glowfic | witch's cape, not hat

Well, that little detail about Copycat and the Siberian got left out of Tattletale's sources.
And then, since information gleaned by cheating doesn't come with the assumption that both people know it, "Well, that little detail about you and the Siberian got left out of my sources.
But this is bigger than Coil ever was, and it was never their powers that made the Nine dangerous." Sees cape life as a game, Slaughterhouse Nine don't play it. Expects attacking them to fail. Expects teleporting to Coil might succeed where other attacks would fail. Wouldn't mind if it did.

"...This power is kind of bullshit." Thinker headache is starting. "If Coil really is small potatoes, then I could use the practice. But I take serious threats seriously, you don't play fair when losing is unacceptable." Disapproves of treating cape life as a game. Isn't going to push it. Has been discussing plans of attack on the Nine with Legend. Is much more willing to kill than when she was a Ward.

"Okay, if people better informed than me think you've got a shot that's something else. You're still talking going from a local crime lord to the Slaughterhouse Nine, and that's a bit of a leap.

Must not have used her power heavily recently. Hasn't exerted it enough for a headache yet. Thinks hiding whatever she's hiding for this long means she's winning. Smug. Smug smug smug smug smug. Radiating an aura of smugness visible even without the power. From Vermont.

"...There's something wrong here. You called him a local crime lord. As if he's still active, and still here. That's not much by itself, just a turn of phrase. But you're hiding something really hard." Suspects Undersiders have a detente or alliance with Coil. Doesn't trust her own conclusions. Is not used to plotting and information games. Not that Tattletale didn't know that last bit already.

Edited 2016-01-14 06:36 (UTC)

"Oh, I've got a pretty good guess he's still active. Especially now that I've seen how sure you are; you've got a source.
And of course I've got secrets. That's why all the effort to point your copy of my power away from them. Working well, if I do say so myself."

Used to this power. Knows what it will and won't latch on to without being carefully directed. Had this planned since finding out there was a power copier in the city.

"You can be as clever as you like, I have no interest in your secrets. And I've had enough spy games for today. Bye." Has other obligations. Is suppressing thinker headache with healing, only somewhat effective. Doesn't want to lose any more of her own secrets.

"Thanks for stopping by!"
Genuinely means that. Glad for the chance to go up against her own power. Messed with Copycat to see if she could. Not malicious, just kind of a jerk.

Edited 2016-01-14 08:34 (UTC)

Copycat goes around on her regularly scheduled non-heroing for a while.

Some time tomorrow, she tries to teleport to Coil. The way 'porting to a certain person works is seeing the whole world in a sort of vague sense, which narrows to a continent which narrows to the east coast which narrows to Brockton Bay which narrows to Downtown which narrows to the PRT HQ... And refuses to narrow any further.

Wonderful. Coil has some way of blocking her from locking straight on. But it's extremely suspicious that he seems to be in the PRT building. He probably has a position there, an excellent spot for a sneaky espionage-focused supervillain to be, really.

She's glad she never joined the Protectorate. She might have gone under Coil's thumb again without even realizing it. Which leaves her wondering what to do next. She can't very well go to the PRT about how Coil's in the PRT, she might as well send up fireworks that say 'I know where you work, Coil!'

Let's see if Tattletale's power gives me any hints. She starts it up, thinking about what she knows about Coil, the Undersiders, the PRT, and capes in general.

She gets a sudden urge to connect every point in a room's worth of bulletin boards with color-coded pieces of string.

The power does help, though. It focuses on a single target, which conveniently enough is Coil. He's operating from the shadows as much as possible, arranging for people to do things without them knowing it's at Coil's behest. Capes are harder to control, but the PRT gives access, and, depending on position, ability to affect what the heroes do. If Coil is working in the PRT, it's because he thinks the PRT is the place to go to get the influence he wants. He's not just working there, he's in a position of power. Might be the Deputy Director, any of the department heads, even the Director, but he's definitely someone important.

But there was a recent change of Directors, shortly after Coil vanished. Assuming that benefited him, it clicks. Coil is Director Calvert.

...Interesting. And now the question is, what's the best way to get him? A director in the PRT's word against a relatively new independent hero, if a powerful and successful one, with good reason for a grudge. It could go either way, but it'd probably swing Coil's way. And she doesn't have contacts... Er, make that reliable contacts, with anyone who's good at spy games.

There's always the direct approach, but assaulting a PRT director would get her in all kinds of trouble if she can't prove without a doubt that he's Coil. And probably even if she can.

Ugh. Spy games are giving her a headache. But she sets to gathering evidence in her spare time, leaning heavily on Tattletale's power and enhanced senses (and what internet prowess she got from Cranial's instant tech education), trying to find something to connect Coil to Calvert. Even if it wouldn't hold up in court, a healthy amount of suspicion on him would be enough revenge.

Well, Coil appeared in Brockton Bay shortly after Calvert did. That doesn't say much. Coil's operations tended to be high-risk, high-reward, start suddenly, and of course always pay off. After Calvert became the Director, the heroes shifted more toward following the same pattern. And Calvert is a large investor in the construction company that built Brockton Bay's Endbringer shelters and Coil's old underground base.

Asking Tattletale's power for an inference, it jumps to yep, that's the guy easily.

Okay, that's pretty suspicious, but not quite enough that she'd feel confident in the public opinion fight that's going to happen. She fishes around for something else to connect the two, if it's at all findable. Has that construction company been getting better-than-average deals with the PRT lately, or anything like that?

Nothing like that, he isn't sloppy.

Coil's allies are getting better treatment from the Protectorate lately, though. It's subtle, but it's there. Enough that relevant superpowers can pick up on it. The cells of the Elite that hired Coil's agents are a little more likely to be classified as the non-villainous kind of Elite, that it's safe to do business with instead of fighting. The heroes are a little more willing to leave Accord be in favor of pursuing other threats. These aren't things that the Brockton Bay director could manage directly, but Calvert was a PRT consultant before he was a PRT head and maybe he's offering suggestions they're listening to.

The Undersiders' continuing escapes would fit very well in this category, if not for the fact that there's no obvious way for him to let them get away after every loss. He can't exactly be ordering the heroes to do it.

Well maybe he's deliberately being sloppy and letting Tattletale work out the Heroes' actions.

...Maybe he's Tattletale's inside source. There's no good way to try to verify this without risking getting discovered by either party, though. And pushing Tattletale's power too far might lead to bad answers. She notes it as 'possible' though.

To hell with it. She wraps up everything she has on this matter, from Coil's list of crimes (plus evidence) to the connections (all the evidence, right there) into a neatly-presented little bundle of informative research with a little help from Uber's power. She's no writer, but it should be easy to understand at least.

She uses Tattletale's power to identify the capes and any important non-capes most likely to believe her about Coil.

Edited 2016-01-15 02:05 (UTC)

The Undersiders do always seem to know the heroes' plans. This is generally assumed to be some combination of Tattletale and Skitter, but since few people know exactly what Tattletale's power even is nobody knows for sure.

It's slow going. She has to check candidates one at a time, looking into whatever she can find on them and extrapolating to what would they do if they found out their boss was a supervillain. Would be easier if she could meet them in person safely.

It turns out that plenty of the relevant parties will take her seriously. Miss Militia is thoroughly Lawful Good and will consider it her responsibility to find out if it's true, Armsmaster would love the chance to capture a supervillain who crossed as many lines as Coil did, but would be a bit displeased if someone else did and it came out that he had been taking orders from one. Convincing them it's true is going to be harder, especially with all the evidence being so circumstantial. Armsmaster would be a good candidate there; he'd at least be able to tell that Gren believes it.

Most of the Brockton Bay PRT non-capes would either reject this as crackpottery or just inform their boss that he has an enemy. Coil's superiors are an option, but the Chief Director probably isn't in the habit of listening to unknown thinker powers borrowed by strangers.

She can try to talk to Armsmaster and Miss Militia, then. She never liked Armsmaster much, but one takes what allies they can get.

She waits until they're on patrol, and starts a whisper-spell to them. She happens to find Armsmaster first. After waiting for a good moment where he won't be distracted,

"Armsmaster, this is Copycat. I have sensitive information I'd like to discuss with you. It's about Coil."

"Coil? As far as we know he's been inactive since we raided his base."

"I believe he's still active. I have evidence, partially gathered from a copied version of Tattletale's power. Most of it's circumstantial, but it'd be an awful lot of coincidence. Will you listen to my evidence if I tell you what I think Coil's doing lately, even if it seems absurd at first?"

"Of course. Can you land so I can see you? And it might be a good idea to start with what Tattletale's power does, since it's relying on that."

She lands in an alley. When Armsmaster approaches, "Tattletale's power is about inferences. It makes intuitive leaps of logic that derive information from the smallest of cues, alarmingly quickly. Things you might notice if you thought carefully for hours, it discovers instantly. Even things you never would have thought of, but that make sense once the power gives them. I'm not sure they're always right, but clearly they usually are, given her success. As to Coil... I believe Coil is Thomas Calvert."

If he doesn't interrupt her, she goes on to lay out the broad strokes of the chain of evidence, presenting him with a neatly printed packet of papers that fill in the details.

Edited 2016-01-15 02:44 (UTC)

He does, occasionally, asking for clarification or justification where called for. Details on how her teleportation works, for instance, and whether Coil might have misdirected it to PRT HQ since he clearly already has some method of interfering.

When she's done, "The Undersiders. You said you suspected they were working for Coil? It was their attack that got Calvert his promotion, when Director Piggot had to step down. They said she was a target, and we never did find out what they meant."

"Again, circumstantial. When I talked to Skitter a couple weeks ago she had a far more emotional reaction to my accusing Coil of things than I would expect from someone hearing about a random villain. Finding out her boss was doing that fits her reaction more.
And they have to be getting their money from somewhere. Tattletale's power said Tattletale was making glaring omissions when discussing Coil. It's possible he's redirecting my teleport since he's interfering with it at all. I don't know how much harder it would be to make the give a wrong answer than to fail to give a clear answer at all."

"Before making any moves that can't be taken back, you should try teleporting to Coil more often. You could try it now; the Director is out of the building. If it tracks his location, then he's either Coil or being very impressively framed."

"Alright." She closes her eyes and tries to teleport to Coil. This time the frame of the world shrinks to a thin line of Downtown, stretching from PRT HQ to City Hall. She frowns and investigates the feeling of... Vague confusion? Ah. The teleport is trying to track two different people.

...She asks it for the man who dressed as Coil and asked her questions and gets a man at a desk, doing paperwork. She asks it for Coil, with the new knowledge that he probably used a body double, and gets Thomas Calvert listening to a speech in City Hall.

She reports all this to Armsmaster.

"You can see people as well as tell whether it works?
You're right about the Director's location, and if the man who introduced himself as Coil is at the PRT it's verifiable without having to do anything drastic like arrest Director Calvert before being certain. Can you describe him?"

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