[X] ...did some cape research on her phone including whatever people said about Canberra.
It was one of the two burning questions in Taylor's mind and the one that made her more excited than stressed;
Was there any report of the giant fighting the Simurgh?
She assumed he did well- he brought back a wing after all. Taylor assumed that it wasn't given up freely and he had used up a lot of the gauge during the fight very quickly, so she didn't think it was anything easy. Right before she passed out, he had burned through what felt like a quarter of his total up-time in a matter of seconds.
It was between MRIs and CT scans and a bunch more that she couldn't remember the names of, that Taylor was using her smartphone to find out.
As famous as Endbringer fights are, there was paradoxically very little of it reported in any detail.
It made sense; Endbringer fights usually ended one of two ways-
The good days when Scion arrived and fended them off before they finally left. Or…
The bad days when he never showed.
It was also just… morbid. No one really wanted to acknowledge it but everyone understood that every time the siren sounded, another part of the world crumbled away. It sank, it got irradiated or fell into madness.
Statistically, even if nothing else was going wrong in the world- if the world wasn't still in the aftershocks from the appearance of parahumans- each Endbringer attack was just breaking the global supply network, straining it beyond repair. International trade had been going down since the mid-90s. At some point, the Endbringers were going to hit a point where the world couldn't recover from their damage. It might be in fifteen years or fifty… but it would happen.
Everyone knew that.
Good days just meant the decline was put off for another few months.
Even then, 'good days' was a misnomer. A 'good day' still involved a ton of people dying usually and a lot of land being made unusable.
Scion had not made it to Canberra.
Despite that on the good to bad scale for a typical Endbringer event, it seemed to lean more towards good than bad. Close to half the population were able to make it out of the affected area. That sounded terrible, but usually it was closer to none or thereabouts.
At least a hundred thousand people had been able to evacuate.
Taylor was hopeful that the giant had been able to contribute to that number, though she didn't know otherwise. Nor could she find out.
People tended to not stick around and record Endbringer fights- namely because those that did tended to end up dead. Being within sight-line of a Endbringer was bad news.
This was triply true for the Simurgh.
Outside of crazy cultists, who in their right mind would stick around to take a recording of something that if it didn't kill you would mind control you into probably killing everyone you know?
Probably a lot of people but none posted their videos where Taylor could easily find them.
She blamed the moderators.
So, it was no great surprise to Taylor that she couldn't find out much about the fight in particular.
There were rumours on PHO that her scream was different this time, several of the capes who had been to multiple Ziz fights said they had heard something different, but the Protectorate and the Guild had yet to say anything on the matter. Taylor was fairly confident that if there was something big like that, they would have quarantined more people. Or said something.
Right?
There were other bits of random comments that kept reoccurring;
- The Simurgh attacked Australia because the wild life was the only thing that could ever threaten a Endbringer.
- The same as above but just more racist.
- That the PRT was hiding the true extent of the fight.
- The Australian government had been taken over by the Simurgh.
- The Simurgh's target had been to build an army of outback spiders to take over the world.
The one that caught Taylor's attention, however, was capes from the fight posting 'RIP Madlad'. Madlad was not a cape name that Taylor could find on AskJeeves or on the Parahuman Online wiki. It took a lot of searching the forums to find someone who had already asked the question that she had;
'Who tf is madlad?'
'Some big fuck-off brute that appeared, tried to 1v1 her, got some hits on Ziz and then she kicked the shit out of him for like, ten minutes. Like, sick shit, she was toying with him. Then she killed him, something happened and she got stuck out in the bush for a bit.
Like, he knew he was gonna die and he tried to suicide the feather bitch with him or something.
Don't know his name but he was one madlad. RIP.'
'What did he look like? Maybe we can find his name'
'I couldn't see him very well, but he was black and glowed red and was like eight or nine feet. Like a big tosser'
Taylor looked in wonderment at the ever present shadow in the corner of the room.
The other question concerned her power but in a far more distressing way.
Was powers having a backlash a common thing?
A cursory search said no.
A more in-depth search said maybe.
Thinkers, people who could pull information out of nothing or see the future or just think better got headaches from overusing them.
That didn't exactly sound like what had happened to Taylor; she got a headache and it had hurt more than just about anything else she had felt, but having mass organ failure didn't quite fall in line with the rest.
There was some public research into how powers affected mindsets that people linked to on PHO but none of it seemed to relate to her.
There was also talk of tinkertech failing and injuring but that seemed to be more… expected than anything.
Finally there was… the crazies.
Taylor couldn't think of any other word for them. The people who had to be institutionalized because of their powers. Their powers had broken them so badly they couldn't even pretend to function in society. Here too, from what little Taylor could find, was divergent from what she was experiencing. They seemed to have powers that fundamentally altered them as a person or just made them a danger to be around. It was something that Taylor was most assuredly not. Or so she hoped.
Which left… nothing, really.
Taylor ultimately decided to tentatively say 'no'.
Taylor stared at the phone screen.
She had been bored and looking at the PRT-official thread.
Like, really, really bored.
Mostly she had been trying to find out if they were going to put out anything else officially about the Canberra fight.
She had been scrolling back through previous posts and found an official post from nearly five years ago; 'Disposal of Endbringer material.' It had a hyperlink to the PRT website that listed how to dispose of Endbringer material if for some reason you acquired some.
Namely by contacting a specific PRT number and arranging a drop off.
She bookmarked that for later.
Taylor's bed creaked as she laid on it.
They had just gotten back from the hospital a few hours ago.
They found nothing.
All the tests they ran had found nothing actionable, at least initially. Maybe they'd find out a cause later, but for now… nothing.
Functionally there was nothing wrong with Taylor Anne Hebert as near as the hospital could find, backed up by the testimony from Panacea. Which meant that there was no reason to keep her there. It's not as if she was feeling anything less than stellar since Panacea had healed what had happened to her.
She was basically told that it probably wouldn't happen again.
Probably.
Her dad was unhappy.
Nikki was unhappy.
Taylor felt guilty.
...it was nice to be back in her own bed, however.
Taylor stared at the ceiling.
She wanted to manifest the giant.
It was an itch in the back of her head that kept nagging, unable to be scratched until she did it. Persistent and unreachable.
She didn't want to manifest the giant holding the Endbringer wing inside her house. Even if she knew the giant would keep her safe at all costs. Even if the webpage somewhat implied that it wasn't exactly rare to find bits and pieces of Endbringer after the fight, seeing a Ziz wing still made her… disconcerted.
It was also frankly massive.
The giant had looked almost normal sized comparatively.
Taylor knew what the Simurgh looked like, but it didn't quite put into perspective how big their scale was until you saw something of theirs in the flesh.
She had been debating what to do with the wing for the last few days.
She came up with several ideas.
The easiest was to just bury it and hope that nothing bad came of it. That… had the distinct possibility of a lot going wrong- someone finding it, for instance.
...she figured the giant could probably dig a pretty deep hole, though.
Plus, who knows when they are going to need a Simurgh wing for later? No one. But she would be prepared in that incredibly unlikely scenario.
Another was to have him throw it as far as away as possible; really it was just passing the buck down the line to someone else but Taylor had a hunch he could chuck it many miles away from the city. It would get the wing out of her personal space the fastest, that's for sure.
She could always have him keep it as a weapon. He seemed to have used it as such given how she could somewhat make out in his de-manifested form. Having him dual wield could be… fun? Cool?
…
…
…
She knew that was a really dumb idea but it gave him a much longer reach weapon.
Taylor could have the giant try to destroy it. Presumably, he was able to, given he was able to pull it off the Simurgh? She would definitely need to make a whole day trip into the forest to try since it was probably going to be loud.
Then… there was always trying to figure out how to hand it off to the PRT. The PRT wasn't alone in wanting Endbringer pieces- turns out many tinkers and that crazy Endbringer cult put out a bounty for pieces of them but Taylor didn't exactly feel… secure in giving them access to a Simurgh wing.
Regardless, Taylor was going to make a decision before she fell asleep for the night.
For the yeet or bury options, please give suggestions if you feel so inclined. Votes 1, 2 and 4 will have a vote in the next chapter on the actual minutiae of how this will happen.
Please vote for one of the following.
[] Bury it somewhere. There will be a vote after this on where. (In the forest, ???)
[] Yeet it away. There will be a vote after this on where. (Ocean, ???)
[] Taylor had the giant keep it and use it as a weapon. Maybe it would scare the villains he fought? [+1, QA is intrigued and is somewhat smug about displaying such a trophy]
[] Start the process of finding a way to get this to the PRT. There will be a vote after this on how.
[] Have the giant attempt to destroy it.
[] Sell it to the Fallen. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA no unless you could justify why Taylor would.
Author's note: This chapter is a bit… bland. It's mostly a setup for what will happen next.
I realized that to the hospital, there's literally not a reason to keep her in if they can't find anything and in turn the only other option would be to have Taylor under observation but that would kill the flow of the story progression.
Each option will have something unique happen.
Taylor having the giant yeet it will not do it from her home. She's not stupid.
Please list any thoughts or suggestions you have for any vote options 1, 2 or 4's future votes. I have basically two for each at the moment.
As always, please discuss and vote!
