"Did you get what you wanted out of that?"

  The small room was devoid of occupants other than Emily, Legend, and Miss Militia. Seraph had already been sent back to the main briefing room with PRT agent escorts, and the medical staff had been ordered to clear out for a few minutes. They didn't have a lot of time to talk before she had to be checked over and spend time in isolation for Master/Stranger screening as a precaution.

  Previous cases of Seraph's healing didn't seem to leave a mental influence on the subjects, but protocol was protocol.

  "There's something seriously wrong about that boy," she answered Legend's probing question.

  Hopefully, Seraph didn't catch on to the fact that the two Blasters were there to contain her just as much as they were there to contain him. Her bellowing like a wounded hippo wasn't just out of anger, after all. Fortunately, there was still something to be said about professionals recognizing subtle signs of command.

  "You're thinking Kill/Kiss Dynamic?" the Protectorate Leader asked.

  "There's nothing tying them in power expression, though," Miss Militia interjected.

  "A power-enforced obsession with keeping her safe, then."

  "Toward one, specific individual?" Emily retorted.

  "Maybe they knew each other before they Triggered, thus amplifying his feelings of protectiveness?" Legend postulated.

  "She attacked him. Twice. With seemingly lethal intent." There was more than a hint of disappointment in the blonde's voice at the winged Parahuman's continued existence despite the deadly engagements.

  "A stalker, maybe?" The unpleasant thought seemed to make Miss Militia hesitate to even bring it up.

  "Possible," Emily agreed after a few seconds of contemplation. "It could explain the strained interactions between Imago and him, the obsession, but not the control she seems to have over the boy. Don't stalker cases have it the other way around? With the perpetrator wanting to dominate the victim?"

  "As far as I know." Legend shrugged. "We'll need criminal and forensic psychologists to tell, one way or the other."

  "We still can't rule out Mastering," Emily stubbornly pressed.

  "He claims immunity to Master and Thinker powers," Miss Militia rebutted.

  Actually, his exact words were: “How would she Master me? I'm not a bug. Just because I have armor and wings doesn't make me an overgrown beetle. Besides, I can't be Mastered. My powers make sure of that.”

  "Which we can't prove one way or the other," came the tart reply.

  "He does seem to have an adverse effect on Thinkers," Legend said. "Watchdog can't directly analyze him without experiencing backlash, and this disruption appears to encompass Imago, now. Masters could easily suffer the same blocks."

  "Unless he can make himself intentionally vulnerable to a certain Master whom he is obsessed with," Miss Militia said with a grimace.

  "Damn that boy!" Emily groaned, unable to gesture too wildly owing to the censors attached to her limbs. "If he weren't so valuable, I'd be pushing for a Kill Order right now. He's too dangerous and unpredictable!"

  "He's willing to cooperate, Director." If Legend thought he was being comforting, he needed to work on his pep talk. "We simply need to avoid crossing the line with Imago."

  "And you're just fine with that?" she replied angrily. "Leaving control over such a dangerous cape in the hands of an equally dangerous Master?"

  Legend scowled. "This outward expression of prejudice won't help our efforts to bring them onside, Director. As far as we've been able to tell, she can't control humans."

  Stolen story; please report.

  "You mean she hasn't shown that she could!" she barked back. "For all we know, her powers are too subtle to detect. Besides, she jumped from controlling ants to having a literal army of monsters at her beck and call. We can't rule anything out with these people!"

  "Be that as it may," he sighed, "as long as they are proving cooperative, our orders are to accommodate."

  "Director," Miss Militia cut in delicately. "Despite the… unusual circumstances surrounding the two public instances of Imago's power use, she hasn't actually hurt anyone. The swarm over the city avoided civilians, she showed no aggression toward the heroes out at sea, and even Seraph's never been harmed to our knowledge, despite her best effort to make it otherwise. I can't provide solid evidence without talking to them, but there might be an explanation as to why he's so protective of her."

  Emily raised an intrigued eyebrow. "And that would be?"

  "Well, let's examine the three cases in which Seraph came to her aid and focus on just him, for the moment. We know that Imago was on that rooftop with Lung. Seraph arrived to put down the ABB leader. Over the Atlantic—if our theory that Coil somehow abducted Imago is right—then it explains his sudden aggression against the villain and why he was out there. He was there to rescue her, but she Second Triggered, in all probability, and likely wasn't in her right mind."

  So far, this all lined up with the conclusions of PRT analysts and Thinkers, so Emily didn't interrupt.

  "In the meetup at the former Boat Graveyard," Militia continued, "he suddenly demanded the release of Canary when her incarceration began agitating Imago."

  Emily's blood pressure surged at the memory. That was a can of worms that caused far too much chaos for her liking.

  "From what we know, Seraph has absolutely no connection with the singer and so had no reason to make such a demand. He only did it because of Imago and how Tattletale's skewed description of the case was causing distress to the only Master on that beach."

  Emily would've previously objected to the statement owing to Hellhound's presence in the same area if details about her lack of power-enforced control over dogs hadn't been revealed that day. Yet another flaming bag of shit that had been dumped on her porch.

  As for the Thinker... well, all of the heroes present that day agreed that she was simply trying to turn the Master against the PRT and Protectorate. And she almost succeeded.

  "Which brings us to what happened in the briefing room," Miss Militia went on. "The mere hint of attention on Imago set Seraph off, even pushing him to the point of promising wide-scale murder and destruction. His unreasonable protectiveness might just be one half of the equation."

  At this point, Miss Militia was facing Emily directly.

  "Director, bringing up Leviathan's potential interest in Imago was just procedure to you. But he could have perceived it as a threat. This could also explain why he's so intent on volunteering as bait. He wants the attention on himself so that we wouldn't be tempted to dangle Imago in front of an Endbringer too."

  As much as Emily would like to deny the possibility, she couldn't outright suppress the pragmatic thought of actually doing it. Leviathan had destroyed too many cities, taken too many lives, and ruined too many futures. If taking him out required sacrificing a single girl, she couldn't quite say that she wouldn't do it.

  "So, what, I shouldn't have even brought it up?" the Director asked scathingly. "I should've just left it alone despite the risks?"

  "She's saying," Legend answered on Miss Militia's behalf, "that we should maybe consider Seraph's perspective. Right now, they have a dim view of our respective organizations, and Canary's case didn't help with that. If we're to gain their cooperation, and thus insight into who they are, how their powers work, and what kind of threat they really pose, we need to present ourselves in a better light."

  Emily's face twisted in revulsion. "You want me to start kissing their asses?"

  "That likely won't work and might just turn them against us more," Miss Militia pointed out patiently. "We need to stop treating them like run-of-the-mill Parahumans that require the usual tactics to recruit. We need to start showing them that we aren't just the big, scary figures of authority that would typically intimidate minor capes. Perhaps a more open approach would work where keeping them at arm's length would fail?"

  The local PRT Director didn't outright reject the idea. That would've been stupid. Instead, she mulled it over.

  At the end of the day, most capes simply couldn't be trusted with more delicate information. They often require persistent guidance and years of experience to merit inclusion in discussions of complex realities that go beyond simple PR. Parahumans with unbending, black-and-white perspectives can be particularly troublesome.

  Seraph, for all his faults and his most recent mishap, has one thing going for him: combat prescience. He has never been defeated and has only ever caused as much damage as he intended. According to their analysis, it likely has to do with some form of Combat Thinker aspect of his power.

  After speaking with him, Emily was more inclined to believe that everything had been a deliberate choice. He chose to run, chose to fight, chose to spare, chose to talk, and chose to hide. Everything was a choice, except when it wasn't. And that exception has only ever centered on one person: Imago.

  Director Piggot refused to bend over backwards for the two teen capes. However, if opening up just a little bit allowed the PRT to discover a potential weakness that they could exploit? Well, she wasn't that inflexible. Regardless of her current title, she was still a soldier.

  What was it that Sun Tzu said again? Ah, yes.

  All warfare is based on deception.

  Emily has been conducting herself as a PRT Director should, and for ten long years, she's been failing. Maybe it was time to start taking this war a little more seriously.