Disclaimer: I do not own anything in this story. Worm is property of Wildbow. I do not have any interest in offending anyone and only wish to entertain readers.
Note: Bonus points for those who understand the meaning of the title.
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Breaking News
While the capture of Heartbreaker has made the streets of Canada safer and put another dangerous parahuman criminal behind bars, the PRT and The Guild have once again proven why they are an elite and competent force, as they have captured another perilous group of criminals, The Dragonslayers, a group that is solely targeting Canada's up-and-coming heroine, Dragon.
While they haven't done that many dangerous things and have only been operating for a few months, they already have a reputation for going against a great tinker like Dragon herself and winning, but doing mercenary work without really caring for bystanders.
Overall, with their capture, Canada's streets are now safer compared to before.
I was looking at the news station's report, and because Heartbreaker was just recently captured and another group of criminals was just captured back-to-back with no casualties or destruction, the PRT and The Guild have a lot of support from the citizens.
I even looked at PHO, and the comments on the threads were very positive and supportive. Though, because this is Earth-Bet, some people posted that they were waiting for the other shoe to drop and see what the bad is, with all the good that's currently happening.
I stopped looking at the news and started planning my next actions. I'm pretty sure that the PRT and The Guild have become suspicious of a cape that's handing them these easy wins, and if I'm correct, they already have plans to recruit me, and if not, put me on a watchlist, as they must have discovered that Heartbreaker lost his powers as well as the Heartbroken.
A cape with the ability to create tech that can permanently disable the Corona Pollentia or the power to permanently remove powers is a massive boon to anyone; they must already have drafted plans if they fail or succeed in recruiting me.
In various fanfics, the Protectorate and the PRT in extension are seen as incompetent or worse, malicious in their incompetence. As they constantly fail to remove the villains, make the city better, and more. While it might seem all bad on the surface, one must realize the challenges they are facing.
They're facing various villains and gangs with henchmen and parahuman villains, Endbringers, S-Class threats, and more. If you think about it, the fact that they still have a somewhat stable society means they're doing their job correctly. While I'm sure they can do more, the problem is that they can't.
The biggest problem is the fact that the person in charge of the PRT is also a member of a multi-dimensional conspiracy to save the multiverse.
The whole point of the PRT and Protectorate and the establishment of other hero groups around the world was to basically make an environment where triggers are able to pop up. Cauldron aimed to create a parahuman army to combat Scion, which involved building and maintaining long-term stability in the parahuman community.
That's why the Unwritten Rules existed, to keep capes alive as long as possible for the final battle. They also tried to make artificial capes, which were the cauldron vials, so they could have influence in the parahuman community.
There are a lot of problems in this world I have to tackle to properly save this world, and my main mission of defeating Scion is already nigh-impossible.
I realized that dwelling on the future is not going to save the world, and I decided to head back to my Batcave.
...
When I got back to my cave, I began planning my next move. With the capture of the Dragonslayers (minus Saint) I knew I had to get rid of the next big threat, Teacher. While most people don't really consider him to be a threat in fanfics, he's actually quite a dangerous foe.
While I could easily beat him no doubt, the problem is the plans he has. When Gold Morning happened and he escaped the Birdcage Teacher, with a group of twenty to thirty other men, pretends to take control of a well-supplied alternate earth while using an unidentified device to block access to others. In fact, he is using this as a cover to take control of Dragon,[60] although the device blocking transdimensional effects is not a fake, a fact Teacher uses to hide himself. Later, copies of the device are seen in the hands of the Yàngbǎn.
Teacher's students later take control of Khonsu, whose control Teacher gives to Cauldron, together with two of his thralls, Screen and Scanner, who assist Doctor Mother's use of the Clairvoyant. In return, Teacher receives a partnership in Cauldron, as well as protection against his enemies. Though at least he did help in the defeat of Scion, but it only gets worse from there.
Following the death of Scion Teacher sets up multiple villains, helping them to become powerful by providing instructions to be followed. Imp speculates that Teacher does this to spread his chances, to be connected to someone in power if at least one of the villains succeeds.
Overall, he just makes things worse and worse for everyone. So, I knew I had to get rid of him, but the question is what would happen to the abilities he gave out to people?
From what I remember, Teacher's power decays over time. There have been almost no cases where Teacher's power lasted more than a few days without a refresher, with the brainwashing wearing off over a few weeks or months, but in at least one case the power remained active for several years without being refreshed, with the subject showing sign similar to addiction.
So, that means that without Teacher the thralls he has would eventually lose the powers they were granted and the brainwashing would eventually wear off, but the problem would be the aftermath as they're most likely now addicts to what Teacher gave them, so I had to fix that.
Watching the news I saw that Teacher was currently being tried for the murder of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and was being sentenced to the Birdcage. Seeing that I smirked as I knew where he's going to be, The Birdcage.
...
The Baumann Parahuman Containment Center, better known as the Birdcage, is a prison for parahumans that have committed crimes severe enough that they must be removed from society. It is not designed to allow prisoners to leave after they have been imprisoned within it. Because prisoners are only meant to enter the prison, prisoners are loaded onto an elevator with limited oxygen.
It's located inside a hollowed-out mountain in British Columbia, part of the greater Rockies mountain range. It was built presumably during 1996, but as of the current day it's being run by Dragon.
It is inside a hollowed out mountain whose walls are lined with ceramics that were designed by Dragon, each layer of the mountain contains dormant containment foam, which will automatically start expanding upon a wall breach. Inside the mountain is a vacuum, and three thousand anti-gravity drones, which will detonate upon detecting an abnormality. Some of them contain containment foam and some are much more lethal.
Teacher surmised that there may actually be a spatial warping device that makes the entire prison no bigger than one's fist. This is why it would be nearly impossible for someone to break out.
The prison itself is suspended inside the mountain by the same pipes that supply it with its supplies (such as books, blankets, cigarettes, food, water and air, and other objects), it is also split up into wings, the walls between which are negligible, allowing all the prisoners to intermingle. The prison was originally sex segregated but that didn't last. The cell blocks are usually run by someone and some are very organized, such as Marquis' block, block W.
As with any prison the inmates have their own economies and trade relationships. Cell block leaders are recognized within the prison as authority figures but not outside it. There are more cell blocks than there are leaders but it is recognized that this works. There are lawless zones outside of the cell blocks where people can reside.
Dragon specifically places or directs inmates to specific areas and orders inmates to do things. in order to keep the peace.
I knew that getting in here, even with all my training would be impossible so I knew I had to ambush Teacher's transport and take him out before he gets put into the Birdcage. Though, that would be a problem for many reasons.
When, not if I take out Teacher, I would be confirming the PRT's suspicions. I would expose myself to them and basically become a target for recruitment, monitoring, and more.
It's also not the PRT I'm worried about, this would attract villains to me and while I'm not worried about them, it's the top dogs that run Earth-Bet, Cauldron.
They would most likely try and recruit me as a person who can permanently remove the Corona Pollentia would be a valuable asset to have under their thumb. I'm kind of surprised that the boogeyman of Earth-Bet, Contessa hasn't come after me yet.
Though considering that her power came from Abaddon and it's a powerful shard, it must have noticed me, but considering Guru is also an Abaddon shard of the highest rank it's possible that she's ordering Contessa's shard to not notice me in her paths making me invisible or just avoid me.
I sensed a feeling from Guru, which I can feel like appreciation and happiness. I must have been right as she's protecting me in the same way that [Broadcast] was protecting Jack Slash, subtly influencing other parahumans to take actions in ways that are likely to benefit me.
Meaning, Guru tells other shards within the Shard Network that I'm a great host and that I should be left alive to gather as much [DATA] as I can.
With that out of my mind I decided to get to work on my attempt to take out Teacher.
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Author's Note: The fifth chapter of the Batman Zero Year Arc is finished. Sorry for the delay as I was in college and I just had a few exams already and so didn't really have time to update this story.
Hope you enjoy this chapter, sorry it's just a lot of lore drop from Worm, but don't worry the story will be moving forward soon.