Countless Joyful Dawns - Chapter ?? - 3: Adventures in the PRT

I basically kicked back and relaxed as the PRT drove me to their headquarters. Armsmaster was off doing superhero things, the PRT agents were antsy, and I was stopping anyone from dying.

We got to the headquarters - a great building of glass and iron, not shared with anyone else - and the doors to the van opened.

“If you’ll follow me, ma’am.” Mike, the PRT trooper, said.

“Of course! Happy to.” I said, hopping out of the van. What good manners they had! None of this ‘unknown parahuman’ this and ‘unknown parahuman’ that.

They escorted me through the garage, where I ran into my first problem. The door pitched an absolute fit when I tried to walk through it. The agents tightened their grip on their nozzle-like guns. I wanted to figure out what they had, but ‘excuse me, what weapon is that?’ wasn’t the most friendly of conversations. I was trying to be on my best behavior.

“Do you have any metal on you?” Mike asked.

“On me? No.” I said. “In me? Yes.”

“Like a prosthetic or something?” He asked.

“Kinda, yeah. Titanium honeycombed on all my bones. Great for structural support.”

The agents got real antsy at that.

“Are you a biotinker?” Mike asked, fear clear in his voice.

“A what?” I asked. They started to relax.

“A biotinker. Like Bonesaw. Cut up flesh, stitch it back together, make unusual inventions with it.”

Ah. I’d seen things like that. One or two even visited my nightmares at times. The Sentinels occasionally tapped me for those types of problems, being a subject-matter expert. Not how I saw my career going, honestly. I shuddered, mostly to reassure the people here that yes, I was Normal, and the idea Squicked Me Out, Just Like Them. Rapport! Relationship building! Iona had a few thousand years to hammer all of that in, and some of it even stuck!

“Nope, not at all, not me.” I denied, completely side-stepping that practically, yes, I had been the [Biomancer] that made all the changes to my body. I didn’t have the class anymore, so I wasn’t lying, and generally just trying to diffuse the situation.

“Alright, come with us.” Mike said, and navigated us through some hallways, and into an interrogation room. Honestly, the giant one-way mirror made it obvious, even before I could see inside the observer room.

I could see everything in the building. The cafeteria, the offices, the training rooms. The jail cells, apartments, armory, maintenance, firing range… the place was a miniature fortress, with all the comforts of home. Cameras captured every inch from every angle, and basically everyone I knew would approve of how many recessed guns were hiding in the ceilings and walls. People were scurrying around like an anthill had gotten kicked over. Given all the bombs going off, yeah. Completely reasonable. There was a gift shop in the front - a gift shop. In a police headquarters. Night would be rolling in his coffin, and if I ever told Arachne, she’d get ideas about doing the same thing.

Actually… was that the worst idea? Hmm. 

I spun off a parallel thought to work over the idea. Auri would love plushies of herself…

The interrogation room, though, was where I ran into my first issue. Two PRT agents were guarding the door, and both of them had eaten apples for lunch. Damn the cafeteria and its 2-for-1 special on apples today! What cruel plot had caused this to happen!?

It couldn’t possibly be that this climate was excellent for apples, which grew so prolifically as to be native to the area, oh no. I just knew an evil mastermind was at work.

Mike opened the door, and gestured for me to enter. How to get in, how to get in… choices, choices…

“Thank you!” I said, then threw myself into the open door. I’d practiced the ‘roll through an apple field’ maneuver endlessly until I had it down pat, then practiced it at least once a decade to make sure I kept my form. It was completely normal to do a flying somersault through a doorway. Yup. Nothing to see here. No oddness here. Just a perfectly normal Sentinel… err, Classer… err, here I’d be a Parahuman… thing.

I got strange Looks from the rest of the agents. Damn their perception! Or maybe they thought they could do whatever with their face, since it was nominally hidden behind a black full-faced visor.

“Can I get you anything?” Mike asked. “Water?”

“Water would be lovely, thank you.” I said. I didn’t like the look of the interrogation chairs - all small, hard, and metal - and teleported out a plush armchair of my own. I settled into it, feeling a wave of homesickness.

The chair still smelled like Iona. I could see a little burnt patch from when Auri had snored in her sleep. There was a gash in the wood where Fenrir had twitched his tail. Signs of my friends, my life, were everywhere.

I would get back home, one way or another.

I settled in, made myself some tea, and prepared to wait. It’d be insane for me to expect business as normal, not when there were bombs going off everywhere. I was low down on the priority list, and expected it. They had no idea who I was. I cracked open another borrowed book from the library, and got reading.

At the same time, I was passively looking through the entire headquarters, taking notes. Not in a malicious way, just in a ‘let me study where I am’ way.

People came in, people left, and I got bored. Since this was my room for the foreseeable future, I decided to spruce it up a bit. Cold steel interrogation room was no way to have a nice, productive first meeting, and I had plenty of furniture and an even larger art gallery. I loved Iona, I loved her artistic talents, I wanted to support them however I could, but by Ciriel, five whole storage rooms of art? And it wasn’t like we were giving them lots of space to breathe, no, they were stacked like sardines, floor to ceiling, with my teleporting ability the only way to get things in and out!

Rugs, chairs, tables, art. While nailing frames to the wall would be funny, it wouldn’t be great. I used an Ooze concoction to stick paintings to the wall. I went for Exterreri details and motifs. Maps, sigils, banners - I was representing Exterreri, and should have the proper trappings. One of the guards - troopers - peeked her head in.

“Hey!” She protested. “You can’t do that!”

I looked to the wall, then back to her.

“But I did?” I said, tilting my head. “Look, I’ll clean it up when I leave. You didn’t expect to just leave me here for hours on a steel chair, did you?”

There was a lot of blustering and spluttering, and way more chatter from the troopers to console over my stunt. It was fun watching both sides of the conversation. Also, the kids from earlier? Apparently, the kiddie hero team, the Wards. That was an actual bank robbery, but it was still unclear if it was a ‘kid heroes respond to kid villains’ situation, or if none of the adults were around. I was thinking the first one - how could there have been no adults around in the middle of the day? Presumably, it was their job, and the kids had school. Assuming the piles of homework I was seeing implied school.

No, Kid Win! That’s not how the math goes! I can see your grade dropping with every wrong calculation!

It was less fun watching Armsmaster and other heroes come back to the PRT HQ, then not come visit. I managed to work out who the director was - one Emily Piggot - and after a lot of frantic activity that was clearly related to the bombing, calmed down and started on a whole lot of paperwork.

All of which left me with my heels cooling.

Fine. Be that way. I took a few notes - if they were going to play stupid games, they could win stupid prizes.

So many computers in the PRT. SO MANY. I had basically no computer skills at all. I’d been a book girl, then I’d spent an undisclosed number of centuries being nowhere near a computer at all. Hopefully I wouldn’t need to figure out how to read a computer screen with [The World Around Me], nor would I need to gain any computer-ish skills. In and out without touching a keyboard, that was my goal!

Reading through the actual PRT notes was super helpful for learning a bunch of context and how things actually worked, as opposed to the more theoretical fiction parts of the library. Cultural context was important, so were the cold, hard facts.

The 12 ‘ratings’ of Parahumans were interesting. Brute, Blaster, Mover, Shaker, Thinker and Striker were all fairly classic powers. I’d seen all of them. Heck, I was all of them! 

Breaker was far more interesting. It let people turn into elemental forms! Without needing the associated Soul skill!

Tinker was unique here. Building better gear, then using it. Which made no sense to me. Why wouldn’t the tinkers equip the well-trained or brute heroes directly? Let everyone play to their specialty. Blacksmiths weren’t extra-good at using swords or anything, that was an entirely different skillset!

Changers were basically werewolves, but with different ‘were’ and could become it whenever they wanted. 

Trumps were anyone that handled powers, and I suppose if I was writing my own threat rating, I’d be a Trump 1. Everyone on Pallos was a Trump 1! We all slowly built and stacked our abilities, and chose what we’d get. Within limits.

Strangers made me a little nervous, depending on the skillset. Someone able to go invisible? I could go invisible, no problem.

Able to make me think they were my best friend, right before sticking a knife into my back? Okay, that made me all sorts of paranoid.

Last, and worst, were Masters. Stupidly, that was two different classifications snowballed into one. The first I rolled my eyes at. Controlling legions of minions. Like, there was a Master in the city that controlled bugs. I didn’t think dozens of bugs was exactly a scary ability, and either way, it was wildly different from actual mind control.

Yeah.

Apparently, there were a few parahumans out there that could hijack my body just by looking at me. I’d be under their control. Heartbreaker could overwrite my emotions and make me love him if I got close to him. Fortunately, he didn’t live nearby. Unfortunately, he occasionally took road trips.

I made a mental book, labeled ‘Heartbreaker’

Me,

If you’re reading this and you’re in love with Heartbreaker, remember discipline. A powerful offensive ability has changed our mind, and we must defend ourselves. Pull whatever we need. Memories of Iona, of our vows. Our Oath. We have been attacked, and we have to break free however we can.

Me.

I hoped it would work, but if I read a note like that telling me to shoot Iona… I probably couldn’t.

The PRT had notes on known masters in the area, and I took a quick look through the list.

Skitter, Bitch, Crusader and Parian were fine. The usual ‘I have an army of minions’ people. Susan would love to see what Parian did with threads. 

Regent, Victor, and a misclassified Glory Girl were the actual Masters I was worried about. Well. More or less. Regent could make me twitch, which, like… okay, when well timed it might throw me off, but dexterity would compensate for basically anything. No running on leaves or spider silk while he was around, but otherwise, eh. It wasn’t like I was pointing guns at people and could be thrown off. Had to be careful about any actual weapons, but my Radiance beams were thought-controlled, not body-controlled.

Glory Girl had a ‘love me/fear me’ aura, which could have me losing control at the wrong moment. Hopefully we’d never meet. If we did, have a polite chat, and I’d leave. She was also a minor, and her mom was also a superhero. Worse case, I could try to have a talk with her mother.

Victor… Victor was scary. He was a skill thief. He could make me permanently lose some or all the skills I had, just by being near me.

For the first time, I was presented with the issue of ego death. What made me, me? The soul was a huge part of it, yes. But my memories were another critical part. There was a reason I’d taken Papilion’s offer to have some of my memories preserved. I was not me without my memories. I was not me without my skills.

His ability would kill me as surely as apples, and I might not even notice.

Like I didn’t need to be stupid when I saw an archer knocking an arrow, I wasn’t going to be stupid around Victor. He was the single most dangerous parahuman in Brockton Bay, and he was an actual Nazi on top of it.

If I saw him, if he even looked at me funny, well… I didn’t have to be stupid about it.

The PRT thought Lung and Purity were the dangerous criminals in the city. I couldn’t see it. Okay, sure, I could see why they thought they were threats, but I’d handled far greater ‘brutes’ and ‘blasters’ myself. Heck, Lung was in one of the jail cells here!

Different background, different skills, different threat assessment. Speaking of differences…

“Hey Jane!” I called out to one of the troopers.

“How do you know my name?” She asked. Annnd the guns were going back up. This lot was touchy. Good, justifiable response when dealing with unknown Classers. Might need to take some notes to bring back home.

“It’s on your nametag.” I said. Sure, it was hidden under a flak vest and a few more layers, but eh.

“What?” She asked, dodging the obvious follow ups.

“Okay! I need your help. I’m going to be meeting with the director soon, and I’m trying to figure out the best outfit to wear. Give me a hand?” I asked, teleporting a dozen options onto mannequins. Ceremonial armor, formal toga, simple dress, complex dress, the list went on and on.

She stared at the options.

“I know,” I said, completely commiserating with her problem. “There’s just so many choices! Which one’s the best? Which one shows off my good side? I know what I’d wear at home, but this is completely different!”

“The armor.” She finally said. Naturally, my cloak was included. Had to look good! Presentation mattered!

“Excellent! Good, practical, martial vibe, okay, thank you Jane! Tea, cookies?” I offered. She shook her head.

“Can’t eat while on duty.” She said, then left and reported everything back to their central command.

It took another two hours - and the rest of my stack of books - for the director and Armsmaster to finally, finally, head on down, along with a few agents who slipped their way into the observation room. I had been tempted to put itching powder or something equally petty over there, but I’d refrained.

“What’s all this?” Emily said as she stared around the transformed room.

“Hospitality.” I answered, gesturing towards the much more comfortable seats. “Tea? Biscuits? Can I get you anything?”

“Interfering with a PRT-” Armsmaster started to say, only to get cut off by Piggot holding up her hand.

“Thank you.” She bit out, like it physically pained her to. She waddled over to one of the chairs, and sat down, taking none of the food I’d offered.

Either she was paranoid, utterly lacking in manners, or she knew I’d come out of a fairy ring, and was wary of any food or drink I provided. Which wasn’t an insane take.

I was hit with a sudden urge to tell the director ‘play stupid games, win stupid prizes’, and drop all my notes I’d made on the PRT HQ onto her. A detailed list of what maintenance was required in the building, files that had been misplaced, and a few connections on a couple of cold cases that I’d made while idly looking over things.

I squashed the impulse - that was a terrible idea! I also had the idea to monologue about how Director Piggot was a mortal wasting her time, and I was Immortal. The sands of time didn’t flow the same way for me.

Seriously, was there something in the water? Why was I having all of these objectively terrible ideas? This wasn’t how diplomacy was conducted at all!

Thank goodness I thought quickly, and there weren’t awkward pauses.

“Director. My name’s Elaine. I apologize for meeting you like this, I’m in a minor spot of trouble and was hoping you could help out.”

“Oh?” The director asked, folding her hands on the table. “Do you have a cape name? For our records.”

“Well… if you must, you can call me Dawn.” I said.

“That name’s taken by a hero in Houston.” She replied. I shrugged. One of the terrible ideas flashed through my head and slipped out before I could reign it back in. I’d already used the line a few times already, what was the harm in doing it one more time?

“Okay? That’s really not my problem. You wanted a cape name, you’ve got one for your records.” I said. 

“Tell me more about the minor trouble.”

“Yes. I appear to have gotten into a spot of dimensional trouble. Fairies kidnapped me from my home, I’ve landed here, and I’m trying to get back home. Is there anything you could do to help?”

“Truth.” Armsmaster stated. We both stared at him.

“Fairies.” Piggot said, her tone clearly disbelieving. “I can’t tell if Armsmaster’s equipment is faulty, or you’ve taken so many drugs you believe what you’re saying. What would this ‘help’ look like in your mind?”

“Diplomatic recognition.” I said. “I suspect you’d need to get me in touch with the Department of State? Have me recognized as a diplomat, with diplomatic immunity, then see what you can do to help get me home. I’d be happy to sign a reciprocal agreement, such that if anyone from here ends up in the Exterreri Empire, we’ll help them get back home.”

“You want diplomatic immunity?” Piggot said. “After all the crimes you committed?”

“I’m sorry, what did I do?” I said.

“Intimidation, also known as assault, as a parahuman, with parahuman abilities, in a public location. There’s an argument to be made for terrorism charges. Dimensional travel is highly illegal.” Armsmaster said.

My jaw dropped open. Seriously!?

“You could, of course, choose to join the Wards.” Piggot said with a smug look on her face. “We can overlook some youthful indiscretions."

“I thought the Wards were the children's team.” I said, so flummoxed I didn’t even know where to start. I expected this level of… I don’t even know what from drunks on the street corner, not the director of a major organization!

“Are you saying you’re an adult?” Piggot asked.

I started laughing in her face. I had to wipe a tear out of the corner of my eye, I was laughing so hard.

“Director, I’m quite a bit older than you are.” I said. “I’m just remarkably well-preserved.”

“Fine. Well then. You’ve got a number of pending charges. You can join the Protectorate, and we can forget this all happened, or we can do our jobs, which would include prosecuting you. What’s it going to be?”

I could not believe this woman.

“The part where I’m sworn to the service of another government? The diplomatic recognition? Diplomatic immunity?” I asked.

She snorted.

“If I gave credence to every parahuman that claimed to represent another government, Brockton Bay would have a dozen embassies in it. No, your pretty maps and fancy furniture isn’t going to work.”

“Director. Regardless, we should quarantine. If she’s telling the truth about dimensional travel, disease is a concern.”

Piggot swore. I waved it off.

“Oh, don’t worry about it. I’m a healer. There’s no issues.”

“Really?” She scoffed. “Powers don’t automatically make you an expert. The-”

I interrupted her rant by dropping my diploma on the table.

“No, but five years of higher education do make me an expert.”

Seeing the look on her face, I dropped all of the textbooks I’d used on the table. And a couple extra, that were currently in use.

“And this is roughly what my curriculum looked like.” I said.

“Wait. You said you were a healer. Are you responsible for the wide-scale parahuman event?” Armsmaster asked.

“The healing? Yeah, I turned it on. Should be hitting everyone in the city with the primary heal. Aura should be reaching… I’m almost hitting the west coast. Mexico’s probably in range. Not sure about Central America. Most of the populated parts of Canada. Definitely Greenland, might be hitting Iceland. Not sure about the edges, the double-sphere math gets obnoxious.”

“Cuba.” Piggot said faintly, then shook herself and went almost purple with rage. “You’re committing battery with a parahuman power on over a hundred million people!”

Man… I could see how this looked bad.

I teleported the books back to the library, and moved out another thick, heavy textbook. I did not mention that Sara, the author, was my adopted daughter. That would just make this all look worse.

“Legal and ethical justification on large-scale healing abilities.” I said, rapping the cover. I then grabbed a second, smaller book. “I only have one copy of this. English-Elvish dictionary. Might need it to read.”

“Absolutely not!” Piggot exploded. “No. We’re not reading your crock. Armsmaster, arrest her.”

“Oh! Can it be for espionage?” I asked, holding out my wrists. Armsmaster dutifully snapped cuffs around them.

“Why would you want to be arrested for espionage?” Piggot said, clearly taken aback.

“Because then you’ll register the Exterreri Empire as a real country, and it’s the first step on the paperwork mountain needed to gain diplomatic recognition!” I said, wobbling my hand. “Sure, it’s a super weak first step, and I can do without it if you’ll help me home otherwise, but hey, if I’m getting arrested, might as well make it work for me!”

Needless to say, I planned on breaking out the second the paperwork was filed. I was almost impossible to contain on Pallos, let alone what I’d seen here. 

“No.” Piggot said, still sitting. “You’re being arrested for assault and battery with a parahuman power, and we’ll figure out the rest of the charges later.”

Gods damnit. I tried to give her an out.

I sighed, even as my mind sped up.

I was a Sentinel. One of the highest law and military enforcement officers of Exterreri. We had incredibly broad powers, and a matching responsibility. We weren’t expected to step in on every crime and every problem. Our mandate didn’t exactly say ‘sit back and watch, wait for others to call for help’, but we were encouraged to let people at the right level solve the problem. Otherwise, how would they ever grow strong enough to join us?

There were a few laws that were passed that included a ‘no exception’ clause. Even though this was about to make my life so much harder, and getting home dramatically more complicated, I wasn’t an adventurer. I didn’t pick and choose which laws to follow, especially not on-duty as a Sentinel. 

Trying to arrest me for healing, specifically, fell under them. Granted, at the time, I’d been one of the bill’s biggest supporters, but karma has a way of biting everyone in the ass. It had been written so narrowly I didn’t think I’d have any problems. Arresting someone for failing to pay taxes on healing? Sure. Not being registered? Alright. For basically anything tangentially related? I didn’t have to step in. I would, there’d probably be a great injustice being done and a larger societal problem to tackle, but I wasn’t mandated, under threat of literal crucifixion, to step in. Not like arresting someone for the actual act of healing. Legal semantics, but they were important. I had the law degree to prove it, although law itself was an absolutely miserable practice.

I stopped walking, and Armsmaster almost fell over. He was bigger and heavier than me, sure, but to use the local terminology, I was one hell of a Brute.

“You know,” I told Director Piggot. “Diplomatic recognition is a two way street.”

“So?”

“So. As Exterreri isn’t recognized as a country, and you’re not moving things along there, by the same token, the United States government isn’t recognized as a country.”

“What?” She said.

“That is patently false.” Armsmaster frowned.

“As such, legally, by the Apocalypse Act, this is, ah, ‘Barbaric and Uncivilized territory’. As a Sentinel of Exterreri, it falls under our jurisdiction. Our laws. After all, there’s no government here.”

Armsmaster was smarter than he looked, and was already reaching for his halberd strapped on his back. Piggot was already starting to talk about ‘treason’.

“Emily Piggot, Colin Walis. The two of you are under arrest for crimes no sapient individual or nation can condone.”

“What?” She said, as Armsmaster was already starting to swing his halberd.

“Warcrimes. You’re under arrest for warcrimes.”

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AN: Given that this is fanfiction, I figured some 'behind the scenes notes' would be helpful to all of you reading this as your first exposure to Worm.

I'm not super thrilled with the dialog and how I got at the end results. Piggot is a bigot who hates parahumans, and her biggest trauma involves bio-tinkers, AKA biomancers. Elaine forcifully healing her presses on ALL her buttons in the WORST way. She's already inclined towards turning the screws on Elaine, and she'd go 0-100 on her with just the healing alone. Add in 'all the bullshit' Elaine was spewing (Fairies? Really?), and she's not going to listen to her or give her grace. I think I fumbled the text a bit though, hence the AN.

With the law stuff - I thought it was clear in the text but some of my betas didn't think so. Elaine LIKES the protection for healers. This is a good thing in her mind. However, it's a bad thing right now, in the moment. Instead of trying to keep working with the local authorities, she now needs to go against them. As much of an instrument of chaos that Elaine is, she does tend to go running to the authorities - she ususally IS the authorities. Worm has a distinct anti-authoritarian vibe to it, where the authorities are out for themselves, not out to help. Hence, being true to the source, they're not very helpful, instead causing problems.