(SHATTERPOINT) IMPLICATIONS

The clock ticked to signal the start of the all-hands meeting, but Piggot didn't move. 

She stood in the middle of her office, hand hovering above the desk as though she’d forgotten what she was reaching for. And for a moment, she remained like that, before, with far more effort than the act required, she drew her arm back. Then, she squeezed her brow in idle recollection, only to sigh as her thoughts scattered every time she tried to grab one. 

She settled for frowning instead, her mind instinctively bracing for another bad news as the landline rang. Another message. Another problem she didn't have room for. 

It rang again, then again, and despite herself, she flinched. But the action had inadvertently drawn her eyes to the report on her desk, and immediately she knew it was what she had been reaching for earlier. 

The intelligence report detailing Battery’s confession. 

Piggot prided herself on being a woman who dealt in reality, on hard numbers, verifiable reports, and tactical assessments grounded in observable fact. She had no patience for conspiracy theories or cape-community paranoia, and even less tolerance for wild speculation dressed up as intelligence. Her job required a sound mind, not an active imagination.

Which was why, were it not for the fact that someone had been seriously injured during the altercation, she would have dismissed Battery’s account outright as nonsense.

But Anakin Skywalker had been injured badly. And Battery now sat across from her looking shaken, guarded, and exhausted. She spoke slowly, choosing her words with the kind of carefulness one used only when they understood that hiding was no longer possible. Piggot had seen liars before; she had seen people who folded under pressure, who scrambled for excuses, and who tried to shift blame or cling to selective memory. Battery did none of those things. She looked terrified of the very information she was revealing, yet she forced herself to say it anyway.

But the truth she offered sounded utterly absurd.

A secret organization that sold powers in a vial?

The claim contradicted everything Piggot knew about parahumans. Everything everyone knew about trigger events, about trauma, and about the unpredictable and agonizing circumstances that gave rise to powers. That information—now known to be incomplete, if not entirely flawed—formed the foundation of every parahuman-related policy the government enforced, every scientific paper the country’s brightest minds had published, and every operational guideline taught to Protectorate members. 

The idea that powers could be bought, acquired through a clandestine transaction like black-market weaponry, was so fundamentally impossible that she would have laughed had Battery not looked so painfully sincere.

And that was before Piggot allowed herself to consider the broader implications.

Her hands trembled, tapping lightly against the desk. Once, then twice, a stuttering rhythm she couldn’t seem to stop. 

Another ring. 

A hot, dizzy rush flooded her chest, and she squeezed her eyes shut, willing the world to slow down, to stop spinning, to give her one second—just one—where everything didn’t feel like it was slipping through her fingers.

But it didn’t stop, and her mind lost itself in the thoughts plaguing it.

If Cauldron truly existed, then the entire parahuman landscape as she understood it was a carefully constructed illusion. Many previously assumed “natural” capes could instead be the result of Cauldron’s experiments, meaning the PRT might have unknowingly hired, sanctioned, or even promoted individuals who were effectively assets of an organization operating entirely outside government oversight. If Battery, a model Protectorate hero who had served with discipline and loyalty, could be one of theirs, then so could anyone.

The heroes, directors, and rank-and-file officers, along with the analysts and administrators who handled classified material—anyone with access to sensitive information—could be reporting to them.

Cauldron could already be embedded deep within the organization’s command structure.

Which meant that the organization she had dedicated her life to stabilizing, strengthening, and keeping intact could be compromised in ways she had never imagined. The PRT would require a complete systemic overhaul. Every department would need to be scrutinized, every team composition reevaluated, every clearance level reassessed, and every long-trusted parahuman examined through a lens of suspicion she had never before thought necessary.

And then, as if the situation were not already stressful enough, there was Anakin Skywalker to contend with.

Piggot opened her eyes again, but the room didn’t quite settle. Still, she moved around her desk, the motion feeling wrong, like she was escaping someone’s body. Stopping as a result, she braced a hand against the desk, reaching for a stack of papers that detailed what they knew about the man—which was absolutely fucking nothing—just so she had something to do. Just so she could distract herself. 

“From what, exactly?” Her mind seemed to ask, unwilling to heed her plea. From the fact that the man had already demonstrated a willingness to confront and assault heroes? From the way he carried it out, as if every move had unfolded according to some plan of his? Or was it that if he somehow found out the truth about Cauldron before she could figure out what to do, he could dismantle the PRT piece by piece, or worse, make the information public?

Or was it the suffocating fact that, at best, the resulting fallout would destroy the political stability of the United States, and at worst, could cause global panic?

She exhaled, trying to regain her composure, but it was long gone. Her heartbeat thudded too loudly in her ears, drowning out the ambient noise of her office until even the act of breathing felt like a nigh-impossible task.

Piggot knew pressure. She had endured it, adapted to it, and eventually risen above it. In time, it had even become almost familiar to her. 

This was not pressure.

This was the beginning of something far larger than her, far larger than the PRT, and far beyond anything the government had prepared for.

Emily Piggot knew she stood at the precipice of a foundational, existential threat, and honestly, it terrified her more than Ellisburg ever did.