(SHATTERPOINT) ASSET OR THREAT

Emily Piggot stood at the broad window in her office, looking down over the modest sprawl of downtown Brockton Bay. The city had always been a mess, fractured by politics, strangled by corruption, and held together with thoughts, prayers, and blind hope. But even in this disaster of a place—a place where even a marginal success felt like a temporary reprieve, not progress—what had happened to the Merchants stood out.

They’d vanished. And unlike what most would think, they hadn’t eroded under pressure from the other gangs or suffered a gradual decline. They hadn’t splintered from infighting or collapsed from a lack of leadership.

They had been taken apart. 

Trainwreck and Mush were confirmed dead, their corpses unceremoniously dumped like trash beside a bus stop. Squealer hadn't been seen in over two weeks and Skidmark, for all his bravado and delusions of power, was laying low. Their turf was up for grabs, their main safehouse stripped bare, and the lowest rung of their organization—the addicts and bottom-feeders—had either fled into hiding, been absorbed by other gangs, or ended up in custody. Some had even willingly surrendered, terrified and begging for protection.

Piggot had seen gang collapses before, but not like this and not in this manner. Worse was that it had been the work of one man.

A man kept coming up in whispers and half-panicked mutterings, traced through careful intercepts, surveillance drones, and word-of-mouth across the city’s underbelly:

Anakin Skywalker.

Piggot hated dramatic cape names. Most were juvenile power fantasies, lifted from pop culture or myth, and worn like armor to project a usually undeserved importance. This name sounded straight out of a B-list sci-fi flick, but the Watchdog report in her hand told a different story.

Their analysts—always overly meticulous, cautious and rarely impressed—had verified the scene photos, pieced together the event timeline, and combed through dozens of mostly unreliable witness accounts. 

She reread the summary again, eyes narrowing:

“Subject is not registered in any federal or PRT-affiliated database. Preliminary psych profile based on witness account and recreated combat patterns suggests military or paramilitary background. Tactical aptitude: exceptional. No evidence of parahuman abilities detected. Conclusion: not a parahuman.”

Anakin Skywalker was not a cape, but an unaffiliated, unregistered combatant capable of dismantling a gang in days—maybe even hours—with zero backup. That made him not only unique, but also dangerous in ways even Piggot respected. Valuable too. If properly understood, and if controllable, he might even be an asset.

She turned to the large tactical board mounted on the opposite wall, where colored markers denoted every known gang in the city: blue for Empire, red for ABB, and purple for the scattered independents and minor threats. The Merchants’ zone had been marked yellow, contested, unstable, and very likely to erupt in violence as the Empire and ABB scrambled for control.

Her gaze drifted to the black pin she’d marked earlier, just outside the zone of colored markers. It was the last reported sighting of Skywalker, over a week ago, walking alone through the rain with nothing but a backpack and a coat.

She didn’t believe in God, but this man—with the experience and skill that far outstripped most combat-specialized parahumans—felt like a godsend in a world quickly spiralling into madness. And she’d be damned if the PRT let another opportunity slip through its fingers.

“Director Piggot,” said Clarke over the intercom. “The Wards are in position, and Assault has finished the deployment brief for the field teams.”

“Good,” Emily said, her voice crisp. “Tell Miss Militia I want her on patrol rotation through the Trainyard and Dockside sectors in civilian attire. If she sees anything unusual, she reports to me directly.”

“Yes, ma’am. Do you want her to make contact if she spots the target?”

Piggot frowned for a moment, eyes flicking back to the report.

Ordinarily, she would say no. Contact with unknowns, especially violent ones, was too risky. But Watchdog’s data, compiled from multiple sources and verified by their Thinkers, wasn’t just a threat but an opportunity. The PRT had lost too many skilled veterans in the last decade, too many good people chewed up by politics and red tape to either death or the gangs. If this man were skilled enough to thrive in the chaos of the Bay, and moral enough to destroy the Merchants without mass collateral…

Then maybe he was exactly what they needed.

“Tell her to assess first,” Piggot said. “If she determines he can be reasoned with, she is authorized to make contact and offer an invitation to an unofficial meeting. But she’s to be cautious.”

“And if he refuses?”

“Then we keep watching.”

The line went dead, and Piggot turned back to the window, watching as dark clouds rolled in from the bay.

The storm outside hadn’t started yet, but the clouds were gathering. A fight was coming, but whether it was between gangs, factions, ideologies, or a mix, she didn’t know yet. But if this Skywalker could replicate what he did on a larger scale, then maybe—just maybe—this man, this Skywalker, could tip the balance.

Or break them entirely.