Chapter Text
AN: This came from a plot bunny that would not stop bugging me in bed. This is my 1 AM-fueled extravaganza story that may or may not be further developed.
Winslow high is an ordinary school, at least that’s what the Janitor would like to think. The school was gang-ridden, underfunded, decrepit and potentially stuck in the decor of the eighties forever. Despite that, he takes pride in his work, the school still had teachers and students that wanted to better their lives, even if Brockton Bay would do its best to ensure that wouldn’t happen.
Budget cuts had also completely slashed the maintenance budget, and there was only so much fixing he could do before something failed completely, the lockers for instance came to mind. He makes his early morning rounds, roaming from corridor to corridor, and ensuring that the students would at least be able to get through their day without the facilities breaking. Rounding a corner, what he sees on the ground stops him.
On the battered and faded floors of the corridors, a locker door sliced cleanly in half is in the middle of the hallway. Though that is not the only scene that was a cause for concern, as on the wall adjacent to the locker doors, was a wall with one immaculate diagonal line cut through it. He walks closer before he is assaulted by a foul smell. The source of it appeared to be coming from one of the lockers, from his angle the door was blown clean off, presumably the same one on the floor. Walking closer, he can see at the bottom of the locker, a collection of women’s sanitation products. all bundled up into one. The police were called, with the case quickly forwarded to the PRT.
Armsmaster arrived at Winslow exactly one hour after the police were first notified. Students of Winslow were loitering outside of the school, the police preventing anyone from entering. Ignoring the awed stares and cameras, Armsmaster is quickly escorted in by a PRT trooper. Arriving at the scene, he sees that an investigation team has already started collecting evidence, the Sergeant in charge greets him.
“Armsmaster, we just arrived not long ago. Got a call from the Janitor regarding a possible Parahuman incident, and this here is what we’ve found.”
Gesturing towards the scene, Armsmaster nods.
“Have you checked the Security Cameras?”
“Checking. We have someone on that right now.”
The Sergeant takes Armsmaster into Winslow’s security room, a few from the investigation team were already going through the footage.
“Roberts, find anything?”
Turning around, an investigator gestures toward the computer screen.
“We’ve been combing through the footage, only thing we know so far is that someone was inside the locker. They burst out of it approximately at 2:34 AM based on other security cam footage.”
“No other camera angles?”
He shakes his head.
“Not in this one at least, the others are combing through-”
“I’ve got something!”
Armsmaster and the Sergeant head to the opposite side of the table.
“I caught this one minute after the supposed incident, look.”
A recording is played on the screen.
Black and white CCTV footage plays. Despite the technological advancements over the past decades, some buildings often still use antiquated equipment, thus leading to poor video quality. Regardless, Armsmaster is staring intently at the monitor. At exactly 2:35 AM, a blur is caught on the camera. The investigator pauses the recording when the blur is right in the middle of the screen. It appears to be a feminine figure with white hair, and ruined clothes. The recording unpauses, and the blur is completely gone from the screen a second later.
Armsmaster frowns. A Cape moving at that speed? And without breaking anything other than the locker door and wall? It was rare, very rare.
He goes back out to the hallway, retracing the steps that the feminine figure would have taken. Eventually, he gets to the main entrance.
“This is where she would have ended up…”
He turns around, looking for any other clues. The scanner in his visor picks up on some stains on the floor, they lead up to the second floor of Winslow. Following it, the traces do not lead out onto the second, but actually to the third floor, where the rooftop access was. Going up further, he sees that the metal door blocking rooftop access has been cut diagonally in half. Walking right up to it, the lower half was completely blown off its hinges and is now in the roof itself.
Inspecting the cut, he zooms in on it with his visor, and the results surprise him. The Nano-Thorn project that he has been working on with the intent to greatly damage or even kill Endbringers could not even produce a cut this fine. This Cape, whatever she did, the result was better than his current Tinkertech.
Stepping onto the roof, he looks for any signs out of the ordinary. Eventually, after nearly half an hour of just walking on the rooftop, his scanner notices something odd. A patch of asphalt on the roof has a small shoe indent on it, as if someone jumped from it with great force. The direction of the shoe print is pointing towards the street leading away from Winslow, and into the forest just outside of Brockton Bay’s city limits.
As he is about to report it, however, a commotion down below gets his attention.
“Let me in! My daughter never came home yesterday! She must be inside-GET OFF ME!”
Walking down to the police cordon, he sees a middle-aged man with glasses looking dishevelled, as he is held back by three PRT troopers.
“Let him through.”
The PRT troopers instantly release him, and the man stumbles towards Armsmaster.
“Sir, what is your reason for being here?”
The frantic man produces a picture from his jacket, it shows a teenage-looking girl posing with the man in front of him.
“M-my daughter Taylor never came home last night. She goes to school here so I thought she might-”
He cuts himself off at the end. Armsmaster nods.
“We have some items of interest, may you please follow me?”
The man nods rapidly and follows Armsmaster immediately into Winslow high. As they get to the scene, he asks one of the investigators to see the items recovered from inside the locker. When the bags are produced, the man chokes on his breath.
“T-those are Taylor’s glasses…”
From the clear evidence bag, a crushed pair of rectangular black-framed glasses can be seen.
Armsmaster sighs inwardly. He had hoped that this was not the case.
“Sir, I am afraid that your daughter has been the subject of a trigger event, we will have to ask you to cooperate with our investigation.”
As the man is led away by some PRT agents back to headquarters, he grimaces. A potentially traumatized new trigger is now loose in his city, he can only hope that the investigation finds her quickly. Though unbeknownst to him, the girl he is looking for is already far away from the confines of Brockton Bay.
In one of the less travelled roads leading into Maine from Salisbury, a white-haired girl in ragged clothes and covered in filth is walking on it. Nearing a small river, she stops, having gone far enough from wherever she was. Crouching down to clean her face, she gets a look at her reflection, before clutching her head in agony.
“YEARGH!”
It continues for a while, though the pain eventually ceases. She cleans herself as best she can, rubbing off the gunk and filth from her clothing. Satisfied with it so far, she gets up, though before she walks any further, a stick on the riverbed gets her attention. Her left eye, though covered by her white bangs, still gleams a silver shade. She picks up the stick and gives it a few practice swings. Though it does not withstand the force she is exerting on it, and after the last swing, it breaks in half.
“Yowai.”
Sighing, she tosses it aside, and continues her journey, to nowhere in particular.