Except they're looking for a potential leak/deserter. They don't want the media or random civilians with smartphones to look for her on the same city where Accord can whip a most efficient search pattern and potentially getting to her before they have her contained so neither public announcements nor Legend obviously looking for someone are recommended.
Another part is that nilbog trauma has caused Piggot to not really see parahumans as people. I mean a lot of her character revolves around the belief that parahumans get away with things that they shouldn't… and piggot helped two parahumans get away with what shouldn't have. She is unable to empathize with parahumans. To her, they are weapons. I think that if Taylor didn't trigger from the locker she would have been harder on Sophia and Emma than she is now.
Sure, but all that is AFTER the meeting in the Omake.
My understanding is that if Legend is involved with a missing Ward, it is because there is foul play. Part of the reason the Wards are considered safe is because villains know that if anything too serious happens to one, Legend will come to town and make you regret it. Even if he can cover more ground, he still sends the wrong message if he is involved in the search.
He isn't in Chicago. This event is significant enough he will make sure to review all the information he has on the situation with Phase before he gets to Chicago. Now that Taylor has pulled a runner, he probably doesn't want to be waiting for her when she gets back, because it might give Taylor the wrong impression. This means he has more time for the review.
Again, this is all (including Taylor disappearing) AFTER the meeting.
When that consideration is recoverable? Yes, but the expense is rarely worth it.
If Taylor didn't spend the money? Maybe. But only if they were willing to make things even more public and risking the court deciding they were asking Taylor to commit a crime or that Taylor did perform part of the service asked and gets to keep some of the money.
While if you're dealing in those sort of sums it would be quite difficult for Taylor to spend the money in a way that makes it difficult for them to claw it back:
And your point? He's planning to talk to her, because he has the brand recognition and charisma to have a shot at breaking through to her. If he isn't an utter moron, he's going to go back and review the documentation between the end of the meeting and heading to Chicago. He's probably aware during the meeting that he hasn't reviewed the reports as thoroughly as he should have, which could be why he wasn't really pushing back when Piggot called it "hazing."
That weather or not his plan to talk to her would have worked is irrelevant because he's too late.
The ending was deliberately ambiguous as to whether Taylor is running to the biggest news outlet in the city, or sitting on a park bench, having a think without a minder crowding her. If it is the first, then Legend is absolutely too late to do anything but help with damage control. As head of the Wards program, he will probably have to release a statement about the ongoing issue anyways. I could see his office having already issued a statement to the effect of "Legend is deeply concerned, is investigating, and will provide a full statement at a later time." National headlines involving the Wards would absolutely hit his desk, so he's probably already pulling files, but hasn't had time to go through all of them by the meeting. Unfortunately, damage control would probably also make the situation with Taylor even more antagonistic, as they call anything she says "unsubstantiated," "baseless," or some other variant of "you can't prove it."
Maybe, but at his level, in which Legend is the near equivalent to Director of the FBI to Costa-Brown's Attorney General, he doesn't get to hear most of the stories, just whatever is filtered ten times over. In this case he probably heard from the Las Vegas Protectorate XO "We're hoping to get this new girl Phase, sounds like a handful but her Stranger power is useful. Shame Kamil is keeping her on a short leash… look out! Simurg is going for the orphanage!"
Yeah, I think that would put him on the back foot, since he likely wouldn't be prepared for her to automatically assume that he's hostile, nor for her to have that strongly negative an opinion of remaining a Ward. If Legend did talk to her, I wonder if the information that he got beforehand would lead to him talking to the YG rep first. That might go better, but it would still leave him very concerned about how badly this whole thing was mishandled.
That would be a good start before any conversation since Jim is the only person Taylor has a purely positive relationship with in the PRT, and is relatively open with. The only real problem with it is that Jim might view giving Legend information as a breach of Taylor's privacy and trust.
Thing about Jim is that he is also using Taylor to climb up in the ranks, and in his own way he is quite ruthless, as shown by him pointing Taylor the Child Abuse mechanism to deal with her father. Furthermore, the YG is not bound by professional secrecy and Taylor herself is incredibly open with both her goals, motivations and opinions on the PRT and Protectorate so frankly telling those to someone else is neither ethically or morally turpid.
No, I can't see this being true.
I mean a very strong arguement can be made about the dangers of being an independent, and that if Taylor wants to be a hero then she should do it in a safe environment where she can receive training and support two things she doesn't get if she isn't in the Wards.
Yeah it is a messy situation with a lot of moving parts but the PRT isn't bereft of levers they can pull to influence the situation.
Beep Boop me fucked over by government so i do one of the few that let them fuck me harder beep boop me so special and smart i can rule lawyer rules i dont understand with people who already break law and will do so again if it benefits them.
Also there is the fact that Taylor is doing the whole vigilante act using a loophole in a poorly redacted YG free time regulation, one that the ENE Wards are going to start using to breach the restrictions imposed by the YG to their actions. Even if Jim's superiors are cynical enough to dismiss a teen going on her own to do unsanctioned vigilante justice without no one to keep an eye on her or to ensure she doesn't bite more than she can chew, they will draw the line at their punishments being ignored by a whole department using a loophole found and exploited by Taylor 'Pain in the Ass' Hebert, at which point the YG will have to rewrite many of their vague regs and Jim personally will have to tell Taylor that Ghost is permanently benched and if she wants to go out and punch criminals before her 18th birthday her only legal recourse is to do her power testing and join the Wards.
You expect a teenager on earth bet with a shard in her head to be logical. Remember that the first time Taylor went out as a cape in canon she picked a fight with one of the most powerful capes in Brockton.
