Wretched Joy 8 (Patreon)

Wretched Joy

Chapter 8

-VB-

August 5, 2010

It wasn’t long before Everyday Joe began to terrorize the town.

… Sorry, he began to terrorize all of the criminals.

“The problem,” Armsmaster began after the introduction during this latest meeting about the latest cape to join the cape scene in Brockton Bay. “Is that he is somehow increasing the selectiveness and radius of his illusion’s reach.”

In the meeting room deep within the PRT ENE headquarters building, he and other upper-level personnel of the branch met for a strategic meeting on Everyday Joe. Director Emily Piggot, Deputy Director John Renick, Platoon Commander Eric Myers, Platoon Commander Benjamin Lee, Miss Militia, Assault, Battery, Velocity, and himself attended the meeting.

Velocity would not have been here if it had not been for the fact that he was the only Protectorate member to have suffered the effect of “Kyoka Suigetsu” - a potentially tinkertech but more probable a power construct like Dauntless’s power - and thus the only one to give the meeting the due seriousness it needed to regard both it and its owner.

‘Well, more seriously,’ Ethan - Assault - thought as he looked at the map of Brockton Bay with red circles overlaid on top of it.

The circle was big enough to cover half of the Docks but laid firmly in the residential-commercial districts in the south and west. This area was the Empire Eighty-Eight’s stronghold, and it was obvious what was going on.

The problem, as Armsmaster pointed out, was the fact that the size of this fear effect created chaos, and because the circle in question was not actually a circle but a nebulously fluctuating area, no one could triangulate Joe’s location to put a stop to the literal reign of terror.

“Due to the circumstances involved and the potential outbreak of a large-scale gang war should Joe not be stopped, we requested and acquired help from Watchdog,” the director spoke up from her seat to the left of the center stage. Ethan sat up a little. Things got a little bit more serious if Watchdog lent a hand to Brockton Bay. When she grimaced, he knew he was in for bad news. “After three hours of intense power usage, Watchdog gained nothing substantial about Everyday Joe.”

Ethan blinked.

“Say what?”

Director Piggot gave him a side glance before continuing on. “Direct observation has proven to be impossible. To all members of the Watchdog, Everyday Joe appears as a void, and any and all interactions he makes alter their predictions and information. An example would be our very own department.” She pulled up her remote and clicked. The map on the screen at the front of the meeting room changed to show …

The Pointer.

It was the name the PRT office workers here dubbed the compass gifted to them by Everyday Joe. As a tool capable of pointing out traitors in their midst, it had been too useful to discard or even secret away into evidence drawers and tinkertech vaults.

“Appraiser could not identify the color of our department’s situation. Eleventh Hour could not call out a number because his power refused to work while looking at our department’s data. Nutcracker remains mum on the subject; he is currently incapable of speaking and remains that way for three hours after each glance he gives our paperwork and Joe.”

“Joe’s a Stranger?” Velocity frowned. “Wonderful. A fear Shaker-Master, an information Stranger, a strength and endurance Brute, a teleporting Mover, and a power-granting Trump. Did we miss anything?”

A moment of silence fell upon the meeting participants.

Armsmaster spoke up after exactly fifteen seconds. “I have compiled data.” He did something and the screen changed again.

What showed up on the projection screen was a chart. The horizontal axis said “Time (weeks)” and the vertical axis said “Threat Rating (cumulative).”

Ethan felt the blood in his veins freeze when he saw the line. There were only seven points of data in line with the seven meetings PRT ENE had over Joe and his rampage, which obviously ended with alterations to his threat ratings. He knew that the threat ratings had gone up constantly.

He just didn’t expect to see linear growth.

“It has come to our realization that … Joe might not have the traditional limit Trumps, including Eidolon, has. He has grown constantly without stopping from analysis of the battle and skirmish sites,” Armsmaster said gravely. “We have been sorely incompetent in keeping up with the threat rating because of the few expectations and biases we have all held, and now, we have reached a point where this department can no longer directly take on Everyday Joe.”

The next image showed a bar graph with the names of capes on the bottom and the cumulative threat rating on the left.

At the far left side of the scale was the “weakest” of all Brockton Bay capes, Alabaster, whose cumulative threat rating was 4. The numbers went up as other capes were listed in numerical order. Ethan found himself in the middle of the pack, so to speak. Dauntless’s rating was leaning right.

And then there were the heavy hitters: Armsmaster - 12, Purity - 12, Lung - 15*, Glory Girl - 15, and then -.

“What the fuck?!” Ethan couldn’t help himself when he shouted that.

Because at the far right end of the scale was Everyday Joe, scoring a whopping 34.

“Trump, Category Ten. Brute 6, Mover 7, Master/Shaker 5, Stranger 5, Thinker 6, Tinker 6,” Emily grunted.

In essence, he was a nightmare to fight against. An average threat rating of six across six power categories, including Tinker, meant that not only did they not know what they would be up against, but there was also not a singular weakness for anyone to take advantage of. He could hit and tank almost as hard as Glory Girl, move quickly like Purity, remain formation blank, or outright corrupt them if Watchdog’s observations were right, and he’ll only grow stronger.

“Wait, where did that Thinker come from?” someone asked.

“Joe unveiled Coil’s identity and network.”

Right, that happened. It’s just Joe was too chaotic for something as simple as “a PRT consultant turned out to be a villain ” scandal to remain a big deal.

Not when there was a literal fear epidemic on the rise.

“Then what are our options?” Miss Militia asked, having been silent throughout the meeting prior to that question.

“We have requested Triumvirate assistance and reinforcements,” Piggot began. “Both requests were denied.”

Ethan wanted to groan at the absurdity of it all.

“So we can’t fight him,” Velocity began with a grimace. “We don’t have reinforcements. So we just … don’t do anything?”

“Yes,” Piggot snapped. “Because there is nothing we can do without bringing down hell on ourselves. If the bastard wants to kill E88 thugs, then fine. But the moment he gets innocents involved, we’ll step in. Our job is to ensure that parahumans do not cause undue damage to the public.”

“Yes, ma’am!” the platoon commanders spoke in unison.

“Yes, ma’am,” the capes spoke together as well.

This year was not going to be fun at all.