A/N: Five things before we start (Six now if you're reading this on SB).

First: I'm not in love with the story name, while I do like how it references several things, it feels janky to me. Just felt like pointing that out.

Second: I've found that I'm better at writing overarching plots than the detail work, so don't expect rapid updates; hell, I even end up writing a random part then finding ways of linking them to the rest of a chapter.

Third: As a rule, if I ever abandon my works, I'll say beforehand and give out my notes on it to the one that wants to continue it.

Fourth: If you don't know Worm, you should really go and read it; if you don't know Warframe… that one is a little more problematic, but a few YouTube videos should fix that. Unless you really want to play it, then go and do that, but full knowledge isn't required; though it could help you catch the little details I plan on adding, but I'll end up covering most things lore wise so it's all good if you don't.

But there will be spoilers if you aren't up to date with the 'Main Quests.'

Fifth: One of the main reasons I'm cross-posting on SpaceBattles is so I can cut down on the A/Ns at the end of chapters. Going here means I can better communicate without stacking it into the Chapter/s proper, though there will still be a few A/Ns popping up (and I'm more or less copying and pasting the what has been written up to this point, I'm just spreading the Chapters out so people can talk about it, when SB is caught up then the A/Ns will be different). Another is that while is good for getting stories out to read, it's less effective at getting feedback on your writing skill, so I'm hoping that posting here will help me improve (crosses fingers).

Sixth: This is not the story I wanted to start with, but it was one that I couldn't stop writing, so, here we go.

-Worm-In-Waiting-

Despite the fact that his bike neither needed to make the sound, that he really needed to bring the attention to himself, Armsmaster still enjoyed revving his motorcycle's engine at traffic lights.

It was a simple action, one that drew looks of envy from those street side as well as the few in the nearby cars, and while Armsmaster could honestly say that he could occasionally miss some social cues, even he understood the feelings that the image of him atop his Tinker Tech bike could draw out. It also served the purpose of letting other drivers know he was around them, because despite his high-profile nature, as it wasn't hard to see his blue and silver power armor, there were still several times that Armsmaster was nearly hit while traveling through the city.

He was extremely thankful for his recording software in those cases, even though it meant dealing with the police and their disproval with the fact that technically, his bike wasn't street legal due to its armaments.

The only downside to his visibility was the fact that he was currently in downtown Brockton Bay, a place which he not only felt like he was wasting his, and by extension the Protectorates, time.

Given the nature of common Capes, it was extremely unlikely that one would cause an incident here. Most either had enough common sense to know how to maintain the status quo of not forcing the PRT to bring the hammer down on them in their own 'territory,' or were smart enough to stay out of sight and/or keep involvement/damage to a minimum (Uber and Leet came to Armsmasters mind with the many stunts they had once pulled in this case). The average Brockton Bay Cape knew that there was no profit in the area worth the risk of the PRTs response, and though the Merchants were known to do stupid things, they also tended to have enough smarts left to know where they weren't wanted.

A minor plus to the travel was the fact he gave his various types of software a workout, including his current project, a combat predictive algorithm that, in theory, would greatly increase his ability to combat foes, provided that he could get the right data on them.

But other than that, Armsmaster disliked having patrol anywhere near downtown, he viewed having to pass through areas 'overseen' by the Empire or the Protectorate as inefficient in terms of the PRTs time.

Oh, he understood the PR value, it had been explained in great detail when he had first started out, and while he didn't always care for the idea (as there were several thoughts and ideas he had had throughout the years that were prohibited because of 'image') he understood quite well about the public having a good view of heroes.

Armsmasters musing was cut short as an alert popped up in his visors HUD, what was strange about it was that it came straight from the APPAS.

The Automatic Police-Protectorate Alert System.

Back in Armsmaster's early days, the APPAS was his flagship program used to somewhat great effect in his starting city, but it wasn't until Dragon came along and reworked it that it became common within the PRT and their affiliates. In terms of complexity, APPAS was rather barebones, as due to security concerns it wasn't as interconnected within the servers as Armsmaster wanted, but it did its job.

APPAS automatically monitored both Police bands and call centers for key cape words and phrases, as well kept an eye on public social networks and forms with text tracker-bots for any Parahuman events/activities by using several heuristic algorithms. Then it rated, tracked, and gave alerts to the PRT for those events if they fell under certain categories.

The system rated things on several factors: the number of calls coming into both the PRT/police call centers, it cross-referenced various recent posts from PHO and other sources, then it compared the data to the PRTs own data sets, checking for commonalities, like names, powers, location, past attacks and what not. After that it rated it with both a color (for its public visibility), and a number (for its severity), all based on established past data.

It had worked surprisingly well according to the higher-ups, though in Armsmasters opinion it was rather lackluster and prone to bugs due to how often capes were talked about, along with how often people blew things out of proportion (but that was mostly due to a lack of his social networking skills during those early programming days). It was something that he just never got around to fixing because of the overall inefficiency of the program; humans were just too unpredictable and illogical for the program to work without integrating it into every system and coupling it with both a complete recording of all capes powers, as well as a dedicated team in each city or AI to shift through the data to confirm its accuracy.

Still, an average decrease in several minutes of response time for the PRT was good overall, even if it just stemmed from the quick-reaction teams getting a bit of a heads up before local police called in the PRT.

At first, Armsmaster didn't react to the alert, mostly because of the ranking; a dark red signifying immediate public threat. But considering that there was no corresponding number, such an alert was unlikely.

The last Red was when Hookwolf was spotted fighting Lung just outside of downtown. Console would have told him about any developing situation long before it got this bad, and if it was an Endbringer then he would have known about it well before APPAS did.

It was after, highly unlikely that a Cape fight of that magnitude would not have some witnesses or police calls beforehand, and not just explode into a busy street out of nowhere.

Armsmaster hesitated however; there was a location, and he trusted both his work and Dragons, even if the system did have its… moments.

The time he crashed a 'cape costume party' a few years back came to mind.

But… it was unlikely anything would happen in this part of downtown anyway.

A quick rev of his bike, a course plotted on his HUD, and Armsmaster began to move quickly through the streets, thankful for the PRT altered Police given siren to make his way. As he went, a few eye movements triggered his radio, while he sent a quick audio message to both the PRT Data Techs and Miss Militia about a possible APPAS Red (as well as an alert to Dragon, given her work on the program. ). Protocol needed to be followed after all…

"Armsmaster, can you see it?"

Or Miss Militia could contact him.

"Militia," Armsmastere greeted. "I just got an alert, from APAA-"

"Armsmaster, can you see it?"

Colin blinked, and made some adjustments were made to the course for an increase in speed while unlocking some systems in his bike to allow for some of its more… unconventional, features to be used.

It was very rare for Miss Militia to sound too harried, she usually was an emotional rock for the team, managing more of the emotional side of things where he could not.

And to cut him off as such… Armsmaster could count the number of times that Miss Militia had been less and professional and polite.

A common thread of them all involved either body bags and/or live ammo.

"I have a Red from APAAS with no ratings, I'm currently heading out of downtown right now and enroute. What's happened?"

On the other line, Miss Militia cursed; an even rarer occurrence. "I forgot you're downtown, no line of sight. Get here now Colin, we might need backup, you'll know why when you see it. We don't have much to go on right now, but Piggot wants all-hands-on-deck and a report before…"

Armsmaster found it hard to listen to the female hero as he cleared the last major corner in the downtown area, and the skyline cleared out in front of him.

Mostly because he spotted what she was so considered about, and she was right about knowing it when you saw it.

Armsmaster opened the throttle wide and disabled a few safeties, further increasing his speed as he roared towards his destination.

Winslow High School.

When Armsmaster pulled up to the school, he was disappointed with the fact that he had only passed one roadblock. This wasn't to say he found the PRT response time inadequate, given the scope of the incident; after all, there were several PRT vans parked around the school with tents set up, and the various troopers were quickly and swiftly clearing an area several blocks wide of civilians; going door to door as needed.

No, it was the fact that they were working from the inside out of the location that drew his ire. The fact that they hadn't split off as they had gathered at the school spoke of both communication and protocol issues that needed to be addressed.

Not to say that the PRT was anything but effective in segmenting off the area, corralling witnesses along the streets, taking statements, as well as coordinating with the local police officers for the extra manpower, but it was clear to Armsmaster that this all happened at once, because many of them were tripping over each other in the process of getting the job done.

The result was a machine that worked but was ungreased.

Rather than force his way into the currently controlled chaos that was PRT operations, Armsmaster triggered the beacons he had installed into his local Protectorates members gear. A waypoint would show him the way rather than waste time searching.

He got six hits.

Which was a problem because he knew that Assault and Battery were out of town for a late holiday and none of the others could have gotten here before him without assistance or checking in with him. That meant that not only had some of the Wards gotten there before him, but that they also took it upon themselves to get here in the first place, without notifying him or console.

Both points were further causes for concern about the whole scenario.

The grounds surrounding Winslow had become a mishmash of PRT tents, PRT vans, abandoned vehicles, a few ambulances, as well as some hastily set up pop-up fences based off Tinker Tech, blocking off sections of the surrounding grounds. One section was clearly set up as medical, as he spotted a familiar young brown-haired girl going from one tent to another alongside medics as he traveled towards where Miss Militias beacon stated she was.

Miss Militia was busy when he got to her, talking to a PRT Captain, his Lieutenants, and several police officers, as such Armsmaster paused to fire off yet another message to Dragon, slightly worried about the fact she hadn't replied yet.

he was usually good about that sort of thing, even if it was just a notification that she had gotten his message.

Out of the corner of his eye he spotted Clockblocker approaching; behind him was Gallant, who seemed to be trying to comfort a petite brown-haired girl who, to his ears, seemed to be in the midst of a breakdown with something involving her friends and mistakes.

Clockblocker was also missing his right arm.

Armsmaster stared at the stump of Clockblocker's arm; it seemed he still had the ball joint, but other than that it ended less than a hands' length away from his collarbone.

Nothing in the few reports he had gotten along the way had alerted him to any combat and Clockblocker's skintight white costume was unmarked and undamaged, so there was no reason that one of his Wards should have gotten injured.

This was just another thing in the list of things he found unacceptable about this whole situation.

"Good for you to show Armsmaster, we could use a hand around here," Clockblocker said.

Despite the fact he was wearing a helmet that completely covered his head, Colin could vividly see the smile that the young hero was sporting at the moment.

"In all seriousness," Clockblocker continued. "Don't touch it, or use your power on it, not that you have a power to use on it per say, but hey, at least with Panacea here the medical bills won't cost you an arm or a leg!"

"Least to mention that doing any of that would be breaking protocol," Armsmaster angrily shot back to the young hero. "And a massive failure of the lessons that I've taught to the Wards."

Even though the words carried the metaphorical weight and danger of several runaway train cars, Clockblocker failed to see and hear the signs and continued to barrel forward onto the tracks.

"Well, I still got a leg up on the competition!" Cracked Clockblocker.

Gallant came up after leaving the crying girl in the hands of an PRT trooper and, like the hero that he was, managed to pull his friend away before impact.

Via headlock.

"Sorry sir, Clock here thought he could use his powers to freeze… whatever this is, so it would stop affecting people," said Gallant as his friend struggled against the teen and his medieval-styled power armor. "He's just lucky that Panacea was right next to him to separate his arm."

"It resisted his power? And counterattacked?" Armsmaster asked, marking Clockblocker down for a talk (later, of course).

Both were troubling, powers could sometimes interact in strange ways, and rarely for the benefit for those around.

Gallant shook his head. "More like… Reacted to it? Clocks arm was engulfed in some kind of gold light that started at his hand and shot up his arm in seconds. Amy said there was nothing she could do to it to make it stop, so losing the arm was the best bet. Then I had to hit him with my power to keep him calm, but it seems it's even affecting even my powers as well."

Gallant jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "That girl over there was just having a mild panic attack when I got to her, I tried to calm her down and you saw what happened. We even had to send Glory Girl away because her aura was screwing with people, mixing up their emotions when she tried to calm them."

Armsmaster absorbed the info (and discarded Clocks 'punishment' note), strange power interactions weren't unheard of, but it was rare, filing it away even as he read the message he just got from Dragon; She was busy dealing with the Director and logistics for her suits and was on her way.

"You mentioned other effects, what are they?" Armsmaster asked the pair of young Heroes.

"Don't touch it directly, for starters," Miss Militia interjected, walking over to the group, a gun nestled on her hip. Unlike the Wards, she looked more put together, her custom fatigues, American Flag scarf and sash in place, while the younger heroes both had parts of their gear askew.

"We don't know the ups and downs of limits," she continued. "But direct contact seems to affect the body in ways that Panacea can't understand, let alone change, plus there seems to be a slight mental damaging effect as well. Some of the kids that we've pulled out of there are showing signs of something more than the PTSD that this event would influence."

"Can we confirm a Stranger or Master Effect?" Armsmaster asked.

"A low-level Master could be likely, as well as a Stranger," replied Miss Militia. "Many are reporting hearing laughter, and seeing things that are not there, some of what they describe matches up to what a few others are saying as well, but we don't have anything concrete just yet."

"Any issues with parents? Or the locals in the area?" Armsmaster asked.

"Many," Miss Militia said dryly. "But nothing we currently can't handle."

Armsmaster hummed and turned his attention to that little data his own sensors were able to provide.

The blueprints for Winslow High were simple, a single grey block of a building, several floors tall. The newer plans stated that there were bars on the ground floor windows, as well as reinforced gates barring entrance to the building itself. It looked like any other shady area high school that was falling behind due to budget and the area it was in.

What was interesting was the over three hundred foot tall ice tree that had ruptured from the building.

Leafless ice-white branches jutted from windows and through walls, several ones being thicker than a person twisting around in interlocking patterns, reaching both up into the air, and scattering along into the surrounding grounds. Tangles of limbs crossed over each other, with no discernable difference between them as they melded together and split again, as the clear-but-not-clear frozen-water-like branches stretched far into the sky or reached into the surrounding grounds like ivy.

The entire thing ended up looking like someone had yanked an entire oak/poplar tree hybrid out of the ground until the base of its roots were fully visible, complete with the underground boulder they had wrapped around.

To Armsmaster's eyes, there was no way this structure could support itself, even his armor mounted sensors were giving him strange readings. No temperature differences, the branches weren't giving off any abnormal readings of any kind, no Rads, radio signals, nothing besides the fact that they were there. And despite the internal glow they had about them, they did not seem to emit light nor even refract it.

But as the hero had heard many times, Powers were bullshit.

"Almost looks like an ice sculpture," Clockblocker quipped. "The guy that made it must've had his hands full wielding that chainsaw."

Gallant facepalmed, and Miss Militia began to pull the young hero away before Armsmaster could set him ablaze with a glare.

"The PRT has set up the command tent over here," spoke Gallant with a wave of his arm. "Last I heard, they'd finished setting up the link to the Director and Dragon."