Greedy Cataloger 12 (Patreon)

Greedy Cataloger
Chapter 12

-VB-

Thomas Calvert felt… upset.

He lost Tattletale and the new cape, Skitter, to Tephra, the new cape in town. It was both respectable and uncanny how he picked out the exact two capes who had the least to lose by defecting to his side.

Combined with the fact Tephra also seemed to have recruited Purity…

Of course, it took a painstaking amount of splits to learn this. He threw away around a dozen splits to discover all of their identities but two. The cheery voice who served as the console for Tephra’s team and Tephra himself.

Tephra was a ghost. He showed up nowhere. He even went so far as to contact the Number Man, but the man also couldn’t him, which led to only one conclusion: Tephra was not from Earth Bet.

Of course, this alone, if backed by evidence, would be enough to get PRT ENE to mobilize; Tephra, despite his somewhat heroic actions, have shown that he was dangerous and currently uncontrolled, a combination that both he and the PRT hated for good reasons.

A good example was Tephra’s unilateral execution of Bakuda. It resulted in Bakuda’s death and end to her rampage, but the previously unknown deadman’s switch she had in her bombs exploded and damaged everyone. No one was happy right now, including him.

One of Bakuda’s victims had been passing by the front of Fortress Construction, and had blown a hole big enough to reveal his lair. The heroes had been too busy but enough gangster lackeys had noticed and reported to their bosses; they now knew where he was and what front he used.

Beyond damages to himself, the casualties were impressive as well. From what he had received reports of, there were quite the cape casualties. Currently, the death tolls for capes included but not limited to Fenja, Menja, Krieg, Newter, Skidmark, Gallant, Dauntless, Battery, and Miss Militia.

Something about some of the bombs causing chain reactions with each other to amplify the effects, which the Protectorate suffered the most from.

The Merchants rallied around Squealer, and she swore vengeance against the ABB.

Coil liked that.

The Empire Eighty-Eight did so as well, but Kaiser also had his sight on Tephra, declaring that if it hadn’t been for Tephra’s reckless attacks, then there wouldn’t have been so many casualties.

Coil disagreed with Kaiser, but he still liked where this was going.

The Protectorate… ooh, that was the coup de grace.

They wanted to bring in Tephra, even though the vigilante hero operated and carried out a retroactively approved Kill Order on Bakuda, which meant that his actions were sanctioned under the Truce.

But the thing about the Truce was that outside of PRT’s internal documents about how to proceed, there were no written laws about it. It was a cultural phenomenon, and the Protectorate and the PRT wanted to break it to shift the blame for the deaths of the civilians and their capes, including a Ward, from themselves to Tephra.

Coil also didn’t agree with their actions even as much as he himself broke Truces and Unwritten Rules all of the time. He didn’t like it because it would make holding up the facade of the Unwritten Rules would be that much harder once he took over as the PRT Director of ENE…

But he also wasn’t going to stop them from going after the cape who stole Skitter and Tattletale from under him.

So if he happened to, oh, slip in where he was most seen coming and going from?

He wasn’t releasing any civilian identities. Oh no no.

He was just ensuring that the PRT knew where to look when Tephra inevitably forgot to take off the mask before entering his home, which Coil himself had been unable to infiltrate because of some sort of tinkertech and Shaker effect in place.

And if several moles within the PRT leaked the information to the less restrained Empire…?

Coil would watch as Tephra’s Team would fight a three way war with the Empire and the PRT.

The winner of the war, regardless of who won the battle, would be Coil.

‘And once I get my hands back on Tattletale,’ Thomas thought as he hummed to the Four Seasons. ‘I’ll make sure she won’t ever leave my grasp.’

-VB-

“We need to go and capture him before he gets someone else killed!”

It was odd for Assault of all people to shout like that in the middle of the meeting, but then again, some allowances were allowed because … Battery’s dead.

Piggot didn’t say anything for a few moments. It’s been only a week since Bakuda’s bombs had gone off and … most of them hadn’t been able to properly grieve, never mind Assault. With the gangs out in full force in the chaotic aftermath of Tephra’s sanctioned murder of Bakuda and two dozen hostages, the Protectorate had been too busy keeping peace where they could.

She personally considered Tephra to be the current biggest menace in the bay. Worse, he couldn’t be touched right now, no matter what Assault and few others thought about him.

She did want him under chains and locks, but the matter of the fact was that he was too powerful.

Everyone here saw the aftermath of his “casual” dismissal of life.

The building Bakuda had been using as her lab and the surrounding buildings had all just melted into lava. There was no bodies to be found because they had been burnt and made into lava from the sheer heat he made.

Lung was better to have as an enemy; the Asian cape at least needed time to ramp up, but Tephra unleashed power without a warning.

Worse, Think Tank verified that Tephra was capable of repeat firing whatever had caused that scene mid-skirmish, which meant that unless they had one of the Triumvirate with them to fight Tephra, there would be no altercations with Tephra, especially since the same group - and psychologists who observed the entire gang war - noted that Tephra wasn’t very keen on keeping people alive if they proved too … troublesome.

With the deaths of one Ward and four Protectorates, Piggot had to conserve every little bit of manpower.

But Assault wanted revenge.

So did Armsmaster, Triumph, and, surprisingly, Vista.

With the remaining majority of the Protectorate survivors and the most senior Ward all baying for blood, Piggot did what she had to do.

“Tough!” she spat with a glare at them all. “I am ordering all of you to stay put. No one is walking up to Tephra’s residence and get killed. The only thing you’ll do is cause a conflict, escalate it, and then get more heroes and bystanders killed in a meaningless conflict.”

The only cape who hadn’t cried for blood was Velocity, but even the former boots looked pissed.

“So we’re just going to leave him alone?” he asked, clearly upset but accepting of the situation.

“It happened during Truce. If you want to throw the Unwritten Rules into the trash can by attacking him outside his own home, then you can file your 2 week resignation notice,” she huffed. “Because that’s what this amounts to.”

Truce.

This was about the goddamn Truce, but even her Protectorate leader was not above and beyond his emotions. In fact, he was the one most bubbling and agitating to go out and strike at Tephra.

“I hate how we’re always reacting,” Clockblocker muttered. “We’re always not on time.”

“... At the very least, Tephra earned himself the ire of the E88. He’ll keep them busy. If he kills them like he did with Bakuda, then all the better; he’ll be handing us a reason to call in a Triumvirate.”

“Will one of them really come?” Assault asked with a sneer as he sat down and leaned back. “You always talk about how the PRT national is leaving us to die a slow death.”

Piggot grunted. She shared more than she should as a director. It was perhaps one of the few reasons why PRT ENE’s personnel and Protectorate ENE’s heroes trusted as much as they did, though they didn’t know that she disliked capes in general.

Let it never be said that Emily Piggot could not bury her bias to do her duty and job! She’s done more! She’s sacrificed more!

Tephra was just the latest monster in a line of monsters she’s had to face, and he certainly wasn’t even the biggest threat because that title still belonged to Nil -fucking- bog.

… She also saw how useful Tephra could be. She wasn’t even above making a deal with Tephra. If he could toss around lava and fire on a scale that perhaps only Eidolon and late-stage Lung could do, then wasn’t it possible that he could just cover the entirety of Ellisburg in lava and burn everything?

Piggot liked the idea very, very much.

But that’s a hopeful thought and hopeful thoughts had no place in Brockton Bay.

“... So, what, we’re going to have to react, again?” Velocity sighed.

“Yes. Because we are protectors of law and justice, not its rulers and dictators of law,” she sighed. “Dismissed.”