Chapter 25
Jsyrin
Cyber Bitch Extraordinaire
- Location
- California
Chapter 25
"This is a fucking disaster waiting to happen," Piggot groaned, dropping her face into her hands and sighing as she tried very hard to not pop a blood vessel and/or require parahuman healing any more than she probably did. She pointedly did not look at the goddamn report sitting in front of her- a mere three page physical printout detailing, in single spaced, ten point, Times New Roman font, the seeming extent and breadth of powers that one Hebert, Taylor A. Alias: Toa, possessed.
Just shy of supersonic flight, telekinesis with a range limit of well over city sized and a weight capacity measured in skyscrapers, laser eyes, heat vision- which, apparently, were two separate things- the ability to flash freeze or flash boil water just by touching it, to say nothing of what she could do to living tissue, acid powers strong enough to eat through Teflon, shadow powers capable of both mass transport and complete battlefield control- the list went on and on. She glared down at the unofficial report, mentally tallying up the scores represented and thinking to herself that she was honestly better off putting a bullet in her head rather than living on a planet where there was someone who could read her mind from across the continent.
At least the girl seemed to prefer human standards of propriety and legality still, since other than that little blip where she'd irreparably traumatized a notorious supervillain (fuck you Calvert, you smarmy bastard) and also killed well over a hundred fifty of said villain's mercenaries (She'd have felt bad but half of them were apparently pedophiles anyway so fuck 'em), she'd pretty much kept to herself and didn't so much as jaywalk. Despite the fact that she could fly. And teleport. And god knew what else- She had enough fucking threat ratings that she even made Eidolon look pathetic, and wasn't that just fucking amazing?
A Stranger perfectly capable of becoming completely invisible to the point that not even their most sensitive equipment could sense her until she started moving, and capable of becoming so utterly silent that even the sound of a feather hitting the ground made more noise.
A Mover capable of crossing the planet in mere seconds, shadow teleporting from the PRT HQ all the way to the APR HQ and back, the only significant time delay being how long it took her to snap a picture of the sign in front of the APR building.
A Shaker capable of ripping apart the city with telekinesis, collapsing buildings with gravity warping powers, vibrating them apart through sonic manipulation, controlling the weather to a degree that she nearly created a tropical storm over Brockton Bay within minutes, and about six other completely ridiculous things all at once.
A Blaster capable of shooting high powered chain lightning, setting things ablaze with a glance, carving through solid steel plate with laser eyes, disintegrating through just about anything with blasts of plasma and acid, even shouting things apart just by screaming.
A Striker capable of disintegrating things on a molecular level, a Master capable of controlling just about every plant and animal within a city sized radius, a Breaker who could go completely intangible to literally just about everything they could throw at her without killing her and turn into a cyclone, a Thinker that could read minds from at least across the city if not further, a Brute so invulnerable that the tester they used broke before it made her flinch, a Changer capable of shapeshifting into just about anyone or any thing within a particular mass range, a Trump capable of no-selling Clockblocker's touch- just about the only thing she wasn't was a Tinker, and even that was debatable considering she'd mentioned setting up a workshop in the time between when she'd taken over Coil's lair and her power testing. And of course, the apparent ability to just straight up eat Endbringers.
Emily groaned again and debated pulling out the whiskey she kept hidden in her drawer, wondering not for the first time if it was actually worth getting Panacea to heal her if only so she could properly drink.
No. Calm thoughts, Emily. Calm, collected, quiet.
Emily breathed deeply as she all but chugged her cup of coffee and prepared for dialysis, groaning as she heaved herself from her chair and flung the paper report into her trashcan/shredder combination for proper disposal before grabbing her coat and heading down to the medical bay.
Idly, in the back of her mind, she wondered what Toa was even doing at the moment anyway, since she hadn't been seen outside of her lair since Saturday night… which had been nearly a week ago.
On second thought…
Emily shook her head. No, even in idle speculation, she didn't want to know.
That way laid madness and probably a heart attack.
>*<
Taylor groaned as she wiped her brow and sat back, tossing yet another failed Kanohi to the side with a clang of protodermis against concrete. The half broken mask slid across the floor, propelled by a telekinetic push, until it fell into the pool of protodermis from whence it came, dissolving away quickly thanks to… some process that Taylor wasn't aware of and wasn't sure she wanted to be aware of.
The pool room had undergone some modification in the past few days, now housing a large workshop setup around the edges of the room, while pool in the center had become deeper and shrunk a bit- the energized protodermis now forming twin crescent shaped pools with a path through the middle, with three smaller pools of liquid protodermis in the center- two of them barely three feet across with the center-most pool about six feet across. Something about the symbol that the pools formed seemed important to Taylor, but it took a back seat to the niggling, wiggling feeling in the back of her skull, a promise of futures to come, driven on by her experimentation into both the creation of Kanoka disks- which, surprisingly, Gorast knew how to make ("It was a long four centuries and I took an apprenticeship under a Kanoka maker for a good seventy five years or so in between shifts at the Moto Hub.")- and Kanohi Masks, which… Taylor didn't know anything about making, nor did Gorast, but apparently letting Destiny guide her hands was a pretty good start… though if she'd had better disks and more practice, maybe she'd actually make a functioning mask instead of the dull, scarred, pitted hunks of scrap that she had to keep recycling.
Oh well. At least Kanoka were sort of easy. Choose one of eight preset molds, pump in some protodermis, carve away the excess and pump in a little power, bingo bango, brand new shiny Kanoka of the 500 series. Taylor wasn't really sure why, despite the fact that she was nowhere near Le-Metru, all her disks were stamped with the Le-Metru symbol and the appropriate code, but it wasn't that important anyway. What was important was trying to consistently get her carvings correct to produce the most high quality Kanoka she could with the highest power, so she could make a surplus of them for when she inevitably fucked up her mask making and had to start combining disks again.
That aside, though…
Taylor yawned quietly as she put her tools aside and stood up, cracking her joints as she walked over to her workbench proper and her tools floated into their proper position. The Visorak horde whispered quietly in her ears, the dull chatter of thousands of blades gnashing together as the colorful Rahi patrolled through the halls of the lair filling her mind with a soothing background noise as she listened to their reports.
A clogged toilet fixed by a Suukorak, some Vohtarak shoring up the load bearing pillars with steel-hard webbing. A team of smaller-than-usual Keelerak viciously hunted down every last rodent that called the store rooms home. A Boggarak playing fetch with her staff.
She was glad for the spiders, honestly. Frightening though they may have looked at first, they acted as a bridge between her and the people staffing the base, and honestly having them around lightened things up immensely.
But, honestly… it wasn't really what she was looking for. Not as a long term goal. She pursed her lips as she flicked through the news reports for Brockton Bay, sighing over the fact that, due to her basically setting shop right in the middle of the downtown area, the entire E88 had mobilized, more or less, and now there were gang fights popping up all over the north side of town as the Nazis clashed with the ABB and the Merchants, and she'd even heard of news of Nazis in the south getting shot up by scout groups from the Teeth and ABB in the north getting accosted by Accord's Ambassadors.
All in all, a thoroughly untenable situation that had to be stopped.
But her mask making… something told her that it took precedence. Maybe it was the sparks of future vision she got after that girl- Dinah Alcott, the mayor's niece- came up to her and freely offered her power up in exchange for taking away the pain it caused her. Maybe it was the sparks of Destiny that rippled through her body in response to the pools of Energized Protodermis undulating behind her.
Maybe it was that strange, insistent presence in the back of her head- half formed and already wanting to be let out.
So she compromised.
Instead of her, it would be her Visorak. Instead of her, it would be her army. Her horde. Her shadows.
Her daughters.
Taylor turned back to the pools of Energized Protodermis, taking a deep breath as she threw in a few objects- Chunks of refined protodermis, each one as big as a basketball and heavy as an engine block. A store bought plastic mannequin, just as a form pattern. A few drops of her own antidermis, just to speed along their development.
And finally, one last ingredient.
Kraata.
Taylor grit her teeth and stared down into the depths of the pool, bracing herself for the pain.
Her claws unsheathed as she drove her fist into her chest, screaming as she cracked through the protosteel of her armor and into the shadows of her purest essence, forming a new being from her antidermis and bringing it squealing, squirming, shrieking to life as she pulled it from the gaping wound in her chest.
Once. Twice. Thrice.
An uncountable amount of times. More protodermis, scrapped Kanoka, half formed masks, all joined the slug-like Kraata as they fell into the pool one by one by one.
Forty two daughters for forty two powers.
Taylor fell to her knees, delirious from the pain of gouging out what might as well have been her own heart.
She smiled, though, guiding her kraata through their development and feeling them take shape, feeling them mutate and grow and turn into her shadows, her daughters.
They burst from the pool, multicolored, sinewy creatures of inorganic muscle and bone. They held staffs with which to channel their powers, their serpentine heads daring around as they took in their surroundings.
Her daughters. Her Rahkshi.
Taylor grinned and sat back, her mind slowly shutting down into a deep sleep as her Rahkshi filed out to fulfill her commands.
Take the Horde.
Patrol the streets.
Protect the people of Brockton Bay.
Destroy the villains.
"This is a fucking disaster waiting to happen," Piggot groaned, dropping her face into her hands and sighing as she tried very hard to not pop a blood vessel and/or require parahuman healing any more than she probably did. She pointedly did not look at the goddamn report sitting in front of her- a mere three page physical printout detailing, in single spaced, ten point, Times New Roman font, the seeming extent and breadth of powers that one Hebert, Taylor A. Alias: Toa, possessed.
Just shy of supersonic flight, telekinesis with a range limit of well over city sized and a weight capacity measured in skyscrapers, laser eyes, heat vision- which, apparently, were two separate things- the ability to flash freeze or flash boil water just by touching it, to say nothing of what she could do to living tissue, acid powers strong enough to eat through Teflon, shadow powers capable of both mass transport and complete battlefield control- the list went on and on. She glared down at the unofficial report, mentally tallying up the scores represented and thinking to herself that she was honestly better off putting a bullet in her head rather than living on a planet where there was someone who could read her mind from across the continent.
At least the girl seemed to prefer human standards of propriety and legality still, since other than that little blip where she'd irreparably traumatized a notorious supervillain (fuck you Calvert, you smarmy bastard) and also killed well over a hundred fifty of said villain's mercenaries (She'd have felt bad but half of them were apparently pedophiles anyway so fuck 'em), she'd pretty much kept to herself and didn't so much as jaywalk. Despite the fact that she could fly. And teleport. And god knew what else- She had enough fucking threat ratings that she even made Eidolon look pathetic, and wasn't that just fucking amazing?
A Stranger perfectly capable of becoming completely invisible to the point that not even their most sensitive equipment could sense her until she started moving, and capable of becoming so utterly silent that even the sound of a feather hitting the ground made more noise.
A Mover capable of crossing the planet in mere seconds, shadow teleporting from the PRT HQ all the way to the APR HQ and back, the only significant time delay being how long it took her to snap a picture of the sign in front of the APR building.
A Shaker capable of ripping apart the city with telekinesis, collapsing buildings with gravity warping powers, vibrating them apart through sonic manipulation, controlling the weather to a degree that she nearly created a tropical storm over Brockton Bay within minutes, and about six other completely ridiculous things all at once.
A Blaster capable of shooting high powered chain lightning, setting things ablaze with a glance, carving through solid steel plate with laser eyes, disintegrating through just about anything with blasts of plasma and acid, even shouting things apart just by screaming.
A Striker capable of disintegrating things on a molecular level, a Master capable of controlling just about every plant and animal within a city sized radius, a Breaker who could go completely intangible to literally just about everything they could throw at her without killing her and turn into a cyclone, a Thinker that could read minds from at least across the city if not further, a Brute so invulnerable that the tester they used broke before it made her flinch, a Changer capable of shapeshifting into just about anyone or any thing within a particular mass range, a Trump capable of no-selling Clockblocker's touch- just about the only thing she wasn't was a Tinker, and even that was debatable considering she'd mentioned setting up a workshop in the time between when she'd taken over Coil's lair and her power testing. And of course, the apparent ability to just straight up eat Endbringers.
Emily groaned again and debated pulling out the whiskey she kept hidden in her drawer, wondering not for the first time if it was actually worth getting Panacea to heal her if only so she could properly drink.
No. Calm thoughts, Emily. Calm, collected, quiet.
Emily breathed deeply as she all but chugged her cup of coffee and prepared for dialysis, groaning as she heaved herself from her chair and flung the paper report into her trashcan/shredder combination for proper disposal before grabbing her coat and heading down to the medical bay.
Idly, in the back of her mind, she wondered what Toa was even doing at the moment anyway, since she hadn't been seen outside of her lair since Saturday night… which had been nearly a week ago.
On second thought…
Emily shook her head. No, even in idle speculation, she didn't want to know.
That way laid madness and probably a heart attack.
>*<
Taylor groaned as she wiped her brow and sat back, tossing yet another failed Kanohi to the side with a clang of protodermis against concrete. The half broken mask slid across the floor, propelled by a telekinetic push, until it fell into the pool of protodermis from whence it came, dissolving away quickly thanks to… some process that Taylor wasn't aware of and wasn't sure she wanted to be aware of.
The pool room had undergone some modification in the past few days, now housing a large workshop setup around the edges of the room, while pool in the center had become deeper and shrunk a bit- the energized protodermis now forming twin crescent shaped pools with a path through the middle, with three smaller pools of liquid protodermis in the center- two of them barely three feet across with the center-most pool about six feet across. Something about the symbol that the pools formed seemed important to Taylor, but it took a back seat to the niggling, wiggling feeling in the back of her skull, a promise of futures to come, driven on by her experimentation into both the creation of Kanoka disks- which, surprisingly, Gorast knew how to make ("It was a long four centuries and I took an apprenticeship under a Kanoka maker for a good seventy five years or so in between shifts at the Moto Hub.")- and Kanohi Masks, which… Taylor didn't know anything about making, nor did Gorast, but apparently letting Destiny guide her hands was a pretty good start… though if she'd had better disks and more practice, maybe she'd actually make a functioning mask instead of the dull, scarred, pitted hunks of scrap that she had to keep recycling.
Oh well. At least Kanoka were sort of easy. Choose one of eight preset molds, pump in some protodermis, carve away the excess and pump in a little power, bingo bango, brand new shiny Kanoka of the 500 series. Taylor wasn't really sure why, despite the fact that she was nowhere near Le-Metru, all her disks were stamped with the Le-Metru symbol and the appropriate code, but it wasn't that important anyway. What was important was trying to consistently get her carvings correct to produce the most high quality Kanoka she could with the highest power, so she could make a surplus of them for when she inevitably fucked up her mask making and had to start combining disks again.
That aside, though…
Taylor yawned quietly as she put her tools aside and stood up, cracking her joints as she walked over to her workbench proper and her tools floated into their proper position. The Visorak horde whispered quietly in her ears, the dull chatter of thousands of blades gnashing together as the colorful Rahi patrolled through the halls of the lair filling her mind with a soothing background noise as she listened to their reports.
A clogged toilet fixed by a Suukorak, some Vohtarak shoring up the load bearing pillars with steel-hard webbing. A team of smaller-than-usual Keelerak viciously hunted down every last rodent that called the store rooms home. A Boggarak playing fetch with her staff.
She was glad for the spiders, honestly. Frightening though they may have looked at first, they acted as a bridge between her and the people staffing the base, and honestly having them around lightened things up immensely.
But, honestly… it wasn't really what she was looking for. Not as a long term goal. She pursed her lips as she flicked through the news reports for Brockton Bay, sighing over the fact that, due to her basically setting shop right in the middle of the downtown area, the entire E88 had mobilized, more or less, and now there were gang fights popping up all over the north side of town as the Nazis clashed with the ABB and the Merchants, and she'd even heard of news of Nazis in the south getting shot up by scout groups from the Teeth and ABB in the north getting accosted by Accord's Ambassadors.
All in all, a thoroughly untenable situation that had to be stopped.
But her mask making… something told her that it took precedence. Maybe it was the sparks of future vision she got after that girl- Dinah Alcott, the mayor's niece- came up to her and freely offered her power up in exchange for taking away the pain it caused her. Maybe it was the sparks of Destiny that rippled through her body in response to the pools of Energized Protodermis undulating behind her.
Maybe it was that strange, insistent presence in the back of her head- half formed and already wanting to be let out.
So she compromised.
Instead of her, it would be her Visorak. Instead of her, it would be her army. Her horde. Her shadows.
Her daughters.
Taylor turned back to the pools of Energized Protodermis, taking a deep breath as she threw in a few objects- Chunks of refined protodermis, each one as big as a basketball and heavy as an engine block. A store bought plastic mannequin, just as a form pattern. A few drops of her own antidermis, just to speed along their development.
And finally, one last ingredient.
Kraata.
Taylor grit her teeth and stared down into the depths of the pool, bracing herself for the pain.
Her claws unsheathed as she drove her fist into her chest, screaming as she cracked through the protosteel of her armor and into the shadows of her purest essence, forming a new being from her antidermis and bringing it squealing, squirming, shrieking to life as she pulled it from the gaping wound in her chest.
Once. Twice. Thrice.
An uncountable amount of times. More protodermis, scrapped Kanoka, half formed masks, all joined the slug-like Kraata as they fell into the pool one by one by one.
Forty two daughters for forty two powers.
Taylor fell to her knees, delirious from the pain of gouging out what might as well have been her own heart.
She smiled, though, guiding her kraata through their development and feeling them take shape, feeling them mutate and grow and turn into her shadows, her daughters.
They burst from the pool, multicolored, sinewy creatures of inorganic muscle and bone. They held staffs with which to channel their powers, their serpentine heads daring around as they took in their surroundings.
Her daughters. Her Rahkshi.
Taylor grinned and sat back, her mind slowly shutting down into a deep sleep as her Rahkshi filed out to fulfill her commands.
Take the Horde.
Patrol the streets.
Protect the people of Brockton Bay.
Destroy the villains.
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