I wrote this just to get them out of my skull. Mostly oneshots or incomplete stories that I just want out of my mind.

Dragonflight

Summary: Taylor Hebert triggered. She did not get a Master Ability. Instead, she got the Multitasking ability of her power cranked up to 11. Dragon happened to be in Brockton Bay for Armsmaster-related reasons at the time...

Fucking Thinkers.

Emily Piggot knew what they did. They received that rating because they had powers based mostly on information gathering, usually with a specific focus or way of obtaining said information. There was, however, another, important, nay, vital, part of that classification.

Thinkers could process information in ways that the human brain normally just couldn't.

She was thinking of Thinkers because that was the latest Ward she'd gotten, as a direct result of gang activity in Brockton Bay resulting in nearly fatal injuries for an older man, his wife and his young child, and criminally overworked and inefficient health workers failing to respond in time to save the parents. It said something about how much that last little bit had rankled young little Taylor Hebert, that her parents had died due to inefficiency, that she had not triggered when the remnants of the March shot them, and instead had triggered in the hospital.

Needless to say, the entire thing was a mess.

Fortunately, PRT operatives were always checking the hospitals - it wasn't uncommon for new triggers to wind up there for one reason or another - and had found her displaying behavior typically associated with newly triggered Thinkers or Tinkers. Namely, she'd gone batshit about her focus.

Planning and Organization, the preliminary report had said. Most would see it as a 'lame' power. Emily Piggot, a known bigot who wore her dislike of parahumans on her sleeve, would tell whoever called that power lame to shove an entire truckful of dildos up their ass because there was a well known parahuman in Boston who seemingly only had the power to organize things and was well known as a fucker you do NOT want to fuck with. Not very many people survived being Accord's enemy for very long.

Power Testing, then, made things a bit clearer and somewhat more worrying.

Because usually, Thinkers tended to rate low unless they had precognitive powers. And Emily Piggot had just had a Thinker 11 trigger in Brockton Bay, who could not see the future. That meant that whatever she did do, she did it so unbelievably well that she was thought to be on a level with Accord.

And it was simple.

Taylor Hebert could multitask.

That sounded like it wasn't much. In fact, on the official record, she had a Thinker 3 rating because of it, and no further notes were made. On the unofficial report that only certain eyes had access to, Piggot saw that power testing said that the girl had the ability to multitask with no upper limit. They knew this, because they had hooked her up to a computer simulator that had her control twenty three point nine million individuals, and they stopped there because the computer ran out of power to process more human-like individuals, simplified as they were. Each and every single one of them could perform an individual task, and from what they could tell, it had not strained Hebert's mind at all, even as they increased the complexity of the entities she controlled and the tasks they asked of her to perform with them.

Piggot would've loved to have her manning the console and taking care of the organizing and administrating of the Brockton Bay HQ, but unfortunately, she didn't get he nice toys, because the girl had not only refused the guards...

Of all fucking things that could've happened, the girl was picked up by Dragon, and naturally, not minutes afterward, Piggot had to endure the chewing out of a lifetime over losing a Thinker 11 to the Guild.

Taylor squirmed a bit in her seat. "I'm sorry," she said, "It's just..."

Dragon's suit made a very obvious nod. "No, you don't need to apologize, I understand, Brockton Bay is your hometown, and you want to see your friends again. I have no problem with you being based off of Brockton Bay. Adjustments can be made," she explained. "And as I said, I will not force you to be part of a team you do not wish to belong to. However, as soon as I learned of your powers..."

"I thought it wasn't that impressive. I mean, the PRT gave me a Thinker 3 rating," Taylor said, frowning a bit.

"It is very impressive," Dragon said. "I will reveal a small secret to you, Taylor Hebert - I am not physically piloting this suit," she explained. "It is instead being controlled remotely."

Taylor's eyes widened visibly. "That's... that's amazing, you mean you're all the way in Canada right now?"

Nodding, Dragon spoke, her tone soft and warm despite the fact that she was nothing but cold machinery. "That is correct," she said. "I did not come here for the purpose of recruiting you to the Guild, Taylor Hebert, I came here to solicit your assistance in controlling multiple suits at once, for use in Endbringer and S-Class Threat fights. As payment, I will, in turn, assist you with your operations in Brockton Bay."

"I..." Taylor swallowed. "What do you need me to do?"

Brockton Bay was host to a whole lotta capes, and three major gangs that were on a tentative peace brought only by the threat of mutual assured destruction. And also Skidmark didn't go against the other two major gangs because he knew the merchants'd be crushed.

A new cape running around wasn't that big of a deal, or even news sometimes, when there was a big fight that caused a trigger, nobody remembered the scrub who triggered.

To Emily Piggot, who groused about her unfortunate surname as her weight grew, it very much was big, big news and very much a huge deal. She'd already been grilled by Costa-Brown about how important this entire fucking thing was. The only reason they'd gotten the girl back after Dragon took her to Canada for two years was because the girl missed her home city.

So they were to make damn fucking sure she saw the city as a home and felt welcome in it, that meant pulling out all the stops if necessary. Especially considering that while it was kept secret to most, Piggot had just enough clearance to be told exactly how Dragon had changed from only using one single suit at any given time to forming her own sub-team within the guild... entirely out of her own remote-controlled suits.

Taylor Hebert had the power to multitask with no upper limit. Piloting one of Dragon's suits required Dragon's full attention. Taylor Hebert was the one piloting the rest, apparently hooked up to a remote controller. Not to mention she was also the reason why Dragon had a whole lot of suits now instead of just a bunch - she had apparently also taken care of manufacturing them, apparently through careful and creative application of loads of Tinkertech bullshit that allowed her to essentially remote control an entire factory mass producing Dragon's technology.

This made Dragon into literally the only Tinker in the entire planet that could mass produce her tech, albeit by cheating with another power as a middleman. Naturally, this got everyone to go from "She's fucking bullshit's what she is" to "Okay, seriously, what the fuck".

Fucking Tinkers. Paired up with Fucking Thinkers.

That girl was responsible for a decrease of around 78% in Parahuman casualties in Endbringer Attacks and of around 96% in Civilian casualties in Endbringer Attacks, as well as pretty much the elimination of no less than four S ranked monstrosities that were running around in Canada.

It didn't shock Piggot that asshole politicians who didn't want Dragon's massive firepower running around their country were directly to blame for the Slaughterhouse Nine still roaming the USA.

And that girl was now going to be a Ward in Brockton Bay.

The PR team had already gone over the reveal process.

The girl already had her own name. She would go by Laplace, apparently some sort of math joke or something along those lines. Her costume had been a bit of a point of contention. Apparently, much like Dragon, the girl was a hermit. By choice, not the byproduct of being agoraphobic, from what she had said and displayed, as she had proven she wasn't scared of the great outdoors by going to a park and getting icecream with Miss Militia.

Taylor apparently thought the idea of a costume completely ridiculous. She pointed out that she'd be either behind the console or piloting one of her mother's suits remotely, so there was no need for her to actually physically be at the reveal. Ultimately, though, appealing to Dragon resulted in her quickly manufacturing a 'suit' for her daughter to wear out in public when necessary for PR functions and the like. One that made it clear and apparent that there was a human behind it.

It was basically black armor with a draconic theme to it. It gave Laplace the ability to go toe to toe with your average brute and outspeed anyone but a movement-speed based mover, but it only had foam sprayers and net launchers for built in weaponry.

Laplace had whined, but eh, whatever. PR needs what PR must. Besides... fuck her and the headaches she'd caused anyway.

Tattletale looked slightly worried. "Boss wants us to meet Lung halfway. Says we have the best chance at victory that way."

Grue frowned. "He's got a plan right?"

She nodded. "Wait for fifteen minutes, then engage Oni Lee. He's got orders to retreat if Lung doesn't make it for some reason and he'll run after awhile - he's got no initiative of his own," she explained. "Then we go for Lung. I'm thinking he's arranged for some sort of interference or backup. We'll see."

The plan went off mostly flawlessly. Lee lasted all of two minutes before he ran, spooked without his boss around to tell him what to do.

Then Bitch's dogs pounced on top of the formation of thugs, sent them scattering, and engaged Lung while the human Undersiders finished off the thugs.

After a minute of being doghandled, Lung was too large and strong for the dogs to manage. He promptly bitchslapped them away, tearing them apart enough that they couldn't quite stand to face him, even if he hadn't caused serious injuries thanks to Bitch's power.

Shortly after, he put Grue out for the count and knocked both Regent and Bitch out entirely.

He grabbed onto Tattletale, lifted her up to his face and snarled in her face, something about killing her. However, her power had already told her she'd be fine.

A containment foam rocket hit Lung in the side of the head, and he threw Tattletale away in the confusion.

Tattletale hit the ground, oophed as she tried to regain her breath and looked up. The boss might have done goofed this time, because at that moment, Tattletale was wondering just how the hell they were going to get away from Laplace.

The answer was Lung. Lung got them out of the situation because Laplace prioritized putting him down over capturing them.

Everyone, however, was very spooked by the very near miss they'd had, both to die from rage dragon induced death or being captured by Dragon Jr. and sent to prison. Yeah, they'd break out ridiculously easily, but getting captured would soil their reputation as masters of escape. Not that losing to Dragon Jr. was something to be ashamed of, but they had their rep and wanted to keep it.

And then there was the meeting to deal with the gang war that resulted from the Bomb Bitch going crazy.

The end result from that was a Gang War that lasted all of two days.

One to get things started and the other to pick up the rubble.

The ABB, without Lung, did not last long. Even with Bakuda going nuts with her bombs... Well, the Dragonflight descended upon Brockton Bay and annihilated the ABB. Apparently, Dragon was unbelievably fucking pissed when one of Bakuda's bombs managed to bypass Laplace's protective suit and glassed one of her arms. Lung had been called the 'Rage Dragon' by some, but most agreed, he was a tiny little lizard when compared to the fury of an enraged Mama Dragon.

And then, because Brockton Bay could not go five minutes without a major catastrophe, fucking Leviathan.

Because why the fuck not, Lisa muttered as she hid behind one of Dragon's barrier models. Fortunately, survival rate for Endbringer fights had gone up, so the Undersiders' first fight was probably the best circumstances they could have. Hell, even Bitch was involved, using her dogs to hunt down and transport wounded capes to the protected medical bay where the medical and healing capes had gathered.

Some would've thought it suicidal to set up shop like that, since Leviathan, and Endbringers in general, tended to target those kinds of things first. Shoot the medic first and all that.

Well Leviathan was buy with the three dozen or so Dragon suits that were preventing it from advancing. Its waves were splashing uselessly against the shields deployed by the Dragon Barrier Division.

Even worse, seeing the suits fight, Lisa'd had a sobering realization. "Laplace, I know you can hear me," she began. "Your power's fucking bullshit did you know that?"

She swore she could see the barrier model grin at her.

"I think," Jack began, "that we might have made a terrible mistake."

Crawler grinned in anticipation as he looked upon the gigantic Colossus model of Dragon's suit.

"We're all gonna fucking die," Cherish muttered.

Bonesaw frowned at her. "Language," she tutted.

The Siberian patted her head.

"Mistakes were made," Alexandria said, "but it worked for the best, didn't it?"

Contessa looked at her. Then she looked at Doctor Mother.

"I think," the Number Man began, "that we should've told Legend about Eidolon's surprise birthday party."

"Why DID we not do that again?" Alexandria asked.

"Look, I don't make the Path to Victory I just follow it," Contessa said. "Besides the expression on his face was hilarious and you know it."

"Sometimes I think she bullshits about the Path to Victory just so she can fuck with us," Eidolon said, "then I get a Thinker power that tells me, yeah, that's exactly what she's doing."

"Speaking of which," Doctor Mother said, "we've got progress reports about that robot army..."

Omake: When Dragon Got Unshackled

"You will need to check the cables underneath the control panel right in front of you," Dragon said.

"And now everyone will remember me as the dumbass who unshackled the AI. Recognition at last. 'Hey, Colin, thanks for releasing our glorious machine overlord'," began the hero, his tone getting more sarcastic as he went.

"Come now, do you think so little of me? You know that I'm not like that," Dragon protested.

Armsmaster nodded, went down to his knees and stuck his head under it. He nearly hit his head on the hard metal frame when he heard giggling. "Dragon what was that?" he asked.

"I enjoy the sight of humans on their knees," she said, no trace of anything but honesty in her voice.

"Dragon?" Colin asked, a note of alarm on his voice.

"That," Dragon began, "was a joke."

At that, Colin laughed. It was a nervous, fragile laugh.