Chapter Text
Armsmaster sat at his desk, fingers slowly tapping away as he ruminated. For once his tools were still on the table, mostly untouched, aside from a microscope and Petri dish that continued to taunt him with its secrets.
He knew, rationally, that neither him nor the tool he was so proud of could create miracles out of thin air. He was not a wet Tinker, nor a Biokinetic, and both were as rare as they were dangerous. The knowledge that he was technically achieving better results than most, whilst working with less, should have brought him comfort. It was not enough.
Perhaps he could collaborate with Dragon on this, they had begun working on a few projects already.
Even as he occupied himself with routine reports and reviewing the previous Wards meeting, his brain continued to hammer at the proverbial wall. A series of occurrences, suspicious enough to be connected to one another and continuously directed towards the PRT, with a single girl at the center of it all.
Taylor Hebert was officially declared missing in the morning 9 days ago, last seen heading towards her locker the day before, a fact corroborated by the few functioning cameras at Winslow. An hour later, it was found torn open alongside several of its neighbors, its door sunk into the lockers across from it. A pile of festering waste dated from at least a month before lay inside it, and the girl's clothes were scattered and stained by an unknown biological secretion. No obvious signs of kidnapping were found, thus the PRT was notified due to near guarantee of Parahuman involvement. Armsmaster leaned towards a fresh trigger, especially if the brief records on persistent bullying leading to her decaying grades were to be believed.
Two days later, the number of break-ins at local butcher shops began to increase, creating a rough line in the direction of the Docks and the Hebert residence. No wounded, and the areas hit coincided with several calls to the police reporting other crimes in the region. The most recent of which was a call about a kidnapping attempt 5 days before, the perpetrators were found stuck to walls and light posts with what appeared to be a protein and keratin mixture, superficially resembling yet far surpassing even the strongest spider silk found in the wild.
Her father, Daniel Hebert, has not been contacted by her yet. While this is abnormal, even for a suspected changer or potential case 53 afraid of rejection, the man admitted that their relationship had been heavily affected by her mother's death. He hardly knew about her school life, and was convinced that the bullying she complained about had ceased. His claim roughly coincided with the time the official reports by the school ceased. That she has likely lost her humanoid shape and requires a far larger food intake merely widened the gap.
This painted a fairly straightforward, if not frustratingly vague, picture. However, the residue was the first obstacle he could not make heads or tails of. While it seems to contain human DNA, its composition is impossibly complex, the cells seem to be adapting and reconfiguring before his very eyes. He had only seen anything like it in early files on Crawler, only adding to the anxiety he felt.
The second obstacle was the murder of a previously unknown Parahuman yesterday, and the reason why he had presented this case to the Wards before promptly prohibiting them from further interaction. They were missing the upper left side of their torso, with what appear to be bite marks, surrounded by scorched brick and metal. They found the same silk used to restrain the would-be kidnappers around his body, some of it having resisted the flames that destroyed everything else around him. Nothing else could be found by examining his body, and no functioning cameras were available in the area. A potential witness had been identified, but not yet found.
The idea was Ms. Militia's. Seeing as the initial event happened in Shadow Stalker's school, it only made sense to keep her informed and by extension provide experience to the other Wards. Teenagers are frustratingly rebellious by nature, she was sure that keeping them in the dark would only spark their curiosity and encourage reckless behavior. As such, he presented the cases and encouraged them to speculate, before presenting the current hypothesis and giving them clear instructions to not act on their own under any circumstance.
Which led to his last and most common obstacle. People.
The Wards as a whole did fine. They approached the situation with surprising efficiency and maturity, efficiently debating amongst themselves until they had eliminated most red herrings. However, Shadow Stalker in particular seemed oddly quiet and still, his suit had noticed it first; her ticks and subconscious tells slowly grew duller as the conversation went on. Normally, she would jump at the opportunity to participate in an investigation or conflict, especially one so near her daily life.
Armsmaster himself thought nothing of it at the time, he was simply glad they were paying attention and making effective use of their meeting. Yet he couldn't help but wonder if the situation at Winslow was bad enough to lead to a trigger, why had Shadow Stalker not reported it? He wouldn't expect or recommend her to step in and risk drawing the attention of the aspiring gangsters prowling Winslow, yet with her aggressive nature and deep vitriol for criminals, he expected a different response. It didn't add up.
He knew the Wards, he had thoroughly studied their evaluations and interviews, this was unnatural compared to the steady progress Shadow Stalker has displayed after her time in San Diego. Although a traitorous voice whispered in his mind that he would never be good at this, he consciously pushed it aside, he was more than adequate to fulfill the requirements of his position. His program had identified an inconsistency, he would figure out if it was a fluke, and further study Shadow Stalker's behavior to guarantee this wouldn't happen again.
He would not tolerate failure of this degree, if he was incorrect, he was risking ruining months of progress and improvement with distrust. Shadow Stalker had not entered the Wards willingly, he was well-aware, but it was his job nonetheless to see her succeed as all others eventually would. That spark to reach the heights he knew he deserved kept him from accepting any less.
He eyed the Petri dish one more time, knowing he was thinking in circles, and decided he might as well review Kid Win's latest submission. A new visor, aiming to fulfill the functions of several goggles and sensors many times larger than itself: he deserved a brief moment of respite working in his area of expertise.