Chapter Text
It wouldn't be wrong to say that Dragon, all things considered, was a bit... isolated.
Oh, she had her friends, of course. There was Narwhal and Armsmaster and... quite a few others in the Guild. But, by her nature, she had to keep them at a small distance. If any of them found out about her, she wasn't sure how they'd react. There'd been some close calls in the past, of course, but nothing that couldn't be excused with the agoraphobia explanation. She'd... not relaxed, exactly, she couldn't with her now vital role in many global cape matters, but she'd grown used to the careful deflections, the ways to avoid being called out. It was lonely, but it was, relatively speaking, safe.
She'd never expected an independent hero to spot her with a glance. She also never expected the hero in question to be so young.
After charting her suit's flight path, Dragon brought up all the information she had on Gestalt. It wasn't much, the girl had only been operating for a short while, but from what she could find Gestalt took the time and effort to at least appear respectable, if not professional. And her engagements tended to end well, all things considered, especially since she not only focused on avoiding collateral damage, she also stuck around to help the victims of whatever cape fight had been happening. A very conscientious cape, all things told... And a decent woman on top of that.
And yet, she hadn't joined the Wards...
Dragon dismissed the thought. Distrust in governmental institutions did not necessarily make one evil; many people, in fact, would claim it was a sign of morality. And with things like how Paige Macabee's case was being handled, she was honestly hard-pressed not to agree. Besides, she lived in Brockton Bay.
Her thoughts turned to more practical matters. The armor that Gestalt had made was impressive, for multiple reasons, but the most obvious was simply how easily they could be manufactured. Of course, she'd likely need some help to set up a factory for it, which was probably why she reached out to Dragon in the first place, but... well, it wouldn't surprise her to find that Gestalt had more long-term plans, especially if they involved Brockton Bay. The fact that she was assembling an admittedly heroic team suggested she had some sort of overarching goal, even if it was as simple as cleaning up the streets.
The files on the rest of Fable painted an interesting picture in their own right. Metis, if she understood correctly, was a wildly talented thinker and suspected trump, demonstrating constantly evolving powers that kept the PRT wary of her. She'd regularly mentioned being able to analyze the construction of powers, and Dragon had even observed her doing it with Kid Win. And yet she'd decided to act as a subordinate to Gestalt, who couldn't possibly be more powerful than her. That spoke to a high level of respect and, potentially, a friendship in their civilian lives... although that was closer to speculating about their identity than Dragon was comfortable with. Drakeward was far less powerful at first glance, but Gestalt had apparently designed her armor to take full advantage of her powers, and she'd proven... decently skilled in most engagements. She seemed to be more of a follower than anything, though; Dragon supposed it was a good thing she'd been picked up by Gestalt.
Then there were the two members who, as far as Dragon could tell, had not engaged in any combat at all. Matron was something of a mystery, with all her demonstrated 'powers' easily being attributable to the armor Gestalt had made for her. There was speculation that she was some flavor of Thinker or, perhaps, just an ordinary adult who happened to be the mother of one of the other capes and had taken a leadership position to keep Fable on the straight and narrow. Dragon supposed there was some resemblance between her and Drakeward, and she'd certainly demonstrated a maternal (ha) attitude toward the younger cape. Although... that seemed to contradict with Drakeward's previous activity as Spitfire. Maybe she was Gestalt's mother? Or Drakeward's aunt, perhaps. And she couldn't forget about Portent, who Gestalt had outright confirmed was a Thinker, although given she'd only appeared that same day there wasn't much she could find out. Hopefully the literal child wouldn't be out there fighting villains any time soon though...
Honestly, it didn't feel that cohesive, beyond Gestalt making power armor for all of them. Except Metis, which... might have been due to an odd power interaction? Or maybe she just hadn't gotten around to it yet. Designing around the wizard theme was probably a little difficult. And what could Gestalt provide that Metis didn't already have? Flight, armor... even weapons were all already in Metis's arsenal. Not teleportation, as of yet, but...
The point was, Fable, Gestalt especially, were something of a mystery to the Protectorate. Although... perhaps not to New Wave. There seemed to be a degree of collaboration between the two groups, if reports of regular communication were to be believed. Maybe they knew each other out of costume--although speculating on that was edging closer to violating privacy than Dragon felt comfortable with.
Still... this was the girl that had figured her out at just a glance. The girl who had, very directly, told her she saw her as one of the most heroic individuals on the planet. She couldn't help but be curious about her.
As she finally arrived back home, Dragon made sure to file her observations and musings in a carefully restricted system. It was certainly unlikely that a villain would be able to pick through her systems and track Gestalt down, but as Saint had unfortunately proven time and time again, her security was not impenetrable. Better to keep this sort of information away from people who would abuse it.
Still, even as she turned her attention to other matters, her thoughts couldn't help but linger on one fact: Somebody knew. Somebody knew about her... and had treated her with respect.
That alone was... a surprising relief, she found.