It was starting to get a little early, maybe an hour or so before dawn. I should go see about heading off.
It was amazing how fast the time had flown by. Rosa had joined us up on the balcony at some point while I was busy singing some songs for Juliet and Alex, later followed by E, Lily, Yukie, Brook and Heather. I'd added in some Melpominee, to throw more emotion into my performance while Chimerstry provided the music.
Julius is surprisingly good at dancing, while Lilly is pretty good at doing impressions of famous people. So am I now, once I cheated a bit and selected Acting as another of my Perform specialties because it looked like fun doing impressions of famous people.
Honestly I think I'm gonna cherish these memories of everyone dancing away without a care in the world while I sang and the massive Gargoyle clapped out a solid beat. These are my people now, and I'll freeze the world solid to protect them.
I leaned back against the wall, having just finished another song and laughing with the others, sharing in the good mood when one of my clones came to find me. It held out a hand and I blinked at it for a moment before realising what it wanted.
I grasped its hand with my own and quickly reabsorbed it and the memories within. Then I let out a gasp of delight.
"Alchemy books are done." I said to Rosa, who was the most interested of the group to learn Alchemy. She was excited, but we were all having fun so there was no rush about things.
I sat down next to Yukie while Brook and Heather sang along with the music.
Laughing, I stared up at the starry sky above with a wide smile on my face.
This is nice.
Title: The Placeholder
Heroes 5
Overwatch massaged his forehead as he nursed a cup of coffee. It had been a long week. If it wasn't for the fact that he was a Noctis cape it wouldn't have been physically possible to even get the new surveillance system online and operational as short of a timeframe as he'd promised.
The extra overtime pay was little consolation for the fact he'd spent the majority of his time working around the clock to get things set up and installed correctly, not to mention the additional hours he'd spent coding up the software - on a Saturday no less - to actually analyse the incoming data.
Or the fact he was practically itching to improve the damn camera system rather than add some lightly modified off the shelf gear to it.
And now here he was, at work late on Saturday night instead of out and enjoying his weekend off. Worst still, according to his civilian friends he'd apparently already missed an amazing performance at his favourite night club last night when the owner's daughter sang on stage, and he was hoping to get this done quickly enough to hopefully catch a repeat on tomorrow night's Halloween show. Assuming the owner's daughter gave another performance of course. She wasn't on the lineup, but hopefully last night's performance was a test run.
Of course now he was encountering a new issue in his attempt to track down Calamity. He'd expected to quickly be able to narrow down the young villain, based on the fact that as a Case 13 she wouldn't have a normal heat signature. Assuming everything went as planned the cameras would pick her up the moment she stepped outdoors due to her retaining the ambient heat of whichever building she'd have been in and thus making her stick out like a sore thumb, relatively speaking.
Instead Overwatch found himself having to deal with false positives, because there were far more Case 13s in the city than anyone had realised, as his analysis software began to flag each sighting as it went over the currently recorded footage.
Overwatch felt it best to keep this discovery quiet for the moment. He was practically throwing the 'unwritten rules' out of the window with his surveillance system and the last thing the cape community needed was to think the heroes would be looking into everyone's identities and tracking them out of costume.
Worst still, moving in on all these unknown Case 13s - that are steering clear of involving themselves in the hero-villain dynamic - may end up forcing their hands in unwanted ways and end up making a whole wave of new villains. The only winner there would be the Elite when they inevitably recruited them into their ranks.
No, it would be best to keep this information close to his chest for the moment. He'd inform Alexandria - after Calamity was dealt with - but no-one else needed to know. The information was too sensitive.
And so now he was busy configuring the software behind the tracking system, editing algorithms and search weights to narrow things down. Fortunately Calamity had a rather distinct height and build he could work with.
After compiling the new data he ran it through some previously recorded footage taken earlier in the evening. It wouldn't help locate her right this moment, but the surveillance Tinker could at least determine if the new search parameters were working.
He sipped slowly on his coffee, the caffeine doing nothing for him as a Noctis cape, aside from the taste. He savoured the flavour though, the bitterness soothing to his cynical soul.
The computer console pinged. A hit!
Calamity - as it was unlikely in the extreme there was another short petite Case 13 teen in the downtown area - had been picked up on one of the cameras getting into a cab with another girl.
However even more interestingly, Calamity was actually colder than the ambient temperature, showing up clearly as a blue-ish human-shaped blob on the thermal cameras. Perhaps it was a side effect of her cryokinesis powers? He wasn't sure but it was as workable a theory as any for the moment.
The important part was it made her extremely trackable and would also make finding her even easier, as he could focus his search algorithms on those parameters and discard the other Case 13 false positives.
He turned his attention to the new girl accompanying the villain.
She was in her late teens, probably around eighteen or nineteen. Asian, likely Japanese due to all the refugees in the city, with short dark hair in twin pigtails. The interesting part however was the samurai-esque armour she wore over her arm and the sword sheathed on her back. A possible parahuman accomplice? It was difficult to tell because Calamity was dressed up as a witch, and neither wore masks. It could've simply been a half-hearted attempt at a Halloween costume.
Especially as costumed halloween parties had been occurring all over the city for the last week. Occam's Razor suggested this could be nothing more than two friends innocently going to a party, especially as it was a Saturday.
Of course he wasn't simply going to discount the possibility that the Asian girl wasn't a parahuman. Better be over prepared than under.
He made a mental note to add the other teen into his overall surveilance system as a person of interest as well. She obviously knew Calamity out of costume, and could be used a further method to track the villain. There'd no doubt be more false positives, most prevalent in the Chinatown area, but every little bit could help.
Unfortunately the taxi soon left, and with it his target, heading roughly eastward.
Not much he could do for now run the faces of the two teens through all the databases he had available to him as a high ranking Protectorate hero. While that was being processed he adjusted the rest of his search algorithms to discard the other Case 13 sightings and focus entirely on anything with Calamity's unique thermal reading.
And with that out of the way he could continue his work on a small reconnaissance drone. He had others ready for deployment, but this particular one would have more specialised sensors specifically for use against Calamity.
He'd only just gotten his tools out when his console pinged, alerting him to a possible hit. He set the tools down on the workbench and sat back down at the computer to investigate the results.
Firstly, there was no record of the young Asian woman. Unsurprising, as after Kyushuu the west coast had numerous refugees, and most of those did not have legal documentation at all.
Unsurprising but annoying. Calamity on the other hand… That brought up some very interesting information.
Including a name: 'Calahan, Amity Pandora'.
Overwatch snorted in amusement. He could see exactly how she'd picked her moniker. It was just the play on words a fourteen year old teenager would do to make herself seem more edgy and deep.
He read through the information the system had flagged. Daughter of a Mr Luke Calahan and a Mrs Kathrine Eve Calahan and orphaned during a cape fight gone bad; In foster care from the age of four, being bounced around a lot for various reasons; Ran away from foster care, with a missing person's report having been filed at the time. However that report was now closed, and she was now listed as the legal ward of one Omar Al-Khadim as of… October 22nd.
Which raised a whole new slew of questions, because Overwatch recognised that name!
Hard not to when he'd met the man in person just this July while attending the memorial service for those that fell defending Istanbul from Leviathan. It had been his first endbringer fight, and the wealthy businessman had attended the memorial to pay his own respects for those that fought and died to protect the city.
The real question was just how Calamity had come to the reclusive businessman's attention, let alone get herself adopted by him? The man hadn't even been in the county until the 23rd according to a report from immigration!
Overwatch leaned back in his seat and rubbed at his face. He'd found a way to locate the villain and even determined her civilian identity, but now there was potentially a political catastrophe in the making.
He was still trying to figure out what to do next when alerts blared on the computer, sensors set around the city suddenly reporting a massive drop in temperature localised on a small area of the Hollywood region… which was the general direction Calamity had been heading…
"What the hell is going on out there?" He wondered aloud, patching his workstation into the larger network so he could listen to console chatter.
It was a few hours later when the local heroes and some of their analysts were having an emergency briefing. The only one not present was Alexandria, the powerful Brute had been absent for the last few days, busy with important meetings with the Chief Director over in Washington. As her second in command Overwatch was the one leading this important meeting
"So, Bastard Son is dead." He said cheerily, looking forward to when he could finally be off duty and enjoy a couple drinks to celebrate. "How, when and why, and did it have anything to do with that weather anomaly my sensors detected earlier?"
"Calamity happened." Raindancer began, being the one of the responding heroes to the incident. "He apparently tracked down the little horror somehow and tried to jump her with nine mastered soldiers before biting off more than he could chew. I think he was working on bad intel."
He then began to recount the eyewitness testimonies of the incident, from those careless rubberneckers who were too foolish to properly head for cover when a cape fight broke out. Overwatch listened in with rapt attention.
"So she has an accomplice now?"
"Yes, her name's apparently Shi."
"Shi?"
"Japanese word for death." Starfire added, causing Overwatch to want to roll his eyes at yet another teen attempting to be as dark and edgy as possible.
This did of course mean that the Asian teen accompanying Calamity was definitely a parahuman allied with the girl, or perhaps the other way around. It was difficult to tell. Now to figure out how the stolen weapons shipment factored into things? Was she trying to form a gang, or had she been inducted into one?
Something one of their power analysts - Dr Williams - brought up. "It looks like Calamity is recruiting." The scientist said. "Likely either a Tinker or some sort of weapon-enhancing Striker, based on witness testimonies of a flaming sword. As for Calamity herself she's going to need a serious adjustment to her threat rating. Another note on her Master powers and possibly a bump up to Master 8, depending on how strong those ice golems of hers are, let alone an extremely high Shaker rating for that cold-spell she caused." He explained, scratching idly at the painful-looking rash peeking out from his collar, the unfortunate man being plagued with a variety of awkward skin conditions.
"She's A-class at the moment, but depending on how big and for how long she can cause a cold snap like that she may need bumping up to S-Class. Either way we'll need the Triumvirate if we want to engage her…"
"So we just let a dangerous murderer run around freely?" Raindancer asked incredulously, being understandably biased against the teenage villain.
"I'm not sure she is." Midnight Fire interjected, pulling attention over to him. "I've been working with some of our psychological analysts-" He gestured to Doctor Holland sitting to the side. "- to try and get a workable psychological profile on her, and that took a sudden turn once the coroner's office finished their own investigations of the bodies recovered from the warehouse slaughter."
The pyrokinetic hero had been rather focused on Calamity after his initial first encounter with the villain hadn't resulted in capture. "We've checked the bite and fang marks on the victims and compared them to the ones from the DMP killing. It wasn't her, mouth's too small to make bites that big. The warehouse murders were caused by someone else, adult sized at least."
"So we have another Case 13 running around killing people?" Raindancer shuddered.
Overwatch kept quiet on his earlier discoveries. Midnight Fire had already hit upon the fact it likely wasn't her, but none of them needed to know the full extent of the Case 13 population for now. Instead it would be something he would bring up with Alexandria once she returned to L.A.
"Perhaps not. I had another look at the crime scene photos itself after that revelation. There was a lot of dust, far more than there should have been." Midnight Fire continued. His explanation was met with blank looks, so he decided to elaborate. "It isn't well known, but Case 13s turn to dust when they die. And she didn't kill any of Bastard Son's thralls, despite clearly being able to do so. Actually how are his victims doing now that they're free of him?"
"Still insensate. I think the doctors were going to run some MRI scans to see if it's a long term thing, but beyond that I'm unsure."
"Regardless, whether or not she was responsible for those civilian deaths doesn't mean she didn't also slaughter that Tong warehouse, so despite perhaps not being a complete monster she is still a murderous villain." Starfall stated, having had a front row seat to the slaughter in question.
Overwatch decided that now was a good time to add to the conversation. "We should be able to locate her soon. The barebones surveillance setup I've been working on has borne fruit and we have a means of locating her."
"Would this work to locate other Case 13 villains in future?" Dr Williams asked curiously, the power-analyst had always been especially curious about any Case 13 developments.
"In theory. It'd need more calibration and setup however." Overwatch said, choosing to lie as he didn't want to let slip just how easy it was to locate them with modern technology until he'd first informed Alexandria. "Why?"
"Professional curiosity. As a power analyst the different variations amongst the Case 13s are fascinating." the scientist replied, idly scratching at that rash again.
"I suppose they would be. Still, your thoughts on Calamity's new ratings? Aside from the increased Master rating for those golems."
"Witness reports don't give us any reason to increase her Mover or Brute ratings. Her Master rating I've already covered. So far the power analysis team is leaning towards classifying her as Shaker 8 until we have a better idea of the scale of her power. If it turns out she's weaker we can reclassify later."
"Right then, Calamity has her new ratings and it'll only be a matter of time before the Triumvirate gets her and Bastard Son is no longer anyone's problem…" Overwatch began, moving the meeting on. Actually, there was something he was curious about after having essentially been in self-exile to oversee this tracking project. "Any updates on the Slasher case?"
The question received annoyed and dour looks in response.
"We have a name, Reno Boucher. He left some prints at the fifth murder site which allowed us to track him to a salvage yard in Santa Monica. Starfall managed to keep him monologuing on how they all deserved it for long enough to allow me to covertly maneuver some confoam grenades beneath him with my hydrokinesis." Raindancer explained with a sigh. "It was practically a textbook capture."
"I'm sensing a 'but' here."
"But the van that was meant to be transporting him back to HQ never returned. Instead we found it three miles away with the drivers unconscious and the block of confoam gone, which not only means we have some moles but also that the Slasher may have had accomplices ready and willing to break him out on a moment's notice." Starfall huffed, running her hands through her short blonde hair. "So we're basically back to square one until a seventh victim appears."
Overwatch blinked at that. "Seventh victim? I thought the bastard was still on five?"
Raindancer decided to correct him on that. "The latest was a stripper at some shady entertainment place in Hollywood known as the Sin Bin. We're not sure what connection she had to the other victims yet, but her body was badly crushed, mangled and bitten."
"Shit." Overwatch swore. "Do the public know yet that we both had him and then lost him?"
"No, not at the moment thankfully."
"Alright. I'll add his face to my software, we do have a picture of his face right?" He asked, and at the nods he continued. "I'll add him to my recognition software. If he appears on any of the traffic cameras we'll know where he is and will hopefully be able to track him from there."
He had been planning on improving the surveillance network more, but it looked like it'd be a lot more urgent.
"We can't keep her in the Birdcage. Between her anomalous strength and very specific dietary needs she'll eventually slaughter everyone inside, defeating the point of the entire facility." Legend reiterated the point.
Again.
"I still think the best option is to move her offworld and force her into hibernation." Doctor Mother suggested. From there they could run tests and determine what her unique strain of infection was capable of and if it was worth using her 'descendants' like they had done with the now deceased Subject Three.
"We still have to catch her first." Kurt pointed out once more.
They'd been talking in circles on the matter of Calamity for a while now, ever since Alexandria's second in command had emailed over an updated report on the vampire cape and the fact they had the means to track her down now. At least they had a variety of their favourite drinks and some light snacks to see them through the meeting, courtesy of the Custodian.
"Case 13s are extremely pyrophobic." Doctor Mother replied. "I'm certain Eidolon can pull some sort of fire-related power from his bag of tricks to corral her." She directed that last comment to the Trump.
"I can think of a few." The Trump smirked. A tough, villainous opponent that required the three of them to bring to justice safely? This was the sort of challenge he relished.
"Right, so we can corral her, what then? We need her under control as soon as possible." Alexandria said with urgency in her voice.
And who could blame her. Her entire life since the encounter with the little monster had been turned upside down over the last few days.
She'd been hearing Calamity's voice right in her ear, at the most random of moments throughout the last few nights. Screaming, screeching, shrieking and other discordant noises beamed straight to her brain, or on one occasion a massive string of profanity and cursing. Not even tinkertech noise-cancelling earphones could block out the noise once Calamity got started.
It was as if the little devil-child was screaming right into her very soul. Not that Alexandria had confided that particular fact to her fellow conspirators.
She'd been forced to endure M/S isolation offworld at first with her Chief Director body double covering for her in Washington. All under the guise of being in Washington for important - and classified - meetings. Once it had been determined to only be an issue during nighttime back in L.A Cauldron had been able to work around the issue. She was too important to be completely relegated to the side out of fear of being compromised after all.
Especially when it wasn't so much as a Master power but rather the villain having an unblockable line of communication to her.
But worse than the screaming, worse than the off-key and creepily sung lullabies had been the Rick Astley songs. The cruel little monster must have a powerful Thinker rating of some sort, having figured out that not only was Alexandria a fan of Rick Astley but completely ruining his songs for her in future due to being able to sing them just so much better.
Worse still, she'd never be able to listen to his music again without memories of other uses of Calamity's tortures resurfacing.
At least the tiny terror appeared to be getting bored and wasn't attacking her this way as much anymore. Small mercies.
Alexandria had taken to sleeping offworld in whichever Cauldron base was currently experiencing daylight. An irritating solution, but one that at least let her rest because Calamity sure as hell seemed to like tormenting her at random once night fell in Los Angeles.
It was also why this meeting was currently being held offworld in a likewise sunny location on one of their outdoor terraces overlooking a rather nice ocean vista, despite the fact it was likely still in the early hours of the morning in L.A.
"Force her through a portal somehow? If we can get her panicked and not thinking clearly then Alexandria can simply grab her and rush her through a portal. A world with no advanced life perhaps? Then we wait for her to starve and enter hibernation."
"We just need to find her then."
"We have a good idea of where she is. The issue is her civilian identity is now connected to a man with connections all over Earth Bet's economy. If we make a move on her in anything other than her cape persona we risk retaliation that could destabilise countries." Kurt explained, having already read the full file and worked out the full economic reality of the situation.
In short, an angry Omar Al-Khadim could cause significant damage to the world economy in general and the American economy in specific. The hows and whys of the relationship between the two were pointless when the real issue was keeping the man from collapsing the country.
At least in the short term. Kurt was certain he could stabilise things eventually, but it would mean a lot of hard work and long hours he'd rather not have to do if he could help it. Especially when his talents were better used to track and counter machinations from Case 13s embedded in the business world that Contessa couldn't path.
"Which means we need to be reactive rather than proactive." Eidolon said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully and unaware of the Number Man's concerns. "Catch her in the open then hit her hard and fast."
Ideas were bandied about between the Triumvirate as they tried to determine a workable plan to take down a Case 13 with a knack for psychological warfare and the powers to back it up.
Kurt tapped his pen loudly against the glass of lightly flavoured sparkling water sitting on the table in front of him to regain their attention. "You're overthinking this."
If they were all dead set on taking her in, and risking Al-Khadim's wrath in the process, then he may as well point out the obvious. He was going to be cleaning up after them regardless.
Everyone looked over.
"She's a vampire." He stated simply. At the blank looks he received back he decided to elaborate. "She sleeps when the sun is up."
There was a chorus of groans, much to his smug amusement. Why bother with complex calculations when simple math could do the same.
"According to the data she's been spotted frequently in downtown L.A and her new guardian is now part-owner of the Empire Arms hotel chain. She's probably there." The math-focused parahuman explained, before looking to Contessa. "Can you get the room number?"
"I can't path her. Or her guardian." She pouted, before angrily - and loudly - sipping at her strawberry milkshake through a straw.
"Can you at least path a way to acquire a full guest list of which guest belongs to which room?" Kurt suggested, ignoring the childishness of his fellow conspiator.
This was one of the problems with Contessa. She was so reliant on her paths that when they didn't work she found it difficult to operate when they failed. Still, she was getting better at not relying on a path for everything. Just a pity it wasn't this time.
"Yes." She nodded back, putting down the strawberry-flavoured drink and he could see the wheels in her head turning as she realised what he really meant.
"There we go. We get the room number and do things the old fashioned way. We maneuver someone to give Mr Al-Khadim a call to distract him while somebody simply doors into her room and carries her out." He explained anyway.
Kurt fought back a sigh. Why was it that the retired serial killer of the group was often the sanest and most logical one here?
Now he just had to prepare for the economic fallout when one of the richest men in the world threw a temper tantrum.
He was so focused on considering options and working his way through the math that missed the initial change in discussion.
"It's working all right so far." Doctor Mother replied to the question Alexandria had asked. "But he's a lot harder to hold than Twenty-three had been. We've had to amputate his limbs and cauterise the wounds to prevent healing."
Ah, they were discussing the 'Southland Slasher' now, the Case 13 serial killer that had been covertly removed from PRT custody and brought to one of their test sites as a potential replacement for Subject Twenty-Three.
Honestly the news that the man was more difficult to hold compared to their previous test subject was not surprising in the least to the ex-member of the Slaughterhouse Nine. After all there was a world of difference between holding a physically fit adult male and holding a small and malnourished nine year old child. Especially when the young girl had the more cerebral powers whereas the adult was a dangerous Brute/Changer.
"Can't we just infect someone else and use them? Find ourselves another subject like Twenty-Three?"
"Unfortunately not. Any Case 13s we make using the Slasher's blood turn out to be thin-bloods, which while useful also means we can't manufacture a blood new source as easy to handle as Twenty-Three was."
He knew Doctor Mother considered it a real pity. Twenty-Three had honestly been perfect for harvesting blood from, being easily manageable by simply muzzling her mouth and keeping her chained to the wall of her cell.
"However, on the bright side." Doctor Mother began to explain, putting the downsides to the side for the moment. "The Slasher's strain also appears to be capable of manufacturing seers despite having no Thinker powers himself, so we should soon have our regular level of insight into Case 13 matters operational again."
It was still early days in testing, however now that they knew seers weren't restricted to just one infection strain meant it should be much easier to replace the Slasher for something more useful. Doctor Mother made a mental note to get Contessa to acquire some more of this animalistic strain for testing.
Contessa stepped swiftly through the Door that had just opened into Calamity's hotel room with a quiet, self-assured confidence. Just because the Case 13 couldn't be pathed didn't mean she couldn't eventually be modeled by her Agent.
And like Kurt had said, what modeling really needed to happen when the target would be completely comatose and dead to the world so long as the sun was up? Thus despite knowing far less about her target than she did Eidolon, Contessa's current Path to handle Calamity was far more accurate than any she'd be able to use on the Triumvirate Trump.
Because the sun was currently at its zenith. No Case 13 could possibly be awake right now.
She hesitated for a moment. None of the windows of the hotel room were drawn, the bright and sunny day clear outside. Yet instead of bright light streaming in through the clear window the incoming light was softer and cooler, more akin to gentle moonlight than sunlight.
Contessa refocused as the Path updated. This didn't change anything. Her target was still there, dead to the world and tucked gently into a large bed as if asleep. Contessa only didn't allow herself a smile as she strode forward because it was unnecessary for the Path.
However just because she didn't show it didn't mean she didn't feel the smug sense of satisfaction of a job well done. Just because this Calamity was a blindspot did not mean she couldn't be brought down by the Path to Victory.
And suddenly the door to the bedroom swung open, revealing a young Japanese woman - no doubt Calamaty's new accomplice - wearing a comfy yet cute set of pajamas and biting into an apple. They blinked at each other for a moment.
Contessa felt brief a moment of panic as she realised she couldn't path the intruder.
The young woman on the other hand narrowed her eyes in fury and darted forward, throwing the apple right at Contessa's head.
The Thinker dodged, following only the most limited of Paths, restricted by the fact it was limited to whatever she could personally infer with her own senses. Path to Victory couldn't yet predict the unknown woman and was instead now limited to reacting to actions her enemy was already taking.
The Asian teen wasn't idle either. An extremely sharp spike of ice had formed in her offhand and was already being thrown at the now-moving Thinker.
The unfamiliar feeling of pain blossomed in Contessa's shoulder as the spike of ice bit into her flesh, disrupting her aim as she tried to level her gun against her assailant. Her path was rapidly updating itself, now taking into account the ice generation and other displayed capabilities of the Asian teen.
The interloper dove into a roll, returning to her feet with a sheathed sword in one hand and another spike of ice in the other. Said ice spike was immediately flung towards Contessa, throwing off her aim once again as she was forced to shoot it out the air, Path to Victory already beginning to compensate for the new variables.
Contessa followed her Path, pulling out the ice lodged in her shoulder and snapping off another shot - with her foe dodging the worst of it with a burst of enhanced speed - before moving forward to engage the threat. This interloper had to be taken down before that sword came into play.
Stepping up close, Contessa buried the spike of ice in the young woman's gut, but received nothing but a grunt of irritation for her trouble as her enemy somehow entirely ignored the wound entirely - the Path faltering as it happened before trying to correct - and proceeded to knee her viciously in the crotch in return.
Contessa fell back a few steps in pain as the woman finally drew her sword from its scabbard, the blade igniting with an orange-flecked neon green flame.
"I am Death. You are already dead." Her opponent growled, Path to Victory translating the unfamiliar words into something Contessa could properly understand.
"Door!" She yelled out before jumping backwards through the rectangular portal even as the unknown woman blurred into motion again with enhanced speed, swinging her blazing blade.
*Pain!!*
Ogami Yukie exhaled sharply in annoyance as the unknown intruder escaped. Not without injury at least, the severed section of leg lying there on the carpet attested to that. The only reason the severed limb wasn't leaking blood was because the flame of her blade had cauterised the interloper's wound as it happened.
Pity, that meant a greater chance that the interloper that dared to threaten her Hime while she was weak would probably survive the injury rather than bleeding out.
The enraged demon hunter focused on her breathing, shedding the rage that the interloper had ignited in her. Ever since tasting her Hime's blood her emotions were quick to run wild. Her meditation techniques - originally taught to help to center herself and aid in balancing of her chi - were fortunately well-suited to the heady rush of excess emotion her precious Hime's blood roused in her.
The rage and fury - not blinding, never blinding, for she was trained better than that - settled and calm returned. Now calmed, Yukie took stock of herself and her surroundings. No overt injuries aside from the obvious one the intruder had managed to inflict. Her Hime was safe and the interloper was unlikely to attempt anything similar in the near future.
Good enough. For now.
She gripped the spike of ice in her gut tightly and yanked it out. No pain, one of the chi techniques taught to her by her avenged former master saw to that.
But no pain did not mean no damage.
She focused on the power within her Hime's blood and her wound swiftly sealed shut. Not fully healed, but a good enough job that she could drop her chi technique and determine if there were any other unknown injuries. Quite the major concern when one was suppressing their ability to feel pain.
"Uggh… oww." Yukie groaned, hand coming to rest on her still tender belly while the other went to her upper arm. A glancing hit from the intruder's gun had got her. She'd also pulled a muscle as well, clearly the least of her current injuries, but still something that needed fixing. She could either use the remainder of her Hime's precious vitae within her body to finish healing, leaving her empty and craving or she could go retrieve the flask tucked away safely in the refridgerator.
Or lastly she could technically let herself heal slowly, but that option was stupid and completely out of the question. If there was another attempt on her Hime's life she needed to be in top physical form.
She considered the situation. Leave her precious - and kind of dense it had to be said - Hime defenceless as she retrieved the flask, or stay to ensure her Hime's safety but limit her ability to defend her Hime if another attempt occurred?
Yukie's gaze fell to the remains the intruder had left behind, the limb severed at the knee. That particular intruder wouldn't be returning anytime soon.
The young demon hunter quickly rushed off to retrieve the flask of precious vitae, darting in and out as fast as she could without pulling on the blood and using Celerity. To her relief her precious Hime was still undisturbed when she returned.
Yukie took the time to heal herself fully, the spike of ice having done more damage than she'd expected, and sipped lightly on the blood in her flask, savouring every drop - and savouring the sheer rush of the crimson nectar - with a pleased sigh.
Her Hime's blood was wonderful. The rush and thrill of it, that left her simultaneously alight and energetic but also calm and mellow. A tingle of electric fire starting at her core and burning her inside out with every small sip she took. There was the temptation to drink all of the amazing liquid, but she resisted.
Her wounds reknit themselves perfectly, not even the faintest hint of a scar remained despite the damage.
She also changed from her now-ruined pajamas - they'd been brand new as well - into her usual attire, adding on her armour. Fortunately she had purchased a spare set of pajamas for just in case. Then the Asian teen paused as she spotted the fashionable hat the intruder had been wearing that had gotten lost in their scuffle.
With a rather smug grin she settled it proudly on her head. Perhaps this would infuriate the intruder, when next they met? An angry enemy is one off balance, after all.
And it was quite fashionable.
Once properly attired she sat upon the foot of the bed and began to meditate, light enough that she could be pulled out if anything disturbed the room. She still needed rest, but this would have to do for now. Chi cycled through her body.
Time passed. She was pulled out of her meditation only once, when Jabal-senpai had returned. The elder [Servant] had given her an approving nod and left with the severed limb after she explained the circumstances behind its appearance.
Not that she needed to explain anything. Apparently the elder [Servant] had been watching the situation remotely and felt confident enough in her success to not interfere with her defence of her Hime. Pride blossomed in her chest at his confidence in her capabilities.
Yukie hoped the intruder would return to try to reclaim her fashionable hat, for the demon hunter would take great pleasure in explaining to her corpse exactly the mistake she made.
Her precious Hime could be dumb baka idiot sometimes… well most times really… but she was precious and would be protected. Sure, the blood bond may have had something to do with all those feelings, they were rather muddled after all - something Jabal-senpai had warned her about - and Yukie didn't really have much experience with them, growing up as she did, but she didn't mind. She had a purpose and reason to live now, far beyond her original plan to avenge her previous master's death before she eventually ended up dying while killing yet another demon.
The feelings she felt towards her Hime were nice, even if she wasn't quite sure if the reason or intensity was due to the blood bond or her own inexperience with dealing with people.
And anyway, she was really hoping for a rematch. After all she had told the intruder that she was already a dead woman, and Yukie would hate to be made a liar.
Everything had somehow gone to shit. Contessa was down for the foreseeable future until they could acquire parahuman healing from somewhere. Not an easy task, especially as healing powers were rare and all had some form of drawback or other complication to them.
Never would Doctor Mother expect to see Contessa - The Boogeyman of the cape world herself - with a nasty stab wound to her right shoulder and missing the lower half of her left leg. But that was how she appeared, tumbling back through a door and right into her office before the door snapped shut.
Contessa had quickly been rushed off for medical treatment, accompanied by a panicked Doctor Mother, who was trying to get to the bottom of what had happened.
Because this was not according to plan.
After learning what had transpired she returned to her office, the Custodian having had plenty of time to tidy up the small amounts of blood that had been spilled on the floor.
Perhaps sending Alexandria in to collect the sleeping Case 13 would be the better option moving forward. Calamity's bodyguard may somehow have managed to fight off Contessa, but against the strongest Brute on the planet the outcome would be completely onesided, and leaning in the Brute's favour.
A ding from her computer caused Doctor Mother to frown and pause in her plotting. It was a high priority email, forwarded to her from Rebecca. Well, more specifically Chief PRT Director Rebecca Costa-Brown, as Rebecca was wearing her other hat for now while she was 'in meetings' with 'Alexandria'.
Not needing to juggle multiple identities was something Doctor Mother was glad she didn't have to do. Rebecca would likely be heading back to L.A soon too, and depending on how successful Contessa was at obtaining the new Case 13 would decide if the other members of the Triumvirate would be joining her.
Opening her inbox Doctor Mother blinked at the fact it was labelled high priority, something Rebecca wouldn't choose to use unless it was indeed something extremely important. Curiosity piqued, she opened the email.
Blood quickly drained from her face.
From: [email protected]
Subject: I am UNAMUSED.
Attachments: [Ward Identities.doc]
To Chief Director Rebecca Costa-Brown, also known as The Library of Alexandria.
While the unwritten rules are just that, unwritten, I am led to believe they are something of a gentleman's agreement between those in your line of work and thus not something to forsake lightly.
Thus I am severely disappointed with your organisation's attempt to abduct my current ward from her room while she slept.
Attempt to break these 'unwritten rules' again and I will be forced to turn this matter over to my Liege, who has told me to inform you that he shall personally kill each and every Ward belonging to your organisation in retaliation before leaving their mutilated corpses out in the sun for the crows.
Now that isn't to say that you can't target my ward at all. In fact feel free to attempt to stop her antics when she is either 'in costume' or just generally out and about causing mischief as she is wont to do. She needs someone vaguely around her general level of power to test herself against and stretch her muscles. 'Playmates', if you will.
Thus please feel free to try to arrest her. She could use the exercise that playing with you and your two compatriots will give her.
I am merely stating that when she is busy resting and vulnerable that she is to be considered off limits.
If you fail to believe the ability of my Liege to carry out the aforementioned threat on your own Wards then please investigate the attached document.
With sincerest contempt in my heart
Omar Al-Khadim.
Doctor Mother swallowed nervously and opened the attached document with trepidation, her blood running cold when she saw what it contained. Names, home addresses, birthdays, aliases and next of kin for each and every member of the Protectorate's Ward Program were right there in black and white, listed in alphabetical order.
She swallowed slowly. The threat was clear. Leave his ward alone when she was vulnerable and he - or his 'Liege', whoever that was - would leave their Wards alone.
This represented a security leak of monumental proportions. The identities of the Wards at each branch were only known to that branch for security purposes. Not even Rebecca in her role as Chief Director had easy access to the entire list of Ward identities. If she needed to, she could request to know the identity of a given Ward - a request that would almost certainly be followed - but even she had to go through the leader of each local Protectorate PRT branch in order to obtain that information.
To have the identities of every single Ward in the country meant the systematic infiltration and/or subversion of each and every Protectorate branch in the country.
To make matters worse they couldn't try to have Contessa plug the leak - if it even could be plugged, there were too many blindspots in play - due to the injuries she took from Calamity's guard, the young Asian woman who called herself Shi.
An apt name. Had she been any quicker, or Contessa any slower, and Cauldron's greatest weapon against the Entity would have died, along with Cauldron's hopes for the future survival of humanity.
Shi was obviously a 'ghoul', to use the Camarilla term for the Case 13s trusted 'mortal' servants.
But was she perhaps a parahuman as well? It would make sense, a parahuman would be a good choice for a ghoul. Now what were her powers? She had ice generation and insane pain tolerance? Not to mention the flaming sword. Tinkertech or perhaps even a Trump or Striker power allowing her to imbue flame into what was simply an ordinary weapon?
Cauldron hadn't really experimented with ghouls much. Aside from some increased strength and improved capacity to heal they were barely better than regular humans. In fact they were worse, because they eventually self-Mastered themselves into slavish devotion to the one they drank blood from.
No, it was obvious that this Shi had been a parahuman before her enslavement. The real question was whether she was a blindspot before or after ingesting blood from Calamity.
Not that it mattered in the end. Even with the pain tolerance, ice spikes and flaming sword she would be no match for one of the Triumvirate. Doctor Mother's initial alternate plan to send Alexandria into that hotel suite to deal with Shi and collect Calamity personally was now out of the question.
The threat from Al-Khadim coming through had rendered that course of action no longer possible. Worse still, they couldn't arrange for proper protection for the at-risk Wards. Any hint that anyone other than the PRT had knowledge of the identities of every Ward in the country, and the entire program would collapse. And the following public outcry would likely bury the rest of the PRT and Protectorate.
There was no action they could take. Moving and rebranding every Ward in the country was not going to happen. If it was one or two, sure. That'd be annoying but doable. But every single Ward? Impossible.
That bastard Al-Khadim had them by the balls, and he knew it. Even more insulting was the insinuation that they Triumvirate - the strongest heroes in the world - would be adequate 'playmates', as if the combined might of the three strongest parahumans in the world was a joke.
Well, it seemed that if Cauldron was going to acquire Calamity then they would have to get her the old fashioned way instead of stealth attempts during the day.
"Looks like Eidolon will get his fight after all." Doctor Mother sighed to herself. The Trump had been rather eager on the topic of putting the young Case 13 in her place.
Spoiler: Author's noteLast edited: 21/8/2025