Odin was bored.
Not that he'd ever admit such a thing, no. It wouldn't do for Lord Odin...
Not that he'd ever admit such a thing, no. It wouldn't do for Lord Odin...
A Matter of Worth (Worm/Mighty Thor, alt-power, DEAD)
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Chapter 1.0
- Location
- Under Leviathan's left foot
I'm posting this before I chicken out yet again. Apologies if the quality is lax; I've barely written anything for over eight months, and I'm trying desperately to get back into the groove.
Now, as the basis of this story, I'm presuming a "future" version of the Mighty Thor universe where Jane is no longer Thor... because she gave up her life nobly, helping prevent a war of realms and at the same time prying Odin's head out of his ass. The Odinson has picked up both the hammer and his name once more, and relations between Odin and Thor are soured because of the loss of Jane.
I will be visiting some of the stations of canon. I'll try my best to make them worthwhile.
Now, as the basis of this story, I'm presuming a "future" version of the Mighty Thor universe where Jane is no longer Thor... because she gave up her life nobly, helping prevent a war of realms and at the same time prying Odin's head out of his ass. The Odinson has picked up both the hammer and his name once more, and relations between Odin and Thor are soured because of the loss of Jane.
I will be visiting some of the stations of canon. I'll try my best to make them worthwhile.
Odin was bored.
Not that he'd ever admit such a thing, no. It wouldn't do for Lord Odin, Draugadróttin, Lord of the Dead, to be subject to something as lowly as boredom. Such of thing was an affliction of shirking peasants… or the indolent Angels of Heven, curse them. No, Odin was… restless.
Yes. Restless. Much better.
Asgard was quiet. All traces of the civil war had been erased, and the golden realm was at peace. Malekith had been struck down, and though the wicked schemer had managed to sneak away, his plans to ignite the Nine Realms into war had failed. Even Mjölnir rested where it belonged: in the hand of the Odinson, who had taken upon himself the name Thor once more.
For she who had carried the name, the "false" Thor… Jane Foster… was dead.
Odin was conflicted on his feelings about her fate. Even now the All-Father did not abide disobedience or disrespect, and none had been more disobedient or disrespectful. Yet she had also been right, right in spirit and right in purpose, stepping into the role that Odin had abdicated: a deliverer. Not of law, but of justice… a warrior who stood against Malekith the Accursed as he tried to bring the Realms to chaos, because the All-Father Himself would not. He could claim that he was subject to Malekith's trickery, his spells, but such an excuse rang weak. In truth, Odin had always been contemptuous of his son's fascination with the Midgardian girl -- she was mortal; she was weak. She was unworthy.
And yet Mjölnir had thought otherwise. The hammer that even Odin himself could no longer lift (which should have been the first warning that not all was as it should be, he thought grimly) had come to her call. And with it as an equalizer she had met the Sigföðr, the Father of Victory himself, in battle… and stymied him!
She had to have known he was holding back nearly all his power; he could extinguish a star as easily as a mortal could snuff a candle. Yet she had fought, without hesitation or fear, with a valour that easily matched Odin's finest warriors… exceeded, even, because at her heart she was mortal. A valour, a mortality, that was proven in the end as she sacrificed herself to save the Nine Realms. To save Asgard.
To save Odin.
Now shame lived within the Lord of Asgard's heart -- Jane Foster had been worthy, as he'd realized in those final, tardy moments. He'd ordered a statue dedicated to her, made of nothing less than the brightest of gold, to live forever within the gardens of the palace… an acknowledgement of his debt. Yet it was too little, too late: though his son said nothing, Odin could feel the chill -- the blame -- that existed between them now. Odin could see the hidden doubt in the eyes of his own guards, wondering whether the All-Father truly belonged upon his throne. He could feel the doubt in his own heart, wondering the very same.
Odin surged to his feet, his golden armour chiming; he could bear to sit in the blasted chair no longer.
-
"Heimdall!"
The Sentry of Asgard turned from his post as his Lord approached him. It was purely a gesture of respect; he undoubtedly had Seen him long before he'd approached the gate to the Bifröst, where he stood guard, eternally vigilant. The warrior's eyes twinkled slightly, a hint of the tremendous power within. "My Lord?"
Odin raised a fist clad in finely-wrought mail. "I crave battle. But a dragon will not do, nor a rogue Jötnar, no. Find me a foe… a foe worthy of Odin!"
Heimdall paused. "The Nine Realms are at peace, my Lord. Malekith cowers under his concealing spells, and so too do his allies stay their hands lest your wrath fall upon them. All across Yggdrasil do the inhabitants fear to test your mood."
Odin was both annoyed and pleased; such a state was as it should be, and yet at the moment was terribly inconvenient. "None? Across all the vastness of the Nine Realms, there is neither being nor beast against which I might strengthen my sword-arm?"
The all-seeing warrior hesitated again, testing the All-Father's patience. "There… may perhaps be something, my Lord…"
"Cease playing coy," Odin snapped. "Tell me what you have seen."
"I have borne witness to a sníkill, my Lord."
"A sníkill?" Odin repeated.
He considered for a moment, feeling a pleased smile spread beneath his beard. Sníkjur were powerful foes, well beyond a match for the mightiest of warriors. They were immense, multidimensional colony-creatures that would "infect" a world and all its alternates, bestowing supernatural abilities upon its inhabitants. Such abilities came at a cost: namely, a sort of perpetual battle-fervor, a need for strife. All done in the name of leeching upon the cleverness and innovation of the populace, until the world had suffered so much that no more could be learned… whereupon the sníkjur would destroy it all, consuming the last remaining energies and consigning uncountable numbers of innocents to doom.
It was not without reason the Æsir called them sníkjur, or parasites.
Despite the insulting name, the creatures were not to be underestimated. Even after having given up some of their powers to others, they were immensely powerful -- more than capable of tearing apart a world. He doubted if even his son had the power to match one in open battle. Odin had personally killed two, and each time it had been glorious -- a festival of battle and destruction that was more than worthy of ale and song. Such a contest would be perfect, to both lay fire to his blood and cool the doubting looks of his subjects!
"A sníkill!" he exclaimed, enthused. "Yes, yes, that will do nicely. I assume the beast has infected a world and its inhabitants?"
"It has, my Lord."
"My mercy is roused alongside my battle-ardour, vigilant Heimdall. Tell me: which world within Midgard must be delivered from destruction?"
The tall warrior hesitated again. Odin frowned, but before he could demand an explanation, Heimdall spoke: "Earth, my Lord."
The Lord of Asgard blinked, unsure he had heard correctly. "Earth."
"Yes, my Lord."
"Of Midgard."
"I know of no other, my Lord."
Odin fumed for a moment before exploding. "Always is it Earth! There are billions of habitable worlds within Midgard, have all the Realms forgotten this?!"
Heimdall's face was a study of careful neutrality. "I am certain some are aware, my Lord."
"Then why does everything happen on that one accursed rock!?" Odin roared, stomping a half-circle around Heimdall, fighting to reign in his temper.
When he spoke again, it was with a dangerous growl. "How long? How long has the world favoured by my son been targeted by the parasite?"
"It made planetfall thirty Terran years ago, my Lord."
"Thirty years," he hissed. "Thirty years! And thou thought not to mention this beforehand, Heimdall?!"
"You have expressed little interest for the fate of those within Midgard before now, my Lord."
The words were insolent… and yet completely truthful, bringing Odin up short. His face coloured with fury, even as the shame in his heart -- which he'd thought to escape -- flared again. "Times have changed, Heimdall the Faithful," he growled. "Before, it was merely promising prey. But whether by fate or choice, by setting its profane claws upon the Earth it has also endangered my son. This sníkill is now my enemy, and I will not be sated until Gungnir has feasted upon its life-blood!"
Turning, Odin stormed away, ignoring the raised eyebrow of the guardian of the Rainbow Bridge.
-
Odin was Atriðr, the Attacking-Rider… but he was also Fjölsviðr, the Much-Wise. This meant that he did not immediately call together the Wild Hunt, no matter how much his spear thirsted. No… the sníkjur were too powerful for such reckless actions. Though they lacked insight into the true Loom of Fate, they were able to use their considerable power to emulate it, to calculate what would-be based on what-was and what-had-been. This permitted them an advantage that could not be idly dismissed.
Worse, the creatures often revealed themselves to their host worlds via idealized avatars. Sometimes they took the role of ultimate villains, but more often they pretended to be ultimate heroes, or perhaps even false gods: all the better to provoke envy in their victims, to cause them to grasp at power, to strive upwards… to grasp at the hope that was just slightly out of reach. Always in an attempt to match the ideal, unawares that their efforts merely fueled their rival. The sníkjur were masters of manipulation, on par with Malekith himself; if Odin attacked carelessly, they could use the hooks in the minds of their prey and their ability to calculate outcomes to trick the mortals into viewing their saviour as a foe… and use them as expendable troops against the Lord of Asgard. This would not do.
No, Odin had to be careful, and not merely to avoid losses among the beings for which Thor had such fondness. Fortunately, he had advantages of his own: theory always fell prey to reality, and the earlier such devices were corrupted, the worse the results became as time went on. The All-Father had no such worries.
For he had access to the Loom.
"Urd! Verdandi! Skuld!" he boomed as he entered the Chamber of the Loom. It was a place that existed beyond time and beyond space; within Nordheim, it simultaneously existed both within Asgard at the top of the World Tree and below it, within the roots of the great Yggdrasil. To mortal eyes the Chamber took the form of a glittering cave, lit by crystals of great clarity and beauty extruding from the walls. At the rear wall innumerable shimmering threads coalesced from the aether, existing in all points of time and space, feeding down into the Loom. The woven cloth draped downward, fading beyond existence before it met the rocky floor.
In front of the huge Loom stood three women who turned at the Lord of Asgard's entrance. "Yes, Lord Odin?" they greeted; wizened, steady, and youthful voices spoke as one.
"I ride to war, and I require thy council," he declared. "A sníkill has targeted Earth, endangering the Odinson. This I will not abide."
"Yes, my Lord," said Verdandi.
"The creature arrived thirty of their years ago, closing off the twig where it hides most of its body," added Urd, the Crone.
"It favours one particular facet of Midgard in particular, and a great many of its inhabitants have received its poisoned gifts," the Mother continued.
"I am aware of this," Odin interrupted. "I will confront the creature, and cleanse it from existence."
"Your desire -- although noble -- is unneeded, my Lord," Skuld replied speaking for the first time. "The creature is doomed to fail."
"Fail?" Odin questioned, surprised and annoyed. "Not to my spear, obviously. Who interferes? Galactus? The Living Tribunal? The Phoenix?" He frowned, trying to think of what other beings within the Realms -- other than himself -- possessed sufficient power to challenge a sníkill and defeat it.
"Nay, my Lord," answered the youngest of the Norn. "The great beast will sow the seed of its own ruin, and fall before a recipient of one of its own gifts… a mortal girl, a native of Midgard."
"A mortal!" he replied, appalled. "How can such a thing be? No mortal has the power to contest such a creature!"
"One already has," Urd stated. "It arrived as part of a pair, and yet its mate has already met its doom at the hands of a different mortal." Odin stared, uncaring that his mouth hung agape.
"How?"
"Her victory will be purchased at great cost," Skuld replied solemnly. "It will require guile and valour… and no end of sacrifice. She will spend lives, but no more than her own. She will lead them to victory, but not taste of its fruit herself."
"She will fall in battle?"
"No. She will survive, albeit shattered. Reviled as villain even as she is lauded as messiah, utterly spent before even laying claim to adulthood."
"Impossible," he protested weakly.
"And yet," she gestured at the Loom behind her, "I have Seen it."
It was an invitation; he stepped forward, the trio parting before him. As he did he removed his eyepatch, revealing the remains of the eye he had sacrificed at Mimir's Spring. A bright glow issued forth, and he viewed the Loom as the Norns did, easily picking through the threads which were beyond measure, and simply beyond.
He spotted the tiny golden thread which was the girl's. It was short, and thin, as befitted such a young mortal… yet it wound about so many other threads that it boggled the mind. He marked the point where it intersected the thread stretched forth by the parasite, and saw how the thread -- the shard -- warped the path. It would all begin in only a few weeks hence, as the mortals measured time… then the child would be altered forever.
"Tell me of this mortal," Odin said softly.
"She is will incarnate, my Lord," answered Verdandi. "Possessed of a heart of steel. Yet even steel will shatter when struck by too many blows. She is broken, betrayed by those who should have borne her only love."
"Betrayed by the madness of the one she called Sister," said Urd.
"Betrayed by the weakness of the one she calls Father," Verdandi added.
"Betrayed by the venality of those who would claim lordship over her," Skuld pronounced finally. "In the end, the only arm she will trust is her own. It will be her greatest strength, and greatest weakness. It will save her and doom her both."
Looking closer, he could see the way the thread frayed and weakened as time wound on. By the time it broke away on its own, away from the chaos, it was barely visible… a mere shell of itself. The girl would suffer greatly over the course of her beginning. That she continued on, even as her thread wore down to the thinnest of spider silk, spoke greatly to the strength of her soul.
It seemed… unjust, that such a weight should be borne by this girl. Such contests were the provenance of the divine. Odin himself had both saved and doomed entire worlds; such was his right, and such was his responsibility. But for a mortal, and a child besides…
Plans began to form in his mind, alternatives to such a fate. There were ways-
He blinked as the threads feeding into the Loom began to change. Their paths remained unaltered; yet it was like viewing them through a prism, full of afterimages and riotous colour. It was the Loom, reacting to his idle thoughts alone, the mere possibilities he presented. Each image was a possibility, an outcome, beyond even his ability to view.
He could make any of them reality, merely by choosing to act.
But should he? He was Odin, the All-Father, King of the Gods… he had better things to do than concern himself with the fate of a single mortal, on a single world, on a backwater twig of the realm of Midgard! It wasn't as if she was doomed to die. Perhaps he would consider claiming her for the Valkyr when her mortal time had ended. But Skuld's words told him he would receive little -- a broken shell, a valiant warhorse long turned lame. He had little reason to intervene.
And yet…
And yet.
He remembered the fiery gaze of Jane Foster, livid with what he would not do. He remembered the cold disappointment in the eyes of his son, for what he had not done. He recalled the grey, doubting eyes of his own subjects. All of it not for actions taken, but for actions abandoned within the realm of thought.
You have expressed little interest for the fate of those within Midgard before now.
What would his son do? What would Jane Foster do?
He knew the answer, and thus he had his own.
Times have changed.
The threads before him solidified as possibility became probability. He reached forward, grasping, his mighty fingers taking hold of one particular thread, one which was oily and black, stretching away from the thicker cord that was the parasite and towards the slender line of the mortal girl. With a firm tug that had nothing to do with muscle he snapped the line, dooming the shard. Immediately, all the threads above began to rearrange; threads that would have ended sprang forth, and threads that would have thrived were cut. He heard the horrified intakes of breath behind him.
"My Lord!"
"Odin!"
Turning, he met the appalled gazes of the Mother and the Crone. Beside them the softest of smiles tilted the lips of the Maiden.
"My Lord, without her power, how will she oppose the beast?" Urd demanded.
He was silent for a long moment, amused. How little faith they had! He would correct that… through action. "Mine is the Way, the Wrath, and the Wonder," he rumbled. "I have more than enough of all three to lend to the aid of this girl-child."
"But Lord Odin-"
"You cannot fight all her battles for her, my King," Skuld interrupted. Her youthful gaze was firm, measuring. "Some foes lie beyond even your might."
He knew what she meant. "Aye. And such are the most important battles of all. I will not rob her of this. What I shall do is grant her the ability to meet this enemy without distraction."
He turned and walked out of the chamber, the next step in his plan already spinning in his head. It wasn't the most satisfying plan, since it didn't immediately involve battle… but it was a plan that would honour the memory of Jane Foster more than any statue. And perhaps too it would ignite the light of pride that had been missing from the Odinson's eyes for far too long.
-
Deep within Nidavellir, before a renowned smithy, there was a burst of rainbow light.
"Buri! Eitri! Brokk!" Odin demanded as he stepped inside. Within, he stood upon a steel platform elevated in a large cave. At the three corners opposite him were huge bearded statues, crafted such that molten rock spilled from their mouths, running down the length of the beards into broad pools set below. The lava glowed with orange heat, flowing along deep channels that collected behind the statue in the middle. Before each pool, on a raised dais, was an anvil as large as a troll and as black as space.
Upon such anvils were wonders forged.
At the furthest forge three dwarves toiled away, one occasionally dipping a length of steel into the lava to heat it, then laying it on the nearby anvil so his brothers could punish it with their hammers. Though short, they rippled with muscle to put the mightiest Midgardian bodybuilder to shame, and both their bare skin and reddish beards glistened with sweat from the legendary forge. All three scrambled to attention when they noticed their unexpected guest, and within their eyes, Odin could see trepidation… and eagerness.
The All-Father smirked. "I have a task for thee. One that I dare say thou shalt find familiar."
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Chapter 1.1
- Location
- Under Leviathan's left foot
Taylor Hebert was in a hole.
It was a statement she thought often, but usually she didn't mean it quite so literally. Winslow could definitely be described as a hole… but tonight, Taylor was stuck at the bottom of the hole which occupied the grounds behind the hole.
The school was old enough that it had an old septic field and tank. They weren't used anymore, of course, now that there was a proper sewer hookup to take its place, but it'd started to crumble and collapse, and part of the field behind Winslow had begun to sink because of it. Somehow Blackwell (may her underwear drawer be infested with centipedes) had scraped together the money out of the budget to dig up the old tank, dispose of it, and fill the hole back in.
Of course, in between "disposing" and "filling" there was a period of time where you were left with just a huge, empty pit. And Emma (may her makeup kit be filled with drain cleaner), Sophia (may she lose her feet to a feral chihuahua) and Madison (may her stuffed animals be filled with toxic filler) thought that was an absolutely perfect time to drag Taylor to it and throw her in.
Thankfully the soft mud at the bottom had cushioned her fall. But now she was stuck at the bottom, with no ladder, in a pit that extended well above her head. She'd tried to climb out, but the soft walls crumbled, and at one point enough had fallen down that she'd been half-buried. She'd called, and screamed, and cried, and yet nobody had come to investigate. Now it was well past nightfall, and only the barest amount of light made it into the hole from the safety lights mounted on the corners of the school, glinting off the rusty metal of the big backhoe parked nearby.
There was a joke there, about hoes and Emma, but Taylor was too good for that sort of thing.
Shortly after the sun went down, it had begun to rain. The winter snows were done with, but it had only just turned into April, and the rain was icy; it chilled her to the bone and reduced the bottom of the hole to a filthy, gritty soup.
Taylor was so tired, and not just physically. The vicious bullying campaign by the Bitches Three hadn't let up in the slightest; in anything, it had gotten worse. The complete lack of response from the administration at Winslow to the locker incident had proven to them beyond a doubt that they were untouchable. Although nothing yet had approached the horror of that, it'd been clear to Taylor that they were working themselves up to it.
Sometimes she hated being right.
She'd dreamed of gaining powers, of becoming a cape, and making the Bitches stop. She could be a Brute and stomp Sophia into the ground, or she could be a Thinker, and shatter Emma's ego with a word. Or maybe she could be a Stranger, and convince Madison she was haunted until she went insane. She could be someone, worth something. The Protectorate always needed capes, and if Taylor was one, surely they'd agree if the price of her help was justice done upon the three deranged girls who had turned her life to hell?
But no, it was only a fantasy. During her weeks of convalescence after the locker, Taylor had had time to research what gave a person powers. Capes really didn't like to talk about it, but eventually she'd managed to find out why: powers came to you when you were at your lowest point... when you were broken and beyond repair. Taylor had already reached that point, and no powers had come to her -- so apparently whatever gods ruled the universe didn't think she was worth the effort to save.
Now she was sure they were right. She didn't care about power or justice anymore… she just wanted it to end.
She'd stopped shivering. Wasn't that supposed to be a bad thing? Minute after minute, the idea of simply laying down in the mud and closing her eyes seemed more and more attractive. Just close her eyes and… drift. When nothing you do matters, what does it matter what you do? It wasn't as if she hadn't already thought about stealing a knife from the kitchen and sneaking off to the bathroom… a little bit of pain and then no pain ever again. The only reason she hadn't was because she didn't want her father walking in on that. He was usually distant, he was often useless… but he did love her, and he didn't deserve that.
Sometimes it made her angry that he didn't deserve it. If he had it would have made things so much easier.
But he wouldn't be the one to find her here. Was that good enough? They'd call it an accident. Oops. Well, it happens, y'know. Was that good enough? She'd tried to fight… it hadn't worked. She'd tried to get help, and it hadn't worked. Was that good enough? She'd done everything she was supposed to do. Could she sleep now?
She'd just closed her eyes when there was a flash and a boom. She screeched as the part of the hole opposite her seemed to explode, sending a wave of mud cascading across her with enough force to knock her on her back.
Eventually she lowered her arms and opened her eyes again. What the hell had that been? Lightning? A meteor? Orbital bombardment? Had the Simurgh herself decided to take a moment out of her busy day of being a terrifying menace to shit on Taylor Hebert?
It took long moments for her eyes to readjust to the darkness, and when they did she saw… something, sitting in the mud across from her. She squinted, then climbed unsteadily to her feet. Her legs were numb; the mud squished and sucked at her as she took tottering steps towards the object, nearly pulling her sneakers right off her feet. But eventually she was close enough to see, even in the dim light.
It was… a hammer? She was pretty sure it was a hammer. It was big and square-headed, with angled corners, but it definitely wasn't something meant for driving in nails. It looked more like something out of an ancient fable, a weapon for bashing heads. A warhammer, that was it! But the haft seemed too short… barely longer than her forearm. What the hell was a warhammer doing at the bottom of a hole next to a highschool? Had it been buried here, and the lightning had revealed it? It seemed far too new and clean for that… the mud that dripped off of her didn't even stick to it!
There was writing engraved on the side… runes of some sort. She had no idea what it said… she could barely see. Curiously, she reached out to grip the haft-
Thunder cracked again, only this time it was centered on the teenage girl. The world disappeared into a blaze of light and noise. "Eeeeeek!"
She stood, shivering, scared to even open her eyes. There was no more thunder; in fact, she could hear the odd car passing by on the road in front of the school. Gradually she worked up the nerve to open one eye, and then the other. She was intact, somehow… in fact, not only had she stopped shivering, but she didn't feel the need to shiver. She was warm… comfortable, even!
Was there something on her head?
She lifted her free hand to feel. She didn't touch the soggy cloth of her hoodie… instead her fingers tapped against what was unmistakably metal. It was a helmet of some sort, and it covered her head completely, round and slightly pointed, extending down to just past her nose. A thick pair of wing-like extensions swept up from near her ears, extending downward to follow the lines of her jaw.
What really caught her attention, though, was her hair: instead of being the dark, near-black colour that was hers, it had changed to a bright, golden blonde. She'd given up taking care of her hair since it didn't mean a thing when the Bitches would pour soda or juice onto her head, and her tresses had grown dull and limp. Not these… the locks that slipped through her fingers were so vibrant they practically glowed, and bounced enough to be featured in a shampoo commercial… the kind of commercial where women had fake orgasms in the shower while soaping their hair. And on her back, was that… yes, that was a cape! A real, honest-to-Scion cape!
What the f-
She'd been made over. Before, she'd been wearing her jacket over her hoodie… but those were gone. Now her right arm was bare, instead… and while before her arms might have been generously called "toothpicks", the limbs she had now rippled with muscle. Her left arm was clad in some kind of leather, and the leather itself was covered in sturdy steel plates the size of her hand. Instead of her jacket, she was now wearing what looked to be a steel breastplate, and covering her belly was yet more leather. At her waist was a thick belt buckle that would have done any Texan proud, and black pants stretched into fur-lined steel boots which were adorned with metal wings... like she was Hermes or something. A grey cloth half-skirt wrapped around her waist. And like with her arms, her legs felt… thicker. Stronger. Was she taller? She was pretty sure she was taller. (Great -- it wasn't like she needed more vertical!) But as she rapped experimentally on her breastplate with a fist, she realized there was actually something underneath it. Not a lot, but a hell of a lot more than she'd started with!
"What the actual fuck-"
Or, at least, that's what she tried to say. Instead, what came out of her mouth sounded more like: "By the golden spires of Asgard!"
She squawked in surprise… not just at the words, but at her own voice: it was deeper, huskier. It wasn't the voice of a fifteen year old girl, but more like Alexandria when she'd give a speech on TV. "Fie, my voice doth sound odd to mine ears! Eh? Uh… Accursed tongue! I am speaking. I am speeeeaking. Taylor. Taylor Hebert. Taylor. Taaaaaylooooooor." She blinked, suddenly feeling kind of stupid.
Okay, Taylor, take stock: deep hole; weird hammer; Ren Faire foreign accent syndrome. Oh, and somehow you've been turned into a Glory Girl knockoff.
She giggled, slightly hysterical. The sound she made sounded more like a throaty, confident chuckle.
This is too weird.
Okay, okay… no more distractions! She needed to get out of this goddamned hole so she could figure out what the hell had happened to her. The rain had tapered off (when did that happen, anyway?) but she was tired of being knee-deep in mud. She felt revitalized, and wondered if with this newfound strength she might be able to finally claw her way out.
She couldn't do it while holding the hammer. Fortunately, that was an easy problem to deal with… it was almost weightless in her hand, and she made to give it an underhand toss, up and out. Instead the leather loop on the end of the handle wrapped around her wrist -- which was impossible -- and caught her as it flew upward, dragging her along -- which was also impossible!
"Waugh!"
She traced a shallow arc as she flew through the air, straight into the side of the school. The brick crumbled around her body as she impacted, debris raining around her as she fell bodily to the ground twenty feet below. A particularly large chunk shattered against her helmet with a loud clang.
It was completely embarrassing. But it didn't hurt, not in the least. She staggered to her feet, unconsciously brushing aside her cape as she did so. As she inspected herself for damage she found none… not even a scrape! And the hammer… the leather loop which had caught her wrist was no longer around her wrist, even though she'd never once let go of it.
Was the hammer Tinkertech? It was the only thing she could think of, but what self-respecting Tinker built their gear to look like something out of the Stone Age?
She twisted the weapon in the brighter light, squinting. The runes had changed. No; they were still there, but now they had meaning, even though Taylor knew that mere moments ago they would have been meaningless scribbles to her. It was like understanding had been downloaded directly into her brain.
Whosoever holds this hammer, be she worthy, shall possess the power of Thor.
Thor. Holy shit. Was this… was this Mjölnir?! That was impossible. It was a myth!
Taylor stood there for long moments, lost in astonishment. Then she remembered her thoughts just minutes before: about how even the gods had abandoned her. Holy crap do I ever owe somebody up there an apology…
Shall possess the power of Thor, the writing said. Did that mean-... "Is this… is this thy doing?" she asked, before realizing she was talking to a hammer. A suspicion was growing in her heart, but hope was something Taylor had learned to be scared of...
The big backhoe sat on its tracks nearby. She moved over to it, gripping it by one side, and -- with a numb, hollow detachment -- she lifted. The big vehicle tipped upward easily, with no more effort than she might have spent lifting a pillow.
I… I'm a cape.
She let go, letting the backhoe crash onto both tracks with a clatter, and looked upward. Now that she was open to the idea she realized she could feel the storm above. She had wanted it to stop raining on her, so it had obeyed; but it was still up there, waiting for her leave to begin again. And not just rain… there was an energy there, an eagerness. With a mental tug, she pulled on it experimentally-
A lightning bolt crashed down. It struck her right between her armored breasts, and she reeled back a step… but only from surprise. When the bolt and thunder had faded away the electricity continued to arc across her body… crawling across her arms and legs, jumping to the ground or the metal frame of the backhoe.
I'm a cape.
She lifted the hammer into the air. The lightning erupted again as if happy to be commanded. It struck the hammer and flowed across her, as soothing and refreshing as a warm bath. She returned its joy with her own, laughing.
I'm a cape! I'm a cape!
"Oh, Hel, yes!"
-
When she arrived home, it was to add a pair of deep holes into her backyard.
Ow, she thought as she levered herself out of where she'd driven herself into the dirt straight up to her knees (not that she'd experienced any injury; it was just habit…) Gonna have to work on landings.
It had taken her a while to work out how to fly with the hammer. Taking off was really just a matter of throwing it and not letting go… and that made no sense, but it was commonly acknowledged that powers were weird. Likewise, once in the air she could make dramatic turns by flinging the hammer again. But small course changes, or slowing down… well, that was a work in progress.
It was in midair, during one terrifying moment when the hammer had slipped from her fingers, that she'd learned that she could call the weapon back to her hand just as easily as she could call the lightning. She'd stopped (crashed) by the boat graveyard and experimented, to the regret of a few of the rusting hulks. (If only there was a way to charge admission… if PHO was to be believed, pretty much every new cape practiced their powers there…) With her new strength she could throw the hammer with all the force of a tank shell, and then immediately summon it back to her hand to do it all over again. And despite it all, no matter how many sturdy bulkheads the hammer smashed through, when it returned to her hand its surface was unscratched and gleaming beneath the weak yellow lights that dotted the wharf along the docks.
What was it made of? Where had it come from? Why had it come to her, of all people?
She wasn't sure she really cared.
It was only the piercing silence of the night, and the realization that she had no idea what time it was that had sent her scrambling home. She'd never had to navigate from the air before, so it had taken her quite some time -- and a number of rough landings -- before she'd managed to find her house. It had to be insanely late… there wasn't a single houselight on in her entire neighbourhood.
Except for the light that was on in the kitchen of her house.
With trepidation she crept up to the back door, leaning over to peek into the window that looked out onto the backyard from over the kitchen sink. Inside she could see the kitchen table… and sitting in one of the chairs, asleep with his head laid on his crossed arms upon the table, was her father.
"Fuck," she muttered. Of course, thanks to whatever filter had been installed between her brain and mouth, what actually came out was a far less vulgar, "Fie." It was late. It was stupid late. And her dad had been sitting there, worried for her. How was she going to explain why she was so late?
She glanced at her own helmeted reflection. Check that: how was she going to explain any of this? Hell, how was he even going to know it was her?
The hammer suddenly slipped from her fingers, discarding friction as easily as Emma threw away friends. It landed on the concrete step with a surprisingly loud thunk. Before she could even think about picking it back up she was encased in a soft glow, and the world seemed to swell slightly… or, rather, she shrunk. She looked down and saw that her armour was gone, replaced with the sticky muck from the bottom of the hole. The dirt caked her jeans and even coated her arms up to the elbow; she was filthy.
On the plus side -- sort-of -- she was herself again. Which was good, because the back door had been torn open, and there her father stood, sleep in his eyes and fright in his expression.
"Taylor! Jesus Christ, where have you been?" He seized her by the arm and hauled her bodily indoors before she could protest. "It's three AM, do you know how worried I've been-"
His rant cut off suddenly. They were both in the light of the kitchen now, and he'd finally noticed the mud that was smearing onto the hand he held her with. His anger immediately turned to anguish. "Oh my God, Taylor!"
He spun her to face him, gripping her by both arms, looking at the mud that coated her head to toe. "Taylor, what happened?" he rasped.
"I… I fell into a hole," she replied. Her voice was weak, pathetic… nothing like the strong, commanding tones she possessed while holding the hammer.
"Fell into a hole?" he repeated, incredulous. "Taylor, what hole?"
"They're… digging a hole at Winslow. Replacing the septic or something. I fell in."
"`Fell in'." She saw his jaw clench, his eyes igniting with fury. "You were pushed in."
"Dad-"
"You told me they'd stopped, Taylor! That you were okay!"
"I am okay!"
He gestured at her with both hands. "This! This is not okay, Taylor!"
"What difference does it make? I don't have any proof, and even if I did, Winslow doesn't care! We can complain all we want, they won't do anything! You know that!"
"We can't just let this happen, Taylor! If the goddamned teachers still won't do anything, we can transfer you out… to Arcadia, or Clarendon-"
"We can't afford that! And Arcadia takes years to get into, if a spot even opens at all!"
He crumpled before her eyes, the anger fading away in the light of his own helplessness. "Taylor, I… I can't just do nothing…"
"There's nothing you can do," she replied, and the way he hung his head made her feel like she'd actually hit him. "Three months, Dad," she said softly. "Three months, and the school year is over. I've… lasted this long. I can last a little bit longer. I got careless and let my guard down. It won't happen again."
He held her tightly. "You're in school. You shouldn't have to be on guard."
"What we should have and what we get are two different things."
He pulled her into a hug that was almost painful, uncaring that mud was getting onto his t-shirt. "You sound too much like your mom, sometimes," he whispered. Taylor had no response to that; she wrapped her arms around her father and hugged him back just as hard.
She wasn't sure how long they stood there, but eventually he pulled back with a sigh. "Go take a hot shower, and then head to bed. You're not going to school tomorrow."
"Well, I'm not going to complain about that."
"And I'm going to be calling the school." He held up a hand as her mouth opened. "This `hole'. I'm guessing there's no fence around it?"
She blinked, then tried to remember. "Well… no. Just some traffic barricades."
"Then it's a safety hazard." She saw the muscles in his jaw clench. "I may not be able to do everything I want, but I can goddamned-well do what I can, even it's just being a pain in their collective asses. OSHA has nothing on me." Taylor nodded, then turned to go up the stairs to the bathroom, careful not to touch the bannister with her filthy hands. She paused as he spoke again. "Taylor… are you sure you're alright?"
She thought about how she'd gotten home… and about the hammer which still lay just outside the back door, waiting for her to pick it up again. She nodded. "Yeah. A lot better than I've been in a while."
It was a statement she thought often, but usually she didn't mean it quite so literally. Winslow could definitely be described as a hole… but tonight, Taylor was stuck at the bottom of the hole which occupied the grounds behind the hole.
The school was old enough that it had an old septic field and tank. They weren't used anymore, of course, now that there was a proper sewer hookup to take its place, but it'd started to crumble and collapse, and part of the field behind Winslow had begun to sink because of it. Somehow Blackwell (may her underwear drawer be infested with centipedes) had scraped together the money out of the budget to dig up the old tank, dispose of it, and fill the hole back in.
Of course, in between "disposing" and "filling" there was a period of time where you were left with just a huge, empty pit. And Emma (may her makeup kit be filled with drain cleaner), Sophia (may she lose her feet to a feral chihuahua) and Madison (may her stuffed animals be filled with toxic filler) thought that was an absolutely perfect time to drag Taylor to it and throw her in.
Thankfully the soft mud at the bottom had cushioned her fall. But now she was stuck at the bottom, with no ladder, in a pit that extended well above her head. She'd tried to climb out, but the soft walls crumbled, and at one point enough had fallen down that she'd been half-buried. She'd called, and screamed, and cried, and yet nobody had come to investigate. Now it was well past nightfall, and only the barest amount of light made it into the hole from the safety lights mounted on the corners of the school, glinting off the rusty metal of the big backhoe parked nearby.
There was a joke there, about hoes and Emma, but Taylor was too good for that sort of thing.
Shortly after the sun went down, it had begun to rain. The winter snows were done with, but it had only just turned into April, and the rain was icy; it chilled her to the bone and reduced the bottom of the hole to a filthy, gritty soup.
Taylor was so tired, and not just physically. The vicious bullying campaign by the Bitches Three hadn't let up in the slightest; in anything, it had gotten worse. The complete lack of response from the administration at Winslow to the locker incident had proven to them beyond a doubt that they were untouchable. Although nothing yet had approached the horror of that, it'd been clear to Taylor that they were working themselves up to it.
Sometimes she hated being right.
She'd dreamed of gaining powers, of becoming a cape, and making the Bitches stop. She could be a Brute and stomp Sophia into the ground, or she could be a Thinker, and shatter Emma's ego with a word. Or maybe she could be a Stranger, and convince Madison she was haunted until she went insane. She could be someone, worth something. The Protectorate always needed capes, and if Taylor was one, surely they'd agree if the price of her help was justice done upon the three deranged girls who had turned her life to hell?
But no, it was only a fantasy. During her weeks of convalescence after the locker, Taylor had had time to research what gave a person powers. Capes really didn't like to talk about it, but eventually she'd managed to find out why: powers came to you when you were at your lowest point... when you were broken and beyond repair. Taylor had already reached that point, and no powers had come to her -- so apparently whatever gods ruled the universe didn't think she was worth the effort to save.
Now she was sure they were right. She didn't care about power or justice anymore… she just wanted it to end.
She'd stopped shivering. Wasn't that supposed to be a bad thing? Minute after minute, the idea of simply laying down in the mud and closing her eyes seemed more and more attractive. Just close her eyes and… drift. When nothing you do matters, what does it matter what you do? It wasn't as if she hadn't already thought about stealing a knife from the kitchen and sneaking off to the bathroom… a little bit of pain and then no pain ever again. The only reason she hadn't was because she didn't want her father walking in on that. He was usually distant, he was often useless… but he did love her, and he didn't deserve that.
Sometimes it made her angry that he didn't deserve it. If he had it would have made things so much easier.
But he wouldn't be the one to find her here. Was that good enough? They'd call it an accident. Oops. Well, it happens, y'know. Was that good enough? She'd tried to fight… it hadn't worked. She'd tried to get help, and it hadn't worked. Was that good enough? She'd done everything she was supposed to do. Could she sleep now?
She'd just closed her eyes when there was a flash and a boom. She screeched as the part of the hole opposite her seemed to explode, sending a wave of mud cascading across her with enough force to knock her on her back.
Eventually she lowered her arms and opened her eyes again. What the hell had that been? Lightning? A meteor? Orbital bombardment? Had the Simurgh herself decided to take a moment out of her busy day of being a terrifying menace to shit on Taylor Hebert?
It took long moments for her eyes to readjust to the darkness, and when they did she saw… something, sitting in the mud across from her. She squinted, then climbed unsteadily to her feet. Her legs were numb; the mud squished and sucked at her as she took tottering steps towards the object, nearly pulling her sneakers right off her feet. But eventually she was close enough to see, even in the dim light.
It was… a hammer? She was pretty sure it was a hammer. It was big and square-headed, with angled corners, but it definitely wasn't something meant for driving in nails. It looked more like something out of an ancient fable, a weapon for bashing heads. A warhammer, that was it! But the haft seemed too short… barely longer than her forearm. What the hell was a warhammer doing at the bottom of a hole next to a highschool? Had it been buried here, and the lightning had revealed it? It seemed far too new and clean for that… the mud that dripped off of her didn't even stick to it!
There was writing engraved on the side… runes of some sort. She had no idea what it said… she could barely see. Curiously, she reached out to grip the haft-
Thunder cracked again, only this time it was centered on the teenage girl. The world disappeared into a blaze of light and noise. "Eeeeeek!"
She stood, shivering, scared to even open her eyes. There was no more thunder; in fact, she could hear the odd car passing by on the road in front of the school. Gradually she worked up the nerve to open one eye, and then the other. She was intact, somehow… in fact, not only had she stopped shivering, but she didn't feel the need to shiver. She was warm… comfortable, even!
Was there something on her head?
She lifted her free hand to feel. She didn't touch the soggy cloth of her hoodie… instead her fingers tapped against what was unmistakably metal. It was a helmet of some sort, and it covered her head completely, round and slightly pointed, extending down to just past her nose. A thick pair of wing-like extensions swept up from near her ears, extending downward to follow the lines of her jaw.
What really caught her attention, though, was her hair: instead of being the dark, near-black colour that was hers, it had changed to a bright, golden blonde. She'd given up taking care of her hair since it didn't mean a thing when the Bitches would pour soda or juice onto her head, and her tresses had grown dull and limp. Not these… the locks that slipped through her fingers were so vibrant they practically glowed, and bounced enough to be featured in a shampoo commercial… the kind of commercial where women had fake orgasms in the shower while soaping their hair. And on her back, was that… yes, that was a cape! A real, honest-to-Scion cape!
What the f-
She'd been made over. Before, she'd been wearing her jacket over her hoodie… but those were gone. Now her right arm was bare, instead… and while before her arms might have been generously called "toothpicks", the limbs she had now rippled with muscle. Her left arm was clad in some kind of leather, and the leather itself was covered in sturdy steel plates the size of her hand. Instead of her jacket, she was now wearing what looked to be a steel breastplate, and covering her belly was yet more leather. At her waist was a thick belt buckle that would have done any Texan proud, and black pants stretched into fur-lined steel boots which were adorned with metal wings... like she was Hermes or something. A grey cloth half-skirt wrapped around her waist. And like with her arms, her legs felt… thicker. Stronger. Was she taller? She was pretty sure she was taller. (Great -- it wasn't like she needed more vertical!) But as she rapped experimentally on her breastplate with a fist, she realized there was actually something underneath it. Not a lot, but a hell of a lot more than she'd started with!
"What the actual fuck-"
Or, at least, that's what she tried to say. Instead, what came out of her mouth sounded more like: "By the golden spires of Asgard!"
She squawked in surprise… not just at the words, but at her own voice: it was deeper, huskier. It wasn't the voice of a fifteen year old girl, but more like Alexandria when she'd give a speech on TV. "Fie, my voice doth sound odd to mine ears! Eh? Uh… Accursed tongue! I am speaking. I am speeeeaking. Taylor. Taylor Hebert. Taylor. Taaaaaylooooooor." She blinked, suddenly feeling kind of stupid.
Okay, Taylor, take stock: deep hole; weird hammer; Ren Faire foreign accent syndrome. Oh, and somehow you've been turned into a Glory Girl knockoff.
She giggled, slightly hysterical. The sound she made sounded more like a throaty, confident chuckle.
This is too weird.
Okay, okay… no more distractions! She needed to get out of this goddamned hole so she could figure out what the hell had happened to her. The rain had tapered off (when did that happen, anyway?) but she was tired of being knee-deep in mud. She felt revitalized, and wondered if with this newfound strength she might be able to finally claw her way out.
She couldn't do it while holding the hammer. Fortunately, that was an easy problem to deal with… it was almost weightless in her hand, and she made to give it an underhand toss, up and out. Instead the leather loop on the end of the handle wrapped around her wrist -- which was impossible -- and caught her as it flew upward, dragging her along -- which was also impossible!
"Waugh!"
She traced a shallow arc as she flew through the air, straight into the side of the school. The brick crumbled around her body as she impacted, debris raining around her as she fell bodily to the ground twenty feet below. A particularly large chunk shattered against her helmet with a loud clang.
It was completely embarrassing. But it didn't hurt, not in the least. She staggered to her feet, unconsciously brushing aside her cape as she did so. As she inspected herself for damage she found none… not even a scrape! And the hammer… the leather loop which had caught her wrist was no longer around her wrist, even though she'd never once let go of it.
Was the hammer Tinkertech? It was the only thing she could think of, but what self-respecting Tinker built their gear to look like something out of the Stone Age?
She twisted the weapon in the brighter light, squinting. The runes had changed. No; they were still there, but now they had meaning, even though Taylor knew that mere moments ago they would have been meaningless scribbles to her. It was like understanding had been downloaded directly into her brain.
Whosoever holds this hammer, be she worthy, shall possess the power of Thor.
Thor. Holy shit. Was this… was this Mjölnir?! That was impossible. It was a myth!
Taylor stood there for long moments, lost in astonishment. Then she remembered her thoughts just minutes before: about how even the gods had abandoned her. Holy crap do I ever owe somebody up there an apology…
Shall possess the power of Thor, the writing said. Did that mean-... "Is this… is this thy doing?" she asked, before realizing she was talking to a hammer. A suspicion was growing in her heart, but hope was something Taylor had learned to be scared of...
The big backhoe sat on its tracks nearby. She moved over to it, gripping it by one side, and -- with a numb, hollow detachment -- she lifted. The big vehicle tipped upward easily, with no more effort than she might have spent lifting a pillow.
I… I'm a cape.
She let go, letting the backhoe crash onto both tracks with a clatter, and looked upward. Now that she was open to the idea she realized she could feel the storm above. She had wanted it to stop raining on her, so it had obeyed; but it was still up there, waiting for her leave to begin again. And not just rain… there was an energy there, an eagerness. With a mental tug, she pulled on it experimentally-
A lightning bolt crashed down. It struck her right between her armored breasts, and she reeled back a step… but only from surprise. When the bolt and thunder had faded away the electricity continued to arc across her body… crawling across her arms and legs, jumping to the ground or the metal frame of the backhoe.
I'm a cape.
She lifted the hammer into the air. The lightning erupted again as if happy to be commanded. It struck the hammer and flowed across her, as soothing and refreshing as a warm bath. She returned its joy with her own, laughing.
I'm a cape! I'm a cape!
"Oh, Hel, yes!"
-
When she arrived home, it was to add a pair of deep holes into her backyard.
Ow, she thought as she levered herself out of where she'd driven herself into the dirt straight up to her knees (not that she'd experienced any injury; it was just habit…) Gonna have to work on landings.
It had taken her a while to work out how to fly with the hammer. Taking off was really just a matter of throwing it and not letting go… and that made no sense, but it was commonly acknowledged that powers were weird. Likewise, once in the air she could make dramatic turns by flinging the hammer again. But small course changes, or slowing down… well, that was a work in progress.
It was in midair, during one terrifying moment when the hammer had slipped from her fingers, that she'd learned that she could call the weapon back to her hand just as easily as she could call the lightning. She'd stopped (crashed) by the boat graveyard and experimented, to the regret of a few of the rusting hulks. (If only there was a way to charge admission… if PHO was to be believed, pretty much every new cape practiced their powers there…) With her new strength she could throw the hammer with all the force of a tank shell, and then immediately summon it back to her hand to do it all over again. And despite it all, no matter how many sturdy bulkheads the hammer smashed through, when it returned to her hand its surface was unscratched and gleaming beneath the weak yellow lights that dotted the wharf along the docks.
What was it made of? Where had it come from? Why had it come to her, of all people?
She wasn't sure she really cared.
It was only the piercing silence of the night, and the realization that she had no idea what time it was that had sent her scrambling home. She'd never had to navigate from the air before, so it had taken her quite some time -- and a number of rough landings -- before she'd managed to find her house. It had to be insanely late… there wasn't a single houselight on in her entire neighbourhood.
Except for the light that was on in the kitchen of her house.
With trepidation she crept up to the back door, leaning over to peek into the window that looked out onto the backyard from over the kitchen sink. Inside she could see the kitchen table… and sitting in one of the chairs, asleep with his head laid on his crossed arms upon the table, was her father.
"Fuck," she muttered. Of course, thanks to whatever filter had been installed between her brain and mouth, what actually came out was a far less vulgar, "Fie." It was late. It was stupid late. And her dad had been sitting there, worried for her. How was she going to explain why she was so late?
She glanced at her own helmeted reflection. Check that: how was she going to explain any of this? Hell, how was he even going to know it was her?
The hammer suddenly slipped from her fingers, discarding friction as easily as Emma threw away friends. It landed on the concrete step with a surprisingly loud thunk. Before she could even think about picking it back up she was encased in a soft glow, and the world seemed to swell slightly… or, rather, she shrunk. She looked down and saw that her armour was gone, replaced with the sticky muck from the bottom of the hole. The dirt caked her jeans and even coated her arms up to the elbow; she was filthy.
On the plus side -- sort-of -- she was herself again. Which was good, because the back door had been torn open, and there her father stood, sleep in his eyes and fright in his expression.
"Taylor! Jesus Christ, where have you been?" He seized her by the arm and hauled her bodily indoors before she could protest. "It's three AM, do you know how worried I've been-"
His rant cut off suddenly. They were both in the light of the kitchen now, and he'd finally noticed the mud that was smearing onto the hand he held her with. His anger immediately turned to anguish. "Oh my God, Taylor!"
He spun her to face him, gripping her by both arms, looking at the mud that coated her head to toe. "Taylor, what happened?" he rasped.
"I… I fell into a hole," she replied. Her voice was weak, pathetic… nothing like the strong, commanding tones she possessed while holding the hammer.
"Fell into a hole?" he repeated, incredulous. "Taylor, what hole?"
"They're… digging a hole at Winslow. Replacing the septic or something. I fell in."
"`Fell in'." She saw his jaw clench, his eyes igniting with fury. "You were pushed in."
"Dad-"
"You told me they'd stopped, Taylor! That you were okay!"
"I am okay!"
He gestured at her with both hands. "This! This is not okay, Taylor!"
"What difference does it make? I don't have any proof, and even if I did, Winslow doesn't care! We can complain all we want, they won't do anything! You know that!"
"We can't just let this happen, Taylor! If the goddamned teachers still won't do anything, we can transfer you out… to Arcadia, or Clarendon-"
"We can't afford that! And Arcadia takes years to get into, if a spot even opens at all!"
He crumpled before her eyes, the anger fading away in the light of his own helplessness. "Taylor, I… I can't just do nothing…"
"There's nothing you can do," she replied, and the way he hung his head made her feel like she'd actually hit him. "Three months, Dad," she said softly. "Three months, and the school year is over. I've… lasted this long. I can last a little bit longer. I got careless and let my guard down. It won't happen again."
He held her tightly. "You're in school. You shouldn't have to be on guard."
"What we should have and what we get are two different things."
He pulled her into a hug that was almost painful, uncaring that mud was getting onto his t-shirt. "You sound too much like your mom, sometimes," he whispered. Taylor had no response to that; she wrapped her arms around her father and hugged him back just as hard.
She wasn't sure how long they stood there, but eventually he pulled back with a sigh. "Go take a hot shower, and then head to bed. You're not going to school tomorrow."
"Well, I'm not going to complain about that."
"And I'm going to be calling the school." He held up a hand as her mouth opened. "This `hole'. I'm guessing there's no fence around it?"
She blinked, then tried to remember. "Well… no. Just some traffic barricades."
"Then it's a safety hazard." She saw the muscles in his jaw clench. "I may not be able to do everything I want, but I can goddamned-well do what I can, even it's just being a pain in their collective asses. OSHA has nothing on me." Taylor nodded, then turned to go up the stairs to the bathroom, careful not to touch the bannister with her filthy hands. She paused as he spoke again. "Taylor… are you sure you're alright?"
She thought about how she'd gotten home… and about the hammer which still lay just outside the back door, waiting for her to pick it up again. She nodded. "Yeah. A lot better than I've been in a while."
Chapter 1.2
- Location
- Under Leviathan's left foot
-Then was the body of Baldr borne out on shipboard; and when his wife, Nanna the daughter of Nep, saw that, straightway her heart burst with grief, and she died; she was borne to the pyre, and fire was kindled. Then Thor stood by and hallowed the pyre with Mjölnir; and before his feet ran a certain dwarf which was named Litr; Thor kicked at him with his foot and thrust him into the fire, and he burned-
Okay, it was official: the Norse were fucked up.
Taylor sighed, closing the book and setting it down. A thick, heavy tome on ancient religions, she'd actually been quite surprised to find it in the school library; unfortunately, it didn't really concentrate on the old Norse religions, and only contained excerpts from the Prose Edda. There were other books that contained more, including one complete translation of the Edda, but Taylor had taken one look at the list of names that had previously checked out the book and decided no-way, no-how. She sure as hell didn't want any of the local E88-wannabes to see her with it and decide they had `common interests'.
Even just the glance she'd risked hadn't revealed a whole lot about Mjölnir itself… just that Loki had been a giant tool while it was being made, and the haft wasn't as long as it was supposed to be. It said that the hammer would always fly true, and "never fly so far as not to return to his hand" -- well, that checkbox had a big tick in it -- but nothing about transformations, and even the lightning wasn't explicitly mentioned-
"Oh, there you are, Taylor!"
Shit. Taylor closed her eyes in frustration… she'd let her guard down again, after promising her father that she wouldn't.
She shoved the book she held away, letting it slide across the small table that sat in Winslow's pathetic library. A clear signal: it wasn't hers, she didn't care about it… so hopefully they'd leave it alone. A moment later Emma stepped around her into view. Taylor didn't meet the redhead's eyes, instead opting to continue staring straight ahead at the bookshelves on the far wall.
"We didn't see you at all yesterday, Taylor!" Emma said in a sickly-sweet voice.
"She was probably home showering the stink off," Sophia said from behind her.
"Impossible," came Madison's voice from behind and to the left. "If she had there'd be nothing left of her." Taylor blinked. That… actually was kind of clever. Emma apparently agreed, laughing.
Congrats, Maddie. You've peaked at fifteen. It's all downhill from here.
"It's a shame, and I went through all that trouble to find out how to properly take care of a pig in its sty. Brought food scraps and everything." Oh, I'm sure you did. Emma frowned at Taylor's lack of reaction. She turned and eyed the book on the table. "`Forgotten Religions'? Seriously, Taylor? Planning on becoming a nun or something?"
If I could become a nun it wouldn't be a `forgotten religion', you stupid cow. She clenched her fists under the table. Just do whatever you're going to fucking do to me and get it over with.
"Married to God," laughed Madison, who apparently couldn't keep her faiths straight, either. "Makes sense, it's not like she's got a chance with anybody else."
"Not even that much," Emma replied. Taylor saw the malicious smirk cross the pretty girl's face out of the corner of her eye, and braced herself for the punchline. "Obviously God doesn't care about her, either. If he did, he wouldn't have killed her mother."
Taylor didn't know if anything was said after that, because all she could hear was a high-pitched ringing. She surged to her feet, fists rising; she didn't know what she was going to do, but it was going to hurt-
Her face hit the table a second later. Sophia had caught her as she stood, twisting her arm behind her and slamming her down against the wood. Taylor couldn't have beaten Sophia with a running start… with no leverage she had no chance at all. The athletic girl seemed to take pleasure in grinding her face against the table; Taylor's glasses bent and cut into the side of her temple, and the lens pressed against her eye. Oh, not my glasses, please don't break-
"God, you're so violent, Taylor!" Emma snarked. She'd been surprised for one brief moment, but Sophia's intervention had restored her confidence. "No wonder you can't keep any friends." She leaned down, her voice low and vicious. "Weak and worthless."
The hammer was miles away, but Taylor could feel it. She knew exactly where it was, and she could sense that it was eager to come to her aid… all she had to do was call. With it in hand she could smash all three of them, Emma might have a chance to learn just how `weak and worthless' she was just before Taylor turned her into a lightning rod…
And then she might as well go looking for Kaiser, because the Empire would be the only group that would want her. And after frying two white girls, perhaps not even they.
She began to cry, deep shuddering sobs choking the breath out of her even as Sophia pressed down. Her revenge -- her freedom -- was so close… so close! All she had to do was give up on everything else.
She heard Sophia snort just before letting go… as if too disgusted to touch her. Taylor ignored how her arm hurt as she wrapped them around her head, still laying on the table; her glasses were bent out of shape, but she couldn't see through the tears anyway. Still, she heard the sneer in Emma's voice: "Pathetic."
"She's making me sick to my stomach," commented Sophia. "Can we get out of here?"
"Sure, I need to talk to Mister Gladly anyway about that assignment. Bye, Taylor!" Emma said brightly, patting the other girl roughly on the head.
She didn't stop crying until long after they left.
-
Once Taylor pulled herself back together she grabbed her backpack -- which had been under the table and thankfully avoided the Bitches' interest -- and simply left. A teacher might have protested as she walked off school grounds, but if they did she didn't hear… and wouldn't have cared anyway.
She kept her hoodie up, avoiding eye contact with the few other passengers on the bus, though at that time of day it only consisted of one old woman near the front (who Taylor wasn't sure was actually aware she was on the bus) and two older teenagers dressed in rough clothing near the back.
When she got home it wasn't a surprise to find the house empty, as her father wouldn't be home for another couple of hours. He'd spent all of Thursday with her, practically hovering. It made her feel better but it was also kind of inconvenient. She appreciated his concern -- she really did -- but having him there meant she couldn't do anything with the hammer that still sat on her back step. As it was her heart jumped every time he looked out the kitchen window, half expecting him to spot the thing sitting there and wonder what it was about. By noon she'd nearly snapped and ordered him out of the house… but somehow she managed to swallow the urge.
Speaking of which…
She tossed her jacket and backpack carelessly into the porch as she entered the house, making a beeline for the back door. She hesitated just as she laid her hand on the handle; then she slowly pulled it open and looked down.
The hammer was gone.
"No," she moaned quietly. "Please, no... " Her heart felt like it had stopped beating. Tears pricked at her eyes, which were still dry and red from earlier. She looked up-
It had only moved. The hammer (Just call it Mjölnir! Jesus, Taylor!) had moved. On its own. She knew this, because the thing was currently hovering two feet off the ground, just beyond the bottom step.
Like a faithful dog waiting for its master to come home.
Her knees felt weak; she sat down on the step before they gave out on her. She stared at Mjölnir as it hovered. No -- not hovered. Hovered implied some kind of motion, like it was actively resisting gravity. The hammer was stuck in midair, like it was mounted on some kind of invisible foundation. She sat and stared at it… and had the feeling that the hammer was staring right back.
It could move on its own. It could leave, if it wanted to. It hadn't. It wanted her.
"Why? Why me?" she asked softly. Mjölnir didn't answer. She began to shout, accusing. "Why me? Why now? Why not months ago, when I wasn't so… so broken and useless!" She buried her face in her hands.
The yard rang with a faint, metallic hum… like a giant bell from far away. The note was low and mournful. Taylor looked up at the hammer, and the note faded away.
She didn't know how long she sat like that, the two of them looking at each other. When the phone rang she nearly flew off the step; blushing furiously (she'd analyze why she was embarrassed in front of a hammer later) she scrambled inside and grabbed the phone off the hook. "Hello?"
"Hi, hun. You're home?"
The proper teenage response would have been "Duh", but her Dad deserved a bit better than that. "Yeah, I got home a little while ago."
"That's good. Uh… listen, some work piled up here and I'm going to have to work late. Are you able to take care of yourself for supper?"
Taylor felt herself wilt a little. "Uh… yeah, I guess I can do that."
"I'm sorry. I know you said you wanted to cook tonight-"
"It's fine. I know how your job gets."
"I'm sorry," he said again. There was an uncomfortable silence before he asked, "How was school?"
"It was fine."
"Taylor-"
"It was fine!" She squeezed her eyes shut; she stretched the phone cord, pulling at the coils and letting them curl back up again, a little bit slower each time. "It was fine... really, Dad. Not great, not bad, just school."
"Oh. Okay. That's… good." Another tense silence drew out, and she suspected he didn't believe her but didn't want to imply she was lying to him. "Did you want me to order some pizza and have it delivered to the house?"
"No, that's okay. There's a TV dinner in the freezer, I'll have that."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure. Thanks, Dad."
"Okay. I'll try to be home as soon as I can."
"Bye."
"Bye, hun."
The line clicked, and she put the phone back onto the hook. Taking a seat on one of the old metal chairs that sat around the kitchen table, she let her hands fall to her lap. She was quiet for a long while, trying to ignore the weight that hung in the middle of her chest.
Why the hell are you upset? You've been waiting for him to be occupied.
Shaking her head, she stood and walked over to the fridge and pulled open the freezer. The TV dinner sat there, exactly as she'd said… all the fat and sodium and rubberized meat a growing girl needed. She stared at it for a moment, then shut the door. She wasn't hungry, not anymore.
Now what? She could get online, and do some more research on Thor and his hammer, or troll around PHO. She could be responsible and get her homework done… or just be a typical teenager and be a vegetable in front of the TV. She was halfway to the living room and the remote when she stopped and spun.
No. No, those weren't her only options. Fuck this. She didn't care about homework, didn't care about television, didn't care about food. There was only one thing that concerned her at that moment. Something better.
The rear door to the kitchen knocked against the wall as she tore it open and stepped outside. She didn't have any shoes on, but she didn't care about that. Mjölnir still sat in midair, unmoving and inviolable, silent and patient. She held out her hand and the hammer flew into it eagerly.
Thunder rumbled.
-
Brockton Bay looked different from the air. It'd been years since she'd had a chance to see it from above -- her one and only time she'd ever ridden in a helicopter, along with her father out to an oil rig floating just outside the bay. Even then that had mostly been over water, except for a brief view of the Protectorate HQ from a careful distance away. Her flight home two nights before had been so late at night that her only impressions from above had been of a lattice of traffic lights.
Now it was just past suppertime, and the spring sun was only beginning to sink to the horizon. The shadows cast by the tall buildings downtown lay half the city in shadow, and cars could be heard below as the last stragglers of the working day made their way home. Taylor stood on top of one of the tall buildings downtown, an office building belonging to Fortress Construction; from her vantage point she could see the entirety of the city… from the rust-coloured trainyard to the nearby PRT headquarters.
Holding her helmet in her hands, Taylor pondered what to do next. Perhaps she should have planned this out a little bit more? She really didn't have that much of a grasp on her powers... beyond knowing she was strong, could fly, and could summon lighting. Every now and then she would glance at her reflection in the polished steel of the helmet, seeing the reflection that was both hers and yet not; how did she apply what she had to being a hero?
Long ago -- while fantasizing about her cape career -- Taylor had done some research about crime rates. Apparently, late at night was the most common time for premeditated murder, since that was the time with the fewest witnesses -- but crimes like assault tended to happen during the work day, when people were awake, rising in the evenings when people were stressed and sometimes drinking it off. Burglary happened during the day, when people were at work and their homes were left empty.
She wasn't sure how well those estimates worked in Brockton Bay, which had quite possibly the highest density of capes of any city in North America. Did the criminals of the city ever stop to wonder if they were about to burglarize Purity or try to mug Oni Lee? Did it never happen, or had the news outlets become so jaded that even extreme acts of Darwinism didn't merit a side column?
So what should she do? Should she go looking to pick a fight with Hookwolf or Oni Lee? That seemed like a bad idea on her first night. What could she do?
She pressed her lips into a thin line. The only thing she couldn't do was go home… go back to being just Taylor. She couldn't handle that, not right now.
Dropping her helmet back onto her head and picking Mjölnir off her belt, she flung herself into the air. She wasn't sure what she'd do, but she'd know it when she saw it.
-
"Jesus Christ, Katie, how did you do this?"
`This' was the family sedan, which was a fairly ordinary sort of car. Unfortunately, at that moment the car currently had its passenger-side wheels hanging over a Jersey barrier that had been set at the side of the road. Katie -- a fairly ordinary teenager -- was standing beside the car, arms crossed and face sullen. Meanwhile, her mother, Meredith -- a fairly ordinary woman who was a teller at Brockton Bay Central Bank -- was looking at the state of both her daughter and her car in astonishment.
"Mom, it wasn't my fault."
"How is this not your fault? I loaned you the car because you said you'd be careful!"
"I didn't mean to drop my cellphone! I was in the middle of a text-"
"You were texting and driving?"
"Only because Chloe texted me first!"
"Jesus Christ, Katie!" Meredith buried her face in her hands. "Your father is going to have a complete goddamned meltdown when he sees this! You'll be lucky if you ever see the car keys again before you move out!"
"It's not-"
"Not another word!" Meredith rubbed her temples. "We need to call a tow truck. They might be able to get it off the barrier without damaging it too much. And let me make this clear, any repairs we need to make are coming out of your pocket!"
"But Mom-"
"No! We are not having our insurance rates go up because you can't wait ten goddamned minutes to answer a text! And so help me, Katie-"
"Might I offer assistance?" Both mother and daughter jumped as they noticed the masked woman who was currently hovering nearby, spinning something above her head. It was revealed to be a hammer as she stopped the motion, immediately dropping to the ground. The concrete sidewalk made a sharp sound at her landing, but didn't break, and Meredith was sure she heard the woman -- a cape! -- mutter "Getting better…" under her breath.
"I-..." the older woman began.
"A curious predicament," the blonde commented as she approached. She hung her hammer on a hook on her belt, and the two made way as she made her way to the car, looking it over carefully. "But one I am confident I can resolve."
With that the mysterious cape took hold of the frame and the rear tire, lifting the car gently off the Jersey barrier; then, pulling the car backwards, she rolled it on its driver-side wheels until it was clear, as easily as Meredith would roll a cart. That done, the woman carefully set the car down on all four wheels.
"Th-thank you," Meredith said. Beside her, Katie was wide-eyed but thankfully silent. "Are… are you with the Empire Eighty-eight?"
The woman frowned. "Nay, I bend no knee to Kaiser."
The woman at least looked embarrassed. "Oh. It's just that… well-"
"Well aware am I of the chosen aesthetic of Menja and Fenja. Warrior maidens they may be, but that is the extent of our similarities. Indeed," she lifted her weapon from her belt, "eager is my hammer to debate with them the merits of their philosophy."
"O-okay…"
"I must away. But first..." She pointed at Katie, her anger obvious, and the teenager went pale. "Thou art mortal. Thou canst perish, and wouldst thou pierce the hearts of thy parents with such anguish, all for the saving of a few fleeting moments? Use thy wits, girl!" With that, the armoured woman flung herself back into the air, quickly disappearing over the tops of the surrounding buildings.
The two were quiet for a long moment. Then Katie spoke in a shaky voice, "Mom, I'm sorry! Really!"
"I know, dear. Come on, let's get home."
-
Matt Nicklin wasn't a bad guy. He'd just made some poor choices. Unfortunately, those poor choices tended to pile upon one another, until he couldn't dig his way out.
For instance, he hadn't meant to get hooked on meth… he thought it'd be a lark, something silly he'd thought he'd try while drunk at a party. That first hit had been so good, and the rest of the night was some of the most fun he'd ever had in his life. Coming down, though… the hangover had been awful, so he'd had a little bit more, thinking by the time he came down again it'd be gone. Then he'd learned that it was never gone… it was always just there, waiting for him when he wasn't using. It hurt… not like a cut or a broken leg, but a deep pain like someone was hollowing him out from inside.
He would have gone to counselling, but was too embarrassed. Eventually his girlfriend threw him out. Then his parents threw him out in desperation after he'd started selling their stuff to fund his next hit. He'd hooked up with the Merchants, hoping they'd help keep him supplied; Skidmark was a crazy and scary motherfucker, but when he was in a good mood he knew how to party. But even if they offered an "employee discount", nothing was free. Matt still needed some cash.
Which is why he'd stolen the gun.
Which is why he was robbing two people in the back of an alley.
"J-just hand over your fucking wallets! Come on!" Matt tried to keep the hands holding the gun steady. The two people he'd chosen to rob -- a pair of teenagers, a dark-skinned older boy and his sister -- were staring at him nervously. The boy was big and muscular… he obviously worked out. Fortunately, Matt had a gun. The girl was curvy in a way that said she was going to be an absolute bombshell when she grew up, and she was obviously aware of it considering the way she dressed and purple streak she'd added to her hair; but while Matt might have been a junkie, he sure as fuck wasn't a pedo, so he kept his eyes on her more-dangerous brother.
"You don't want to do this, man," the boy said. His voice seemed fit for someone twice his age, low and stern.
"Sh-shut up! Wallets!"
"I know why you're doing this. How long you been without a hit? You take our money, you go get something to take care of the shakes… and then what? It wears off and you gotta do it again."
"Shut-"
"Merchants, right? Go to the cops. Tell them that. They'll arrest you, put you in a cell, but it'll be a warm cell, and they'll feed you and clean you up. But you keep doin' this, and you're gonna cross somebody who you can't handle-"
"Shut up, shut up!" Matt cocked back the hammer on the gun, and the click echoed in the alley. The boy sank into a sideways fighting stance, shoving his sister behind him. The alley seemed to be growing darker, and his nerves were stretched past taut. "Wallets! C-come on! I don't wanna hurt you, but-"
"Aye, thou certainly do not."
The low alto voice speaking behind him nearly made Matt crap himself. He spun, pointing the gun-
-Which was caught in a strong, feminine hand and wrenched upward. Though Matt was tall, the owner of said hand stood at eye-level with him, and the metal wings attached to her helmet made her seem even taller. Worse, it extended over her eyes and nose… it wasn't just a helmet, it was a mask.
Cape! Oh God… He struggled with the gun, but it might as well have been rooted in concrete.
"Let go," she commanded. And he did, because while he might be dumb he wasn't stupid. In fact, he let go with such enthusiasm that he fell backwards onto his ass. Above him, the masked blonde smirked just the tiniest bit; then her hand squeezed, producing a brief crackle, like a potato chip being crushed. She let the mangled gun drop to the ground, landing between his legs.
Matt stared at it, then started to cry.
He heard her sigh, then speak to the man. "Thou art unharmed?"
"Uh… yeah?"
"Thy gaze speaks of doubt. What is it?"
"I just… never expected the Empire to care about a pair of… you know…"
She sighed again, exasperated. "I bear no allegiance to the Empire. I am an independent hero, and the colouring of thy skin means naught to me."
"That means… uh, zero, right?" the girl asked. "Just… y'know, making sure."
"Aisha, hush."
"Aye," replied the valkyrie. "I trust that delivering this caitiff wretch to the authorities can be trusted to thee?"
"`Caitiff wretch'? That's just straight savage."
"Aisha. Yeah, I can handle it now that you took away the gun. Thanks."
Matt saw the armoured blonde nod. "T'is but duty. Fare thee well." Then she took her hammer and spun it, and when she threw it into the air it carried her along.
The young man took a step forward as she flew away. "Wait, what's-... Shit. She didn't give her name."
"Your pickup skills need work, bro," said the girl. "So, we gonna call the cops to come bag this asshole?"
The brother looked down at Matt, his gaze hard. Matt was suddenly afraid... without the gun the tables had turned. He scooted back a step as the kid crouched down next to him.
He seemed to evaluate Matt for a moment before speaking. "Today's your lucky day… I'm not gonna call the cops." The junkie blinked.
"We're not? Fuck, Brian-"
"Aisha!" the young man snapped. He turned back to the would-be mugger. "You want my advice? Get yourself cleaned up. Next time you pull this shit, you might meet a cape who isn't so noble."
Wide-eyed, Matt nodded.
-
Meanwhile, the city's newest cape flitted about, making herself useful. Unfortunately, the responses were taking a common theme, with a question occurring again...
"Thank you, but I don't need the Empire's help."
"No Empire minion am I. I offer my service unstipulated, but not where it is unwanted."
"Er… sorry. I just… assumed."
"Aye, you did."
… and again...
"Um… you're not with E88, are you?"
"Ymir's bones…"
… and again.
"Uh-"
"Not! Empire! Wouldst thou prefer to row ashore by thyself?"
"N-no no, you just keep doing what you're doing…"
-
Despite it all, Taylor was having a very good evening. Sure, she hadn't run into any real crimes -- bar that one idiot who'd tried to rob the pair in the alley -- nor had she run into any other capes, but she'd been doing stuff. Helpful stuff! She'd even helped her old primary school teacher, Missus Mendez, across a busy street… the old woman hadn't recognized her at all! That had definitely been the height of the evening. Sure, the repeated questions of whether she belonged in the E88 were getting old, but she could see where they were coming from…
It was late, though she didn't know how late, since her transformation didn't come with a watch. She was flying over the South Docks area, wondering where to go next when Mjölnir seemed to shift in her hand. Her path began to curve, and when she corrected it the hammer just dragged her off-course again.
"What is it?" she asked. Obviously Mjölnir wanted her to go someplace in particular.
It wasn't for another minute that she recognized where they were headed: home. Her mouth dropped open as she realized how long she'd been flying around. Oh, shit! Dad! Mjölnir seemed to agree, and they accelerated.
When she reached her house it was to see her father just pulling into their driveway. Oh, shit! she thought again. She rocketed overhead into the backyard, and only just remembered to pull back in time before drilling into the dirt again.
She spun and hurled the hammer into the sky. "Fly free, Mjölnir, but listen for my call!"
Scrambling for the rear door -- which was thankfully still unlocked -- she could hear Danny opening the front at the same time. The two doors were on opposite sides of the kitchen, and she could see her Dad's back as he closed the front, setting the deadbolt. Before he could turn around she darted inside, closing the door behind her as quietly as possible, and then quickly ran into the living room.
"Taylor?"
She took a few deep breaths to catch her breath. Washing any lingering guilt off her face, she turned around and poked her head back into the kitchen. "Hey, hi!"
"Hey, hun. You're still up?"
"Yeah, I was waiting for you," Taylor replied. In a manner of speaking… Her father smiled, and it warmed her heart even as she felt guilty with the lie.
"Sorry I'm so late…"
"Don't be. Did you eat at all?"
Danny ran a hand over his balding pate. "No, I ended up working straight through. What about you?"
Taylor blinked. Now that she thought about it, she was really hungry. "I wasn't hungry. But now I am."
Her Dad looked at her with concern for a moment, then smiled. "Well, let's see what we've got in the house."
-
"Colin." A grumbling sound met the call, followed after a moment by light snoring. "Colin. Colin!"
Colin Wallis, otherwise known as Armsmaster, jerked awake. He looked around, confused for a moment -- Oh, right. Fell asleep in the lab again. Before him lay his latest obsession, a new possible accessory for his halberd. As usual, he'd lost track of time.
Beside him was a large LCD monitor, still displaying the schematics for the new electronics he'd been putting together. On top of the monitor was a standard webcam, and its green activity light was lit… which meant only one thing.
"Oh. Hello, Dragon," he greeted.
"You know, you installed that cot in the corner of the lab for a reason, Colin," the world's greatest Tinker pointed out dryly. "That circuit board next to you still has two hundred volts going through it, and you were about to drool on it."
"I don't drool."
"Uh huh. Wipe your mouth."
He did so, only realizing afterward how she'd tricked him. He rolled his eyes skyward and draw an exasperated sigh. "Did you need something?"
"I don't need anything in particular, but I've found something you might find interesting."
"And what is that?"
"I think you have a new parahuman in the Bay."
Colin raised his eyebrows, all fatigue forgotten. "What makes you think so?"
Documents began popping up on the screen, along with blurry smartphone pictures and what may have been a video from a traffic cam. "I keep an algorithm monitoring PRT and police reports. There's been a number of cape sightings tonight, and this woman appears to be the common theme. She's been witnessed helping at car accidents, rescued a cat out of a tree, and even helped a man who was out fishing in the bay back to shore after his outboard motor died."
"You monitor all the cities in America?"
"No, just the Bay."
He barely hid a foolish grin that Dragon was helping monitor his city in particular. Instead he leaned down, squinting, although he knew she would have cleaned up the image as well as it could possibly be. "Is that one of Kaiser's twins?"
"I'm pretty certain it isn't. The costume, while similar, doesn't match… Menja and Fenja favour a particular Roman theme, and this person seems to have chosen something of a cross between Gothic and Norse. Also, neither one of them wield a hammer. Besides, can you picture one of them helping an elderly, Hispanic woman across the street?"
"Eh?"
"I'm serious. Watch…" The video ballooned up to full screen and began playing. Colin could see the older woman gesturing at the traffic -- probably complaining to the blonde. The tall armoured woman stepped forward, obviously looking for a gap in the traffic.
"Why is she doing that? There's a push-to-cross button right there."
"I don't think either one of them noticed it."
Colin scowled at the women on the screen. "Push the button!"
"Colin-"
"Push the button!" He groaned and threw up his hands as the blonde walked into traffic, holding up her hammer like it was a crossing guard's sign. Cars travelling in both directions scrambled to stop, causing a mild traffic jam right in the middle of the thoroughfare. At the armoured woman's invitation the elderly lady began to cross… at a pace that would have had Colin seriously considering tasing himself with his own halberd.
"Colin, everything turns out alright," Dragon said, and the laughter could be heard in her voice. "No reported accidents, no complaints. Just a minor traffic snarl that clears right up."
"Still…" he said, dubious. The woman had finally reached the other side… one minute, thirty-seven seconds after beginning to cross. His mind and power began suggesting means of optimizing the process -- perhaps a moving sidewalk, or some kind of trebuchet...
"Watch, this is where it gets interesting."
He leaned in. The blonde was speaking, obviously making a polite farewell. Then she stepped away, her hammer gripped by the leather loop at the end of the haft. She spun it, too fast for the low-end camera to see, then flung it upward. And was carried along, past the top of the frame.
"Ever see a parahuman fly like that?"
He grunted. "Low- to mid-range Mover. Odd gimmick, but we've seen weirder. Implies the hammer might be tinkertech."
"A tinkertech hammer?" Colin made a show of pointing at his halberd. "Okay, point taken. But I wouldn't count on it… one of the police reports mention her lifting a car."
"Brute, then. Possible Alexandria package." He frowned. "The tranquilizer I was designing for Lung is ready. It would probably be effective-"
"Colin. Before you think about fighting her, maybe consider talking to her? I didn't show you all this as a warning -- taken in aggregate, it clearly shows a person with noble intentions. You know the statistics on new triggers… almost all of them go out looking for a fight, which is why so many of them get killed so quickly. This woman didn't. I don't think you have much to worry about."
"Maybe not," he conceded. "I'll keep an eye out for her." She might not be looking for a fight, but that doesn't mean one won't find her. Especially if Kaiser thinks she's sticking her thumb in his eye...
Okay, it was official: the Norse were fucked up.
Taylor sighed, closing the book and setting it down. A thick, heavy tome on ancient religions, she'd actually been quite surprised to find it in the school library; unfortunately, it didn't really concentrate on the old Norse religions, and only contained excerpts from the Prose Edda. There were other books that contained more, including one complete translation of the Edda, but Taylor had taken one look at the list of names that had previously checked out the book and decided no-way, no-how. She sure as hell didn't want any of the local E88-wannabes to see her with it and decide they had `common interests'.
Even just the glance she'd risked hadn't revealed a whole lot about Mjölnir itself… just that Loki had been a giant tool while it was being made, and the haft wasn't as long as it was supposed to be. It said that the hammer would always fly true, and "never fly so far as not to return to his hand" -- well, that checkbox had a big tick in it -- but nothing about transformations, and even the lightning wasn't explicitly mentioned-
"Oh, there you are, Taylor!"
Shit. Taylor closed her eyes in frustration… she'd let her guard down again, after promising her father that she wouldn't.
She shoved the book she held away, letting it slide across the small table that sat in Winslow's pathetic library. A clear signal: it wasn't hers, she didn't care about it… so hopefully they'd leave it alone. A moment later Emma stepped around her into view. Taylor didn't meet the redhead's eyes, instead opting to continue staring straight ahead at the bookshelves on the far wall.
"We didn't see you at all yesterday, Taylor!" Emma said in a sickly-sweet voice.
"She was probably home showering the stink off," Sophia said from behind her.
"Impossible," came Madison's voice from behind and to the left. "If she had there'd be nothing left of her." Taylor blinked. That… actually was kind of clever. Emma apparently agreed, laughing.
Congrats, Maddie. You've peaked at fifteen. It's all downhill from here.
"It's a shame, and I went through all that trouble to find out how to properly take care of a pig in its sty. Brought food scraps and everything." Oh, I'm sure you did. Emma frowned at Taylor's lack of reaction. She turned and eyed the book on the table. "`Forgotten Religions'? Seriously, Taylor? Planning on becoming a nun or something?"
If I could become a nun it wouldn't be a `forgotten religion', you stupid cow. She clenched her fists under the table. Just do whatever you're going to fucking do to me and get it over with.
"Married to God," laughed Madison, who apparently couldn't keep her faiths straight, either. "Makes sense, it's not like she's got a chance with anybody else."
"Not even that much," Emma replied. Taylor saw the malicious smirk cross the pretty girl's face out of the corner of her eye, and braced herself for the punchline. "Obviously God doesn't care about her, either. If he did, he wouldn't have killed her mother."
Taylor didn't know if anything was said after that, because all she could hear was a high-pitched ringing. She surged to her feet, fists rising; she didn't know what she was going to do, but it was going to hurt-
Her face hit the table a second later. Sophia had caught her as she stood, twisting her arm behind her and slamming her down against the wood. Taylor couldn't have beaten Sophia with a running start… with no leverage she had no chance at all. The athletic girl seemed to take pleasure in grinding her face against the table; Taylor's glasses bent and cut into the side of her temple, and the lens pressed against her eye. Oh, not my glasses, please don't break-
"God, you're so violent, Taylor!" Emma snarked. She'd been surprised for one brief moment, but Sophia's intervention had restored her confidence. "No wonder you can't keep any friends." She leaned down, her voice low and vicious. "Weak and worthless."
The hammer was miles away, but Taylor could feel it. She knew exactly where it was, and she could sense that it was eager to come to her aid… all she had to do was call. With it in hand she could smash all three of them, Emma might have a chance to learn just how `weak and worthless' she was just before Taylor turned her into a lightning rod…
And then she might as well go looking for Kaiser, because the Empire would be the only group that would want her. And after frying two white girls, perhaps not even they.
She began to cry, deep shuddering sobs choking the breath out of her even as Sophia pressed down. Her revenge -- her freedom -- was so close… so close! All she had to do was give up on everything else.
She heard Sophia snort just before letting go… as if too disgusted to touch her. Taylor ignored how her arm hurt as she wrapped them around her head, still laying on the table; her glasses were bent out of shape, but she couldn't see through the tears anyway. Still, she heard the sneer in Emma's voice: "Pathetic."
"She's making me sick to my stomach," commented Sophia. "Can we get out of here?"
"Sure, I need to talk to Mister Gladly anyway about that assignment. Bye, Taylor!" Emma said brightly, patting the other girl roughly on the head.
She didn't stop crying until long after they left.
-
Once Taylor pulled herself back together she grabbed her backpack -- which had been under the table and thankfully avoided the Bitches' interest -- and simply left. A teacher might have protested as she walked off school grounds, but if they did she didn't hear… and wouldn't have cared anyway.
She kept her hoodie up, avoiding eye contact with the few other passengers on the bus, though at that time of day it only consisted of one old woman near the front (who Taylor wasn't sure was actually aware she was on the bus) and two older teenagers dressed in rough clothing near the back.
When she got home it wasn't a surprise to find the house empty, as her father wouldn't be home for another couple of hours. He'd spent all of Thursday with her, practically hovering. It made her feel better but it was also kind of inconvenient. She appreciated his concern -- she really did -- but having him there meant she couldn't do anything with the hammer that still sat on her back step. As it was her heart jumped every time he looked out the kitchen window, half expecting him to spot the thing sitting there and wonder what it was about. By noon she'd nearly snapped and ordered him out of the house… but somehow she managed to swallow the urge.
Speaking of which…
She tossed her jacket and backpack carelessly into the porch as she entered the house, making a beeline for the back door. She hesitated just as she laid her hand on the handle; then she slowly pulled it open and looked down.
The hammer was gone.
"No," she moaned quietly. "Please, no... " Her heart felt like it had stopped beating. Tears pricked at her eyes, which were still dry and red from earlier. She looked up-
It had only moved. The hammer (Just call it Mjölnir! Jesus, Taylor!) had moved. On its own. She knew this, because the thing was currently hovering two feet off the ground, just beyond the bottom step.
Like a faithful dog waiting for its master to come home.
Her knees felt weak; she sat down on the step before they gave out on her. She stared at Mjölnir as it hovered. No -- not hovered. Hovered implied some kind of motion, like it was actively resisting gravity. The hammer was stuck in midair, like it was mounted on some kind of invisible foundation. She sat and stared at it… and had the feeling that the hammer was staring right back.
It could move on its own. It could leave, if it wanted to. It hadn't. It wanted her.
"Why? Why me?" she asked softly. Mjölnir didn't answer. She began to shout, accusing. "Why me? Why now? Why not months ago, when I wasn't so… so broken and useless!" She buried her face in her hands.
The yard rang with a faint, metallic hum… like a giant bell from far away. The note was low and mournful. Taylor looked up at the hammer, and the note faded away.
She didn't know how long she sat like that, the two of them looking at each other. When the phone rang she nearly flew off the step; blushing furiously (she'd analyze why she was embarrassed in front of a hammer later) she scrambled inside and grabbed the phone off the hook. "Hello?"
"Hi, hun. You're home?"
The proper teenage response would have been "Duh", but her Dad deserved a bit better than that. "Yeah, I got home a little while ago."
"That's good. Uh… listen, some work piled up here and I'm going to have to work late. Are you able to take care of yourself for supper?"
Taylor felt herself wilt a little. "Uh… yeah, I guess I can do that."
"I'm sorry. I know you said you wanted to cook tonight-"
"It's fine. I know how your job gets."
"I'm sorry," he said again. There was an uncomfortable silence before he asked, "How was school?"
"It was fine."
"Taylor-"
"It was fine!" She squeezed her eyes shut; she stretched the phone cord, pulling at the coils and letting them curl back up again, a little bit slower each time. "It was fine... really, Dad. Not great, not bad, just school."
"Oh. Okay. That's… good." Another tense silence drew out, and she suspected he didn't believe her but didn't want to imply she was lying to him. "Did you want me to order some pizza and have it delivered to the house?"
"No, that's okay. There's a TV dinner in the freezer, I'll have that."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure. Thanks, Dad."
"Okay. I'll try to be home as soon as I can."
"Bye."
"Bye, hun."
The line clicked, and she put the phone back onto the hook. Taking a seat on one of the old metal chairs that sat around the kitchen table, she let her hands fall to her lap. She was quiet for a long while, trying to ignore the weight that hung in the middle of her chest.
Why the hell are you upset? You've been waiting for him to be occupied.
Shaking her head, she stood and walked over to the fridge and pulled open the freezer. The TV dinner sat there, exactly as she'd said… all the fat and sodium and rubberized meat a growing girl needed. She stared at it for a moment, then shut the door. She wasn't hungry, not anymore.
Now what? She could get online, and do some more research on Thor and his hammer, or troll around PHO. She could be responsible and get her homework done… or just be a typical teenager and be a vegetable in front of the TV. She was halfway to the living room and the remote when she stopped and spun.
No. No, those weren't her only options. Fuck this. She didn't care about homework, didn't care about television, didn't care about food. There was only one thing that concerned her at that moment. Something better.
The rear door to the kitchen knocked against the wall as she tore it open and stepped outside. She didn't have any shoes on, but she didn't care about that. Mjölnir still sat in midair, unmoving and inviolable, silent and patient. She held out her hand and the hammer flew into it eagerly.
Thunder rumbled.
-
Brockton Bay looked different from the air. It'd been years since she'd had a chance to see it from above -- her one and only time she'd ever ridden in a helicopter, along with her father out to an oil rig floating just outside the bay. Even then that had mostly been over water, except for a brief view of the Protectorate HQ from a careful distance away. Her flight home two nights before had been so late at night that her only impressions from above had been of a lattice of traffic lights.
Now it was just past suppertime, and the spring sun was only beginning to sink to the horizon. The shadows cast by the tall buildings downtown lay half the city in shadow, and cars could be heard below as the last stragglers of the working day made their way home. Taylor stood on top of one of the tall buildings downtown, an office building belonging to Fortress Construction; from her vantage point she could see the entirety of the city… from the rust-coloured trainyard to the nearby PRT headquarters.
Holding her helmet in her hands, Taylor pondered what to do next. Perhaps she should have planned this out a little bit more? She really didn't have that much of a grasp on her powers... beyond knowing she was strong, could fly, and could summon lighting. Every now and then she would glance at her reflection in the polished steel of the helmet, seeing the reflection that was both hers and yet not; how did she apply what she had to being a hero?
Long ago -- while fantasizing about her cape career -- Taylor had done some research about crime rates. Apparently, late at night was the most common time for premeditated murder, since that was the time with the fewest witnesses -- but crimes like assault tended to happen during the work day, when people were awake, rising in the evenings when people were stressed and sometimes drinking it off. Burglary happened during the day, when people were at work and their homes were left empty.
She wasn't sure how well those estimates worked in Brockton Bay, which had quite possibly the highest density of capes of any city in North America. Did the criminals of the city ever stop to wonder if they were about to burglarize Purity or try to mug Oni Lee? Did it never happen, or had the news outlets become so jaded that even extreme acts of Darwinism didn't merit a side column?
So what should she do? Should she go looking to pick a fight with Hookwolf or Oni Lee? That seemed like a bad idea on her first night. What could she do?
She pressed her lips into a thin line. The only thing she couldn't do was go home… go back to being just Taylor. She couldn't handle that, not right now.
Dropping her helmet back onto her head and picking Mjölnir off her belt, she flung herself into the air. She wasn't sure what she'd do, but she'd know it when she saw it.
-
"Jesus Christ, Katie, how did you do this?"
`This' was the family sedan, which was a fairly ordinary sort of car. Unfortunately, at that moment the car currently had its passenger-side wheels hanging over a Jersey barrier that had been set at the side of the road. Katie -- a fairly ordinary teenager -- was standing beside the car, arms crossed and face sullen. Meanwhile, her mother, Meredith -- a fairly ordinary woman who was a teller at Brockton Bay Central Bank -- was looking at the state of both her daughter and her car in astonishment.
"Mom, it wasn't my fault."
"How is this not your fault? I loaned you the car because you said you'd be careful!"
"I didn't mean to drop my cellphone! I was in the middle of a text-"
"You were texting and driving?"
"Only because Chloe texted me first!"
"Jesus Christ, Katie!" Meredith buried her face in her hands. "Your father is going to have a complete goddamned meltdown when he sees this! You'll be lucky if you ever see the car keys again before you move out!"
"It's not-"
"Not another word!" Meredith rubbed her temples. "We need to call a tow truck. They might be able to get it off the barrier without damaging it too much. And let me make this clear, any repairs we need to make are coming out of your pocket!"
"But Mom-"
"No! We are not having our insurance rates go up because you can't wait ten goddamned minutes to answer a text! And so help me, Katie-"
"Might I offer assistance?" Both mother and daughter jumped as they noticed the masked woman who was currently hovering nearby, spinning something above her head. It was revealed to be a hammer as she stopped the motion, immediately dropping to the ground. The concrete sidewalk made a sharp sound at her landing, but didn't break, and Meredith was sure she heard the woman -- a cape! -- mutter "Getting better…" under her breath.
"I-..." the older woman began.
"A curious predicament," the blonde commented as she approached. She hung her hammer on a hook on her belt, and the two made way as she made her way to the car, looking it over carefully. "But one I am confident I can resolve."
With that the mysterious cape took hold of the frame and the rear tire, lifting the car gently off the Jersey barrier; then, pulling the car backwards, she rolled it on its driver-side wheels until it was clear, as easily as Meredith would roll a cart. That done, the woman carefully set the car down on all four wheels.
"Th-thank you," Meredith said. Beside her, Katie was wide-eyed but thankfully silent. "Are… are you with the Empire Eighty-eight?"
The woman frowned. "Nay, I bend no knee to Kaiser."
The woman at least looked embarrassed. "Oh. It's just that… well-"
"Well aware am I of the chosen aesthetic of Menja and Fenja. Warrior maidens they may be, but that is the extent of our similarities. Indeed," she lifted her weapon from her belt, "eager is my hammer to debate with them the merits of their philosophy."
"O-okay…"
"I must away. But first..." She pointed at Katie, her anger obvious, and the teenager went pale. "Thou art mortal. Thou canst perish, and wouldst thou pierce the hearts of thy parents with such anguish, all for the saving of a few fleeting moments? Use thy wits, girl!" With that, the armoured woman flung herself back into the air, quickly disappearing over the tops of the surrounding buildings.
The two were quiet for a long moment. Then Katie spoke in a shaky voice, "Mom, I'm sorry! Really!"
"I know, dear. Come on, let's get home."
-
Matt Nicklin wasn't a bad guy. He'd just made some poor choices. Unfortunately, those poor choices tended to pile upon one another, until he couldn't dig his way out.
For instance, he hadn't meant to get hooked on meth… he thought it'd be a lark, something silly he'd thought he'd try while drunk at a party. That first hit had been so good, and the rest of the night was some of the most fun he'd ever had in his life. Coming down, though… the hangover had been awful, so he'd had a little bit more, thinking by the time he came down again it'd be gone. Then he'd learned that it was never gone… it was always just there, waiting for him when he wasn't using. It hurt… not like a cut or a broken leg, but a deep pain like someone was hollowing him out from inside.
He would have gone to counselling, but was too embarrassed. Eventually his girlfriend threw him out. Then his parents threw him out in desperation after he'd started selling their stuff to fund his next hit. He'd hooked up with the Merchants, hoping they'd help keep him supplied; Skidmark was a crazy and scary motherfucker, but when he was in a good mood he knew how to party. But even if they offered an "employee discount", nothing was free. Matt still needed some cash.
Which is why he'd stolen the gun.
Which is why he was robbing two people in the back of an alley.
"J-just hand over your fucking wallets! Come on!" Matt tried to keep the hands holding the gun steady. The two people he'd chosen to rob -- a pair of teenagers, a dark-skinned older boy and his sister -- were staring at him nervously. The boy was big and muscular… he obviously worked out. Fortunately, Matt had a gun. The girl was curvy in a way that said she was going to be an absolute bombshell when she grew up, and she was obviously aware of it considering the way she dressed and purple streak she'd added to her hair; but while Matt might have been a junkie, he sure as fuck wasn't a pedo, so he kept his eyes on her more-dangerous brother.
"You don't want to do this, man," the boy said. His voice seemed fit for someone twice his age, low and stern.
"Sh-shut up! Wallets!"
"I know why you're doing this. How long you been without a hit? You take our money, you go get something to take care of the shakes… and then what? It wears off and you gotta do it again."
"Shut-"
"Merchants, right? Go to the cops. Tell them that. They'll arrest you, put you in a cell, but it'll be a warm cell, and they'll feed you and clean you up. But you keep doin' this, and you're gonna cross somebody who you can't handle-"
"Shut up, shut up!" Matt cocked back the hammer on the gun, and the click echoed in the alley. The boy sank into a sideways fighting stance, shoving his sister behind him. The alley seemed to be growing darker, and his nerves were stretched past taut. "Wallets! C-come on! I don't wanna hurt you, but-"
"Aye, thou certainly do not."
The low alto voice speaking behind him nearly made Matt crap himself. He spun, pointing the gun-
-Which was caught in a strong, feminine hand and wrenched upward. Though Matt was tall, the owner of said hand stood at eye-level with him, and the metal wings attached to her helmet made her seem even taller. Worse, it extended over her eyes and nose… it wasn't just a helmet, it was a mask.
Cape! Oh God… He struggled with the gun, but it might as well have been rooted in concrete.
"Let go," she commanded. And he did, because while he might be dumb he wasn't stupid. In fact, he let go with such enthusiasm that he fell backwards onto his ass. Above him, the masked blonde smirked just the tiniest bit; then her hand squeezed, producing a brief crackle, like a potato chip being crushed. She let the mangled gun drop to the ground, landing between his legs.
Matt stared at it, then started to cry.
He heard her sigh, then speak to the man. "Thou art unharmed?"
"Uh… yeah?"
"Thy gaze speaks of doubt. What is it?"
"I just… never expected the Empire to care about a pair of… you know…"
She sighed again, exasperated. "I bear no allegiance to the Empire. I am an independent hero, and the colouring of thy skin means naught to me."
"That means… uh, zero, right?" the girl asked. "Just… y'know, making sure."
"Aisha, hush."
"Aye," replied the valkyrie. "I trust that delivering this caitiff wretch to the authorities can be trusted to thee?"
"`Caitiff wretch'? That's just straight savage."
"Aisha. Yeah, I can handle it now that you took away the gun. Thanks."
Matt saw the armoured blonde nod. "T'is but duty. Fare thee well." Then she took her hammer and spun it, and when she threw it into the air it carried her along.
The young man took a step forward as she flew away. "Wait, what's-... Shit. She didn't give her name."
"Your pickup skills need work, bro," said the girl. "So, we gonna call the cops to come bag this asshole?"
The brother looked down at Matt, his gaze hard. Matt was suddenly afraid... without the gun the tables had turned. He scooted back a step as the kid crouched down next to him.
He seemed to evaluate Matt for a moment before speaking. "Today's your lucky day… I'm not gonna call the cops." The junkie blinked.
"We're not? Fuck, Brian-"
"Aisha!" the young man snapped. He turned back to the would-be mugger. "You want my advice? Get yourself cleaned up. Next time you pull this shit, you might meet a cape who isn't so noble."
Wide-eyed, Matt nodded.
-
Meanwhile, the city's newest cape flitted about, making herself useful. Unfortunately, the responses were taking a common theme, with a question occurring again...
"Thank you, but I don't need the Empire's help."
"No Empire minion am I. I offer my service unstipulated, but not where it is unwanted."
"Er… sorry. I just… assumed."
"Aye, you did."
… and again...
"Um… you're not with E88, are you?"
"Ymir's bones…"
… and again.
"Uh-"
"Not! Empire! Wouldst thou prefer to row ashore by thyself?"
"N-no no, you just keep doing what you're doing…"
-
Despite it all, Taylor was having a very good evening. Sure, she hadn't run into any real crimes -- bar that one idiot who'd tried to rob the pair in the alley -- nor had she run into any other capes, but she'd been doing stuff. Helpful stuff! She'd even helped her old primary school teacher, Missus Mendez, across a busy street… the old woman hadn't recognized her at all! That had definitely been the height of the evening. Sure, the repeated questions of whether she belonged in the E88 were getting old, but she could see where they were coming from…
It was late, though she didn't know how late, since her transformation didn't come with a watch. She was flying over the South Docks area, wondering where to go next when Mjölnir seemed to shift in her hand. Her path began to curve, and when she corrected it the hammer just dragged her off-course again.
"What is it?" she asked. Obviously Mjölnir wanted her to go someplace in particular.
It wasn't for another minute that she recognized where they were headed: home. Her mouth dropped open as she realized how long she'd been flying around. Oh, shit! Dad! Mjölnir seemed to agree, and they accelerated.
When she reached her house it was to see her father just pulling into their driveway. Oh, shit! she thought again. She rocketed overhead into the backyard, and only just remembered to pull back in time before drilling into the dirt again.
She spun and hurled the hammer into the sky. "Fly free, Mjölnir, but listen for my call!"
Scrambling for the rear door -- which was thankfully still unlocked -- she could hear Danny opening the front at the same time. The two doors were on opposite sides of the kitchen, and she could see her Dad's back as he closed the front, setting the deadbolt. Before he could turn around she darted inside, closing the door behind her as quietly as possible, and then quickly ran into the living room.
"Taylor?"
She took a few deep breaths to catch her breath. Washing any lingering guilt off her face, she turned around and poked her head back into the kitchen. "Hey, hi!"
"Hey, hun. You're still up?"
"Yeah, I was waiting for you," Taylor replied. In a manner of speaking… Her father smiled, and it warmed her heart even as she felt guilty with the lie.
"Sorry I'm so late…"
"Don't be. Did you eat at all?"
Danny ran a hand over his balding pate. "No, I ended up working straight through. What about you?"
Taylor blinked. Now that she thought about it, she was really hungry. "I wasn't hungry. But now I am."
Her Dad looked at her with concern for a moment, then smiled. "Well, let's see what we've got in the house."
-
"Colin." A grumbling sound met the call, followed after a moment by light snoring. "Colin. Colin!"
Colin Wallis, otherwise known as Armsmaster, jerked awake. He looked around, confused for a moment -- Oh, right. Fell asleep in the lab again. Before him lay his latest obsession, a new possible accessory for his halberd. As usual, he'd lost track of time.
Beside him was a large LCD monitor, still displaying the schematics for the new electronics he'd been putting together. On top of the monitor was a standard webcam, and its green activity light was lit… which meant only one thing.
"Oh. Hello, Dragon," he greeted.
"You know, you installed that cot in the corner of the lab for a reason, Colin," the world's greatest Tinker pointed out dryly. "That circuit board next to you still has two hundred volts going through it, and you were about to drool on it."
"I don't drool."
"Uh huh. Wipe your mouth."
He did so, only realizing afterward how she'd tricked him. He rolled his eyes skyward and draw an exasperated sigh. "Did you need something?"
"I don't need anything in particular, but I've found something you might find interesting."
"And what is that?"
"I think you have a new parahuman in the Bay."
Colin raised his eyebrows, all fatigue forgotten. "What makes you think so?"
Documents began popping up on the screen, along with blurry smartphone pictures and what may have been a video from a traffic cam. "I keep an algorithm monitoring PRT and police reports. There's been a number of cape sightings tonight, and this woman appears to be the common theme. She's been witnessed helping at car accidents, rescued a cat out of a tree, and even helped a man who was out fishing in the bay back to shore after his outboard motor died."
"You monitor all the cities in America?"
"No, just the Bay."
He barely hid a foolish grin that Dragon was helping monitor his city in particular. Instead he leaned down, squinting, although he knew she would have cleaned up the image as well as it could possibly be. "Is that one of Kaiser's twins?"
"I'm pretty certain it isn't. The costume, while similar, doesn't match… Menja and Fenja favour a particular Roman theme, and this person seems to have chosen something of a cross between Gothic and Norse. Also, neither one of them wield a hammer. Besides, can you picture one of them helping an elderly, Hispanic woman across the street?"
"Eh?"
"I'm serious. Watch…" The video ballooned up to full screen and began playing. Colin could see the older woman gesturing at the traffic -- probably complaining to the blonde. The tall armoured woman stepped forward, obviously looking for a gap in the traffic.
"Why is she doing that? There's a push-to-cross button right there."
"I don't think either one of them noticed it."
Colin scowled at the women on the screen. "Push the button!"
"Colin-"
"Push the button!" He groaned and threw up his hands as the blonde walked into traffic, holding up her hammer like it was a crossing guard's sign. Cars travelling in both directions scrambled to stop, causing a mild traffic jam right in the middle of the thoroughfare. At the armoured woman's invitation the elderly lady began to cross… at a pace that would have had Colin seriously considering tasing himself with his own halberd.
"Colin, everything turns out alright," Dragon said, and the laughter could be heard in her voice. "No reported accidents, no complaints. Just a minor traffic snarl that clears right up."
"Still…" he said, dubious. The woman had finally reached the other side… one minute, thirty-seven seconds after beginning to cross. His mind and power began suggesting means of optimizing the process -- perhaps a moving sidewalk, or some kind of trebuchet...
"Watch, this is where it gets interesting."
He leaned in. The blonde was speaking, obviously making a polite farewell. Then she stepped away, her hammer gripped by the leather loop at the end of the haft. She spun it, too fast for the low-end camera to see, then flung it upward. And was carried along, past the top of the frame.
"Ever see a parahuman fly like that?"
He grunted. "Low- to mid-range Mover. Odd gimmick, but we've seen weirder. Implies the hammer might be tinkertech."
"A tinkertech hammer?" Colin made a show of pointing at his halberd. "Okay, point taken. But I wouldn't count on it… one of the police reports mention her lifting a car."
"Brute, then. Possible Alexandria package." He frowned. "The tranquilizer I was designing for Lung is ready. It would probably be effective-"
"Colin. Before you think about fighting her, maybe consider talking to her? I didn't show you all this as a warning -- taken in aggregate, it clearly shows a person with noble intentions. You know the statistics on new triggers… almost all of them go out looking for a fight, which is why so many of them get killed so quickly. This woman didn't. I don't think you have much to worry about."
"Maybe not," he conceded. "I'll keep an eye out for her." She might not be looking for a fight, but that doesn't mean one won't find her. Especially if Kaiser thinks she's sticking her thumb in his eye...
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Chapter 1.3
- Location
- Under Leviathan's left foot
Taylor rode the high from her first outing all the way through the weekend. She may not have gotten into any cape fights, but she'd been out, she'd been seen, and she'd been helping. It was the start of her hero career… it was her future, when she'd be seriously doubting she'd have one at all.
So the bullying simply didn't bother her. Madison still dumped juice on her seat, still stole her homework; Sophia still tripped and shoved her, or stomped on her lunch; and Emma continued her whisper campaign, insulting Taylor's looks and health and sexuality, and even slipping in a cruel comment about her dead mother now that she knew how it affected her.
Or had affected her. It was awful, but it was temporary, and Taylor knew that Mjölnir was waiting to take her away from it all with but a call. The simple existence of an escape gave her courage, armour to get through the day.
She should have known that Emma wouldn't allow such a thing to stand.
She'd been sitting quietly in the Computer Studies classroom; it was her one class free from the Trio, so she hadn't needed to be on guard. As usual, she'd finished the assigned work in a quarter of the time as the other students, and was enjoying the rest of the period entertaining herself in the one place in Winslow where she could do so. Browsing PHO, specifically… trying to find out if anyone had mentioned her outing Friday night. So far there was only a single thread, asking about a possible new "Viking cape". A bit disappointing, but hey… at least they got the Viking part right, and didn't accuse said cape of being part of the Empire. That was getting old fast.
It was then that the school secretary's voice rang out over the school's ancient PA system: "Taylor Hebert, please report to the Principal's Office. Taylor Hebert, please report to the Principal's Office."
Taylor looked up with concern at Mrs Knott; the homely woman only nodded. Gathering up her bookbag, she quietly left the room and walked to the main office. The trip was tense -- the halls were empty, which meant no witnesses… the Trio did some of their worst work when nobody else could see. When she finally arrived at the office it was with a mix of relief and trepidation. The secretary waved her into the Principal's office with a mixture of impatience and annoyance, which Taylor couldn't help but feel was mutual.
Principal Blackwell looked up when Taylor knocked on the doorframe. She frowned and set aside some paperwork she'd been working on. "Close the door, Miss Hebert, and please sit down."
She did so, feeling her nervousness rise. If the Trio was to have a fourth member, Taylor was sure Blackwell would be it… though she'd definitely be the most junior member, thanks to her atrocious haircut and depressing clothing style, which Emma would (and did) mock relentlessly. Taking a seat on the old, metal-framed chair in front of the principal's desk, Taylor set her bookbag between her feet.
Blackwell folded her hands on her desk. "Miss Hebert, you are aware that Winslow has a zero-tolerance policy towards drugs, yes?"
Taylor stared at her, confused. "Yes?" she answered hesitantly.
"Then you understand why I'm concerned when I receive reports that you have been witnessed both using and dealing drugs on school property."
Her jaw fell open. "What?"
"This is a very serious accusation, of course, and one that I can't ignore."
"Who said I've been dealing? Wait, forget that… I know."
"So you deny it?"
"Of course I deny it!"
"You realize I can't accept that at your word, correct? I'm going to have to ask to search both your locker and your bookbag."
"Go ahead! You'll find the locker empty, because I don't use it, and you know why. My bookbag is right here." She lifted the bag and handed it over without hesitation… there was nothing in it other than her books and her notes on the hammer -- which she'd deliberately kept too vague to be useful.
Blackwell took the bag, and with a meticulousness that was entirely lacking in certain previous investigations, carefully rooted through it, removing the books and papers and even feeling the fabric for hidden pockets. When she was done she gave Taylor a suspicious look and packed everything back in carelessly.
"Very well," the principal said, handing the bag back over. Taylor had to avoid snatching it out of her grip. "Assuming your locker is clear as you claim, I'm willing to ignore the one accusation."
"Good," Taylor snapped.
"There is the matter of you taking drugs yourself, however."
"I do not do drugs!"
"No?" Blackwell folded her hands again, leaning forward. "I've had more than one of my teachers describe you as sullen and withdrawn in class, Miss Hebert. You pass in your homework rarely, if ever, sometimes in a damaged state. You frequently skip class. And I've noted myself that you often disappear to unknown places during the lunch hour. You realize what kind of picture this paints, yes?"
Taylor wanted to cover her face and scream. "You know why all those things happen!" she snapped.
"I know what you've told me, Miss Hebert," Blackwell replied, voice hard. "But you are not the first student to try to hide by deflecting onto others."
"Hela's tits," Taylor hissed to herself. "I do not do drugs! I'll prove it! You need me to pee in a cup? I'll pee in a cup!"
"Only your father can authorize such a test, Miss Hebert. I can, however, suspend you until such time as your father either provides the results of a drug test, or he reports to me that you've entered drug counselling. Is that the option you'd prefer?"
It was on the tip of her tongue to howl `yes'. A vacation from school followed by an inevitable apology? Sign her up!
But what would it mean? It would mean her father watching her like a hawk. Brockton Bay had some of the worst drug-use statistics on the east coast, thanks to the ongoing economic depression and the help of the gangs. The Merchants were even known to forcibly addict people! Even if he didn't know how to deal with her the rest of the time, he'd take an accusation of drug abuse seriously. She wouldn't be able to get out to help the city, to be a cape. Or worse, he'd find out about her powers… and because he had no idea how to deal with them, he'd pawn her off on the only people he'd trust to do so: the Wards.
Taylor didn't dislike the Wards. But she wanted to join on her own time, on her own terms. She wanted to establish herself first, so that she wouldn't be the Ward who was picked on and put down in her civilian life. How could the PRT take her seriously as a hero, if she couldn't even handle some school bullies? Worse, the Wards were teenagers themselves… would they be any different from the people she put up with already -- the bystanders, the opportunists, the hangers-on?
A chill hand gripped her heart. Would they take away Mjölnir? They'd want to study it, wouldn't they? Why would they leave it in the hands of a teenage girl who probably ticked off one too many boxes on the "Future School Shooter" list when they could simply hand it off to a room full of Tinkers and Thinkers and try to figure out how it worked?
She squeezed her eyes shut, denying the tears. Emma… Emma had set all this into motion, because Taylor hadn't been acting sufficiently weak and frightened. Taylor's only options were to blow the whole thing open and risk everything she was working for… or to roll over and show her belly.
"Well, Miss Hebert?"
Which was more important: trying to repair her pathetic existence as a student, or building her future as a hero?
It wasn't even a question.
"I don't want to be suspended," she rasped, defeat in her voice. "I'm not doing drugs, and I don't know how to prove it to you. But I want to stay in school."
Blackwell nodded, her expression smug. "That's a wise attitude. I hope you'll hang onto it." She rapped her desk lightly with her knuckles. "Very well. I won't advocate a suspension just yet. But I want you to understand, you'll be watched very closely… demonstrations of self-destructive behaviour will force our intercession. But by the same token, if you're struggling with addiction or other problems, I hope you'll come to us first. There are programs you can draw upon."
I came to you with my problem, and you've only made it worse, she thought bitterly. "I understand. Can I go now?"
Blackwell nodded sharply -- even her hair was as stiff and unmoving. "Fine. I hope I won't have to call you down here again, Miss Hebert."
"You won't." Standing, Taylor picked up her bag walked out of the office. It felt like a walk of shame; even the secretary gave her a disapproving look as she passed by.
At some point the lunch bell had rung, and the halls were full of students walking to the cafeteria or sneaking off-campus to catch a smoke break or otherwise occupy the hour. Not all, though: across the school lobby, leaning against a wall, were Emma and her cronies… waiting to see the results of their little ploy. The redhead noticed her almost immediately, and the two girls' eyes met. There was a moment, then Taylor let her gaze drop submissively.
You win, Emma. She didn't have to see to know the redhead was smiling triumphantly.
It was worth it. It had to be.
-
Needless to say, when Taylor snuck out that night, she wasn't in the mood to help kittens out of trees. She wanted a fight… a cape fight. Something to prove herself, and make the city better at the same time. And after Emma's accusation, she'd decided Skidmark would be ideal. Of course, the trick would be finding him.
She and her father had shared a quiet, morose supper. Danny had felt the change in her mood, but didn't know how to address it. So he didn't, and Taylor didn't volunteer. Eventually she'd begged off, claiming tiredness and wanting to do her homework before bed. He'd agreed, and she'd headed straight to her room.
Taylor didn't bother with the homework. There was no point… the Bitches would steal or destroy it anyway. She wasn't worried about Blackwell's ultimatum since it was all bullshit -- she didn't care what Taylor did so long as she stayed under the radar. No danger of that, so long as Emma stayed silent, and she would be so long as her favourite punching bag was handy. Emma wanted Taylor to stay in school… so that she could stand on the other girl's back.
Straight into bed she went, wearing a t-shirt and shorts to sleep in. She even managed to nap a bit, ignoring the leaden feel of her stomach, until she was woken by the sound of her bedroom door opening slightly -- her father, checking up on her. She pretended to be asleep, waited for the door to close again.
Time did that weird stretching thing it always did when waiting eagerly for something; she didn't know how long she lay there awake, only that she did until she heard the light snoring of her dad from his own room. In a flash she hopped out of bed and went straight to her window.
There was a trellis just outside her window. It never supported plants, and her father knew she could climb out her window using it. In fact, it had been installed for that very purpose, at the insistence of her mother -- Annette Hebert had been far more concerned about her daughter being caught upstairs during a fire than she had been about Taylor sneaking off in the middle of the night to drink or meet boys. Taylor's bare feet met the cold ground, and she began to run… down the sidewalk, away from her house. Her bare feet made light slapping sounds against the chill of the concrete beneath. She whispered, but for the thing she called to, a whisper was as good as a shout: "Mjölnir."
She was a block away when the hammer swooped down. Leaping into the air, Taylor caught the haft as it passed by; there was a rumble of thunder, and the schoolgirl was gone.
-
Skidmark was hard to find, which was proving to be really irritating. She couldn't understand it -- the gang leader was a well-documented obnoxious loudmouth, with low intelligence and nonexistent impulse control. His girlfriend was infamous for building huge, loud vehicles. How did a cape like that stay under the radar? Apparently the answer was: very successfully.
Taylor had crisscrossed the Docks five times from the air, and searched the trainyard twice -- no sign of Skidmark, or even Squealer or Mush. She'd stopped one attempted mugging or perhaps rape -- she wasn't just going to fly past something like that -- but even that hadn't involved punching someone… the instant she dropped from the sky the creep had gone wide-eyed and dropped to his knees with his hands behind his head. Lacking any zip-ties, Taylor had literally tossed him into the nearest dumpster and crumpled the metal lids so they wouldn't open. After making sure the would-be victim was okay and could call it in, she was back into the air.
It was well past midnight (she assumed… she really needed to figure out some way to have a watch or something with her in costume) when she finally saw a group of men standing together on a street in a dark section of the Docks. Setting down on a nearby rooftop (and thankful that she'd learned how to land gently, as opposed to plowing into the floor below) she creeped over to the edge to investigate and see what was going on.
Her helmet poked up over the brick parapet and she frowned as she finally got a good look and the collection of young men. These definitely weren't Merchants… every single one of the men was Asian, and their green and red colours marked them as part of the Azn Bad Boyz. More were arriving slowly, in ones and twos, and all of them were armed -- most with pistols, but one carried a hunting rifle and another had what looked like an Uzi. Only one wasn't carrying a weapon, one of the latest arrivals; a big man, he was shirtless and covered in tattoos, and a metal mask covered his face-
Taylor drew a breath and ducked down. Lung. That was the only person it could possibly be… the leader of the ABB, the Dragon of Kyushu himself.
It was time to leave. She'd wanted a cape fight, but taking on Lung was setting the bar a little high. The man had outfought entire teams of capes, and was most famous for going one-on-one with an Endbringer. It was only her second night out… there was wanting to test herself, and then there was being stupid; she was pretty sure going up against Lung qualified as the second.
He was talking to his troops down below. It was a good time to make her getaway, they'd be paying attention to him rather than looking up-
"-the children, just shoot." Taylor blinked as she heard Lung give his orders in his heavy accent. They were going to kill kids?
Well… shit.
She couldn't leave now. What kind of hero would she be if she did? A cowardly one, that's what. One that ran when she was needed most. Worthless. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
She looked down at Mjölnir. "Thou hast given me a gift beyond compare, my friend," she said quietly, "I shall not squander it." The hammer said nothing; the approval she felt was probably just her imagination. Then she took hold of the brick parapet and flung herself off the roof, cape billowing behind her.
She didn't bother softening her landing, the asphalt paving thundering under her armoured feet as she hit the ground, her cape billowing. The mooks all stumbled back and away from the new arrival, weapons rising -- one even accidentally collided with Lung and was smacked away for it. There was a quiet moment as everyone stared at their unexpected guest, even Lung.
Had she been herself, she probably couldn't even have spoken -- she would have been shaking too hard. Instead her voice was strong and confident: "Think ye slayers of children? I say thee nay!"
The mooks looked to their boss, who had already grown two inches just from her sudden appearance. The big man's visible lip curled into a sneer, and when he spoke it was with as little emotion as ordering pizza. "Kill her."
Taylor knew she was tough; several rough landings while learning to fly had proven that. But she'd never tested herself against bullets, so when the first came flying at her she instinctively crouched and shielded herself with her armoured left arm. But the rounds bounced off her bare skin, feeling for all the world like someone was throwing peas at her; she blinked as a rifle shot deflected off her chin.
Heh... kinda tickles.
Then she was moving. One of the gun-wielding thugs was wearing a hoodie that was almost identical to one of her own; she decided this offended her, so she went after him first, grabbing him by the front of his clothing and flinging him behind her. There was a muffled thud as he hit the wall, but she'd already moved on, her hammer shattering the rifle held by one guy even as her hand caught and crushed a pistol by another. They were shooting wildly, panicked, and they were more likely to kill one another than they were to injure her.
At least until Lung enter the fray a moment later, colliding with her, pushing her back. He towered over her already; one hand caught the wrist holding the hammer while another grabbed her throat, and fire was everywhere… she could feel the heat, she knew it was hot, but it wasn't damaging her. Her back hit the wall, and she could feel the brick crumbling like old cheese around her shoulders.
Her fist found his gut, and despite his bulk his breath left him in a gust of flame. Grabbing his neck, she slammed him face-first into the same wall he'd been sincerely trying to bash her through; then -- with pure, raw strength -- she picked him up and smashed him bodily against the ground, her hand still on his neck as she ground his face into the asphalt.
Holding him there, Taylor glared at the surrounding mooks. "Begone," she commanded, "whilst your leader and I have words."
She didn't get a chance to see if they obeyed, because Lung had gone berserk. He thrashed under her hand, swelling, growing until she couldn't keep a grip, and even though he couldn't rise under her strength he was clawing at the ground as if to burrow under. Scales were popping out of every inch of his torso and arms, and the fire had grown so hot the asphalt was melting.
His thrashing arms caught her in the ankles and knocked her off her feet, and in the blink of an eye he was on top of her, pounding with fists that were changing into claws, incoherent with fury.
"I 'ill 'ill you!"
She was being driven down through the asphalt, his blows against her head making her helmet -- and ears -- ring like she'd stuck her head inside a giant bell. When Lung lifted a fist to smash her again she threw her hammer, catching him on the side of the jaw, lifting him almost to his feet; she rolled to her knees, and as she caught Mjölnir she brought it down squarely on his knee, shattering it to crumbs. Lung howled with pain and collapsed, only to catch her hammer yet again on the backswing. This time he was lifted from his feet, flung across the entirety of the street to impact the buildings opposite. A loading bay door crumpled under the impact, a few cardboard boxes that had been piled for trash nearby igniting just from proximity to the draconic cape.
Lung stood, shaking away the dizziness from her blow. His fists clenched, his entire body quivering from his rage, and Taylor watched in amazement as he grew six inches on the spot, nearly topping ten feet. The flesh of his knee snapped back into place, and he turned and roared at her, a terrifying sight.
Eldþurs, she thought, the word jumping into her head. Fire giant.
Taylor was frightened. Taylor was thrilled.
His roar echoed off the buildings as he charged. Ducking a swinging claw, her hammer smashed his exposed elbow and reduced it to splinters. He ignored the pain and swung the arm anyway, catching her bodily in a tremendous backhand. Taylor flew, feeling a wall give way around her, and then another. She crashed through some equipment left behind in an old, abandoned machining shop -- a big industrial lathe blew into spare parts as it brought a halt to her trajectory.
She'd felt that one. But she jumped to her feet, a grin on her face. Is this `pathetic', Madison?
Lung crashed through the wall of the machine shop, erasing the hole she'd made; he caught Mjölnir right in the center of his chest, knocking him right back out again. The hammer returned to her hand as she gave chase.
He was twelve feet tall now, fully healed, and anything around him that could burn was burning. Taylor charged through the flames, sidestepping a blow that pulverized the ground behind her. Once again she smashed his knee, sending scales flying; the cape didn't collapse, instead kicking her with a clawed foot. She was knocked into the air, but this time she flipped and landed in a sprinter's stance, digging three lines straight into the pavement as she skidded to a stop.
"Hah!"
Is this `weak', Sophia?
Mjölnir flew. Lung wasn't just bigger, he was faster, and he caught the hammer as it came at his head. At some point his mask had been knocked off, revealing a face that was more demonic than human, and his orange, glowing eyes went wide as he was thrown backwards, dragged along, his huge, beast-like hand pinned to the ground. He rolled to his feet and heaved with a roar, determined to smash this damned woman with her own weapon, but it refused to move, and the ground beneath his feet crumbled as he strained.
He can't move it? Taylor wondered.
He's not worthy, the answer came to her.
"Hahah!" She leaped high, Mjölnir darting to meet her, and Lung stumbed as his burden suddenly disappeared. She caught him on his muzzle with a blow that rippled down his entire body to shake the surrounding buildings. He was brought to his knees, and her return stroke blasted him into a warehouse that collapsed in a shower of metal siding and steel beams.
The ABB leader exploded out of the wreckage a moment later, a creature of mythical power and rage, sending debris flying in every direction. His glowing eyes locked on her, seething with hate.
"Is this worthless, Emma?" she roared. Lung snarled as he lunged at her. Mjölnir sang as it met him halfway, and Taylor crashed into him an eyeblink later.
"Ahahahah!"
So the bullying simply didn't bother her. Madison still dumped juice on her seat, still stole her homework; Sophia still tripped and shoved her, or stomped on her lunch; and Emma continued her whisper campaign, insulting Taylor's looks and health and sexuality, and even slipping in a cruel comment about her dead mother now that she knew how it affected her.
Or had affected her. It was awful, but it was temporary, and Taylor knew that Mjölnir was waiting to take her away from it all with but a call. The simple existence of an escape gave her courage, armour to get through the day.
She should have known that Emma wouldn't allow such a thing to stand.
She'd been sitting quietly in the Computer Studies classroom; it was her one class free from the Trio, so she hadn't needed to be on guard. As usual, she'd finished the assigned work in a quarter of the time as the other students, and was enjoying the rest of the period entertaining herself in the one place in Winslow where she could do so. Browsing PHO, specifically… trying to find out if anyone had mentioned her outing Friday night. So far there was only a single thread, asking about a possible new "Viking cape". A bit disappointing, but hey… at least they got the Viking part right, and didn't accuse said cape of being part of the Empire. That was getting old fast.
It was then that the school secretary's voice rang out over the school's ancient PA system: "Taylor Hebert, please report to the Principal's Office. Taylor Hebert, please report to the Principal's Office."
Taylor looked up with concern at Mrs Knott; the homely woman only nodded. Gathering up her bookbag, she quietly left the room and walked to the main office. The trip was tense -- the halls were empty, which meant no witnesses… the Trio did some of their worst work when nobody else could see. When she finally arrived at the office it was with a mix of relief and trepidation. The secretary waved her into the Principal's office with a mixture of impatience and annoyance, which Taylor couldn't help but feel was mutual.
Principal Blackwell looked up when Taylor knocked on the doorframe. She frowned and set aside some paperwork she'd been working on. "Close the door, Miss Hebert, and please sit down."
She did so, feeling her nervousness rise. If the Trio was to have a fourth member, Taylor was sure Blackwell would be it… though she'd definitely be the most junior member, thanks to her atrocious haircut and depressing clothing style, which Emma would (and did) mock relentlessly. Taking a seat on the old, metal-framed chair in front of the principal's desk, Taylor set her bookbag between her feet.
Blackwell folded her hands on her desk. "Miss Hebert, you are aware that Winslow has a zero-tolerance policy towards drugs, yes?"
Taylor stared at her, confused. "Yes?" she answered hesitantly.
"Then you understand why I'm concerned when I receive reports that you have been witnessed both using and dealing drugs on school property."
Her jaw fell open. "What?"
"This is a very serious accusation, of course, and one that I can't ignore."
"Who said I've been dealing? Wait, forget that… I know."
"So you deny it?"
"Of course I deny it!"
"You realize I can't accept that at your word, correct? I'm going to have to ask to search both your locker and your bookbag."
"Go ahead! You'll find the locker empty, because I don't use it, and you know why. My bookbag is right here." She lifted the bag and handed it over without hesitation… there was nothing in it other than her books and her notes on the hammer -- which she'd deliberately kept too vague to be useful.
Blackwell took the bag, and with a meticulousness that was entirely lacking in certain previous investigations, carefully rooted through it, removing the books and papers and even feeling the fabric for hidden pockets. When she was done she gave Taylor a suspicious look and packed everything back in carelessly.
"Very well," the principal said, handing the bag back over. Taylor had to avoid snatching it out of her grip. "Assuming your locker is clear as you claim, I'm willing to ignore the one accusation."
"Good," Taylor snapped.
"There is the matter of you taking drugs yourself, however."
"I do not do drugs!"
"No?" Blackwell folded her hands again, leaning forward. "I've had more than one of my teachers describe you as sullen and withdrawn in class, Miss Hebert. You pass in your homework rarely, if ever, sometimes in a damaged state. You frequently skip class. And I've noted myself that you often disappear to unknown places during the lunch hour. You realize what kind of picture this paints, yes?"
Taylor wanted to cover her face and scream. "You know why all those things happen!" she snapped.
"I know what you've told me, Miss Hebert," Blackwell replied, voice hard. "But you are not the first student to try to hide by deflecting onto others."
"Hela's tits," Taylor hissed to herself. "I do not do drugs! I'll prove it! You need me to pee in a cup? I'll pee in a cup!"
"Only your father can authorize such a test, Miss Hebert. I can, however, suspend you until such time as your father either provides the results of a drug test, or he reports to me that you've entered drug counselling. Is that the option you'd prefer?"
It was on the tip of her tongue to howl `yes'. A vacation from school followed by an inevitable apology? Sign her up!
But what would it mean? It would mean her father watching her like a hawk. Brockton Bay had some of the worst drug-use statistics on the east coast, thanks to the ongoing economic depression and the help of the gangs. The Merchants were even known to forcibly addict people! Even if he didn't know how to deal with her the rest of the time, he'd take an accusation of drug abuse seriously. She wouldn't be able to get out to help the city, to be a cape. Or worse, he'd find out about her powers… and because he had no idea how to deal with them, he'd pawn her off on the only people he'd trust to do so: the Wards.
Taylor didn't dislike the Wards. But she wanted to join on her own time, on her own terms. She wanted to establish herself first, so that she wouldn't be the Ward who was picked on and put down in her civilian life. How could the PRT take her seriously as a hero, if she couldn't even handle some school bullies? Worse, the Wards were teenagers themselves… would they be any different from the people she put up with already -- the bystanders, the opportunists, the hangers-on?
A chill hand gripped her heart. Would they take away Mjölnir? They'd want to study it, wouldn't they? Why would they leave it in the hands of a teenage girl who probably ticked off one too many boxes on the "Future School Shooter" list when they could simply hand it off to a room full of Tinkers and Thinkers and try to figure out how it worked?
She squeezed her eyes shut, denying the tears. Emma… Emma had set all this into motion, because Taylor hadn't been acting sufficiently weak and frightened. Taylor's only options were to blow the whole thing open and risk everything she was working for… or to roll over and show her belly.
"Well, Miss Hebert?"
Which was more important: trying to repair her pathetic existence as a student, or building her future as a hero?
It wasn't even a question.
"I don't want to be suspended," she rasped, defeat in her voice. "I'm not doing drugs, and I don't know how to prove it to you. But I want to stay in school."
Blackwell nodded, her expression smug. "That's a wise attitude. I hope you'll hang onto it." She rapped her desk lightly with her knuckles. "Very well. I won't advocate a suspension just yet. But I want you to understand, you'll be watched very closely… demonstrations of self-destructive behaviour will force our intercession. But by the same token, if you're struggling with addiction or other problems, I hope you'll come to us first. There are programs you can draw upon."
I came to you with my problem, and you've only made it worse, she thought bitterly. "I understand. Can I go now?"
Blackwell nodded sharply -- even her hair was as stiff and unmoving. "Fine. I hope I won't have to call you down here again, Miss Hebert."
"You won't." Standing, Taylor picked up her bag walked out of the office. It felt like a walk of shame; even the secretary gave her a disapproving look as she passed by.
At some point the lunch bell had rung, and the halls were full of students walking to the cafeteria or sneaking off-campus to catch a smoke break or otherwise occupy the hour. Not all, though: across the school lobby, leaning against a wall, were Emma and her cronies… waiting to see the results of their little ploy. The redhead noticed her almost immediately, and the two girls' eyes met. There was a moment, then Taylor let her gaze drop submissively.
You win, Emma. She didn't have to see to know the redhead was smiling triumphantly.
It was worth it. It had to be.
-
Needless to say, when Taylor snuck out that night, she wasn't in the mood to help kittens out of trees. She wanted a fight… a cape fight. Something to prove herself, and make the city better at the same time. And after Emma's accusation, she'd decided Skidmark would be ideal. Of course, the trick would be finding him.
She and her father had shared a quiet, morose supper. Danny had felt the change in her mood, but didn't know how to address it. So he didn't, and Taylor didn't volunteer. Eventually she'd begged off, claiming tiredness and wanting to do her homework before bed. He'd agreed, and she'd headed straight to her room.
Taylor didn't bother with the homework. There was no point… the Bitches would steal or destroy it anyway. She wasn't worried about Blackwell's ultimatum since it was all bullshit -- she didn't care what Taylor did so long as she stayed under the radar. No danger of that, so long as Emma stayed silent, and she would be so long as her favourite punching bag was handy. Emma wanted Taylor to stay in school… so that she could stand on the other girl's back.
Straight into bed she went, wearing a t-shirt and shorts to sleep in. She even managed to nap a bit, ignoring the leaden feel of her stomach, until she was woken by the sound of her bedroom door opening slightly -- her father, checking up on her. She pretended to be asleep, waited for the door to close again.
Time did that weird stretching thing it always did when waiting eagerly for something; she didn't know how long she lay there awake, only that she did until she heard the light snoring of her dad from his own room. In a flash she hopped out of bed and went straight to her window.
There was a trellis just outside her window. It never supported plants, and her father knew she could climb out her window using it. In fact, it had been installed for that very purpose, at the insistence of her mother -- Annette Hebert had been far more concerned about her daughter being caught upstairs during a fire than she had been about Taylor sneaking off in the middle of the night to drink or meet boys. Taylor's bare feet met the cold ground, and she began to run… down the sidewalk, away from her house. Her bare feet made light slapping sounds against the chill of the concrete beneath. She whispered, but for the thing she called to, a whisper was as good as a shout: "Mjölnir."
She was a block away when the hammer swooped down. Leaping into the air, Taylor caught the haft as it passed by; there was a rumble of thunder, and the schoolgirl was gone.
-
Skidmark was hard to find, which was proving to be really irritating. She couldn't understand it -- the gang leader was a well-documented obnoxious loudmouth, with low intelligence and nonexistent impulse control. His girlfriend was infamous for building huge, loud vehicles. How did a cape like that stay under the radar? Apparently the answer was: very successfully.
Taylor had crisscrossed the Docks five times from the air, and searched the trainyard twice -- no sign of Skidmark, or even Squealer or Mush. She'd stopped one attempted mugging or perhaps rape -- she wasn't just going to fly past something like that -- but even that hadn't involved punching someone… the instant she dropped from the sky the creep had gone wide-eyed and dropped to his knees with his hands behind his head. Lacking any zip-ties, Taylor had literally tossed him into the nearest dumpster and crumpled the metal lids so they wouldn't open. After making sure the would-be victim was okay and could call it in, she was back into the air.
It was well past midnight (she assumed… she really needed to figure out some way to have a watch or something with her in costume) when she finally saw a group of men standing together on a street in a dark section of the Docks. Setting down on a nearby rooftop (and thankful that she'd learned how to land gently, as opposed to plowing into the floor below) she creeped over to the edge to investigate and see what was going on.
Her helmet poked up over the brick parapet and she frowned as she finally got a good look and the collection of young men. These definitely weren't Merchants… every single one of the men was Asian, and their green and red colours marked them as part of the Azn Bad Boyz. More were arriving slowly, in ones and twos, and all of them were armed -- most with pistols, but one carried a hunting rifle and another had what looked like an Uzi. Only one wasn't carrying a weapon, one of the latest arrivals; a big man, he was shirtless and covered in tattoos, and a metal mask covered his face-
Taylor drew a breath and ducked down. Lung. That was the only person it could possibly be… the leader of the ABB, the Dragon of Kyushu himself.
It was time to leave. She'd wanted a cape fight, but taking on Lung was setting the bar a little high. The man had outfought entire teams of capes, and was most famous for going one-on-one with an Endbringer. It was only her second night out… there was wanting to test herself, and then there was being stupid; she was pretty sure going up against Lung qualified as the second.
He was talking to his troops down below. It was a good time to make her getaway, they'd be paying attention to him rather than looking up-
"-the children, just shoot." Taylor blinked as she heard Lung give his orders in his heavy accent. They were going to kill kids?
Well… shit.
She couldn't leave now. What kind of hero would she be if she did? A cowardly one, that's what. One that ran when she was needed most. Worthless. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
She looked down at Mjölnir. "Thou hast given me a gift beyond compare, my friend," she said quietly, "I shall not squander it." The hammer said nothing; the approval she felt was probably just her imagination. Then she took hold of the brick parapet and flung herself off the roof, cape billowing behind her.
She didn't bother softening her landing, the asphalt paving thundering under her armoured feet as she hit the ground, her cape billowing. The mooks all stumbled back and away from the new arrival, weapons rising -- one even accidentally collided with Lung and was smacked away for it. There was a quiet moment as everyone stared at their unexpected guest, even Lung.
Had she been herself, she probably couldn't even have spoken -- she would have been shaking too hard. Instead her voice was strong and confident: "Think ye slayers of children? I say thee nay!"
The mooks looked to their boss, who had already grown two inches just from her sudden appearance. The big man's visible lip curled into a sneer, and when he spoke it was with as little emotion as ordering pizza. "Kill her."
Taylor knew she was tough; several rough landings while learning to fly had proven that. But she'd never tested herself against bullets, so when the first came flying at her she instinctively crouched and shielded herself with her armoured left arm. But the rounds bounced off her bare skin, feeling for all the world like someone was throwing peas at her; she blinked as a rifle shot deflected off her chin.
Heh... kinda tickles.
Then she was moving. One of the gun-wielding thugs was wearing a hoodie that was almost identical to one of her own; she decided this offended her, so she went after him first, grabbing him by the front of his clothing and flinging him behind her. There was a muffled thud as he hit the wall, but she'd already moved on, her hammer shattering the rifle held by one guy even as her hand caught and crushed a pistol by another. They were shooting wildly, panicked, and they were more likely to kill one another than they were to injure her.
At least until Lung enter the fray a moment later, colliding with her, pushing her back. He towered over her already; one hand caught the wrist holding the hammer while another grabbed her throat, and fire was everywhere… she could feel the heat, she knew it was hot, but it wasn't damaging her. Her back hit the wall, and she could feel the brick crumbling like old cheese around her shoulders.
Her fist found his gut, and despite his bulk his breath left him in a gust of flame. Grabbing his neck, she slammed him face-first into the same wall he'd been sincerely trying to bash her through; then -- with pure, raw strength -- she picked him up and smashed him bodily against the ground, her hand still on his neck as she ground his face into the asphalt.
Holding him there, Taylor glared at the surrounding mooks. "Begone," she commanded, "whilst your leader and I have words."
She didn't get a chance to see if they obeyed, because Lung had gone berserk. He thrashed under her hand, swelling, growing until she couldn't keep a grip, and even though he couldn't rise under her strength he was clawing at the ground as if to burrow under. Scales were popping out of every inch of his torso and arms, and the fire had grown so hot the asphalt was melting.
His thrashing arms caught her in the ankles and knocked her off her feet, and in the blink of an eye he was on top of her, pounding with fists that were changing into claws, incoherent with fury.
"I 'ill 'ill you!"
She was being driven down through the asphalt, his blows against her head making her helmet -- and ears -- ring like she'd stuck her head inside a giant bell. When Lung lifted a fist to smash her again she threw her hammer, catching him on the side of the jaw, lifting him almost to his feet; she rolled to her knees, and as she caught Mjölnir she brought it down squarely on his knee, shattering it to crumbs. Lung howled with pain and collapsed, only to catch her hammer yet again on the backswing. This time he was lifted from his feet, flung across the entirety of the street to impact the buildings opposite. A loading bay door crumpled under the impact, a few cardboard boxes that had been piled for trash nearby igniting just from proximity to the draconic cape.
Lung stood, shaking away the dizziness from her blow. His fists clenched, his entire body quivering from his rage, and Taylor watched in amazement as he grew six inches on the spot, nearly topping ten feet. The flesh of his knee snapped back into place, and he turned and roared at her, a terrifying sight.
Eldþurs, she thought, the word jumping into her head. Fire giant.
Taylor was frightened. Taylor was thrilled.
His roar echoed off the buildings as he charged. Ducking a swinging claw, her hammer smashed his exposed elbow and reduced it to splinters. He ignored the pain and swung the arm anyway, catching her bodily in a tremendous backhand. Taylor flew, feeling a wall give way around her, and then another. She crashed through some equipment left behind in an old, abandoned machining shop -- a big industrial lathe blew into spare parts as it brought a halt to her trajectory.
She'd felt that one. But she jumped to her feet, a grin on her face. Is this `pathetic', Madison?
Lung crashed through the wall of the machine shop, erasing the hole she'd made; he caught Mjölnir right in the center of his chest, knocking him right back out again. The hammer returned to her hand as she gave chase.
He was twelve feet tall now, fully healed, and anything around him that could burn was burning. Taylor charged through the flames, sidestepping a blow that pulverized the ground behind her. Once again she smashed his knee, sending scales flying; the cape didn't collapse, instead kicking her with a clawed foot. She was knocked into the air, but this time she flipped and landed in a sprinter's stance, digging three lines straight into the pavement as she skidded to a stop.
"Hah!"
Is this `weak', Sophia?
Mjölnir flew. Lung wasn't just bigger, he was faster, and he caught the hammer as it came at his head. At some point his mask had been knocked off, revealing a face that was more demonic than human, and his orange, glowing eyes went wide as he was thrown backwards, dragged along, his huge, beast-like hand pinned to the ground. He rolled to his feet and heaved with a roar, determined to smash this damned woman with her own weapon, but it refused to move, and the ground beneath his feet crumbled as he strained.
He can't move it? Taylor wondered.
He's not worthy, the answer came to her.
"Hahah!" She leaped high, Mjölnir darting to meet her, and Lung stumbed as his burden suddenly disappeared. She caught him on his muzzle with a blow that rippled down his entire body to shake the surrounding buildings. He was brought to his knees, and her return stroke blasted him into a warehouse that collapsed in a shower of metal siding and steel beams.
The ABB leader exploded out of the wreckage a moment later, a creature of mythical power and rage, sending debris flying in every direction. His glowing eyes locked on her, seething with hate.
"Is this worthless, Emma?" she roared. Lung snarled as he lunged at her. Mjölnir sang as it met him halfway, and Taylor crashed into him an eyeblink later.
"Ahahahah!"
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Chapter 1.4
- Location
- Under Leviathan's left foot
"Console to Armsmaster."
Armsmaster glanced at the control that activated his comm system. The eye-tracker in his helmet caught the motion, opening the channel. Beneath him, his custom motorcycle hummed quietly as it propelled him through the late-night streets of Brockton Bay. "Armsmaster here."
The voice of Clockblocker -- who'd been assigned console duty as punishment, yet again -- spoke over the line. "We've got reports of gunfire and… uh… actual fire in the Docks area. Sector… DK-9? Yeah, DK-9."
His HUD brought up a map, overlaying the zone in question. "Understood. I'm nearby, on my way now."
A twist of the throttle sent his bike exploding forward. It was capable of steering itself, so it didn't actually need his direction, but riding his motorcycle was one of the few pleasures he indulged in aside from tinkering itself. He ran through his knowledge of the area based on the latest intel: it was a zone that bordered both the ABB areas and the Merchants, so it was likely the disturbance was a gang fight.
Though when he reached the zone specified by Clockblocker, it was to find a dark and empty street. He activated his comm. "Clockblocker, please verify those coordinates. I'm on-site, and there's no sign-"
It was at that moment that the side of a building erupted thirty feet away. A human shape crashed through, arrowing across the street to crash into an abandoned car. The car was nearly folded in half, fetching roughly up against another building.
"Nevermind. Found them."
Jumping off the bike -- its autobalance system made a kickstand superfluous -- he reached behind himself and grabbed his famous halberd from the magnetic clamps on his back. The wreck of the car was shifting… whoever had been flung through the wall wasn't down for good.
An armoured woman tore herself from the wreck, the steel of the vehicle crumpling like tinfoil around her hands. She was clad in leather and steel, and a long crimson cape -- torn and smouldering -- hung from her shoulders. A helmet with a half-mask concealed her features, and a large hammer was gripped in her hand. Armsmaster recognized her from Dragon's video -- the new viking-styled cape.
"Protectorate! Lay down your weapon!"
She spun towards him, hammer at the ready; but as soon as she saw him properly she lowered her weapon, a broad grin spread across her lips. "Hail, noble Armsmaster! Beware, for Lung is roused and great is his ire!"
He didn't lower his halberd, if anything, he found his grip tightening. "You're fighting Lung?"
The answer arrived a moment later as the cape in question smashed through the same wall the woman had been thrown through. It wasn't just Lung… it was Lung, as ramped-up as Armsmaster had ever personally witnessed. The ABB boss wasn't as large as he'd been when he'd fought at Kyushu, but he was as big as he'd been when he'd fought the entire local Protectorate to a standstill, cementing his position within Brockton Bay.
Armsmaster was already considering routes of retreat, but the woman only laughed. Seizing the mangled car, she threw it with one hand. Lung was big enough to catch it, but her hammer came screaming in right behind, spearing through the wreck to hit the transformed gangster right at the base of his elongated neck. The impact shook the air like a bomb, and Lung disappeared in a glittering shower of broken scales. More impacts could be heard within the remains of the building, along with a gurgling roar of pain.
The blonde's hammer flew out of the wreckage, slapping inerrantly into her palm. "Aye, a test of muscle and mettle, a battle to be spoken of in song!"
Armsmaster had a multitude of questions, but one rose up over the rest: "Are you out of your damned mind?!"
She spun towards him, snarling, and he tightened his grip on his halberd. "He's ramped up too far! We need to retreat!"
"Nay, I shall not cower before any -- not with hammer within my hand and strength within my limbs!"
The roaring was getting louder, and debris could be heard as it was thrown around within the ruined building. "But what about everyone else?" Armsmaster snapped. "Look around you! You've trashed an entire block, and he's just getting started!"
She bared her teeth, but to her credit she did look at the ruins of the building and the car, and at the fires that continued to burn. The damage seemed to leech the fight out of her, and her hands dropped. She closed her eyes briefly. "Aye, t'is fair rebuke."
Lung chose that moment to land in the street, having simply jumped over the obstructing wreckage; Armsmaster had to fight for his balance just from the shock of impact. He raised his halberd, though he wasn't sure how useful it'd be, even with his experimental combat program to guide him. His tranquilizer definitely wouldn't be effective, not with the gangster so ramped up-
"Hold!" The woman's voice rang through the street. She spoke with authority, and Armsmaster had to quickly resist an urge to snap to attention. It seemed to affect Lung almost as much -- he blinked at her in confusion.
She walked into the middle of the street, her attention fixed on the draconic cape. "Enough! Thou art mighty indeed, Lung, and this has been fine sport. But this is thy city as well, and even thou wouldst not see it shattered between us. Accept thy victory and leave, and we shall settle this at another time."
For a brief, hopeful moment it looked like Lung would agree. Armsmaster wasn't completely okay with the idea of letting the gang leader just walk… Dragon had warned him more than once that he was too prideful... but he'd never been called stupid, and he was realist enough to know that there wasn't another option. But Lung leaned down, and the fire around him burned even hotter.
"Iiii i-iiieee! Iiii i-iieee! 'Ee 'igh', ooo 'ieee!" The gangster's mouth was so warped that Armsmaster had to rely on his transcriber to interpret the words: My city! My city! We fight, you die!
Fucking hell, he thought, as Lung roared again.
The new cape wasn't intimidated, which made the Protectorate cape seriously doubt her common sense… her grin was almost as feral as Lung's own. "So be it. But know this: no longer is this a test of strength between fellow warriors! Face thee now a goddess of thunder, and know that all the fires of Muspelheim shall not avail thee!"
With one last snarl Lung charged at her, inhumanly fast on all fours. She raised her hammer to the sky, and before Armsmaster's eyes a lightning bolt stabbed down. The hammer seemed to drink in the raw energy, arcs of electricity flowing around it and down her arms, wreathing her body in blue-white streams that occasionally sparked away to score a metal drain or garbage can.
Lung was almost on top of her. He raised a claw to slice her to pieces-
She pointed her hammer, and all the charge that had built up exploded out of it, tearing into the would-be dragon. He was blown backwards, driven into the side of an abandoned pawn shop at an angle; the brick crumbled down onto him, and where the brick touched the lightning it exploded into powder with the sound of a gunshot. Lung howled with rage that gave way to agony, the voltage charring his flesh faster than it could regenerate. Still the lightning flowed -- from the sky to the woman to the writhing, twitching cape who had defeated entire teams of parahumans. The thunder was deafening, shattering windows for a block around.
Armsmaster's eyes were wide. It was God's own taser, wielded by a woman with a hammer.
The assault only stopped when Lung went limp, every inch of his body blackened and crisped. Both of his legs were severed at the knees, and he'd lost one arm near the elbow. The unconscious gangster began to shrink; the flames had stopped, but everything around him was still burning, and some exposed rebar glowed with heat. Armsmaster dashed in, and as soon as Lung's neck had returned to something resembling human he felt for a pulse… it was present, though weak. Grabbing the ABB boss' remaining arm, he dragged him away from the wreckage in case the building decided to collapse completely.
Raising his halberd, he hesitated for a moment, then brought the point down, injecting Lung with the tranquilizers. "Armsmaster to Console."
"Console here."
"I'm at the site of the disturbance. Lung is present, though severely injured. He requires medical assistance immediately… dispatch a secure medical transport immediately."
"What? Lung? Are you shitting-"
"Clockblocker. Medical transport. Now."
"R-right…"
Pulling a monitor bracelet from a storage pack on his hip, he locked it around Lung's remaining wrist. The bracelet began transmitting biometrics to his helmet, and Armsmaster nodded. As he did, he heard footsteps behind him. Standing, he turned to look at the blonde, who met his gaze from behind her own mask. Her helmet was dented and cracked, and her breastplate had four deep scratches from Lung's claws, and the side of her jaw sported a bruise that was beginning to colour… but that was the entirety of her injury. Fire that could melt steel hadn't left a mark on her skin, and even her hair was unsinged. He eyed the hammer that was still in her hand, gleaming and unscratched.
"You could have ended that fight at any point," he accused.
"Aye," she replied, not even attempting to deny it, "though to do such any earlier would have ended his life."
"You were ramping him up to save his life?"
The mouth below the mask tilted downward. "Nay. Brigand though he may be, Lung is mighty. He didst match me, blow for blow, and I lost my way within battle's heat."
"You flattened a city block!"
She scoffed. "Ruined long before I e'er set either hand or hammer upon him, I promise thee. Unlikely it is that thou wilt find any who raise voice in anger."
Armsmaster couldn't facepalm properly in his helmet, though he tried. "Why? Why were you fighting him in the first place?"
"I came across him and a group of his followers. They spoke of shooting children."
"Children?" He gestured around. "In the Docks? At three in the morning?"
Now she looked unsure. "Er… aye?"
He shook his head. "He was probably talking about the Undersiders. They're teenagers, and they robbed one of the ABB's casinos just a few nights ago. This was probably revenge for that."
Her mouth fell open. "I battled on behalf of villainous youth?"
"Probably."
"Thou dost jest at mine expense."
"Nay-... er, no, I definitely do not."
This time it was the woman who facepalmed, and Armsmaster allowed himself to be just childish enough to enjoy it. Before he could speak again the sound of sirens could be heard, and flashing lights lit the street as a PRT medical transport tore around the corner and skidded to a stop in front of them. The two paramedics jumped out. Armsmaster pointed at Lung, and the man and woman rushed to secure and treat the fallen ABB leader.
He turned to the blonde, who was watching carefully. "You realize this is going to upend the city, right? You've weakened the ABB. Oni Lee will be out for blood, and the Empire is not going to let this opportunity slip by." He scowled at her. "You have no ties to the E88, do you?"
Her hands curled into fists. "Ever do I tire of this question. I do not serve the E88. Never shall I serve the E88."
He gestured angrily at the broken cape being strapped down with thick restraints to a reinforced stretcher. "You may already have, without even meaning to! The Empire will be coming."
She raised her chin, glaring at him. "Then I and my hammer shall meet them."
He closed his eyes, fighting down his frustration. When he opened them again, he squared his shoulders and tried to force his voice to be sympathetic. "You'd be a lone hero against the largest villainous group in Brockton Bay, a situation that has cost many other new capes their lives. If you joined the Protectorate, you'd have support -- medical, intelligence, a team to back you up… and even a decent paycheque to support yourself when not in costume. I strongly urge you to consider it."
Her mouth spread into a smile, and he felt a flicker of anticipation -- Piggot would be tremendously pleased if he managed to bring such a powerful cape in under her command. That anticipation disappeared as the smile faltered and disappeared. "I… am honoured by thy offer. But I must refuse."
"What? Why?"
"My reasons are mine own. Fare thee well." She turned away.
"Wait!" She turned back, visibly irritated, matching his own mood. "At least give me a name to put on my report," he demanded sourly.
She hesitated… then smirked at him. "I wield Mjölnir in one hand and lightning in the other. What name wouldst thou bestow upon me?"
Then she spun her hammer and was gone.
-
Though it was incredibly late -- or, he supposed, incredibly early -- Armsmaster stood in front of the door to the office of the local Director of the PRT East-North-East. Raising a gauntleted-hand, he knocked precisely three times.
"Come in, Armsmaster."
He opened the door and walked in, coming to a parade rest in front of the room's simple, businesslike desk. Behind said desk sat Emily Piggot, wearing a simple women's business suit and looking as if she'd been up for hours. For all he knew she had been -- the Director tended to overwork nearly as much as he did, for all that her damaged, overweight body was far less able to take the strain.
"Armsmaster reporting as requested, Director," he said.
However fatigued she may or may not be, the eyes that fixed him were sharp. "Good morning, Armsmaster. I've just been informed that we have a new guest in the medical center. I can't say I ever expected to be hosting Lung, however much I might have hoped. Are congratulations in order?"
She already knew the answer to that question; she was testing him. The portion of his face that was visible beneath his visor twisted sourly. "I'm afraid not, Director. Although I was the one to call for medical assistance and escort him in, I wasn't the one to bring him down."
"Tell me about the one who did."
He squared his shoulders. "You are familiar with the new cape who appeared a few days ago, the one the agents have been calling `Lady Hammer'?"
"Yes. She was pulling cats down from trees and aiding at fender-benders and other such nonsense."
"Well, she's much stronger than she demonstrated that day. And I have a name for her: Thor."
Piggot raised an eyebrow. "`Thor'? Isn't that a man's name?"
Armsmaster shrugged. "She didn't say it outright, but she was pretty clear. She calls her hammer 'Mjölnir'."
The Director shook her head, sighing, though she didn't share her thoughts. She sobered and sat straighter in her high-backed chair. "Assessment of her capabilities?"
"High-end Alexandria package, as well as a high-end shaker… specifically electrokinetic. Myself and Dragon speculated on whether or not the hammer itself might be tinkertech, but from my observations it seems more likely it's connected to her shaker ability… perhaps a telekinesis that only works on the hammer."
"Odd."
"Quite. I have the recording of the fight and my interaction with her. May I?"
Piggot nodded at the large display screen that hung on the wall. "Of course."
"I'd also like to recommend bringing in Dragon. She's the one who let me know about this person, and she might have useful observations."
She nodded. In moments the Canadian tinker was speaking via the desk phone and given a feed from the office display. Together the three watched the captured footage from Armsmaster's helmet: his arrival, the takedown of Lung, speaking to the new cape, and her departure.
"You could have been a little more diplomatic," Dragon reproved mildly.
"He could have, but he was also correct," Piggot said. "If she is a new cape, then she needs to know her actions have consequences. If she hadn't also brought down Lung we'd be having a very different conversation right now."
"She did seem legitimately pleased by the invitation to join the Protectorate. I wonder why she turned it down?"
"Unless she tells us, there's no way for us to know," Piggot replied sourly. "Unfortunately, whether she joins or not we're still going to have to deal with her. She's powerful and reckless… that's a bad combination."
"And yet well-meaning," Dragon defended. "Plenty of people get caught up in an intense fight and lose track of their surroundings... it isn't a thing unique to capes. She didn't make excuses when Colin pointed it out to her."
The Director grunted (a sound that did little to counter the nickname some of the Wards had given her, but even Armsmaster knew better than to point that out…) "We'll see if she learns anything from it. What about the hammer? You were both speculating earlier that she might be a tinker, but apparently Armsmaster has changed his mind?"
"I'm reasonably certain it isn't," Armsmaster said. "I saw no controls, no seams. It looked exactly like what you'd expect: a big block of steel with a handle."
"Hang on a moment." Dragon took control of the video, streaming it backwards and freezing it at the moment when Thor had threatened the Empire, raising her hammer. "There's writing there."
Armsmaster watched as Dragon ran the image through some kind of contrast and enhancement algorithm, impressed and faintly envious… the Canadian Tinker always had the best processing programs available, and seemed able to call them up in an eyeblink. A string of symbols was overlaid on the display, a mass of hard-edged, straight lines. "Hmm, that's interesting."
"What is?" Piggot asked, lips pressed together in impatience.
"It's Old Norse," Dragon said, "written in the elder futhark alphabet. It translates to: Whosoever holds this hammer, be she worthy, shall possess the power of Thor."
Piggot shook her head. "Futhark? Old Norse? She certainly did her research for her costume."
"She might be a historian or linguist in her civilian life," Armsmaster speculated.
"That. Or…" Dragon trailed off.
"`Or', Dragon?" the Director prompted.
"Tell her about the lie detector, Colin." Armsmaster flinched.
"I'm aware of his experimental lie detector."
"Not what it picked up from her, I'm sure."
"It's an aberration," Armsmaster interrupted. "Evidence that it needs more work."
"I'm looking at the datastream right now, Colin. I don't see anything wrong with it."
"But-"
"Enough." Piggot stared at him, unimpressed. "What did it say, Armsmaster?"
The armoured tinker shifted uncomfortably. "When she gave her ultimatum to Lung, and declared herself a `goddess of thunder'... it indicated truth."
The heavyset woman stared at him for a long moment. "I'm not known for my sense of humour, Mister Wallis, and for good reason."
"I'm not joking, Director." He held up his hands before she could speak, then spread them wide. "Nor am I suggesting that she is a literal Norse god. All my detector is capable of determining is that she believes herself to be one."
Piggot buried her face in her hands for a moment before leaning on her desk and sighing. "Wonderful. The most powerful new hero to appear in this city since Victoria Dallon, and you're telling me she's insane."
"That's one interpretation, Director," Dragon replied. "But I'd be remiss if I didn't point out the other: that she's exactly who she says she is. Thor Odinson -- or Odinsdóttir, in this case -- a warrior of Asgard, sent to Brockton Bay to help you in your hour of need.
Armsmaster and Piggot looked at each other.
"Unlikely."
"Don't be ridiculous, Dragon."
-
Taylor had wanted to see how high she could fly.
As it turned out, she could fly very high indeed. The Earth spun below her, her transformed hair floating weightlessly around her head. She'd thought she'd just keep going straight up until it got too cold or she started feeling short of breath. But she still didn't feel the chill, and she could breathe fine, in what she was sure had to be low Earth orbit.
It was probably Mjölnir's doing. Everything was.
She sighed. She hadn't meant to be a bitch to Armsmaster, even if he did act like human sandpaper. It was all the worse because she knew he was right. She hadn't thought through the entire situation... instead jumping in, hammer swinging. Sure, she knew most of the surroundings were abandoned -- her father had sadly told her so on any number of occasions -- but that didn't mean there weren't homeless people living there, or addicts, or even criminals who probably didn't deserve to get killed as collateral damage in a cape fight.
Taylor knew why she'd lost herself in the fight: because Lung was strong, and could get stronger. He could grow to match any threat, and the stronger he got the stronger she could be… the more she could let off the brakes, the harder she could swing her hammer and not kill anybody. She'd needed that -- needed to prove that she wasn't weak, wasn't worthless… wasn't Taylor. Thor had to be better.
Was it appropriate to claim that name? She'd resisted doing so, even though it seemed like the obvious one to take. Was the real Thor out there somewhere? If he showed up would he want the name back? If so, she'd give it to him.
But for now, she needed it, and hoped he'd understand. Taylor was weak and picked on… Thor wasn't. Taylor's father meant well, but could barely keep his own life together, much less raise a daughter properly. Thor was a grown woman, one who appeared mature enough to be offered a place in the Protectorate, an offer she couldn't accept because Taylor was too young! Taylor would have been slaughtered in seconds against the likes of Lung, less than a footnote and obituary in the paper… but Thor had beaten him, taking a murderous, violent cape off the streets.
Thor was worth something. She needed to be Thor.
She looked down and could see the the sun lighting up the Atlantic, a wash of light stretching toward the coast. America was traced in light, streetlights tracing drawing spidery lines across the entire width of the continent, holding back the dark until the coming day could arrive. It'd be dawn in Brockton Bay soon… she should get home.
Also, the Simurgh was up here someplace, wasn't she? She shivered; taking on Lung was one thing, but an Endbringer was quite another.
Spinning her hammer, Thor dived down into the atmosphere. And as the air began to ignite and seethe around Mjölnir's head, as she looked down on the web of lights that spread across America, another thought occurred to her:
Where the hell was Brockton Bay, anyway?
Armsmaster glanced at the control that activated his comm system. The eye-tracker in his helmet caught the motion, opening the channel. Beneath him, his custom motorcycle hummed quietly as it propelled him through the late-night streets of Brockton Bay. "Armsmaster here."
The voice of Clockblocker -- who'd been assigned console duty as punishment, yet again -- spoke over the line. "We've got reports of gunfire and… uh… actual fire in the Docks area. Sector… DK-9? Yeah, DK-9."
His HUD brought up a map, overlaying the zone in question. "Understood. I'm nearby, on my way now."
A twist of the throttle sent his bike exploding forward. It was capable of steering itself, so it didn't actually need his direction, but riding his motorcycle was one of the few pleasures he indulged in aside from tinkering itself. He ran through his knowledge of the area based on the latest intel: it was a zone that bordered both the ABB areas and the Merchants, so it was likely the disturbance was a gang fight.
Though when he reached the zone specified by Clockblocker, it was to find a dark and empty street. He activated his comm. "Clockblocker, please verify those coordinates. I'm on-site, and there's no sign-"
It was at that moment that the side of a building erupted thirty feet away. A human shape crashed through, arrowing across the street to crash into an abandoned car. The car was nearly folded in half, fetching roughly up against another building.
"Nevermind. Found them."
Jumping off the bike -- its autobalance system made a kickstand superfluous -- he reached behind himself and grabbed his famous halberd from the magnetic clamps on his back. The wreck of the car was shifting… whoever had been flung through the wall wasn't down for good.
An armoured woman tore herself from the wreck, the steel of the vehicle crumpling like tinfoil around her hands. She was clad in leather and steel, and a long crimson cape -- torn and smouldering -- hung from her shoulders. A helmet with a half-mask concealed her features, and a large hammer was gripped in her hand. Armsmaster recognized her from Dragon's video -- the new viking-styled cape.
"Protectorate! Lay down your weapon!"
She spun towards him, hammer at the ready; but as soon as she saw him properly she lowered her weapon, a broad grin spread across her lips. "Hail, noble Armsmaster! Beware, for Lung is roused and great is his ire!"
He didn't lower his halberd, if anything, he found his grip tightening. "You're fighting Lung?"
The answer arrived a moment later as the cape in question smashed through the same wall the woman had been thrown through. It wasn't just Lung… it was Lung, as ramped-up as Armsmaster had ever personally witnessed. The ABB boss wasn't as large as he'd been when he'd fought at Kyushu, but he was as big as he'd been when he'd fought the entire local Protectorate to a standstill, cementing his position within Brockton Bay.
Armsmaster was already considering routes of retreat, but the woman only laughed. Seizing the mangled car, she threw it with one hand. Lung was big enough to catch it, but her hammer came screaming in right behind, spearing through the wreck to hit the transformed gangster right at the base of his elongated neck. The impact shook the air like a bomb, and Lung disappeared in a glittering shower of broken scales. More impacts could be heard within the remains of the building, along with a gurgling roar of pain.
The blonde's hammer flew out of the wreckage, slapping inerrantly into her palm. "Aye, a test of muscle and mettle, a battle to be spoken of in song!"
Armsmaster had a multitude of questions, but one rose up over the rest: "Are you out of your damned mind?!"
She spun towards him, snarling, and he tightened his grip on his halberd. "He's ramped up too far! We need to retreat!"
"Nay, I shall not cower before any -- not with hammer within my hand and strength within my limbs!"
The roaring was getting louder, and debris could be heard as it was thrown around within the ruined building. "But what about everyone else?" Armsmaster snapped. "Look around you! You've trashed an entire block, and he's just getting started!"
She bared her teeth, but to her credit she did look at the ruins of the building and the car, and at the fires that continued to burn. The damage seemed to leech the fight out of her, and her hands dropped. She closed her eyes briefly. "Aye, t'is fair rebuke."
Lung chose that moment to land in the street, having simply jumped over the obstructing wreckage; Armsmaster had to fight for his balance just from the shock of impact. He raised his halberd, though he wasn't sure how useful it'd be, even with his experimental combat program to guide him. His tranquilizer definitely wouldn't be effective, not with the gangster so ramped up-
"Hold!" The woman's voice rang through the street. She spoke with authority, and Armsmaster had to quickly resist an urge to snap to attention. It seemed to affect Lung almost as much -- he blinked at her in confusion.
She walked into the middle of the street, her attention fixed on the draconic cape. "Enough! Thou art mighty indeed, Lung, and this has been fine sport. But this is thy city as well, and even thou wouldst not see it shattered between us. Accept thy victory and leave, and we shall settle this at another time."
For a brief, hopeful moment it looked like Lung would agree. Armsmaster wasn't completely okay with the idea of letting the gang leader just walk… Dragon had warned him more than once that he was too prideful... but he'd never been called stupid, and he was realist enough to know that there wasn't another option. But Lung leaned down, and the fire around him burned even hotter.
"Iiii i-iiieee! Iiii i-iieee! 'Ee 'igh', ooo 'ieee!" The gangster's mouth was so warped that Armsmaster had to rely on his transcriber to interpret the words: My city! My city! We fight, you die!
Fucking hell, he thought, as Lung roared again.
The new cape wasn't intimidated, which made the Protectorate cape seriously doubt her common sense… her grin was almost as feral as Lung's own. "So be it. But know this: no longer is this a test of strength between fellow warriors! Face thee now a goddess of thunder, and know that all the fires of Muspelheim shall not avail thee!"
With one last snarl Lung charged at her, inhumanly fast on all fours. She raised her hammer to the sky, and before Armsmaster's eyes a lightning bolt stabbed down. The hammer seemed to drink in the raw energy, arcs of electricity flowing around it and down her arms, wreathing her body in blue-white streams that occasionally sparked away to score a metal drain or garbage can.
Lung was almost on top of her. He raised a claw to slice her to pieces-
She pointed her hammer, and all the charge that had built up exploded out of it, tearing into the would-be dragon. He was blown backwards, driven into the side of an abandoned pawn shop at an angle; the brick crumbled down onto him, and where the brick touched the lightning it exploded into powder with the sound of a gunshot. Lung howled with rage that gave way to agony, the voltage charring his flesh faster than it could regenerate. Still the lightning flowed -- from the sky to the woman to the writhing, twitching cape who had defeated entire teams of parahumans. The thunder was deafening, shattering windows for a block around.
Armsmaster's eyes were wide. It was God's own taser, wielded by a woman with a hammer.
The assault only stopped when Lung went limp, every inch of his body blackened and crisped. Both of his legs were severed at the knees, and he'd lost one arm near the elbow. The unconscious gangster began to shrink; the flames had stopped, but everything around him was still burning, and some exposed rebar glowed with heat. Armsmaster dashed in, and as soon as Lung's neck had returned to something resembling human he felt for a pulse… it was present, though weak. Grabbing the ABB boss' remaining arm, he dragged him away from the wreckage in case the building decided to collapse completely.
Raising his halberd, he hesitated for a moment, then brought the point down, injecting Lung with the tranquilizers. "Armsmaster to Console."
"Console here."
"I'm at the site of the disturbance. Lung is present, though severely injured. He requires medical assistance immediately… dispatch a secure medical transport immediately."
"What? Lung? Are you shitting-"
"Clockblocker. Medical transport. Now."
"R-right…"
Pulling a monitor bracelet from a storage pack on his hip, he locked it around Lung's remaining wrist. The bracelet began transmitting biometrics to his helmet, and Armsmaster nodded. As he did, he heard footsteps behind him. Standing, he turned to look at the blonde, who met his gaze from behind her own mask. Her helmet was dented and cracked, and her breastplate had four deep scratches from Lung's claws, and the side of her jaw sported a bruise that was beginning to colour… but that was the entirety of her injury. Fire that could melt steel hadn't left a mark on her skin, and even her hair was unsinged. He eyed the hammer that was still in her hand, gleaming and unscratched.
"You could have ended that fight at any point," he accused.
"Aye," she replied, not even attempting to deny it, "though to do such any earlier would have ended his life."
"You were ramping him up to save his life?"
The mouth below the mask tilted downward. "Nay. Brigand though he may be, Lung is mighty. He didst match me, blow for blow, and I lost my way within battle's heat."
"You flattened a city block!"
She scoffed. "Ruined long before I e'er set either hand or hammer upon him, I promise thee. Unlikely it is that thou wilt find any who raise voice in anger."
Armsmaster couldn't facepalm properly in his helmet, though he tried. "Why? Why were you fighting him in the first place?"
"I came across him and a group of his followers. They spoke of shooting children."
"Children?" He gestured around. "In the Docks? At three in the morning?"
Now she looked unsure. "Er… aye?"
He shook his head. "He was probably talking about the Undersiders. They're teenagers, and they robbed one of the ABB's casinos just a few nights ago. This was probably revenge for that."
Her mouth fell open. "I battled on behalf of villainous youth?"
"Probably."
"Thou dost jest at mine expense."
"Nay-... er, no, I definitely do not."
This time it was the woman who facepalmed, and Armsmaster allowed himself to be just childish enough to enjoy it. Before he could speak again the sound of sirens could be heard, and flashing lights lit the street as a PRT medical transport tore around the corner and skidded to a stop in front of them. The two paramedics jumped out. Armsmaster pointed at Lung, and the man and woman rushed to secure and treat the fallen ABB leader.
He turned to the blonde, who was watching carefully. "You realize this is going to upend the city, right? You've weakened the ABB. Oni Lee will be out for blood, and the Empire is not going to let this opportunity slip by." He scowled at her. "You have no ties to the E88, do you?"
Her hands curled into fists. "Ever do I tire of this question. I do not serve the E88. Never shall I serve the E88."
He gestured angrily at the broken cape being strapped down with thick restraints to a reinforced stretcher. "You may already have, without even meaning to! The Empire will be coming."
She raised her chin, glaring at him. "Then I and my hammer shall meet them."
He closed his eyes, fighting down his frustration. When he opened them again, he squared his shoulders and tried to force his voice to be sympathetic. "You'd be a lone hero against the largest villainous group in Brockton Bay, a situation that has cost many other new capes their lives. If you joined the Protectorate, you'd have support -- medical, intelligence, a team to back you up… and even a decent paycheque to support yourself when not in costume. I strongly urge you to consider it."
Her mouth spread into a smile, and he felt a flicker of anticipation -- Piggot would be tremendously pleased if he managed to bring such a powerful cape in under her command. That anticipation disappeared as the smile faltered and disappeared. "I… am honoured by thy offer. But I must refuse."
"What? Why?"
"My reasons are mine own. Fare thee well." She turned away.
"Wait!" She turned back, visibly irritated, matching his own mood. "At least give me a name to put on my report," he demanded sourly.
She hesitated… then smirked at him. "I wield Mjölnir in one hand and lightning in the other. What name wouldst thou bestow upon me?"
Then she spun her hammer and was gone.
-
Though it was incredibly late -- or, he supposed, incredibly early -- Armsmaster stood in front of the door to the office of the local Director of the PRT East-North-East. Raising a gauntleted-hand, he knocked precisely three times.
"Come in, Armsmaster."
He opened the door and walked in, coming to a parade rest in front of the room's simple, businesslike desk. Behind said desk sat Emily Piggot, wearing a simple women's business suit and looking as if she'd been up for hours. For all he knew she had been -- the Director tended to overwork nearly as much as he did, for all that her damaged, overweight body was far less able to take the strain.
"Armsmaster reporting as requested, Director," he said.
However fatigued she may or may not be, the eyes that fixed him were sharp. "Good morning, Armsmaster. I've just been informed that we have a new guest in the medical center. I can't say I ever expected to be hosting Lung, however much I might have hoped. Are congratulations in order?"
She already knew the answer to that question; she was testing him. The portion of his face that was visible beneath his visor twisted sourly. "I'm afraid not, Director. Although I was the one to call for medical assistance and escort him in, I wasn't the one to bring him down."
"Tell me about the one who did."
He squared his shoulders. "You are familiar with the new cape who appeared a few days ago, the one the agents have been calling `Lady Hammer'?"
"Yes. She was pulling cats down from trees and aiding at fender-benders and other such nonsense."
"Well, she's much stronger than she demonstrated that day. And I have a name for her: Thor."
Piggot raised an eyebrow. "`Thor'? Isn't that a man's name?"
Armsmaster shrugged. "She didn't say it outright, but she was pretty clear. She calls her hammer 'Mjölnir'."
The Director shook her head, sighing, though she didn't share her thoughts. She sobered and sat straighter in her high-backed chair. "Assessment of her capabilities?"
"High-end Alexandria package, as well as a high-end shaker… specifically electrokinetic. Myself and Dragon speculated on whether or not the hammer itself might be tinkertech, but from my observations it seems more likely it's connected to her shaker ability… perhaps a telekinesis that only works on the hammer."
"Odd."
"Quite. I have the recording of the fight and my interaction with her. May I?"
Piggot nodded at the large display screen that hung on the wall. "Of course."
"I'd also like to recommend bringing in Dragon. She's the one who let me know about this person, and she might have useful observations."
She nodded. In moments the Canadian tinker was speaking via the desk phone and given a feed from the office display. Together the three watched the captured footage from Armsmaster's helmet: his arrival, the takedown of Lung, speaking to the new cape, and her departure.
"You could have been a little more diplomatic," Dragon reproved mildly.
"He could have, but he was also correct," Piggot said. "If she is a new cape, then she needs to know her actions have consequences. If she hadn't also brought down Lung we'd be having a very different conversation right now."
"She did seem legitimately pleased by the invitation to join the Protectorate. I wonder why she turned it down?"
"Unless she tells us, there's no way for us to know," Piggot replied sourly. "Unfortunately, whether she joins or not we're still going to have to deal with her. She's powerful and reckless… that's a bad combination."
"And yet well-meaning," Dragon defended. "Plenty of people get caught up in an intense fight and lose track of their surroundings... it isn't a thing unique to capes. She didn't make excuses when Colin pointed it out to her."
The Director grunted (a sound that did little to counter the nickname some of the Wards had given her, but even Armsmaster knew better than to point that out…) "We'll see if she learns anything from it. What about the hammer? You were both speculating earlier that she might be a tinker, but apparently Armsmaster has changed his mind?"
"I'm reasonably certain it isn't," Armsmaster said. "I saw no controls, no seams. It looked exactly like what you'd expect: a big block of steel with a handle."
"Hang on a moment." Dragon took control of the video, streaming it backwards and freezing it at the moment when Thor had threatened the Empire, raising her hammer. "There's writing there."
Armsmaster watched as Dragon ran the image through some kind of contrast and enhancement algorithm, impressed and faintly envious… the Canadian Tinker always had the best processing programs available, and seemed able to call them up in an eyeblink. A string of symbols was overlaid on the display, a mass of hard-edged, straight lines. "Hmm, that's interesting."
"What is?" Piggot asked, lips pressed together in impatience.
"It's Old Norse," Dragon said, "written in the elder futhark alphabet. It translates to: Whosoever holds this hammer, be she worthy, shall possess the power of Thor."
Piggot shook her head. "Futhark? Old Norse? She certainly did her research for her costume."
"She might be a historian or linguist in her civilian life," Armsmaster speculated.
"That. Or…" Dragon trailed off.
"`Or', Dragon?" the Director prompted.
"Tell her about the lie detector, Colin." Armsmaster flinched.
"I'm aware of his experimental lie detector."
"Not what it picked up from her, I'm sure."
"It's an aberration," Armsmaster interrupted. "Evidence that it needs more work."
"I'm looking at the datastream right now, Colin. I don't see anything wrong with it."
"But-"
"Enough." Piggot stared at him, unimpressed. "What did it say, Armsmaster?"
The armoured tinker shifted uncomfortably. "When she gave her ultimatum to Lung, and declared herself a `goddess of thunder'... it indicated truth."
The heavyset woman stared at him for a long moment. "I'm not known for my sense of humour, Mister Wallis, and for good reason."
"I'm not joking, Director." He held up his hands before she could speak, then spread them wide. "Nor am I suggesting that she is a literal Norse god. All my detector is capable of determining is that she believes herself to be one."
Piggot buried her face in her hands for a moment before leaning on her desk and sighing. "Wonderful. The most powerful new hero to appear in this city since Victoria Dallon, and you're telling me she's insane."
"That's one interpretation, Director," Dragon replied. "But I'd be remiss if I didn't point out the other: that she's exactly who she says she is. Thor Odinson -- or Odinsdóttir, in this case -- a warrior of Asgard, sent to Brockton Bay to help you in your hour of need.
Armsmaster and Piggot looked at each other.
"Unlikely."
"Don't be ridiculous, Dragon."
-
Taylor had wanted to see how high she could fly.
As it turned out, she could fly very high indeed. The Earth spun below her, her transformed hair floating weightlessly around her head. She'd thought she'd just keep going straight up until it got too cold or she started feeling short of breath. But she still didn't feel the chill, and she could breathe fine, in what she was sure had to be low Earth orbit.
It was probably Mjölnir's doing. Everything was.
She sighed. She hadn't meant to be a bitch to Armsmaster, even if he did act like human sandpaper. It was all the worse because she knew he was right. She hadn't thought through the entire situation... instead jumping in, hammer swinging. Sure, she knew most of the surroundings were abandoned -- her father had sadly told her so on any number of occasions -- but that didn't mean there weren't homeless people living there, or addicts, or even criminals who probably didn't deserve to get killed as collateral damage in a cape fight.
Taylor knew why she'd lost herself in the fight: because Lung was strong, and could get stronger. He could grow to match any threat, and the stronger he got the stronger she could be… the more she could let off the brakes, the harder she could swing her hammer and not kill anybody. She'd needed that -- needed to prove that she wasn't weak, wasn't worthless… wasn't Taylor. Thor had to be better.
Was it appropriate to claim that name? She'd resisted doing so, even though it seemed like the obvious one to take. Was the real Thor out there somewhere? If he showed up would he want the name back? If so, she'd give it to him.
But for now, she needed it, and hoped he'd understand. Taylor was weak and picked on… Thor wasn't. Taylor's father meant well, but could barely keep his own life together, much less raise a daughter properly. Thor was a grown woman, one who appeared mature enough to be offered a place in the Protectorate, an offer she couldn't accept because Taylor was too young! Taylor would have been slaughtered in seconds against the likes of Lung, less than a footnote and obituary in the paper… but Thor had beaten him, taking a murderous, violent cape off the streets.
Thor was worth something. She needed to be Thor.
She looked down and could see the the sun lighting up the Atlantic, a wash of light stretching toward the coast. America was traced in light, streetlights tracing drawing spidery lines across the entire width of the continent, holding back the dark until the coming day could arrive. It'd be dawn in Brockton Bay soon… she should get home.
Also, the Simurgh was up here someplace, wasn't she? She shivered; taking on Lung was one thing, but an Endbringer was quite another.
Spinning her hammer, Thor dived down into the atmosphere. And as the air began to ignite and seethe around Mjölnir's head, as she looked down on the web of lights that spread across America, another thought occurred to her:
Where the hell was Brockton Bay, anyway?
Stop: Infraction
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