INTERLUDE: A MEASURED HAND

Screens flickered in shades of blue and gray in the PRT’s operations hub, surveillance feeds pulling in fragmented images from across Brockton Bay.

Armsmaster—Colin—stood at the central console, fingers flying across the interface with practiced ease as he parsed data faster than most could read. Bar his helmet, his armor was partially disassembled for quick maintenance, exposing the tight weave of a mesh undersuit and the lines of his muscles.

There was still time before the troops were deployed. Armsmaster intended to use every minute of it. He needed a clearer picture—more data, more certainty.

Another frame blinked onto the main screen. An alleyway, washed in grainy static and the orange glow of a streetlamp. At its center: a smear of blood. Around it, a distortion—blue light frozen mid-flicker, caught between frames. A pulse of energy, wild and unquantifiable.

It wasn’t just unfamiliar. It was unprecedented.

He narrowed his eyes, enhancing the frame. The sensors had flagged the moment automatically—a spike in electromagnetic signatures, temperature anomalies, and kinetic force. All of it converging in the span of a second.

Behind him, the door slid open with a soft electronic hiss.

“Colin,” came Miss Militia’s voice—soft, but laced with tension beneath the surface.

He didn’t turn. “She’s dangerous. There’s enough here to make a case for containment. Rogue activity, unregistered powers, violent escalation. If she’s involved in the ABB-E88 conflict, even indirectly—”

“She’s a teenager,” Miss Militia said, cutting him off. Her words cut through the room like a knife.

Colin’s hands stilled over the keyboard.

“She’s not just a teenager. She’s a parahuman. One with a growing repertoire of abilities and no formal training.” His tone was clipped, clinical. “We have protocols in place for a reason. If we don’t act now, she could go off the radar completely. We’ve seen it happen before.”

Miss Militia stepped further into the room. Her stance was relaxed, one hand resting near the semi-sentient blur of green-and-black energy  at her hip, but her eyes held steady.

“And if we go in guns blazing and corner her like an animal? What then? Another broken kid who sees us as the enemy?” She shook her head. “That’s not what we’re supposed to be.”

Armsmaster turned slowly, his expression unreadable behind the lenses of his helmet. “She already slipped through our fingers once. I’m not suggesting we harm her. Just containment. Controlled conditions. Observation. Bring her in before she becomes a threat to herself or others.”

“You’re not listening,” Miss Militia said, taking another step forward. “Shadow Stalker wants to go after her, and we both know what that means. Sophia doesn’t do containment. She does intimidation. Fear. Control. If we let her dictate our actions, it won’t be a retrieval—it’ll be a message.”

Unknown to her, a flicker of hesitation crossed his face.

“I saw her, Colin,” Miss Militia went on, her voice hard now. “I saw the way she moved, how she held back. She could’ve done so much more—and she didn’t. That kind of restraint? It means something.”

“She blew a man apart,” Armsmaster said flatly.

Miss Militia didn’t flinch. “And then she walked away. Didn’t run. Didn’t attack anyone else. She could’ve turned that power on the man she saved, on a late-night crowd—but she didn’t. When’s the last time you saw someone with that kind of power, with that kind of trigger event, choose not to use it destructively?”

Silence settled again. Around them, the monitors kept cycling—data streams, tactical overlays, police chatter. On one screen, an image of Taylor’s face was shown—blurry, half-obscured, but unmistakable.

Miss Militia stepped closer. “She’s not a criminal. Not yet. She’s a scared girl who stepped into something she doesn’t fully understand. And if we reach out with force, we lose her. Maybe for good.”

Colin stared at the screen. His hands hovered over the controls. One press and the deployment order would be live. A squad dispatched. Non-lethal, in theory—but encounters rarely played out by the book.

“Have faith in her,” she said, softer now. “Give her a chance to come of her own volition—just for a little while.”

He stood there, motionless.

Then, slowly, he disengaged the command queue. The alert faded. The screen dimmed.

Miss Militia exhaled, tension bleeding from her shoulders.

“For now,” Armsmaster said, voice tight with authority. “But if she steps out of line—”

“Then we step in,” she said. “To help. Not to punish.”

She left without another word, the door whispering shut behind her.

Armsmaster stood alone in the soft light of the console, the weight of command resting silent on his shoulders.