-----???/Our Protagonist-----

-----Sewers of Brockton Bay, CT-----

-----01/06/2011-----

As the sun came up and the owners of the various stores I had attacked last night came in to take stock of the situation, my Mimics reported their presence.

Naturally, I followed through with my plan and had some Phantoms abduct them all. They were brought before me, one by one, and promptly consumed for their knowledge.

With the addition of [Repair III], I gained the relevant knowledge to build Operators, or a basic version of them at least. Making a passible facsimile would suffice for the time being, but I'd require more advanced Fabrication technology for that. Unfortunately, the necessary knowledge wasn't available within [Repair III].

Still, it would do for my immediate purposes. I commanded my Phantoms to begin constructing a basic Operator framework following my instructions, which took several hours to pull off.

Eventually though, we managed to kludge together something that met the bare minimum requirements to pass for a Technopath. I then ordered three Mimics to gather around the Operator chassis and used my power to Weave them together with the Operator.

With the Technopath online, I at last proceeded to the next phase of my plan. I had my Phantoms escort the Technopath through the sewers towards the Brockton Bay Public Library to take advantage of the free internet.

If it were a proper Technopath formed from a proper Operator, it wouldn't need to be so close to a wi-fi hotspot, and it would have far superior hacking abilities, but like I said, it would fulfill the role I needed it for to a passable degree.

Having reached the library's wi-fi hotspot, I order the Technopath to begin scouring the internet for data on potential threats and assets within Brockton Bay.

"Threats" in this case being known Parahuman's, Rogues or Groups, that may threaten me. "Assets" being individuals who may possess the relevant knowledge needed to advance my Human Skill Tree.

While sifting through ParaHumans Online, or PHO, along with relevant wiki entries to correlate data, I come to understand the basic layout of the local power blocs.

Hmm, this Empire Eighty-Eight seems to be a problem simply due to sheer Parahuman volume. Über and Leet are mostly harmless. Azn Bad Boys have Lung, who once contended with the entirety of the Brockton Bay Protectorate, and won, not to mention fighting evenly against Leviathan, the Second Endbringer.

Oni Lee is the equivalent of an "Etheric Phantom on crack" to borrow human vernacular; which is to say he's annoying, but manageable. The Undersider's are a small-time group of thugs who keep mostly to themselves. There powers aren't outwardly impressive. Coil... is largely an unknown. I don't like unknowns.

Then there's the local Hero's. I require more information. To that end, I order the Technopath to begin a raid on the local PRT and Protectorate database to get a better idea of what I'm dealing with.

-----Some Underpaid PRT Intern-----

-----PRT ENE Field Office-----

Wow, today's shaping up to be kind of ridiculous. The higher ups are keeping hush hush about it, but apparently something, or someone managed to really kick the hornets nest last night. Rumor has it it's connected to a series of kidnappings that happened earlier this morning, but what do I know?

Suddenly, my computer starts to spaz the fuck out as files, tabs, windows, etc. are being opened and closed at breakneck speed. "Son of a bitch! Get someone in charge! Someone's hacking our systems!"

*Meanwhile, On The Rig*

-----Colin Wallis/Armsmaster-----

-----His Workshop, Protectorate Base "The Rig"-----

Going over the data from this morning's rash of kidnappings. "Dragon, what do you make of this? First they clean the stores out, then come back to kidnap the owners in the morning? What's the point?"

Dragon then responds from her wall monitor "I truly don't know, Colin. It's very strange. Wait a second- Colin! Someone's trying to hack your lab! Wait- They're attacking the entire Rig!"

What?! "Close down all external server connections! Lock down everything!"

"I'm trying! They're incredibly- wait. Huh? They just... stopped? Why did they stop?"

"Perhaps they achieved their objective? In any event, we need to continue the lockdown and go over our systems with a fine-toothed comb to make sure they didn't leave any nasty surprises in our systems."

"Right. Oh, I've received a notification from the PRT Field Office. They were also attacked at seemingly the same time as The Rig."

"What the hell? Who in Brockton Bay would have the kind of hardware and knowhow to pull something like this?"

"Well, technically Leet could conceivably build a Tinkertech device capable of it based on what we know of his specialization. But an abrupt cyberattack out of nowhere with none of their usual 'flair' seems rather atypical. Other than that, the only other Tinkers we know of are Squealer and Trainwreck."

"Who lack anything remotely resembling a cyberattack specialization. Have you managed to trace the source of the attack?"

"I have. It seems to have originated from... The Brockton Bay Public Library?"

*At The Same Time*

-----Thomas Calvert/Coil-----

-----Timeline A-----

-----PRT Field Office-----

The appearance of a newly Triggered bio-Tinker is most certainly not ideal. As much as I'd like to get my hands on a Tinker officially, if their specialization truly involves creating biological monstrosities, then they're far too dangerous to risk recruiting.

I didn't survive Nilbog's army of monsters at Ellisburg just to have my future kingdom overrun by a bunch of shadowy humanoid monsters. Of course, it's at that moment that everything goes to shit as all of a sudden, a massive cyberattack is executed against the PRT Field Office.

Reports are also coming in from The Rig indicating they're also under attack. Almost as quickly as it had started, it suddenly seemed to stop. Most of my "coworkers" believe it had something to do with Dragon's intervention, I however know better.

-----Timeline B-----

-----His Base, "Unfinished" Endbringer Shelter-----

I however know better, because I'm sitting here at my personal laptop watching the attack continue, using the backdoors I painstakingly installed into the PRT's systems.

The attack on The Rig's mostly tapered off in earnest due to them locking down their external connections, and having Dragon keeping a close eye on things. The PRT's database however, is nowhere near as secure, I made sure of that.

Unfortunately, my diligent efforts are coming back to bite me in the ass as whoever this bastard is managed to quickly find the backdoors I installed into the system, and are using them to tear through the PRT's firewalls without tripping any alarms.

Then as if that wasn't bad enough, they seemingly managed to back trace my connections and started hacking MY database! The fucker's now plundering MY hard-earned information that I've accumulated through painstaking effort! There's so much shit that could bury me in their, it's not even funny!

"Shut down all external server connections now!" I scream into the intercom. Moments later, I thank the powers that be that the team nearest the server room responded as quickly as they did. I just hope that whoever this piece of shit is, they didn't get anything too useful.

-----???/Our Protagonist-----

Huh. Coil's been a naughty, naughty boy. Civilian identities on nearly the entirety of the E88, the Merchants, the ABB, and so on. Along with dossiers on most of the Powers of nearly every Hero, Independent, and Villain Cape in Brockton Bay.

Correspondence with Accord over in Boston, MA. All kinds of dirt and detailed plans to try and oust Director Emily Piggot so that he can take over as director of the PRT ENE. His identity as the backer of The Undersiders, as well as being Trainwreck and Circus's true boss.

This is good stuff. Thank you Coil. Thank you very much. I wonder what I should do with him. Some of this intel, he seemingly added out of nowhere, and he's demonstrated an uncanny ability to always succeed at whatever endeavor he sets out to do, with minimal deviation.

If he isn't a Cape, I'll eat my tendrils. Thomas Calvert. What are you hiding? Perhaps Sarah could be persuaded to tell me. She does love to run her mouth after all...