that was Sophia. She still would walk up to her like she was going to give her a shove, or smirk like she was about to call her squirt, twerp, or whatever, but then she'd wince like someone had shouted in her ear and pass her by occasionally mumbling a sorry. It was downright surreal.
At the same time she was more lethal than ever on the sparring mat, but she never hit after her opponent was down and she helped them up afterwards. She even occasionally gave compliments to them if they did something well. She kind of wanted to ask Anima if she could get something like what Sophia had to coach her but without the control over her or the punishment aspects.
She'd asked Sophia what it was like and instead of brushing her off she actually talked to her like a human being. She could feel it watching through her eyes all the time giving advice for 'optional' heroic actions but forcing her when it came to things like not hitting them when they were down on the mat. She'd even told me of how on her first patrol after having the 'geas' placed on her she almost did her usual thing of waiting to see what the victim would do before it completely took over and scolded her all the while.
She said she'd never taken down so many people so quickly or efficiently before it went and comforted the family that was under attack, making her feel guilty for almost leaving them to their fate. Sophia said the weirdest thing was how it was simultaneously brisk and gruff while also comforting them, she described it as saying what she would say if she actually cared about them but still saying it her way. She also admitted she was a little scared of it because nobody had noticed when she'd been taken over, not Clock on console nor Kid Win next to her.
The team as a whole was starting to mend from the wound Sophia had been ever since she'd joined, but they simply hadn't had long to adjust to the new way things were. She wasn't sure what four more Wards would bring, what kind of people were they? The Wards team was now starting to rival the Empire in sheer numbers but she wasn't so sure Rory was up to the challenge of holding them together.
But back to the here and now, they were getting told about the new recruits by Deputy Director Renick.
"Anima has managed to flip the Undersiders, and given that shes decided to foster them they're going to remain here, unlike what we normally do for probationary heroes who used to be villains."
"So we're just getting four villains who have totally had a change of heart?" Dennis snarked.
"No, they're going to be under probation-"
Surprisingly it was Sophia who spoke up. "Like that worked so well the last time."
"Unlike your probation Shadow Stalker they're not being forced into it. Every member of their group had distinct problems Anima has solved for them. She's managed to incentivise their cooperation. Most notably protecting them from their old boss, who was about to put out hits on them before Anima interfered."
"So they were the misunderstood heroes the whole time?" Dennis said disbelievingly.
"No Clockblocker, but rarely do people become villains for the sake of causing harm. I'm not sure how much I can say. Hmm… one of them has also had his younger sister fostered alongside him, another two are being protected from their parents, one of whom is a villain. Actually I suppose that also applies to the first case too. All of them were deemed to be under duress or had limited culpability for their crimes, especially their worst ones."
"You can't be serious that their only problem was coming from a broken home." Vista said.
She knew better than anyone here that was no excuse to turn to crime. Maybe the one who had a villainous parent had a better excuse, probably brought into the family profession before breaking off to do their own crimes, but she doubted the other three had as good of a reason. Hell, that wasn't even that good of a reason to continue doing crime just because that's what your parents did. But maybe Anima could help her with her own home life situation.
"Of course not Vista, but I feel it would be most appropriate to keep their issues private until they choose to tell you about them. If they choose to do so. You wouldn't want anyone else to hear all of your problems from me now would you? Even if they were villains before I feel it's important to still respect their right to privacy where possible."
"So it's basically trust Anima to keep them in line?" Taylor asked. She kept trying to be braver than she was, speaking up as an equal, it was nice to see her growth as short as it had been so far. While the rest of them might have said that with some sarcasm to it for the tall brunette it was said straight. She simply believed that Anima could do anything, so of course with Anima fostering them she'd be watching over them.
"Admittedly a large part of their probation is once again thanks to her, although they haven't got the 'mentor' Shadow Stalker has, she has said that is an option should they grossly break their probation. She's currently occupying an odd mix of caregiver and parole officer for them all."
"Didn't Hellhound have a murder charge?" Chris half asked half said, likely pulling up their files.
"Yes, but Anima found she had limited culpability, thanks not only to it being her trigger, but also that her power doesn't actually control the dogs, it merely empowers them. With both of those factors it was decided to be a non-issue, she's not killed anyone since."
That hit them hard, but Renick never quite seemed to fully grasp trigger events. That and there wasn't really a better way to put it.
"Now if there are no further questions we'd like to introduce you to them." Nobody raised an objection.
Renick walked over to the door and waved them over, and in walked four teenagers, though the boy in the lead almost looked like a man in the same way Rory did. Behind him was a gruff and brutish looking girl, a fairly normal blonde, and a pretty boy type, all wearing domino masks like Taylor currently was.
Brian, Rachel, Lisa, and Alec introduced themselves, and for the most part they did seem like relatively normal kids. Brian was the one who had a sister, Rachel was the one who didn't have a parent to be protected from since she was an orphan, Lisa was a little too teasing but it was just on this side of acceptable. When asked about her dogs Rachel took over the conversation.
"-and last but not least are my main three dogs who're fully trained, Brutus, Judas, and Angelica. There's a few unnamed dogs I've been taking care of, I just got them away from Hookwolf's fighting rings, but Jess said she was going to make some robots to help care for all of them and made a giant kennel."
"How many dogs do you have that you'd need robots to look after them all?" Chris asked, probably more curious about the robots than the dogs. She'd only talked about twenty dogs total, but those were just named ones, and she might not have actually gotten through all of those, it seemed like she picked up on the fact they could only remember so many dogs. Rachel tried to think about it for a bit before turning to Lisa.
"More than fifty but fewer than sixty, I want to say fifty four." Rachel nodded "That many."
"How can her house fit that many dogs? I don't think there's an acreage in Brockton city limits." Dean asked.
"You should have seen it, she just sorta made more house and more land spring up all Inception style, folding out of nowhere. Turned a small one bedroom house into a place big enough for everyone and the dogs. I'm really glad she put the dogs in the backyard though, it would suck to walk that far just to leave the house." Alec answered with an excitement that seemed to shock the former Undersiders.
"Yeah, basically the answer is it couldn't so she just threw superpowers at the problem until it went away. She said that's just what she does with all her problems." Lisa piped up.
Vista wanted to know what it would take to get in on this, finally she could be free from her parents and their constant fighting over her.
Coil thought he was home free now. He was almost at the city limits when his hopes came crashing down around him. It started with that damn violet glow, like everything else related to Anima.
She descended just into his field of view like a nightlight hovering about a block in front of him before the glow intensified and was sent out in a pulse. All throughout the traffic around him vehicles began to float into the air like they were suspended in soap bubbles as the wave of energy passed over him. His dread only rose as he recognized them, it was his disguised security detail and convoy that was going with him out of the city, now rising into the sky around the very person he was fleeing from. To an outside observer it probably looked like she was taking cars, vans, and trucks at random, but he'd specifically chosen vehicles to look like they were nothing other than ordinary. Only a hack would have a fleet of identical windowless black vans, it would scream something suspicious was going on.
"Coil, you don't get to leave the city with your tail between your legs only to spread your insidious influence elsewhere. Your crime spree ends today." Her voice rung out like she was speaking into a megaphone without the electric crackle. Somehow he could see her face clearly from over a block away and if he could he'd wipe that smug grin off her face.
"You may be able to sneak past most people with those holographic projectors, but my eyes see truths no matter how hidden they are! I'll reveal you for all the world to see you just as I do!" What the hell was she talking about? He didn't waste money on something like that when the real deal was both cheaper and more effective.
A burst of visible purple static and circuit lines erupted from her in another wave, this time as it passed over the convoy each vehicle seemed to de-res before bursting to reveal the exact sort of shitty themed black vans with a stupid rendition of his mask on the side doors just like the ones he hated seeing in shows. Who would be dumb enough to actually do this? Especially with the fucking mask on the doors. As it passed over his own vehicle he realized his costume had materialized around him, and looking around the van he was now seated in he recognized the man riding shotgun. It was one of the mercenaries he'd left behind to keep up the appearance he was still operating in Brockton Bay. Both of them were bound by glowing purple ropes.
Behind his mask he could feel the blood draining from his face. She was uprooting his whole operation and fabricating the evidence to frame him for crimes he was actually guilty of. She knew who his people were and didn't care that she was ignoring every part of due process to strike him down.
All she needed to do was say some cartoonish bullshit and wave her hands, just like with the Nine.
With all hope lost he raged at the gross unfairness of it all, entirely unaware of the irony that he was beaten by someone ignoring the conventions of cape culture just as he did.
Could Anima stop pulling stunts like this for even just a few hours? Director Emily Piggot felt it wasn't too much to ask. No other member of the Protectorate created this much paperwork for her over an entire year, if she kept up this pace Emily might actually get a hernia over it. No other member had arrest rates like hers either, but they were literally impossible to maintain, they'd run out of criminals before the month was out.
Then she remembered with growing horror that was exactly what Anima was trying to do. She hadn't been upset that she couldn't clean out the city, she was upset she couldn't do it fast enough to save everyone.
Then the next day she proposed resurrection, because if she couldn't save them before they died, what if she just saved them after they'd already died? It was the perfectly wrong answer to the problem. She had to do something to distract Anima from wiping out crime in the city.
She glanced down at a fifth folder that had appeared after she and the once villains left, a proposal to kill Heartbreaker with a full logistical report, risk analysis, and a timetable. One day, that's all it would take, and the majority of it would be her teleporting around the continent to pick up every single person he'd ever mastered and then un-master them all, depositing them at PRT offices across two countries to actually contain them all as an extra measure of security. She wasn't concerned about actually fighting Nikos Vasil, she was apparently immune to master effects. Most of the actual proposal document was alternative ways to spin it for PR, including a suggestion to let her make another video like her confrontation at the trafficking ring.
Her justification was simple, the only reason the man didn't have a kill order was because the PRT didn't want to feed him even more capes to master, so now that they could deal with his legion of sleeper agents and could kill him without risk because they had a cape immune to his power, they should. She highlighted that she was also powerful enough to take on several city blocks full of mastered capes without killing any of them which would appease anyone who could raise a stink at them killing their former members, friends, and family. Or those who would object over the horrors of the previous raids.
If anything it was more reasonable than any of her plans to clean up the city. Heartbreaker didn't occupy a territory that anyone else wanted to take for themselves, he lived in a secluded cultist hamlet. Without Heartbreaker there wouldn't be anything there for someone to take advantage of, unlike Brockton Bay. No matter how strong she was there was no way for Anima to protect the entire city on her own, yet she was strong enough she could deal with threats no other cape could.
If she could just redirect her attention to distant threats, maybe even dealing with some of the quarantine sites like Ellisburg, she could keep Anima from depopulating the city before the next endbringer attack. That was the only thing she could think of that would change her mind.
She'd seen it time and again when a would-be hero began a crusade against the crime in their city, either they weren't able to handle it themselves and tended to set off a gang war in their quest for justice before meeting an untimely end, or they faced an endbringer and understood what they were up against. She would see why, like it or not, and Emily was firmly in the not camp, villains were a necessary evil. Perhaps not villains like they currently had in Brockton, but some sort of criminal cape presence was essential to their efforts to prevent humanity from sliding into the abyss.
Villains living in the city under attack almost without fail went to fight for the city, if only so they could have something to reign over and exploit. Some villains like the Empire even sent capes to other cities under attack, so long as they were white enough for the bastards at least. With villains regularly outnumbering heroes almost two to one, and often stronger than their heroic counterparts, they were vital for the early defense of a city, even if relatively fewer joined the incoming capes their sheer numbers made their attendance almost equal to heroes coming from far and wide. They held the line as heroes and villains assembled.
She'd heard it said that without the endbringers, parahumans would either rule like the warlords of Africa or would be exterminated like vast swathes of China had early in the age of parahumans, before the government realized the tactical advantages capes could provide and got lucky with a few exceptionally powerful parahumans that enabled the rise of the Yangban. That both existed alongside the endbringers might detract from that view, but the engines of destruction were certainly a contributing factor to the acceptance of parahumans as the only people who could hope to even delay them.
Past that the chaos of the Boston Games was still remembered, especially when it happened so close by to Brockton. It was a feeding frenzy as gangs from across the country descended on the city like the fresh meat it was. With Brockton as it was they were losing heroes, troops, and civilians to the attrition of the gangs, but Boston had risked becoming a quarantine site like Gary and Gallup had after being completely taken over by villains. Anima would probably be enough to prevent that fate, but if she kept to her guns and kept wiping out any gangs that made their way into the city there would be constant waves of gang violence as new groups came into the meat grinder that was Anima.
No matter how many people she brought back from the dead or how many buildings she reconstructed it would turn people against capes across the nation as it would no doubt be both a spectacle and repeated tragedy. How long before people blamed Anima for causing the violence, and thus the PRT for enabling her?
Unless Anima could kill an endbringer the next attack would be the harsh reality check she needed. It was noble to try and save as many as she could but she had to learn she couldn't save everyone.
Emily dialed up the Chief Director, prepared to make a case that Anima needed to be allowed to hunt down monsters like Heartbreaker across international borders to stave off a repeat of the Boston Games, lest Brockton become quarantine site eight.
Max Anders wasn't happy with how little information his empire had been able to gather on the city's newest hero, especially if she decided to protect the transport that would hold Blitz and Krieg. The new Eidolon lite was certainly strong, the duo of shakers were strong, skilled, and specifically familiar working together, it was no mean feat to take them on and win, much less with such apparent ease. But Max knew there were tricks you could do to fake that level of cool collected power she appeared to emanate, he'd learnt them from his father after all, and things weren't always what they seemed.
The main issue that he knew about was that she was another Alexandria package, or at least she had it in her repertoire. She'd shown enough powers that she was undoubtedly some kind of trump and a nice and simple Alexandria package would always be a power he would want to be using were he in her shoes, it was defense, mobility, and offense all in one, assuming she wasn't assembling it piecemeal which might be the case. He'd had Victor check it over for a second opinion and they'd come to the same conclusion, in her takedown of Blitz and Krieg she was using a power more like Stormtiger's than just another brute power. Her 'shockwaves' didn't operate like real ones that would be created by simply punching that hard, they were very light on harm when it came to the mooks but able to hit like a truck when it came to Blitz himself.
His people weren't particularly good at dealing with an Alexandria package, especially if she was strong enough, and her confidence not misplaced, that she could ignore his primarily ground bound forces. The twins could grow quite large, which might grant some cover for his other capes, but they had limits while Anima could simply fly up and bombard them or the troops they were trying to protect. Stormtiger was likely too weak to actually harm her and could do little more than hover. His best chance was likely Crusader, there was almost no hope of getting Purity back for a jailbreak operation without far too much effort. Crusader's ghosts on the other hand were usually exceptional at piercing the defenses of particularly durable capes. The main worry with him was their relatively slow speed compared to Anima, but so long as he could constantly force her to back away lest she be speared through there shouldn't be any worry. Even if he couldn't beat her directly it was irrelevant to the objective of getting their capes back.
He knew the German cape could stop a moving vehicle with only a few panes of air, so he figured each of her attacks were at least that powerful, especially the purple fires that had burst through at least half a dozen. The thing that gave him the second most pause had nothing to do with what she had done and everything to do with what was contained in her files. Namely that he had no idea what was in there but the director had decided to lock them up tight. It could be a ruse, or she was simply fed up with trying to plug the leaks of her department, but it would be unbecoming of him to dismiss that she was simply so valuable that Piggot had felt classifying her file was worth it. Hmm, he supposed if she had other abilities on the level of her beams she'd displayed against the Nine she could be that important, not many things could be said to ignore Crawler's or even more impressively the Siberian's durability. But why had she not displayed them then?
Unless she had, not all powers were obvious, flashy, or even visible. For all of her vaunted strength Alexandria herself was all the more dangerous for her intellect. How had Anima found the meetup between Krieg and Blitz? She could have just happened upon it, but that was unlikely, especially with all the other arrests she performed in the same night. A thinker then. Add into that her portals displayed earlier today and it painted a picture, one where she would certainly show up to the breakout attempt, quite possibly ferrying reinforcements. That left either trying to simply overwhelm her or distracting her. The problem with both was they risked other assets, possibly unnecessarily. If they massed for an attack on the transport they would almost certainly face most if not all of the Protectorate, which he would normally be fine with but wasn't as eager to try with their new wildcard. If nothing else she would change the dynamics of the fight enough to make him dedicate more resources than he wanted to fending her off.
His normal anti-flier strategy of using Victor with a good rifle to lay down covering fire alongside Stormtiger firing up with his claws would be useless, Anima's durability was too great if she was that confident being gunned down by two dozen rifles to not even flinch much less dodge. Crusader was normally paired up against Armsmaster and Dauntless, but with him focusing on a second flier Armsmaster would likely be left free to act as he pleased. Perhaps if he used Night and Fog as cavalry to break apart any formation they could take? That would leave Hookwolf free to open up the transport granting them much needed cover from fliers thanks to Blitz. Perhaps if he chose the all out assault it would be worth it to bring Purity back into the fold after all if only to ensure their complete victory, it wouldn't do to simply reset with new captives needing to be rescued.
The distraction plan required him to dedicate enough resources far off to draw Anima's attention, hold it for the duration of the operation, and be able to escape again because he didn't want to repeat this next week. Again Crusader seemed the only reasonable option, but also raised a new problem, was her thinker power good enough to find his real body, necessitating him to play close to his minions, or could he freely send them on a mission while hiding to allow for an easier escape? If the Coil fiasco was anything to go by he wouldn't be able to hide. Did he dare risk his best matchup against her without any support, potentially meaning he would be forced into an all out attack to free him later?
It truly was terrible luck that she had managed to snatch up two more important capes. Alabaster or Cricket could easily be sacrificed to give him more time to adjust to the new dynamic she brought to the Protectorate team. Krieg was a valuable lieutenant and quite strong in his own right. Blitz was politically important as Germany was making unsubtle threats that should he not be returned to them they would have to get a firmer grasp on the Empire to prevent similar issues in the future.
How troublesome.
Keith Richardson was looking at a proposal that Rebecca had sent him, a plan for taking down Heartbreaker, something they should have done a long time ago, and were it not for one thing he would immediately approve it. The problem was this operation entirely relied on sending one cape after him, someone Keith had almost never heard of before, Anima. He only knew the name because she had killed the Nine, another thing they should have done long ago, and he briefly remembered a memo passing his desk that she'd been recruited so the worst likely case scenario of her trying to start a rival hero organization had been averted. He checked the memo, and it confirmed that Anima was her world's version of the Triumvirate, or maybe even Scion, but she was happy to work with the local established heroes for the duration of her stay here since she believed she had the ability to return home given enough time.
He pulled up her file and was immediately baffled at why he'd gotten the memo at all if it was a lie. He checked and saw it had been sent to every department, but especially the national PR and marketing departments, who were already establishing the illusion with advertisements for soon to be released merchandising, online posts by both the woman herself and PRT official accounts. Mostly the national level was still only doing online promotional material here and there, but Brockton's PR team was going crazy promoting the "Hero of another world!" even getting newscasters to call her that.
The media giant that was the PRT marketing division was fully mobilizing with Rebecca's full approval even though she was two out of six people able to see the true file on Anima.
He found the answer split between her initial interview where she had proposed the idea herself and the psych reports. From her perspective she simply woke up one day with "phenomenal cosmic power" and while she wanted to be a hero, desperately even, she was deeply afraid that either she would slide into becoming a "benevolent tyrant" who would usurp the will of the people for the greater good, or that she would become "just a vessel for her powers". The two weren't exclusive, but she wanted the PRT to help her with both, and the false narrative that she was really a great hero in her world was her attempt at avoiding the first outcome. He wasn't sure if it was brilliant or idiotic, but he was leaning towards the latter, but he could see the logic behind it thanks to her lengthy explanation that had convinced Director Piggot.
What do you do to control someone strong enough that there is no punishment you can enforce against them? You can incentivize good behaviour, offer them what they want so long as they do things right. What authority do you have over them? None but what they freely give you. So she admitted that it was a fantasy of hers to be that hero, to live up to fictional iconic ideals from her own world, it was one of the few things she couldn't just get on her own. But the PRT could build that narrative, thus trapping her by needing to live up to the societal expectations that would be placed upon her. If she wanted the 'prize' of having the recognition and clout that would actually come from being an interdimensional ambassador from a foreign superhero organization that was comparable to the Protectorate she had to do her best to act like one. It made enough sense, they couldn't give her that without her own continuous contributions to the lie, but reading over her very short tenure with the Protectorate already revealed the pitfalls of such a plan.
From what he could see she had a vastly different view of what it meant to be a hero than what was commonly held on Earth Bet, even if they seemed to parallel each other. She was happy to de-escalate conflicts wherever possible, but was willing to make promises that she technically couldn't keep by offering resources and assistance that weren't hers to offer, because in her mind it was the right thing to offer what was practically a blanket pardon to a master with kills and rapes under his belt because it would let her turn him into a hero. Were it to be fully examined then it was possible for the least anti-master biased jury to come to the same conclusion, but that was unlikely even with the evidence that he was under a master effect as there was enough evidence he was resistant to emotional masters given his emotions had been "burnt out of him". Who was she to decide custody battles between effectively the state and parents? Again, maybe it could be found to be right, but she was skipping all the due process in favour of immediate solutions.
At the same time it was the sort of thing you would expect from a hero like himself or another member of the Triumvirate. He was reminded by her proximity to the now named Assault, who'd been given a similarly slapdash recruitment from villain to hero by him years ago. So in a way she was just living up to the lie she'd built for herself. It would look suspicious for the supposed leader of a global hero team to look for guidance from a 'less experienced' hero on how to negotiate with villains.
If her evidence against Coil hadn't clearly been fabricated, yet also rubber stamped by Piggot, then her dramatic reveal of the villain and his entire organization wouldn't be out of place either, Eidolon could certainly pull off a similar feat. He mostly lacked the flair for the dramatic, but cleanly swapping out a fleet of cars for custom vans that all had tinker tech projectors while the occupants were inside? He wasn't so sure his longtime friend could pull that off, at least not anymore thanks to his weakening power. So another case of limited precedence and technically permissible response to a situation she felt she needed to intervene in.
What wasn't so permissible in his eyes was inventing a new 'level' of probation that was solely enforceable by her and based entirely on either violating all privacy or by mastering a Ward, whether she 'consented' to it or not. Another thing Rebecca had also approved after Piggot sent it for review. Her explanation for that he found far less convincing.
At best Shadow Stalker seems to have been manipulated into accepting the master effect. At worst her 'aura' noted elsewhere, in the frequently used powers section of her file, could be far more insidious and manipulative than she let them think it was. There was some circumstantial evidence she was telling the truth, Piggot had previously won an argument with her and she had obeyed orders to not wipe out every criminal in the city for now at least, but that was hardly days ago.
It was even one of the suggested benefits to the Heartbreaker operation, that it would delay her being able to eliminate the gangs as part of a plan to distract her with 'more heroic' pursuits, including one suggested by Rebecca. Directly producing parahumans without trigger trauma. For some reason she felt that was within Anima's field of expertise, which sounded a little fantastical. The only known powers similar to that would be quarantine sites oh-two and oh-five. Pastor's power was more akin to Teacher's power and any coronas developing was speculative given his nature as a thinker blindspot preventing any evidence being gathered without breaking quarantine. The ill-fated Prometheus of Flint Michigan was confirmed before the quarantine had been emplaced, but their triggers were the real deal, perhaps even worse, considering every cape created by Prometheus became a villain. He wasn't sure what to call Cauldron vials either, but if they already had access to powers without triggers why did they want Anima to start doing the same?
He supposed it fit her self described ability to do almost anything given enough time. If not it would join one of the few things she couldn't do, at least for now. She couldn't do telepathy in her first interview but had figured it out only a day later. The only clear categories of effects she couldn't do were things like conceptual powers, powers based on souls, or powers based on religion. Anything that was too absolute or abstract. She could control all the gravity in a huge unspecified radius, but that didn't mean she had control over the idea of gravity. As for the more spiritual ones she had asked "what's the difference between regular fire and soul-fire?" She could make fire do unusual things, she could pretend the fire was the cause of another power such as an enervating effect, but that's all it was, pretending.
Also according to her own notes on her power she was creating 'special effects' to help ease other people around her. It was common that teleporters made noise when they teleported? She was happy to add little thunderclaps to let others know she was there. Telekinesis often has a visual component? Sure, generating a violet glow around whatever she was affecting was no trouble for her. What else was just that, her playing pretend?
But it all came back to the same problem, how do you actually enforce a punishment on someone you couldn't even theoretically overpower? If her reported strength across all of her powers was true she would be as immune to anything they could do as Rebecca herself was, maybe even more so given Rebecca seemed to be acting as a yes woman for the interdimensional cape just like Piggot.
Without her support he couldn't do much about Anima. Any sanctions or punishments he sent down to Brockton could be cleared by Rebecca up in Washington. He had no grounds to arrest her given Rebecca had approved every controversial thing she had done. He could try to start a witch hunt but what would that really achieve, especially against the might of the PRT's PR machine, which had specifically been designed to shut down that sort of sentiment. Plus it was petty and cruel. He couldn't even threaten to beat her up if her testing data was remotely accurate. He supposed all that was left for him was to try and talk some sense into her.
He usually never felt this powerless outside of an endbringer fight.