“And it looks like he’s a Shaper 4, Brute 7, with the longest list of homicides or suspected homicides I’ve seen on someone who wasn’t already in prison.  Thick file, I take it he has lots of followers?”

That would be because they’ve tried to put him in prison, repeatedly, but he’s apparently good at escaping.

“The largest group in terms of parahuman numbers, at present.”

“And this second group, The Pure, is the second offshoot of that Aryan group, I take it?”

Sounds about right.

“Small but powerful.  Their leader, Purity, is a Blaster 8 and Mover 4.”

I… think I predicted her being one of the leaders? Did I write that anywhere? If I didn’t, shame on me.

“Yeah, there’s a Breaker 9, a Shifter 8 with Stranger 3 and a Master 6 in that group?  I buy that they’re powerful.”

Let’s see, we’ve got Fog, Night and… uh…

Also, Shifter wasn’t in that rhyme earlier. I guess we didn’t get to see all of it.

“Okay.  The team sounds well rounded, I can work with that.”

Yeah, it does, doesn’t it. We’ve got Kid Win for attacks, Shadow Stalker for stealth, Clockblocker for buying time by putting enemies out of commission for a while, and Vista to make the battlefield fit their needs.

She handed him a stack of files, “Here’s the files on local factions, including your new team, and a file on the solo heroes and villains.

Wouldn’t it have been good to give him some of this before he arrived? I mean, it’s been over two weeks since they decided to put him here. Might as well give him some time to do his homework before he came to town.

You’ll have limited access to the databases as well, which you should be familiar with, but this should get you the essential details to get underway.  I’ve ordered those files loosely by priority, so you’ll find the most need-to-know information at the top of the pile.”

Sounds good.

Weld took the folders and opened the one for the Wards, glanced through it to memorize the faces of his new team.  Then he went to the next file, “Then the top priority as far as opposition goes is… the Archer’s Bridge Merchants?  Superpowered drug dealers.  A Shaker 2, Tinker 2/Mover 3 and a Shifter 4.  These aren’t big numbers.  Am I missing something?”

…yes, why are those high-priority all of a sudden? Were they the ones who attacked the airport? Doesn’t sound like them, though.

Also, “big numbers” kind of sounds like the numbers in the classification do indicate something about the strength of the power rather than some sort of subclassification.

“Geez louise.  The others?”

Good to see Weld appreciates the value of having two manipulators of spacetime itself on the team.

“Kid Win is a Tinker 4.  Guns and antigravity devices, primarily.

I wonder if he can combine those to make an antigravity gun.

Shadow Stalker is more ambiguous.  Breaker 3, sublabels are Stranger 2, Mover 1.  Her particular nature as a ‘breaker’ makes her superlight, semi-gaseous, transparent and capable of passing through solid surfaces.”

Hm. It seems like most of the designations are more about what the powers do to the person wielding them. So a Breaker breaks their body apart, like Shadow Stalker and Fog.

I wonder if Stranger, if it’s not a misc category like I thought, covers those who can be not fully corporeal in the material plane. Those who can phase through things, for instance, like Shadow Stalker and Danny Phantom.

“I certainly hope this ‘rivalry’ isn’t going to hamper your ability to lead this team and work with her.”  There was no humor in her tone.  Just the opposite.

No, it sounded like they get along fine. Flechette might respect Weld a bit less than the rest as a leader, but I think it’ll be fine.

Well, until Sophia indoctrinates her like she seems to have done with Emma.

“Um, no, ma’am,” he replied, chastened.  The helicopter lifted into the air.  A glance out the window showed the sprawl of the city.  It was dark out, but much of the city was unlit, nothing shining through the windows, no street lights illuminating the roads, nor the headlights and taillights of traffic.

I knew this was a dark story, but…

Alright, jokes aside, I take it the electric network’s not quite fixed yet.

Noting where he was looking, Director Piggot spoke, “Because the current situation is serious, and it isn’t improving as fast as we’d like.  You’re going to have to be on the top of your game.”

Oh, absolutely.

“Yes ma’am.”

“Clockblocker and Vista are your best assets.  Clockblocker is a Striker 7 with touch-based time-stopping.  Vista is a Shaker 9.  Large scale spatial distortion.”

Hm. I may have to reevaluate some more of my classification thoughts. I guess Strikers are generally those with touch-based powers, such as Clocky, Rune, Panacea and Ballistic?

And Shakers, uh, shake things up a bit on the battlefield.

He was classified as a brute and changer, classifications meant for the unnaturally tough and strong and for those who could change their shape to some extent, respectively.

Ah, I see, so changers don’t normally change other things, but themselves. Fair enough.

He never liked the word brute being applied to him, even though he was aware that the labels had originally been intended for the PRT teams to identify and label villains, specifically.  It was only later that they had been extended to identifying the heroes as well.

Makes sense.

“Right.  This potential recruit is tentatively marked down as a Tinker/Mover.

Hm. Do we know any of those?

Depending on the interpretation of Mover, I guess this would be a Tinker with either a side power of moving technology, or a specialty in tech that increases mobility.

The only example I can think of in the latter interpretation would be Dragon

(potentially – I’m still not quite sure on her specialty), though it’s definitely not her.

It isn’t unusual for powers to emerge in the wake of an event as serious as this.

Oh yeah, I suppose an Endbringer attack is a pretty strong contender for “shittiest day ever”.

And it sounds like this is a new character, then.

For this reason, we keep careful track of things to see if we cannot detect any new parahumans.

So that’s a thing they can detect? Interesting.

This young man has been observed in the south end, moving at over a hundred miles an hour with the assistance of a mechanical suit.

Ah, yeah, that’d be pretty easily detected.

Also explains why they have a hard time getting close to the guy.

His inclusion on a local team would help fill gaps left by the death of Velocity, a local Protectorate member, and Armsmaster’s retirement.”

“retirement”. Sure.

Rot in the Birdcage, you proud fuck.