Effigy [Case53 Taylor Worm AU]

[thor8797]

Effigy – Prologue​

'Where am I?' Was the first thought to enter her mind as the dirty ground of the alley snapped into focus.


'Who am I?' Was the next thought to cross her mind as she began to push herself upright.


As she stood up she glanced at her hands and for a moment felt that something wasn't quite right but upon closer examination dismissed the feeling. Her hands were correct as far as she could tell, ceramics moulded into the shape of fingers with small pieces of metal forming the joints and a black fabric beneath that. The glance at her hands drew attention to the clothes she was wearing, a pair of faded jeans with the knees seeming particularly worn and a t-shirt. What caught her attention were the two large holes torn through the fabric, one over her stomach and the other slightly higher on her torso. Both were surrounded by a stain whose color was difficult to determine in the dim light of the alley. Ceasing the examination of herself the girl turned and looked around hoping to see something, anything familiar. But there was nothing, no memories jumped out at her; there was no recognition of her immediate surroundings, she felt numb and detached.


Moving out of the alley she noticed the sun rising over horizon some distance away and still partly obscured by some of the taller buildings, using the light she checked the color of the stains on her shirt. Both were a dark rusty brown a color that caused her to frown in concentration, she knew that meant something but she couldn't remember what causing her to dig deeper into her memories. Or at least try to, she hit a dead end trying to pull up any memory from further back than a couple of minutes ago when she had first opened her eyes in the alley.


Confusion began to seep into her mind, that couldn't be right. She attempted to dig further, rooting around her mind for anything that could explain her current situation. Terror began to take hold of her thoughts.


Some of the few people around had started to gather together in small clumps, pointing, staring and holding hushed conversations with each other.


The girl caught a few words from the closest group, "What. . . looks like . . . missing since yesterday. . . obviously . . . PRT?"


"H-Hey", the girl called to them panic evident in her voice. "Do you know how I got here? D-do you know who I am?" Desperation entered her tone as she continued, "I-I can't remember how I got here." She brought her hands up to stare at them again before lowering them, "I-I can't remember anything." As she took a few steps towards the group her voice took on a pleading tone, "Can you tell me what's going on, please I-I don't know what happening."


One of the men in the group hesitantly stepped forward, "We called the PRT. They said they would send someone soon. They should be able to help you." His voice had a hint of nervousness in it, throughout the girl's entire plea for help her painted ceramic features hadn't changed from their somewhat solemn neutral expression.


"I- ok. Thank you" the doll-like girl said, still too scared and confused to do anything but wait for help to arrive while casting glances around. She didn't have to wait long, a blur came streaking down the road and came to a stop about the same distance from the girl as some of the closer groups before moving forward at a more normal walking pace.


He stopped and spoke clearly a few meters from the girl "Hello, my name is Velocity. Are you alright? Do you need help? His head tilted as he took in her appearance.


"I don't know what's going on", frustration and sadness filled her voice as she responded. "I can't remember anything." She looked around aimlessly before refocusing on the man in front of her "They told me you could help me" she said, hope entering her voice as she gestured toward the group that she had spoken to initially.


Velocity took a few steps forward placing him at a distance more suited to polite conversation. "Is that a mask or ...?" he trailed off unable to think of a polite way of phrasing his question.


The girl had by this time noticed the differences between herself and the people around her and so was able to figure out what he was asking. "No. This is my face, do you know why I'm different?" she asked curiosity leaking into her tone now that the exchange had changed to something she had at least a bit of knowledge about. "I'm made of ceramics, metal and fabric but you don't look like that, you're not made of the same stuff I am, and your face moves but mine doesn't. Why is that?" her tone was quizzical and some excitement was leaking into it at the prospect of clearing up at least one mystery.


Velocity smiled at the improving mood of the girl in front of him and decided to try and keep her talking until the PRT vans could arrive with backup and possibly a ride back to base. "Most people are actually made out of flesh and blood not ceramics and metals; you are what we would call a Case 53. They are people who ended up with powers but for some reason had some with major physical changes as well as memory loss." He replied, and then began mentally kicking himself as the girl seemed to wilt a little at the reminder of her lost memories. "If you want we could go to the local Protectorate HQ, they would have a better chance of helping you than me all by myself." He said quickly before the doll like girl could dwell on his conversational blunder.


The girl felt lost and her body language did an excellent job conveying that to everyone around her, shoulders hunched slightly, arms wrapped slightly around herself, head down slightly and occasionally glancing around as if trying to spot anything familiar. "I'll come" she said with a surprising amount of conviction in her voice now that she was being presented with a chance to do something about her situation.


Velocity silently gave thanks to whatever deity was listening for the fact that the girl would soon be in much better hands than his before replying, "Our ride should be here soon; do you want to find somewhere to sit down?" As he offered the courtesy he gestured towards a coffee shop nearby where seating could be seen easily through the large windows. The girl in front of him nodded causing him to give her a reassuring smile as he turned to lead the way over to the shop.

 

[thor8797]

Effigy – 1.1​

Armsmaster frowned in mild annoyance at the screen in front of him which was currently displaying the most recent version of the protocols for dealing with newly discovered Case 53's, all 57 pages of them. His annoyance came from the fact that he had been taking bullet point notes while reading and the list was distressingly small when compared to the amount of material required to convey those points. With a sigh he glanced through the one way glass that lined the one side of the room through which the doll-like girl could be seen. She had been tentatively given the name Lalka; Armsmaster privately though the name was the result of the people in the PR department spending a short time brainstorming and then going with the least offensive name they came up with.


The girl was wearing a baggy light grey tracksuit to replace her previous set of ruined clothes and was currently working her way through a large stack of brochures and an adequately detailed overview of the city. She had had trouble gripping the sheets of paper initially due to the smooth ceramics that made up the exterior of her body. Armsmaster had spent ten or so minutes in his lab creating the set of small gripping pads which were currently attached to the girl's fingers and palms to solve that issue. Across from Lalka sat Miss Militia, the ever reliable people-person of the local Protectorate who was currently explaining how things would likely proceed.


"-probably going to take a few weeks to go over all the legal paperwork and finish up our investigation into who you were before you lost your memories. While we do that you'll have a place to stay here, we can test your powers if you want and we will have to finish a mental evaluation before everything else is said and done. After all that we would offer you a place in the Wards or Protectorate based on your age but whether you join or not would be up to you" Miss Militia explained in an even tone. "Do you have any questions? Anything you want to know I'll do my best to answer."


"I-I" Lalka began before stopping only to try again. "I just want to thank you, I don't know what I would have done-", She said thickly before abruptly stopping again, head and shoulders hunching forward.


Armsmaster and Miss Militia both had the uncomfortable feeling that the girl in front of them would have been crying if her body had been capable of it.


Miss Militia leaned forward and placed a hand over one of Lalka's "Hey, it's alright, we'll do everything we can to help you", she said soothingly while gently rubbing the girl's hand with her own.


They stayed like that for a short time until Lalka's shoulders relaxed and her head rose slightly. In a contrast to the emotional scene in the interview room, Armsmaster was currently thankful that he had subordinates capable of interacting with people in a social context; he knew his strengths, meaning he knew his weaknesses as well, and empathizing with others and knowing what to say to them on the fly was one of those weaknesses.


"Feeling a bit better?" Miss Militia asked gently. After receiving a small nod she spoke again, "just give me a moment and I can go see if that was enough for the initial interview and then if you want we can go see your new room. Is that alright with you?"


Lalka nodded as her posture relaxed further, "I'd like that."


Miss Militia gave the girl a parting smile before she walked out of the room and into the adjacent one where Armsmaster sat, "I think she needs a break, we've gone over all the points we have to anyways."


"I agree, even if we pressed her I doubt she would be able to tell us anything we don't already know", he said as he leaned forward slightly and glanced through the glass. "As it is I would assume that she is quite tired at this point, mentally if not physically. I would suggest asking her and the Wards if they would like to speak to each other later on, at the very least they might be able to give us some insight into her mental state, and at best they may be able to help her adjust to her current state."


Miss Militia nodded in acknowledgement as he made his points, "I had planned on introducing her to the wards after showing her to her room. Making some friends who are around her apparent age should be good for her."


Armsmaster, sensing the conversation was over gave her a nod of acknowledgement and turned back to the screen in front of him while Miss Militia returned to the interview room where Lalka had moved on to reading through the thick overview of the city, she cleared her throat in an attempt to attract the girl's attention after waiting several seconds.


Lalka had apparently been thoroughly engrossed in the thick document in front of her as the sudden noise caused her to squeak in surprise and jerk upright, she also tore the sheaf of papers in front of her almost in half in an instant.


Miss Militia paused for a second processing what had just happened; while not especially thick the sheaf of paper was not thin enough for someone to tear it apart that easily, she could have done it herself but she would have needed time to get a proper grip at the right angle to do so.


"Ah! I didn't mean to do that", babbled Lalka in a slightly panicked tone. "I'm sorry, it's just that you startled me and-", she didn't get a chance to finish before being cut off by the older woman.


"It's alright you didn't ruin anything we can't easily replace and, we may have learned something about your powers already", she said gently attempting to calm the girl down.


Lalka perked up slightly at the second half of that sentence, "really, what did you figure out?" Her tone had an edge of enthusiasm to it as curiosity caused her to lean forward slightly.


"Some form of enhanced strength, it's difficult to say how much but you shouldn't have been able to tear through that many pieces of paper so easily", Miss Militia explained. "After I show you to your room would you like to head down to the power testing area and see if we can find out just how strong you are now?" She mentally crossed her fingers hoping the prospect of finding out more about her powers would take the girl's mind off her missing past.


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As it turned out she was right and Lalka was now following Miss Militia through the halls of the base towards the girl's new room radiating an odd combination of enthusiasm and impatience. The cause for enthusiasm was obvious; she was going to test one of her powers soon, and maybe she could see if she had any other cool powers while they were there. The impatience was there because Miss Militia had insisted that she at least know where her room was before they did anything else.


After a brief walk that mostly consisted of Miss Militia telling the girl about the base, and Lalka apparently trying to look in every direction at the same time; the pair finally reached Lalka's room.


After stepping through the door Lalka was given a short tour of the room with the older woman showing her where everything was including an attached washroom, bed, desk, and mid-sized bookshelf much to the girl's delight.


"Now can we go check out my powers?" she asked excitement and impatience bleeding into her tone.


Miss Militia had to chuckle at that, "Yes, we can head to the testing labs right now and if you're lucky there might be enough people there to do a full test of your power."


"Really, do you think I have more powers? Wait, what are your powers?" the questions came out of her mouth in a torrent.


The barrage of questions earned another chuckle from the older woman as she motioned for the girl to follow her out of the room. Once out of the room and on their way down the hall way she launched into an explanation, "In order; yes I think you do have more than just enhanced strength and, my power is the ability to from any weapon I know well along with ammunition." As she spoke the knife sheathed at her side disappeared into a green blur before reforming into a longsword in her hand, then the sword dissolved into the same green blur and an assault rifle took its place in her hands before it to dissolved and reformed into the knife it had been which was promptly re-sheathed.


"That's so cool! I hope I have more powers, what do you think my other powers are?" Lalka questioned enthusiastically as she tried to get a closer look at the sheathed knife and keep up with Miss Militia.


"I'm not sure what other powers you could have, Case 53's tend to have odd power sets even by the random-at-best standard of parahuman powers", her explanation came easily as the two of them stepped through the doors to the testing area.


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It wasn't too difficult to tempt a pair of the resident scientists, Doctors Caldwell and Victus, out of their labs with the prospect of testing a newly discovered Case 53; almost as soon as they emerged they began asking questions about what she knew about her powers. They were visibly disappointed when the most common answer turned out to be 'I don't know'. Once they got going however, they ran her through every type of strength test they could think of before coming to the conclusion that she was roughly twice as strong as a human being could hope to be.


Toughness testing had been put off when Dr. Victus expressed concern over the possibility of doing permanent damage; the tests were pushed back further when Lalka had revealed that she knew how to create all the materials required to fix herself if she was hurt. That revelation had led to both scientists, Lalka and a slightly confused PRT security guard working away in one of the engineering labs mixing up a batch of the ceramics that made up the exterior 'skin' of the girl. The security guard was there to replace Miss Militia after the latter had been scheduled to go out on patrol soon and needed to get ready.


Armsmaster entered the room holding a file folder as the first ceramic plate was being removed from the oven, "Ah, Lalka I-what are you doing?" His question seemed directed at the pair of scientists who had been going over the ingredient list and mixing methods used to create the ceramic.


"Co-sir, when she told us that she knew how to replicate the materials she's made of we thought that creating some of the ceramic would let us test the properties of the material without the risk of harming Lalka", Caldwell summarized quickly.


"Interesting, I would like a copy of that report once it's done", Armsmaster spoke in his usual even tone. "Lalka?"


"Yeah?" Her tone was questioning and her body language showed some uncertainty.


"May I speak to you in private for a moment?" His tone was questioning while motioning toward the door.


"Yeah sure, what did you want to talk about?" She asked as she walked out the door with Armsmaster.


"The preliminary investigation is over and I believe we have discovered your pre-trigger identity", he paused letting her absorb the information.


"W-who was I?" The question, like everything else about her was suddenly hesitant; it couldn't be that easy could it?


Armsmaster held out the folder to her; attached with a paperclip to the front was the picture of a young girl with a wide smile, glasses, and curly brown-black hair. "Taylor Hebert."

 

[thor8797]

Effigy – 1.2​

Lalka, or Taylor Hebert as she now knew sat at the cheap wooden desk in her room looking at the contents of the folder Armsmaster had given her spread out in front of her as if hoping the pieces of paper would suddenly speak, answer all her questions and restore her lost memories. Holding her head in her hands she stared down at three of the pictures that had been in the folder; Annette Hebert, her mother, died in a car accident not too long ago. Daniel Hebert, her father, died after being shot three times by Silver Dragon gang members in a mugging gone wrong. Finally Taylor Hebert, herself, who had been missing from the same botched mugging.


She had hoped that finding her past would answer all her questions and solve the problem of who she was, but she didn't feel a connection to the past presented to her by the papers in front of her, like she was reading about the life of a stranger. Was she even the same person anymore? She had no memory of being Taylor Hebert; she had an entirely different body, knew none of the same people, she couldn't even remember her parents, she-.


A knock on the metal door cut off the downward spiral her thoughts had been in. "Come in", she said loudly; hoping the volume would keep her mental turmoil out of her voice.


The door opened to reveal a girl wearing a green and white visor over the top half of her face but dressed in otherwise normal clothing. Taylor recognized her easily from one of the Protectorate pamphlets she had read earlier; Vista, one of the newer wards in the city and a few years younger than herself.


Vista spoke before Taylor could, "heya, mind if I come in?" She had that curious and enthusiastic tone that only children could really pull off.


"I already said you could", Taylor said doing her best to inject humour into her voice. "Vista right?" I'm Lalka or Taylor," she said, remembering to introduce herself; she wasn't sure which name she should use and didn't think the girl in front of her could be anyone else but she hadn't worked her way through all the pamphlets and brochures she had been given and didn't want to be wrong.


"Yep", Vista chirped while making her way into the room. "Heard there was a new cape that came in yesterday, no one's seen you for a bit though", she said with a note of puzzlement in the second half of her statement.


Taylor nodded, "I've been pretty busy reading through stuff and – wait, yesterday?" She spun in her seat to look at the clock mounted on the neutral blue wall, 7:45 in the morning.


It was Vista's turn to nod, "Yep it's Wednesday morning." A concerned frown came to her face, "You know you should probably get some sleep."


"I don't feel tired", Taylor replied shaking her head and causing her dark brown curls to swing around her head; her statement was more of a question than anything else and she had to pause to mentally look herself over. "I'm not tired", the fact was as much of a surprise to her as it was to Vista.


Vista's concerned frown transformed into an adorable pout, "really? You don't need to sleep? Oh that's just unfair; you don't even have a bedtime now."


Taylor had to laugh at that, bringing a hand up to cover her mouth on reflex.


Vista for her part continued to pout, "I'm going to go get breakfast." She turned and began moving toward the door as Taylor stopped laughing and scrambled out of her chair.


"Wait", she called to Vista. "Would you mind if I came along? I don't eat but it's nice to just talk to someone new", her tone and body language were radiating uncertainty and shyness now.


Vista smiled at the older girl, her enthusiasm working its way back into her tone. "Sure, maybe the other wards will show up too and I'm sure they'll want to meet you too", she was still smiling as she grabbed Taylor's arm and led her out the door.


As she was pulled down the hallway by Vista towards the wards kitchen Taylor realized that she had laughed for the first time she could remember; with her mood far better than it had been mere minutes before she followed Vista down the hallway listening to the younger girl talk about the base, her teammates, and anything else that came to mind.


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Miss Militia or Hannah Smith out of costume, sat at the desk in her office surrounded by legal forms and open file folders. It was a slow week as far as work went which was why she had volunteered to help with the initial wave of paperwork that a newly discovered Case 53 (or Case 140 now that her pre-trigger identity had been discovered). Filling out the first wave of paperwork would give her the opportunity to learn more about the young girl and, hopefully help her to work past her memory loss. With her perfect memory she couldn't even begin to imagine what it would be like to forget so much.


She had started with the search for living relatives who might be able to claim custody over Taylor. It quickly became apparent that large numbers of children didn't run in the family. The closest living relative she could find was Michel Solomon, a 3rd cousin of Taylor's father. They had never met and all indicators pointed to them being unaware of each other's existence. A second search would be done tomorrow by the legal department in case she had overlooked something but to her it was looking more and more likely that Taylor would end up being looked after by the government.


As she shifted through the papers arranged on her desk Danny Hebert's autopsy report came to the top. The sight caused her to pause and wonder what the man would have thought of the situation, how would he have handled his daughter's memory loss and radical physical change? Would he have even seen her as his daughter, or would he see her as a stranger wearing her face?


That line of thought brought her to wondering who Taylor's legal guardian would be, a foster family? Would it be someone who worked for the PRT? A cape? The mental image of Colin in full Armsmaster armor reading over a checklist on how to raise children sprang into her mind and made her smile and chuckle quietly to herself before she remembered Colin's small screw-up the day before.


She and the Director had found out about an hour ago that Colin had simply handed Taylor's file to her. While Hannah had backed him up when he came to her with his proposal to reveal the details of her pre-trigger life to her as soon as possible she had thought the information would be revealed to the poor girl gradually and in much more controlled and supporting environment; not simply having the information dumped on her like that.


She hoped that Colin's meeting with the Director would resolve the issue with a minimum amount of fuss but she wasn't counting on it.


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Director Emily Piggot sighed and rubbed at her temples in an attempt to ward off a headache, it wasn't even noon and she could already feel one coming on. Reclassifying a Case 53 to a Case 140 essentially tripled the already huge amount of paperwork related to them and Armsmaster had just added another potential complication to that particular mess as well, which was why she was now in her office waiting for him to appear for the meeting she set up less than an hour ago. The only silver lining was that the girl seemed to be taking it well but she knew better than to simply assume that was the case when it came to parahumans and had all but ordered their resident psychologist to make room for an evaluation ASAP.


There was a knock at the door. "Come in", she called already knowing who it was.


Her secretary poked his brown haired head past the door, "Armsmaster is here for his 11:30 appointment."


"Send him in", she said dismissing him with a wave of her hand. As Armsmaster walked through the door she did her best not to let her annoyance show on her face; they may not like each other but their respective positions forced them to at least remain civil.


"I assume this meeting is about handing Ms. Hebert her file?" He questioned as he sat down the reinforced chair giving a slight groan under the weight of his armour.


She took a deep breath, civil, she reminded herself. "This is about you simply dumping Ms. Hebert's file on her instead of waiting for her psych evaluation. Why?" She was practically clenching her teeth as she bit out her question.


"I gave Ms. Hebert her file because according to both Velocity's report and my own observation's she was extremely distressed by the lack of information about her past, I decided to help her with that by giving her the files that had been collected." He spoke like he was filing a report, the only indication of antagonism being the small frown that had replaced his usual neutral expression.


Emily opened her mouth but Armsmaster managed to speak again before she did, "I also consulted Hannah and Dragon before going through with it."


She resisted the urge to rub her temples again, "And why didn't you talk to me beforehand?"


"You were in a meeting at the time", he replied simply.


Of course she had been. "Did you tell Miss Militia and Dragon your full plan?" She questioned hoping that both of them hadn't thought it was a good idea to just dump the information on the girl.


"I asked both of them if they thought it was a good idea to give her the information on her pre-trigger life, both of them agreed." He sounded slightly puzzled as to why the Director was asking him this.


"So, no you didn't", that was a relief. "If something like this comes up again I want you to wait and talk to me about it first", neither of them could actually give orders to the other but both of them could make very strong suggestions.


"Very well, was there anything else?" He asked, his tone indicating his hope that the meeting was over so he could return to his lab.


"No that covers what everything", She said truthfully, wanting the meeting done almost as badly as he did.


With a nod he stood up and left; as soon as the door closed she groaned and mentally cursed the man's lack of social awareness, hopefully she could make it through the remaining half of the day without anything else going wrong. She doubted it, on the other hand compared to this time last year things were going amazingly well. Last year had been hell, in under a month Jack Slash had come back to life to lead his merry band of psychopaths for the seventh time, Behemoth had attacked and, the Patriots and the Dragons had decided it was a good time to try and kill each other again. No, she decided, retuning to filling out the forms in front of her, compared to last year this year was shaping up to be alright.


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A/N: This ended up mostly being a setup chapter, I hope I kept everyone in character and managed to convey Taylor's identity problems without going overboard.

 

[thor8797]

Effigy – 1.3​

Taylor walked down one of the many hallways in the Protectorate base toward an elevator that would lead her back to the power testing areas. She still needed to complete all the tests considering she hadn't been able to finish the day before yesterday. She had met the psychologist yesterday; Dr. Gavel (she was noticing there were a lot of doctors on the base) had been quite a nice man who, according to him, bore a rather unfortunate resemblance to Freud. The two of them had mostly just talked, with Dr. Gavel occasionally asking her opinion and thoughts on various topics making notes on how she responded and the questions she asked him.


She had spent last night talking to Miss Militia about how she handled not having to sleep; the entire base slowed to a crawl at night, with most of the day shift home asleep and most of the wards unavailable there was precious little to do. Miss Militia had advised her to pick up some hobbies, learn new things, or just take the opportunity to read; whether it was stories, manuals, or news. Instead of doing any of those things she had listened to the older woman tell stories about things that had happened on the base, stories about coworkers, anything she could think of Taylor listened to with rapt attention.


While standing in front of the elevator doors waiting for them to open she noticed Armsmaster coming towards her from one of the side hallways, his face was buried in a folder that was unmarked except for a file number across the front. He stopped before running into the elevator doors and lowered the folder before turning to face her.


"Ms. Hebert", he said with a brief nod and a slightly distracted tone. Armsmaster's distraction came from his latest internal debate; his sense of responsibility urged him to apologise to the girl beside him for simply dumping her past into her lap without any kind of support. His pride on the other hand made him loathe to admit he had made a mistake; he still hadn't decided on a course of action. "How are you feeling?"


"I'm alright", she said with false cheer after a moment. Both of them could tell she was lying through her metaphorical teeth.


Armsmaster wasn't sure if he should call her out for lying and so took the safer route and decided to change the subject. "Are you heading down to finish power testing?"


"Yep, I wonder if I have any more powers, wouldn't that be awesome?" There was genuine enthusiasm

creeping in to her tone as she rocked slightly on the balls of her feet.


"Would you mind if I came with you?" He asked, interest in his voice. He could always go over the final results later but by being there in person meant he would be able to offer suggestions and ask for clarifications on things that sometimes didn't make it into the final report.


As she turned to him the elevator dinged and the doors began to open. "Sure", she said brightly.


-----------------------------------------


The first hour of testing had been taken up with scans, many, many, scans. Doctors Caldwell and Victus had once again been tempted out of their labs along with a trio of lab techs; the five of them had proceeded to run Taylor though every single scanner and sampler they could think of using to try and determine her physiology.


"So what do I look like. . . inside?" Taylor asked after the scans were done. "And now can we check and see if I have any other powers?" She questioned impatiently.


"We'll have the results soon enough but preliminary analysis shows that under the ceramic skin you're mostly hollow with a metal skeleton holding everything together along some kind of fabric covering the joints." Victus answered glancing at Taylor before returning her attention to the screen in front of her. "We should have more we can tell you later but for now we can move on to testing for different powers."


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Two hours of testing later and hey had gone through the tests to check for the majority of power types. Now they were moving onto mental powers, the hardest to check for as the tests for them basically amounted to being asked to sit down and root around your own head and senses for anything you thought might be unusual.


"Is this actually how you test for mental powers?" Taylor asked, somewhat incredulously, as she sat down.


"Normally we would monitor brain activity while we try this but other than that, yeah this is how we look for undiscovered thinker powers", said one of the techs from the observation area. "It's also the reason why we usually don't test for them without evidence of them existing in the first place. I suppose we could try putting you in different environments later on to test for a more situational type of mental power." The second part was apparently him thinking out loud because he then pulled out a pad of paper and began quickly writing down ideas while mumbling possibilities to himself.


Taylor sat down with a sigh, unable to come up with anything else to say. She then closed her eyes, she still wasn't sure how that worked; her face didn't change and, based on the experiments she had carried out in her room last night her eyes didn't close, she just stopped seeing the world around her.


'I can't see the point of this seems like they're just fumbling arou– no, calm down and see if you have any senses you think you shouldn't have.'


After a short time she became acutely aware of the sounds bouncing around the room, the breathing of the scientists, the faint whines and metallic sounds as Armsmaster shifted in his armour, and behind it all was the fainter sounds of the water brushing up against the supports of the base. Almost immediately her thoughts began to wander, she wondered if she could go out into the city later, if only because she was already getting tired of grey walls. 'Seriously didn't the Protectorate know of any other colour?'


Thinking of the city brought back the memories of when she had first woken up and the feeling of uncomprehending terror she had felt then. She shied away from those memories and tried to find something to distract herself with, that's when Armsmaster's armour made a small metallic sound as he shifted again and Taylor latched onto it. She devoted her mind to picturing where he was in relation to her, as she did so she felt a small something at the back of her mind. She frowned internally and grasped at the feeling, attempting to discover what it was. As her mind brushed against it, her awareness exploded. It was amazing; like she had opened her eyes for the first time suddenly she could see and focus on all of them, a star field of lights spread throughout the base around her.


"Whoa", she breathed quietly as she opened her eyes.


"Something happen?" Caldwell asked incredulously, as if he couldn't believe the test had actually worked.


"It-It's amazing, I can see lights, it's like there's stars all around me." Taylor said quickly and quietly, still adjusting to this new development.


"Do you know what they are?" Armsmaster asked, curiosity and a hint of excitement entering his voice.


"Not yet, but I'm going to find out", Taylor's voice was filled with excitement as she looked around at the lights only she could see.


A few of the points of light were different from the others, most were a mix of greys and whites but some were other colours, such as one of the ones closest to her being a swirl of blue and white. Taylor mentally reached out to it, hoping it would help her to figure out what it was. She then proceeded to fall on her ass. On the plus side the blue and white light was now right in front of her, as was Armsmaster.


Armsmaster (who had taken a step backwards when Taylor appeared out of thin air in front of him) took a step forward and offered the girl on the floor his hand to help her stand up. "Teleportation?" He asked the techs, apparently seeking confirmation for what he had seen.


"As far as we can tell, yes," one of the techs replied before returning his eyes to the screen in front of him. "Looking at the high speed camera footage it was almost instantaneous. The easiest way I can think of testing if it's teleportation or rapid movement is to get her to teleport into a sealed room."


"What can you tell us about how you changed location?" Armsmaster asked her while the scientists and techs moved to fetch different pieces of equipment from around the room.


"I was just trying to get a closer look at the lights, I just wondered if I could get closer to it and sort of saw myself in front of it." Taylor paused, gathering her thoughts before continuing, "I think the lights are people; they match up with where the people I can see are standing and I can see them all moving around and some of them are different colours too. Yours is one of the coloured ones, theirs are more grey and white-ish." As Taylor said the last part she gestured vaguely to the others in the room, all of whom were listening intently as they dragged monitoring equipment towards where the chair had once sat.


Armsmaster frowned as he mentally reviewed what Taylor had said. "That", he began, "Has some interesting implications if the colour differences mean what I think they do." His tone was serious as he continued, "We should discuss them after we finish testing your teleportation ability."


"A-alright", she said, a bit nervous. Armsmaster had never been anything but business like before but she hadn't seen him this serious before either, granted she had only known him for two days so maybe that was normal for him. She doubted it though, something about her abilities worried him; which in turn made her worry, Armsmaster didn't really seem like a worrier to her.


With a nod she turned back to the scientists and techs who seemed to be finalizing the sensor setup and tried to push her worries away by trying to figure out the purpose of all the different types of equipment. Armsmaster went to assist them in setting up the monitoring gear as well as offering suggestions on types of sensors and testing procedure; he was in his element here, speaking easily and using jargon she could barely understand. Taylor quickly gave up on figuring out what all the equipment did on her own and walked over to the assembled scientists to ask what all of it was. As it turned out the various pieces of equipment consisted of everything from high speed cameras to tinkertech sensors designed to sense space-time distortions and were there to see if they could figure out how her teleportation worked, if there were any side effects, and so on.


"Ready to go?" Victus asked after ten long minutes of moving and checking equipment.


"Finally", Taylor muttered to herself. "Yes", she said loudly.


"Alright try to teleport back to where the chair was", Victus said while hitting a key on the computer in front of him.


Taylor turned to the area the sensors ringed and repeated the mental steps she had gone through the first time she had teleported, finally she visualized herself standing where the chair had sat. Nothing happened.


"Whenever you're ready." Caldwell said, cutting through Taylor's thoughts.


"I'm trying it isn't working." Taylor replied, frustration leaking into her voice. 'What wasn't she doing right?'


Armsmaster strode from his position with the rest of the scientists and techs into the circle of sensors before opening his mouth, "You managed to teleport to my position the first time, and you should be able to do it again. Perhaps your teleportation requires an anchor point?"


Taylor nodded as the techs hit a few buttons to reset the equipment for the new test.


"Ready for the test", one of them called out to her.


Taylor closed her eyes and concentrated on her other sight visualizing herself in front of the swirl of blue and white light that represented Armsmaster. She felt a wave of relief wash over her as she opened her eyes to find herself standing in front of him, she knew it was stupid but she had been worried for a moment it wouldn't work for some reason. Then excitement took over, "Yes! It worked; I wonder if I can teleport to anyone else?" In an attempt to answer her question she used her people sense to look over at the light that she thought represented Dr. Caldwell and visualized herself beside him.


Caldwell made a small surprised noise at Taylor's appearance, as his attention had been focused on the screen in front of him. "I take it you want to keep testing?" His asked, and was slightly amused to note that Taylor had already teleported to one of the techs, never the less she heard him and returned to standing in front of him.


"This is so cool! I wonder how much I can take with me? How far can I go?" Taylor's enthusiasm was somewhat infectious, to the point where everyone else could have sworn they saw Armsmaster smile, slightly, if the lighting was right.


Testing was going to take a little while longer.


------------------------------------


Director Piggot, Armsmaster, Dr. Gavel, and Eli Quint all sat in one of the smaller meeting rooms within the base preparing to discuss the current state of Taylor Hebert.


Piggot began the meeting without fanfare, "Dr. Gavel what do you think of her mental state after your evaluation?"


Dr. Gavel glanced at his notes as the attention of the rest of the table was directed his way before speaking, "Mental health wise she is fairly typical of a newly triggered Case 53 or 140. She has strong issues with her self-identity, mainly her lack of one; she doesn't feel like she knows who she is for want of a better explanation." There were nods from the others at the table; they had all gone over the general information package. "Another issue is her memory loss and her reaction to it. Whenever I attempted to bring the subject up in my evaluation, or even hint at it, she would redirect the conversation immediately. She knows she should have memories of her past but draws a blank whenever she tries to access them; it scares and frustrates her so she would rather simply not think about it."


"What about Armsmaster revealing her pre-trigger identity to her?" Piggot asked while shooting Armsmaster a look out of the corner of her eye.


Dr. Gavel responded easily, "It could end up being a good thing or a bad thing; it's too early to tell at this point. It could give her a foundation for recreating her self-identity, or she could end up trying to force her identity to fit what she thinks is her pre-trigger self."


"Very well, how can improve her mental health?" The director asked, placing her elbows atop her own pile of paperwork.


"In regards to her identity issues the only real way to solve those will be enough time and personal experiences for her to build or rather rebuild her self-identity. We can help nudge her toward that goal and support her but in the end she's the one who has to figure out who she is. As for her memory loss, if she were a baseline human I would keep her under observation for about two weeks or so and then try and get her to take anti-depressants. Seeing as that's impossible, and I'd hesitate to prescribe anything to a Case anyway; she's going to need a support network, people who talk to her, and time to create new memories so that she doesn't feel so…" He trailed off mentally searching for a simple explanation. "She doesn't feel real or connected to the world around her, would be the best way to put it."


"So the main thing she needs is friends and time", Piggot said. "Simple enough, going by Armsmaster's initial report she seems to be bonding with Vista and the rest of the wards fairly well."


"And Miss Militia, they apparently spent most of last night talking." Armsmaster added.


"What's the legal situation?" The Director asked, turning to look at Eli Quint.


Eli didn't even need to look at the papers in front of him before replying. "Aside from her needing a legal guardian and the paperwork declaring her to be a Case 140 filed there isn't anything else that needs to be done currently."


"Less paperwork is always good; Armsmaster, what can you tell us about her powers?" Piggot asked.


"In addition to her enhanced strength and toughness Ms. Hebert is also capable of rapid teleportation. Her mass limit is approximately one tonne and she is capable of bringing other people with her when she teleports, anything touching her skin is automatically brought along with her or prevents her from teleporting depending on the mass of the object. She is however limited to teleporting to other people within a distance of two meters from them in any direction, and cannot teleport into other people or objects. Momentum is not conserved when she teleports nor does she match her target's speed. In addition she has a sensory power that enables her to detect every person within four hundred meters of herself. Her sensory ability is linked to her teleportation power in that she must be able to sense her target in order to teleport to them." At that point Armsmaster had to pause to take a breath before continuing, "She is also a minor materials tinker thanks to her ability to create the materials she is made of for the purpose of self-repair."


"Thank you Armsmaster", she said. And she was, if not grateful, at least thankful for the man's dedication to getting technical information across quickly. "Are there any other issues?" Silence hung in the room for a few moments while all the participants of the meeting made sure all the relevant problems had been addressed. "No? Then I will see you all tomorrow."


Both Dr. Gavle left first quickly followed by Mr. Quint, Armsmaster however stayed seated. "What is it?" Piggot asked.


"Ms. Hebert's sensory abilities allow her to easily detect other Parahumans; because of this I enlisted Hannah's assistance in explaining the 'unwritten rules' to her." Armsmaster explained, not missing the small sound of disgust from the woman across from him at the mention of the unwritten rules.


Director Piggot did not like the unwritten rules yet at the same time had to recognize their usefulness. Any attempt at a wide scale crackdown on parahuman criminals by the Protectorate and PRT would end with both sides severely depleted and a massive amount of collateral damage and dead civilians. While the Protectorate/ PRT had better organization and concentration of force the criminals had sheer numbers, both in Parahumans and unpowered gang members. Thankfully a major part of the rules was using the same amount of force that you wanted used on you, which helped to keep deaths and collateral damage down.


"Going out and punching the occasional villain in the face will not fix our problems", she stated bringing up their old dilemma.


"No it won't", said Armsmaster also knowing the steps they were going through. "It is only treating the symptoms of the problem and not the problem itself; unfortunately we do not have the resources or ability to solve the main problem."


"With the main problem being the state of the world and its apparent slow collapse means more people don't see a point in adhering to the rules when society may not be around for much longer", Piggot finished for him. "I know, that doesn't make the situation any less frustrating."


Armsmaster could only nod in agreement as he picked up the files in front of him and left the room to return to testing the ceramic samples in his lab.


---------------------------------------


A/N: If what I had the psychologist saying is completely wrong please let me know since I have only a small idea about how psychologists actually do things.

 

[thor8797]

Effigy – 1.4​

Missy Biron, or Vista as she preferred to be called, blinked her brown eyes blearily as she woke up. Why was she on the couch in the wards common area, and why was she leaning up against something hard and not a pillow?


"Good morning", said Taylor brightly as she put down the book she had been reading; her bright tone making an odd contrast with her permanent slightly solemn neutral expression.


That was enough to jog Vista's memory; she had tried to stay up all night to keep Taylor company, evidently she hadn't succeeded. The two had been watching movies in the Wards common area, talking and generally just enjoying each other's friendly company. Unknown to Vista, it also prevented Taylor from going back to her room and staring at her file in another vain attempt to force her memories to return.


"Morning", Vista mumbled back, not full awake yet. She yawned as she sat up, a red mark on her cheek indicated where it had been pressed up against Taylor's shoulder. "When did I fall asleep?" She asked.


"Sometime before two I think", came the other girl's reply as she watched Vista lever herself off the couch.


Vista nodded before yawning again, her blonde hair swaying slightly before wandering towards the kitchen area mumbling about breakfast and how it wasn't fair that Taylor didn't need to sleep. Taylor herself got up off the couch to follow her into the otherwise empty kitchen/dining area; it was early enough that none of the other wards were up yet. Vista, still half asleep, made herself a bowl of cereal and began eating.


Halfway through the bowl of cereal she noticed Taylor looking at the bowl intently. "What's up?" Vista asked, her brain finally having clawed its way to full wakefulness.


Taylor started slightly at the question before ducking her head slightly in embarrassment. "Sorry, I was just wondering what it tastes like", she said making a vague gesture with her hands towards the bowl in front of Vista.


Vista opened her mouth to respond before closing it again with a muted click realizing she didn't have an explanation for how cereal tastes; and it wasn't as if she could just get the other girl some so she could find out for herself. How do you explain taste to someone who had never experienced it? Her mind went into overdrive and she started searching for a way to explain how something tasted that wouldn't make her look like an idiot before she hit on an idea. Crossing her fingers underneath the table she asked her own question, "You can still smell stuff right?"


"Yeah, no idea how though", the other girl replied.


"Ok, most food tastes like it smells but stronger", Vista said with a sage nod and a metaphorical pat on the back for coming up with a good answer.


"Oh... that makes sense", Taylor replied sounding relieved and a bit distracted.


As Vista went back to eating her cereal Taylor's focus turned to the Lights around her. The rest of the wards were still in their rooms, likely asleep, although given that Triumph was moving around the rest of them should be up soon enough. Miss Militia hadn't left the base but had been moving from room to room every so often; Armsmaster had only stopped moving around what she assumed was his lab for three hours or so, she guessed that was the result of his rumoured 'super coffee'. None of the rest of the heroes were at the base, likely at their homes or on patrol. That was the point where she stopped being able to identify individuals; capes were colourful and had unique patterns, while normal humans just had unique patterns. She really needed to work on that.


"So, what are you doing today?" Vista asked, pulling Taylor out of her thoughts.


"Oh I'm finally going to get some clothes that aren't grey", Taylor enthused all but rubbing her hands together in glee. Vista chucked as Taylor continued, "Miss Militia said she'd take me in today, and we're going to talk to someone I knew from . . . before." Taylor trailed off at that point and stared at her hands resting on the table.


"Seems weird that they're just having you head out like that", Vista spoke in a slightly puzzled tone.


"Well the Protectorate already had to make a press statement after I was picked up; people already know what I look like. It was on the news the day after I got here, you didn't see it?" Taylor's head tilted slightly, her puzzled tone matching the blonde's.


"I don't really watch the news, still seems weird they aren't giving you a disguise."


"Armsmaster didn't think it was worth it, and after he explained it I didn't either. It's kind of hard to disguise this." As Taylor finished speaking she made a sweeping gesture towards herself.


Vista paused, taking a long look at her friend and came to the realization that she was probably right. Taylor didn't breathe, her eyes didn't move or blink, and her mouth didn't move when she spoke. All the little things you didn't consciously notice about someone until they weren't there anymore, and it wasn't like she could pass her face off as a mask with all the pictures of her going around. A sudden thought came to her and made her grin, "You could wear something like Panacea's costume."


Taylor snorted before replying dryly, "I think that might make me stand out more."


Vista giggled at that. She couldn't help it, the combination of Taylor's tone and expression was inexplicably funny to her.


Triumph chose that moment to enter the room moving in a way that could only be described as zombie-like. Vista's giggling died down as both she and Taylor watched the brown haired boy shamble over to the automatic coffee maker, pour himself a mug and shamble over to his usual seat at the table. He didn't seem to notice the pair as he stared forward blearily and took several sips of the coffee he had brought to the table with him. He hadn't bothered or remembered to put a mask on; none of the wards did around Taylor anymore, after all her powers let her identify any parahuman, mask or no mask.


"Late night?" Vista ventured, finally breaking the silence that had descended.


"Ugh, Robin is like a machine when he's out on patrol; even when 'patrol' is just going around the better parts of the city." Triumph replied, appearing slightly more awake.


"Anything exciting happen?" Vista questioned, the slightest trace of annoyance creeping onto her voice. After all she wasn't allowed to go on patrols yet, she was too young according to the higher-ups.


"Drunk guy almost threw up on my boots", he said; grinning slightly at the disgusted expression on the girl's face. "Other than that it was another glorious day protecting the city and its fair inhabitants", he declared; striking as dramatic a pose as he could while still sitting, which was promptly ruined by a huge yawn.


Both Taylor and Vista shared a laugh at that while Triumph adopted a slightly betrayed expression as he looked down at his coffee mug.


"Maybe you should go get some more sleep?" Taylor asked, her unfamiliarity with actually needing sleep making it come out more as a question than a suggestion.


Triumph drained the last dregs of coffee from the mug before replying, "Nah, I'll just head down to the gym and run a few laps before breakfast or something, that should wake me up." Suiting action to words, he got up and headed out the door.


"I should probably get ready too", said Taylor. "Miss Militia said she wanted to head out early to try and avoid the morning rush as much as she could."


"Alright, see ya when you get back here." Vista said with a wave as she turned and headed for her own room to get changed for the day ahead.


As Taylor strode out of the wards section of the base towards her own room she came across Dr. Caldwell heading toward the elevators that would take him down to the labs. She decided to use the chance meeting to satisfy her curiosity.


"Doctor Caldwell!" Taylor called as she rushed over to the man.


"Hey Taylor, or do you prefer Lalka?" He asked lowering the tinkertech tablet he had been reading off of.


"Taylor is fine, but why would you use my cape name?" Came Taylor's puzzled reply.


"Some people just prefer their cape names to their given names, like how Missy gets pi- angry when people don't call her Vista while on base, or Armsmaster preferring people call him as such rather than Colin." Caldwell paused before correcting himself, "Well, except for close friends; he's ok with them calling him Colin. Sorry, I assume there was something you wanted to ask me?"


"Yeah it's something that's been bugging me for a bit but-." She paused trying to put her question into words before deciding to go with the simple wording that had been bouncing around her mind, "How do I work?"


Fortunately for her Caldwell managed to grasp what she was trying to say, "Do you want the simple explanation or the scientific one?"


"Uh, simple please."


"Like almost all parahuman powers, we have no idea, you might as well be a wizard", surprisingly enough he managed to keep a straight face.


"What's the scientific one", Taylor asked, not quite sure if he was joking or not.


"It's pretty much the same thing, just using bigger words", Caldwell admitted. "Nobody knows the how of powers, we can analyze their effects and figure out the limits but nobody has figured out the mechanics behind them."


"Oh, that sounds-"


"It's incredibly frustrating, they obviously do work but powers might as well be magic for all the adherence they have to the laws of physics", annoyance was evident in his voice and he almost seemed to speaking to himself by this point.


"Sorry for binging it up", Taylor said quickly, lifting her hands up in a placating gesture.


Caldwell let out a sigh, "No need to apologize. It's just that, as a scientist, it drives me nuts that after nearly three decades of studying we aren't any closer to finding the answer. Nearly all powers seem to ignore physics and the Cases are even worse in that regard. Take yourself for example, your body has no apparent means of producing speech but you do it anyways, you have no muscles or tendons but you move around anyways, you have no nervous system or brain but you can think and feel anyways. You are a walking slap in the face to physics, biology, chemistry and logic; but it all clearly works somehow, and that's what bugs me. Sorry, I went off on a tangent, again, anything else you wanted to ask?"


"Did you take a look at the stuff I made yet?"


"Not yet, we have a fairly large backlog of work to get through before we can finish testing it, anything else?"


"No that was pretty much it", Taylor admitted.


"Alright", Caldwell said, turning to the elevator at the end of the hallway. "I'll get back to you as soon as we finish testing the materials you gave us, Ok?"


"Sounds great", she replied brightly, already heading in the opposite direction toward her room.


Upon entering her room she allowed the door to close quietly behind her as she surveyed the space in front of her. The sheets on the bed were still rumpled slightly from where she had lain on them and stared at the ceiling the night before last, thinking, trying to remember, going over what she knew, anything to try and get her situation to make sense. It hadn't accomplished anything.


With a mental sigh she stepped across the clean floor, past the desk with her file on it, and into the bathroom. She stared at herself in the mirror; it was the only piece of equipment in the room she had ever used. A quick examination the inoffensive grey t-shirt and track pants the Protectorate had provided her revealed them to still be quite clean since she had put them on a few days ago. It made sense to her; she didn't shed skin cells or sweat so her clothes would need to get dirty from outside sources.


Taylor turned to leave the bathroom, sparing a final glance at the face in the mirror. Pulling the closet door open she pulled her jacket off the hanger it was sitting on; the jacket was also Protectorate issue but instead of the ubiquitous grey it was primarily blue with white lining and had the Protectorate logo adorning the upper part of the left sleeve. She pulled the jacket on as she made her way back to the door, as she reached for the handle a thought struck her. Why should she walk all the way to Miss Militia's room when she could just teleport to her?


Looking through her extra sense she found the green and brown striped point of light that was Miss Militia. She had learned to feel out the area around the lights to get a sense of what the area around the person was like; at the basic level it let her sense a small area around her potential destination. Finding an empty spot that she assumed was in front of the other woman she teleported to her destination, and found herself looking at a towel clad Miss Militia who had quite clearly just finished a shower.


The two of them stared at each other for a split second before Taylor spun on her heel, frantically searching for a destination that wasn't here. "Sorry!" She squeaked out before teleporting to someone she hoped was one of the security people near the labs, leaving a bemused and somewhat surprised Miss Militia behind. With a small sigh Hannah forced her power to change from the shotgun it had assumed back to a combat knife and checked her watch; no, she wasn't late yet.


She smiled to herself, apparently Taylor was a bit impatient to go out for the first time since she had arrived here. She would have to talk to the girl about teleporting in on people unannounced; Taylor's reaction however had been quite amusing. Throwing on her costume she made her way out the door intent on finding the wayward teleporter.


-------------------------------------------


A/N: Just a short chapter with some hopefully good character interactions. If there's anything glaringly wrong with my writing style please let me know.

 

[thor8797]

Effigy – 1.5​

It was days like this that made Hannah thankful for the heavy coat she had that she could wear with her costume. The weather past the van windows was thoroughly miserable; it was unseasonably cold and rain was coming down in sideways sheets thanks to the strong winds. The ferry trip in from the rig had been rough enough that more than one person ended up surrendered the contents of their stomach to the bay. A glance to the side showed Corporal Ramirez was devoting his full attention to the surprisingly empty road in front of them and another glance towards the back seat showed Taylor staring out the window trying to take in the tall buildings of the city outside.


"There's so many of them", Taylor's voice was quiet, almost awed.


"So many of what?" Hannah questioned; Taylor had seen the city before however briefly, why was she amazed by it?


"People", came the distracted reply. "They're everywhere."


Taylor had never used her sensory power anywhere but on the Rig where there were at most a hundred people at a time. If using her power on the Rig was like standing in the middle of a star field then using it in the city, especially in one of the more populous areas, was like standing in the centre of a galaxy. Over a thousand swirls of light surrounded her each slightly different from the others with their own combination of shades and patterns that only made the rare coloured ones stand out from the mass of whites and greys even more. The fact that they were driving through the city only made the experience even more amazing for her, people were constantly entering and leaving her range, continuously introducing new light patterns and designs; she had to look at as many as she could.


"-ylor?" Came Hannah's voice cutting into the younger girl's thoughts causing her to jerk upright and abruptly bring her focus back to her immediate surroundings.


"Yes?" She asked louder and faster than necessary.


"We're here." Hannah said, pointing out the window towards the red and gold store in front of them.


Taylor looked in the indicated direction before she nodded and grabbed the handle of the umbrella that had been resting upright between her legs before opening both the door and the umbrella, holding the latter in front and above of herself like a shield. On the opposite side of the vehicle Hannah was doing the same; an odd corner of the older woman's mind noted that while her own hair was starting to get a bit frizzy from the humidity, Taylor's stayed in its typical dark curls.


"Coming in Corporal?" Hannah asked, turning to the Hispanic man in the driver's seat.


"And end up carrying all your bags? I know how this works", he said with a grin that took any possible sting out of his reply. "I'll be alright ma'am; I have some paperwork I need to get done anyways", he said as he patted the briefcase sitting between the two front seats. "Unless you actually do need me to come in?"


"We should be good, and hopefully we won't make you wait too long", she said closing the door. She then hurried over to the front of the store where Taylor stood; the girl having scurried into the sheltered area created by the building and had been waiting impatiently for her.


Hannah had chosen the store for several reasons not the least of which was because it was close to where the ferry to and from the Rig docked. As the two of them stepped through the doors and made their way further into the store the few customers who had braved today's weather took notice, pulled out their phones, snapped a picture or two and went back to shopping. It was a bit anticlimactic; but given the sheer number of capes in Brockton Bay people got used to seeing them in costume doing the totally mundane things of everyday life. The store itself was pretty typical, fluorescent lighting and white walls emphasizing the rows and isles of clothing. The shopping turned out to be almost trivially easy; Taylor happened to have simple tastes in clothing and was able to pick out a few full sets along with a heavier coat for days like this one, despite not being affected by the cold it would keep her clothing dry.

--------

'Somethings wrong', the thought nagged at Hannah as she glanced around, a minute of discreetly surveying the store brought her the answer. 'What are they up to?' While she and Taylor had been shopping she had noticed more than one visitor to the store who looked distinctly out of place, it took her another minute or so of observation to figure out what had tipped her off. Most of them had a rough appearance, which by itself didn't mean anything; however none of them seemed to be showing the slightest interest in the clothing the store was selling. On the other hand they were showing an interest (and not a friendly interest) in the two of them that ranged from relatively subtle to quite obvious. 'Could it be the gangs sending people to check out the new parahuman?'


Checking her watch discreetly confirmed that while it hadn't been very long since the two of them had arrived, it was enough time for the gangs to have picked up on their presence and sent some people to check it out; after all the gangs liked to stay informed as much as anyone else. She kept track of the suspected gang members; it was all she could do really. They weren't doing anything illegal and even the Merchants would have to have lost what few brain cells they still had to attack here and now, but it was a good thing most of Taylor's abilities weren't obvious just by looking.


Even if it wasn't the gangs, Taylor seemed to have finished actually picking out clothes and was now just browsing. "Ready to go?" She asked the younger girl.


"Ye-", Taylor broke off and Hannah felt a tug on her coat.


"You're Miss'litia right?" The question came from a point near the costumed woman's waist; craning her neck she saw a young brown haired boy of about six or seven pulling on her coat and looking up at her curiously with what looked like a Legend action figure clutched in his other hand.


"Yes I am", she replied, smiling slightly. "And what's your name?"


"Steven", as he spoke he pointed past her towards Taylor. "Who's she?"


"Why don't you ask her? I'm sure she'll tell you if you ask nicely." A part of her felt a bit bad at forcing Taylor to deal with inquisitive children so early on but the poor girl was going to have to learn how to deal with the attention her appearance brought her however; she was here to help Taylor if she needed it.


Taking a few steps past her the boy tried again, "Who are you?"


"Umm- Ta- Lalka", said Taylor, stumbling over which name she should use.


"My mom says you look kind of creepy", he said with the oblivious lack of tact only a child could really pull off and causing Taylor's shoulders to sag slightly. Before either Hannah or Taylor could say anything Steven continued, "I think you look like 'n action figure." He said thrusting his Legend action figure at her for emphasis; Taylor and Hannah were about to respond before being interrupted again by a young brown haired woman coming from the same direction the boy had.


"There you are Steven; you shouldn't wander off like that", she said as she stepped up to the boy. "He wasn't bothering you was he?"


Hannah's smile turned slightly brittle under the scarf covering the lower part of her face as she noticed the Homefront pin on the other woman's collar; one of the slightly more moderate groups that supported the Patriot's message.


'Get rid of it', she wanted to say. "Not at all."


"Thanks for keeping him from wandering some more", she said gratefully while picking up her son.


'They use this country's ideals as justification to rape and beat people in back alleys', Hannah felt like yelling at the woman; but she couldn't, the Protectorate, like the military and police, didn't appreciate their members spouting political opinions while in uniform or costume.


"Oh, it was no problem", she said, it was really all she could say really.


As the brunette woman carried her son away Taylor hesitantly came up beside her, "Ummm. . . Are-"


"It's nothing", she said taking a deep breath. 'I can't keep getting so worked up over things like that.' "We should pay for your clothes and get back to Corporal Ramirez, I'm sure we've made him wait long enough", she was hoping the mention of the Corporal would distract Taylor from her behaviour just now; the hesitant nod she got in return showed her she hadn't entirely succeeded.


The trip through the checkout didn't take long aside from the cashier getting briefly distracted by Taylor and pulling his phone out to snap a picture of the both of them. Outside, the rain had eased up and the wind wasn't as strong as it had been. Ramirez was still going through the paperwork he had brought with him and listening to the radio when Hannah and Taylor got back to the van; piling into the van they headed out of the parking lot towards the PRT headquarters building.


"Anything interesting happen?" Hannah asked Ramirez while motioning to the radio.


"I'll let you know when we get to HQ", he said quietly, casing a significant look at the rear-view mirror towards Taylor. Taylor for her part was too distracted and filled with nervous energy to pick up on the exchange.


The rest of the ride went smoothly, hitting almost every green light on the way to their destination. The PRT building looked much like the buildings around it save for its separation from them; several stories of glass and steel rising from the well maintained lawns surrounding it. They parked in the underground parking garage that the PRT used to hold its collection of vehicles before taking an elevator into the building proper. Thanks to the traffic they had arrived a little early, fortunately the people they were meeting today had just arrived and were settling into one of the waiting areas.


Ramirez left to get coffee in one of the employee break rooms as Hannah and Taylor walked through the various rooms and hallways to get to the waiting room where their guests were.


"You ok?" Hannah asked, placing a hand on Taylor's shoulder.


"I- It's just- What if they don't recognize me?"


"It'll be fine, trust me, you look nearly the same as you did before your trigger." Hannah gave Taylor her best reassuring smile before gently nudging the girl back into motion.


A short while later the two of them arrived at the door to the waiting room. Taylor hesitantly stepped forward and opened the door before pausing to try and find something to say.


"Umm-"


"Taylor!" Cried Emma Barnes as she launched herself out of her chair and pulled her friend into a bone crushing hug. "I'm so happy you're ok", the redhead said in a quieter voice.


Alan Barnes was a little more sedate in greeting Taylor but not by much, "How have they been treating you? Have you been doing alright?"


Hannah felt a smile creep onto her face as she watched Taylor try to answer the questions the pair kept asking; she seemed somewhat overwhelmed but not actually distressed which was definitely a good thing. At the same time she felt like she was intruding on a private moment between them and turned to leave intent on giving Taylor and the Barnes some privacy while they talked.


Striding back through the hallways she had originally come through brought her to the same break room that Ramirez was sitting in. The well-built man was nursing a cup of black coffee while working on the same paperwork he had been earlier; he looked up and leaned back with a groan as Hannah sat down across from him.


"The never ending parade of paperwork", he said with a sigh.


"The lifeblood of any sufficiently large organization, I know how you feel." Hannah shot back sympathetically. "What was on the news earlier?"


"The Headhunters showed up in Austin and tore through a meeting between some of the gangs there."


Hannah leaned forward at that, "How many dead?"


"Last update was twenty-seven regular gang members and six capes, five villains and one tinker from the local Protectorate branch who was on patrol and stopped to investigate the noise. The usual methods all round."


"Damn, everyone is going to be nervous about this; it's been two years why show up now?"


The Headhunters had announced themselves to the world and earned their name almost seven years ago when they had shown up out of nowhere to turn Heartbreaker's mansion into a charnel house. Not a single person had left the property alive; on top of that they had taken the head of every parahuman on the property with them when they left. The worst part was that they knew nothing about them; they showed up without warning and would disappear just as quickly. Who supported them? What did they want? How did they get around? What mildly disturbed Hannah was that, despite the brutality of their attacks there were quite a few people who cheered them on without any reservations.


"Did we at least learn anything this time?"


"I don't know I haven't checked up on it yet", Ramirez said with a sigh before draining the last third of his mug. "Like you said though, this is going to put everyone on edge for a while."


The two of them sat in silence for a while with the only sound being the scratch of Ramirez's pen as he went back to his mound of paperwork.


"I'm going to go see what I can find out", Hannah said abruptly, standing and heading out the door as Ramirez absently waved to her without taking his eyes of the papers in front of him.


What she found from going over the reports she had access to wasn't much. The Headhunters had a (presumed) cape dressed like a plague doctor who was the one doing the decapitations using a one handed battle axe. All the new information they had come from the Protectorate tinker's helmet cam; the footage had the man cautiously opening a backdoor from the alley he was in, poking his head past the door, and promptly being shot through the door with high intensity laser weaponry from multiple angles. The plague doctor cape didn't show up to decapitate him until later, almost immediately before the Protectorate response. It wasn't much to go on.


Hannah gave a frustrated sigh, she wasn't getting anywhere just sitting here and going through the recording over and over again. Glancing over at the clock also told her it was getting close five in the afternoon, 'It hasn't been that long has it?' A look at the clock on the screen in front of her and her watch confirmed that yes it was that late in the afternoon; she should probably grab Taylor and head back to the rig, after all Hannah had patrol this evening with Velocity.


As it turned out Emma had yet to run out of things to talk to Taylor about, or rather talk at her about considering Taylor was really just listening at this point. Alan was also looking a bit tired and worn, not that Hannah could blame him. Between the stress of a friend dying and spending several hours listening to his daughter trying to explain her best friend's life to her he was likely reaching his emotional limits.


As she opened the door everyone turned to look at her, "Sorry to interrupt but Taylor and I are going to have to head back to the Rig soon." The announcement was met with a loud disappointed noise from Emma, a quieter one from Taylor, and a guilty expression of relief from Alan. "Not right away", she hurriedly assured the girls, "You can still finish what you were talking about, but we do need to leave soon."


Alan looked thoughtful for a moment before standing up, "Actually could I talk to you for a moment?"


"Of course", Hannah said as she held the door open. "What did you want to talk about?" She asked as the door closed behind the two of them.


Alan paused for a second to collect his thoughts, "Myself and a few of Danny's friends from the union finally got his funeral setup." Another pause and a sigh, "I was hoping you could let Taylor know and ask her if she wants to attend."


"And why don't you ask her yourself?"


"Because she knows you better and frankly I think you'd do a better job of it." Hannah was about to respond but Alan interrupted her, "And don't lie to me, I know it hasn't sunk in for Emma that her best friend now sees her as little more than a complete stranger, hell I don't think it's totally sunk in for me. I can't do this. How the hell am I supposed to tell a thirteen year old amnesiac girl that I want her to attend her father's funeral?! I- Danny was a friend of our family for years, so was Taylor, I don't know how to do this. I don't know what to do." Alan's hands were clenched and he was staring at the floor, if he had looked tired before now he looked exhausted and out of his depth.


Hannah had seen that expression before; taking a step forward she put a hand on his shoulder, "I'll let her know, ok?"


"Thank you", his voice was quiet but filled with relief and gratitude. He straightened up slightly, like a weight had been taken off his shoulders.

 

[thor8797]

So I ended up typing this out faster than usual, as a result its shorter than usual but still an important part of the story.

Effigy – 1.6​

The drive back to the ferry dock was slow going between the still bad weather and the fact that it was rush hour the drive seemed to be taking forever. It was very quiet as well; Hannah was wrapped up in her own thoughts about the re-emergence of the Headhunters and how she was going to ask Taylor about going to her father's funeral. Taylor was going over what she had learned about her old life; she still didn't feel an emotional connection to it nor were any of her memories returning. It felt like she was learning about the life of a stranger who happened to share her name and face. Ramirez was busy driving and could read the mood in the vehicle well enough to know that any attempts at making conversation were unlikely to be appreciated.


The light had just turned green and the red mini-van in front of them was on its way through the intersection when a blue car ran the red light and smashed into the front end of it with a metallic crunch and the squeal of brakes, forcing both vehicles off to the left and into the oncoming lanes. The world seemed to pause for a moment as the eyes of everyone nearby were drawn to the scene; Hannah, Ramirez and Taylor barely had time to react before both vehicles had stopped moving. Time seemed to un-pause with a rush of noise and activity; before Taylor could say anything Ramirez had turned on the van's hazard lights and both him and Hannah had checked for oncoming traffic before opening their doors.


"Stay here", Hannah said to Taylor as she got out of the vehicle, her tone booked no argument.


"Wait I-", Taylor began before being cut off by the door closing leaving her to fidget and hope everyone was going to be alright.


"I'll check the car, you check the van", Hannah shouted to Ramirez as they cautiously made their way to the crash, the last thing they wanted to do was add themselves to the list of people who needed help.


"On it ma'am." He made a wide circle around to the driver's side of the vehicle only to find the door open and a silver haired woman he guessed to be in her late fifties stumbling out looking a bit lost.


"Hey! Are you alright?" He asked while steadying the woman.


"I-I think so", she replied uncertainly still sounding slightly out of it.


"Is there anyone else inside and are you hurt?"


"Michelle and Tyson!" She screamed in alarm, turning to try and get back to the van before stumbling and almost falling.


"Wait! I'll check on them, just wait here, don't worry," he said gently as he lowered her into a sitting position. Turning to the still-gathering crowd he pointed at a middle aged woman, "You! Call 911 let them know what happened." With that out of the way he pulled the sliding door of the van open to check the other passengers


---------------------------------


While Ramirez was checking out the occupants of the red mini-van Hannah was examining the blue car. The hole in the front windshield and the lack of a driver quickly made it obvious that whoever had been driving had not had their seatbelt on. A quick check of the seats through the windows revealed that there wasn't anyone else in the car.


Looking in the direction the car had been travelling swiftly revealed a rather sad looking wet and bloodied bundle lying one lane over; with a heavy heart Hannah began walking over to the body. She frowned as the body shifted slightly before her eyes widened in surprise and she broke into a sprint, dropping to her knees beside the person who was somehow still alive despite being thrown from a moving vehicle. A quick once over of the young man revealed that wouldn't be true for long however; just going by appearances, both legs were broken, one arm was dislocated, he was still unconscious and there were so many cuts on and around his head she was having trouble even telling his ethnicity. He certainly wasn't going to last long enough for an ambulance to arrive given the rush hour traffic.


'He needs a hospital now.' She thought before she realised that there was a way to get him to a hospital quickly. "Who here has first-aid training?" She called to the small crowd that had gathered.


An older looking man hesitantly stepped forward, "I'm a nurse."


"Good come keep an eye on him", Hannah told him standing up and gesturing toward the battered man on the ground. "I'll be back in a minute", she said as she turned and sprinted back to the white PRT van.


Skidding to a stop she pulled the side door open almost violently, "Taylor, I need your help. There's a man who we need to get to the hospital now or he's going to die."


"How am I supposed to help?" Came Taylor's panicked reply.


'You're a teleporter!' Hannah almost yelled at the girl before stopping herself, Taylor wasn't used to life or death situations; it wasn't fair to expect the girl not to panic. She took a deep breath before replying, "Your teleportation can get him to the hospital faster than anyone else. Please, he needs your help."


"Alright", she said a bit uncertainly but with a surprising amount of steel in her voice as she clambered out of the vehicle.


"Thank you", the older woman said with a relieved smile while reaching into the van to grab an emergency blanket and first-aid kit. Taking Taylor's hand she quickly led her over to the ruined mess of a man that was the driver of the car.


"Wait", Hannah said suddenly remembering the other vehicle. "Ramirez!" She called in the direction of the mini-van.


"Yeah?" Asked the PRT trooper as he stepped out from behind the wrecked vehicle.


"Does anyone else need medical attention?" She called to him.


"Driver and passengers are shaken up but other than that seem ok."


"Wait here till an ambulance arrives then meet us at Brockton General, ok?"


"Got it", Ramirez said with a nod before returning to the other side of the mini-van.


Hannah quickly returned to Taylor, who seemed to be shrinking in on herself from the stares of the on looking crowd; grabbing the girl's hand again, Hannah led her the rest of the way over to the driver. "Alright; we need to go. . .", she placed the emergency blanket over the man before looking at the street signs in order to figure out where they were within the city.


Taylor gently placed her hand on the man's shoulder getting blood on her fingers in the process; she didn't care. This man was dying, something similar had happened to her; could the same thing that happened to her happen to him? She didn't want someone else to go through what she had gone through. That was how Case 53's and 140's triggered wasn't it? While they died; she wasn't going to let that happen.


"We need to go that way", Hannah said pointing in the direction the direction the driver had been heading and placing her other hand on Taylor's shoulder. "Try to make sure he doesn't move too much."


Taylor turned her head to look in the direction Hannah had indicated; feeling for the furthest, safe point of light. Then she moved.


Miss Militia pulled out her cell phone after the third jump and spoke a few words into it before hanging up somewhere around the fifth teleport; Taylor want really paying attention, she was busy checking the indicated direction and searching for a safe point to teleport to. Each time they arrived at a new destination there were gasps and a few screams in reaction to the bloodied man they were moving; Taylor ignored them, they weren't important. Getting the man to help was.


It didn't take a long time to get the driver to the hospital, only a few minutes; it felt like forever to Taylor and Hannah. As soon as they arrived at the emergency room doors the people waiting there sprang into action; bracing the driver's neck, injecting him with various things, and moving him onto a stretcher before rushing off into the building.


Taylor stayed on her knees, slightly bloodied and emotionally exhausted, unable to really force herself to stand.


"Hey", Hannah said gently, offering the kneeling girl her hand. "Are you ok?"


"I-I'm not sure", the younger girl said, feeling disconnected from the world around her.


Hannah helped the girl up then pulled her into a tight hug. "You did well", she said reassuringly, patting and rubbing the girl's back. "You did well."


-----------------------------------------------


A/N: And thus begins Taylor's hero career. Not every problem in BB needs to be caused by parahumans or even maliciousness.

 

[thor8797]

Effigy – 1.7​

It was late when Hannah and Taylor finally got back to the Rig. The accident and its aftermath had ended up delaying them for long enough to miss the ferry ride that took the evening shift out to the Rig and brought the day shift back into the city; apparently a hero missing their patrol shift was not enough of an emergency for the ferry to make an unscheduled trip.


The pair finally did make it out to their destination by hitching a ride on the helicopter ferrying hardcopies of files out to the Rig's secure archives. Now, as she practically crawled away from the clattering machine with Hannah's help, Taylor felt she could safely cross helicopter rides and flying in general off the list of things she ever wanted to do again.


On the positive side of things, it had finally stopped raining.


Making their way into the base, past the two troopers waiting to help carry the files in, and through the blandly colored hallways they finally reached the door to Taylor's room.


Taylor spoke first. "After I finish putting this stuff away", she said holding up the clothing filled shopping bags in her hands. "Could I hear some more stories? That one about Armsmaster's birthday was really funny", she asked with a slight giggle; an extremely odd sound when combined with her unchanging features.


Hannah shook her head, "I can't, sorry, I'm going to have to make up for the patrol I missed." She let out a regretful sigh, "Which means yet more paperwork."


"Oh", said a disappointed Taylor. "I hope you manage to finish it all then."


Hannah smiled as she spoke, "So do I." Turning and starting towards her own office she called out over her shoulder, "See you tomorrow Taylor."


Taylor waved; a bag swinging from her hand, "See you later."


The first thing Taylor did after closing the door to her room was to hang up her new clothes in the closet. With that task completed she made her way to her desk in the opposite corner of the room and dropped into the chair with a huff. Her folder was in front of her, she spent a few minutes staring at it wondering if she should reread it; none of her memories had come back while listening to Emma but maybe if she reread it again something might click.


With a sigh she placed the file off to the side; she'd read it more than enough already, she would just need to find something else to trigger her memories. She ignored the small voice in the back of her mind telling her it wasn't working, that her memories weren't coming back.


She needed them back; they were hers, she wanted them back.


Instead she booted up the computer and, carefully placing her hands on the mouse and keyboard, navigated over to PHO. She had to be careful holding onto the mouse, especially after she accidently crushed the last one.


A quick glance over the current popular threads showed the usual assortment of debates, Endbringer speculation and someone claiming 'Fall of the Goblin King' had turned the story into a brainless action flick and was an insult to what actually happened.


Taylor skipped over all those and looked up her own name, easily finding the discussion thread in the Brockton Bay sub-forum. The thread had a surprising number of posts already; the early parts were speculation about her powers which had recently given way to comparing her to other capes out there as well as talk about her rescue of the driver of the car.


The sheer number of serial killers she resembled was depressing and more than a little disturbing.


Mannequin, formerly Sphere had the most visual similarities; both of them had ceramic 'skin' but while she still looked mostly human Mannequin resembled a robot. Incredibly good at staying hidden and ambushes he usually went after tinkers trying to improve things and had a special hatred of ones with space-applicable technology.


Black Kaze was a teleporting mass murderer who had killed at least ten thousand people and as some of the later posters said; that wasn't the number of people they thought she had killed, it was just the point where they stopped counting. Fortunately she was currently languishing in the Birdcage; no one was quite sure how she'd been caught.


Oni Lee was merely strongly suspected to be a teleporting serial killer. He was Lung, leader of the Silver Dragon's personal problem solver.


Taylor skimmed the rest looking for heroes that she resembled. There was Strider, an independent mass teleporter with a semi-permanent government contract to get people to Endbringer battles. Then there mentions of Weld and a whole bunch of other Cases who all fell into the category of 'basically human but'. Then someone posted a picture that had been (thankfully) taken down by the mods and earned them a weeklong ban as well as the disgust of most of the other posters.


That was the point that Taylor decided to turn the computer off. She glanced over at her bookshelf, maybe she could read a book instead.


-------------------------------------------

Hannah sat at her desk filling out forms and thinking. She had already come to the conclusion that she couldn't do anything about the re-emergence of the Headhunters; not enough information, the bane of any problem solving really. This brought her to her current line of thought as she filled out reports and forms almost on autopilot. Taylor deserved the chance to attend her father's funeral, which was something she had already decided on.


No, what she kept asking herself was whether it was a good idea or not. She hadn't missed Taylor's slowly increasing desperation and obsession with regaining her pre-trigger memories and she was worried that going to the funeral could make it worse. No Case 53 or 140 had ever regained their memories and Taylor was smart enough that she would realise that sooner or later; Hannah worried about that moment of realisation.


A scratching sound pulled Hannah out of her musings, looking down she saw that she had gone through the stack of papers she had been working on and was now writing on her desk. Hastily she wiped her sleeve through the writing to try and clean it up and succeeded only in smearing it, despite being alone in her office she felt the absurd urge to look around and see if anyone else had spotted the mistake. Pulling another stack of papers to herself she began filling them out and slipped back into her thoughts.


Hannah had promised Mr. Barnes to ask Taylor about attending the funeral; she didn't intend to break that promise. Then there was Taylor herself, as much as she felt the trip could go wrong it could also give the younger girl some much needed closure on her unremembered life. She resolved to talk to Taylor about the funeral tomorrow, beyond that there wasn't much she couldn't think of anything to do but hope and try to support the girl.


Hannah looked to the rest of the paperwork arranged on her desk as she finished the last form from the stack in front of her and sighed. Glancing at the clock on the wall revealed that she had been filling out forms for several hours already. Hannah made her decision; she stood up, stretched her back and headed out the door intent on spending some time on the Rig's (small) range.


She needed to relieve some stress.


--------------------------------------------


"Alright let's try again", droned the instructor's voice.


Taylor groaned in frustration as she moved her arm back into position, she was getting better; her first attempts had been abject failures, her more recent attempts definitely weren't as bad. It just frustrated her that she on attempt number thirty-seven and still couldn't catch a cardboard tube on reflex without crushing it.


Taylor stared intently at the tube hanging from the clamp waiting for it to fall.


The clamp released sending the tube to the floor. Taylor's hand shot forward, grabbing the tube; and crushing it. Again.


"Damnit!" Taylor cried in frustration, tossing the now crumpled tube on the floor. She'd been told that the ability to dead lift about a thousand kilos could come in handy in many situations however; it was definitely a drawback when it came to delicate manipulation. She could do most of the everyday things; door handles, shaking hands, hugs, etc. Handling things that went from whole to broken very quickly was a lot harder for her; she still wished she could go back in time and erase her attempts to 'help' Rory make omelettes.


'Why am I having so much trouble with this? I bet other people with super strength don't have thi-'


"Taylor", came the almost warning tone of her instructor. "You're getting frustrated again, take a ten minute break to calm down and we'll come back to this then. Ok?"


Taylor didn't bother replying opting instead to stomp her way over to one of the benches along the gym wall, dropping onto it with a small thud. Nobody had seen any point in tying up one of the labs, and what she was doing was technically training hence why she ended up in the gym.


The gym was mostly empty save for one or two of the base's PRT troopers and more interestingly Victoria Dallon and an instructor who was doing her best to teach the blonde girl. Taylor vaguely remembered something about the style being created for people with super strength to fight baseline humans without accidently killing them.


As she watched the two Taylor thought back to what she had read and heard; Victoria, cape name Victory was a fairly standard Alexandria-package, flight, super strength, and invulnerability. Dredging that memory up also pulled up the reason she was here; the BBPD, Protectorate and PRT had all strongly recommended she learn how to control her strength in a fight.


Killing a druggie who pulled a gun on her and her friends by crushing his ribcage with a single punch due to adrenaline and a lack of training usually had that result. The fact that she had only crushed his ribcage instead of putting her arm completely through him had been successfully used as evidence that she had been holding back.


Apparently Victoria had progressed far enough in her training to practice with actual people instead of Dragon's mass produced training dummies. As Taylor watched Victoria and her instructor spar she wondered if she would end up learning the same style.


"Ready to go again?" Asked her own instructor.


"Yeah, let's try again", said Taylor unenthusiastically.


---------------------------------------------


Two hours, three breaks, many attempts and just as many crushed tubes later; Taylor finally managed to catch a tube without leaving dents in it.


"Finally!" Shouted Taylor while giving a bit of a victory dance. A thought hit her and she abruptly stopped and turned to her monitor/instructor, "I know it's weird that I just thought of this but, why are we using cardboard tubes?"


"They're cheap and we usually end up with a lot of them, on top of that we also expected you to break most of them", her instructor answered blandly.


"Oh."


Before Taylor could figure out how she felt about that particular piece of information Hannah strode into the room, "Taylor, do you have a moment?"


"Um", Taylor stole a glance at her instructor who nodded.


"I think you've accomplished enough for today", he said with a bit of relief in his tone. It suddenly occurred to Taylor that the whole process must have been incredibly dull for him.


"Yeah, what is it?" She asked Hannah and was suddenly struck by the similarity of the current situation to the time Armsmaster handed her file to her.


Hannah for her part decided to start the conversation off with lighter subjects rather than jumping straight to the subject of Mr. Hebert's upcoming funeral, "How's training coming along?"


"Great, I finally caught one without wrecking it", she said with a note of triumph in her voice as she held up the tube still clutched in her hand.


"That's good, how is your academic assessment coming?" Taylor was being evaluated on the level of knowledge she had in different fields as well as a few skills that were required for everyday function.


"Pretty good, I'm still not doing too well with writing though", the dark haired girl admitted with a slightly disappointed tone. While Taylor could read and write at a level consistent with her age she lacked the 'muscle memory' associated with writing individual letters, hence her writing was precise but very slow.


"Anything else happen today?"


"Not really, oh I was on PHO last night and-" Taylor cut herself off, she didn't really want admit she was being compared to so many serial killers. "-there was someone complaining that 'Fall of the Goblin King' was a dumbed down action flick" She continued.


Hannah hadn't missed the younger girl's word swap but decided to let it slide for now; she could check PHO later, and she was reasonably certain what topic she should look for. "I saw that last Thursday, whoever was complaining was right; the movie had almost nothing to do with what actually happened." Hannah had personally wanted to punch the writer after watching it but she wasn't about to tell Taylor that.


"What did it get wrong?"


Hannah motioned for Taylor to follow her, "Almost everything; the only major event they got right was that it wasn't the first attack that succeeded." She pushed and held the door open for Taylor before continuing, "Nilbog was not killed in a fiery climactic showdown at the end of the siege; he was killed by cruise missiles as part of the opening salvos." Hannah was now quickly walking through the base towards the nearest set of elevators, "His creations weren't wiped out in a month of fighting; it was a nearly two yearlong bloody slog to clear out Ellisburg and even now nobody wants to get close to the area."


Taylor was getting increasingly worried as the two of them stepped into the elevator, Hannah's hands were clenched into fists and her voice was starting to sound strained. She was quickly coming to regret her question now that she was seeing how it affected the uniformed woman.


Hannah carried on not noticing Taylor's subtle signs of discomfort, "It took the Protectorate, the PRT and the National Guard from across the country; it wasn't just whoever happened to be nearby." The elevator doors opened with an incongruously cheerful ding and Hannah marched out into the open aired upper deck of the Rig at a pace that forced the other girl to adopt an awkward walk-jog to keep up.


Hannah wasn't even talking about the movie anymore, "Two years of most Protectorate groups operating at half capacity let the villains expand almost unopposed, it's part of the reason they're as entrenched as they are." Coming to the railing she gripped it tightly looking out at the city, "I was there; it cost some of my friends their lives, Colin lost one of his legs, and the Director the use of her kidneys." She stopped and forced her hands to uncurl from their grip on the railing, "I-." She stopped thanks to a combination of realising she was rambling and something pressing against her side.


Taylor; who had finally worked up her courage, had stepped forward and hesitantly hugged Hannah from the side. She wasn't certain about what she was doing, "I'm sorry." Taylor said quietly hoping it would help, she was out of her depth now and was struggling for a solution.


Hannah let the air out of her lungs in a long sigh before taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, maybe her personal demons weren't quite as deeply buried as she would like to believe. They stayed like that for a short time, neither of them speaking.


Hannah was the first to break the silence, "Thank you. Sorry." There was another pause before she continued, "The original reason I wanted to talk to you was that your father's funeral is coming up in a few weeks."


Taylor froze, could this be the kick she needed to regain her memories? "I want to go." She said, her voice edged with steel.


--------------------------------


"You wanted to talk to me?" Hannah asked Colin as he sat in his lab with most of his attention (apparently) focused on the pile of half-assembled parts in front of him.


He replied without looking up, "Yes, the Director asked me if there were any Protectorate members I would recommend to be Miss Hebert's guardian. I was thinking about putting your name forward, considering you already occupy that position in all but name."


Hannah was shocked, "That's-."


'I took her shopping despite the fact that I didn't have to go. I do my best to offer her emotional support. I've spent more time around her than anyone else on the base. I practically asked her how her equivalent of school was going today. I care about her as more than just a fellow cape.'


She closed her mouth, the objection dying in her throat.


'Colin may be on to something.'


"Have you asked her about this?"


"Not yet, the Director and I are simply collecting a list of candidates from within the Protectorate and PRT. When the time comes to assign her a guardian we plan on simply having her go over and meet the candidates put forward." Colin paused to apply solder to the half-finished piece of equipment in front of him, "If none of the candidates put forward appeal to her then we will have to look for foster parents outside of our organisations."


Hannah spent a few minutes going over the idea before replying, "How long do I have to think about it?"

------------------------------------


A/N: Here we go, sorry for the delays. I powered through this over the past week, hopefully you like it.

 

[thor8797]

Effigy – 1.7.5​

Taylor stared intently at the situation before her.


'Come on Taylor you can do this.'


She had to, both Rory and Carlos were down for the count; it was all up to her. Unfortunately all the skill in the world couldn't help her, luck was all she had left. Hoping fate would be kind to her Taylor made her move.


"Damnit", she muttered, moving into the waiting jaws of her foe.


"HA!" Shouted Missy as she shot out of her seat to do a little victory dance.


It was one of those rare moments that most of the wards were gathered in one place with a significant amount of free time available.


Carlos had finished the process of joining the wards just a few days ago; his powers were redundant biology, a healing factor and flight. He also tried to act older than his fifteen years of age, and was somewhat successful.


Being the wards newest member Carlos had been the one to decide what they were going to do to kill time, hence the game of Monopoly. The Hispanic boy and Rory had focused on each other and Taylor had been focused on learning the ins and outs of the rules; nobody really paid any attention to Missy, until she put up hotels on the most expensive side of the board.


Carlos and Rory had gone down only a few turns after that, Taylor had hung on for a little bit longer but her recent bout of bad rolls had spelled her doom.


"Can't believe we forgot to pay attention to her", Carlos said morosely, shaking his head.


Rory reached over and patted him on the shoulder, "There, There, I'm sure you'll remember for next time." While he managed to keep his tone steady his face made it abundantly clear that he was struggling not smile.


At the other corner of the table Missy was back in her seat and talking to Taylor, "Hand em' over." She was grinning and holding her hands out for Taylor's remaining money and property cards.


"You already won", said the dark haired girl, directing a baleful stare at the blonde. Nonetheless she gathered up the demanded items.


"Yeah I know, I just want them in my pile", Missy said, a smug grin on her face as she dumped the cards and money into a pile in front of her. "I think this is the first time I ever won one of these games."


The two boys, in contrast to the girls, had started to clean up the game pieces; starting with Missy's pile.


"Hey! Mine", the blonde girl exclaimed while trying to protect the pile.


"Well alright", said Rory, a corner of his mouth quirking up slightly. "You get to put it away then."


"Oh you can take it then", she said quickly, despite that she helped the others pack the game up.


There was an awkward moment as everyone stood around, trying to think of something to say before the situation was rescued by Rory taking a glance at the clock and turning to Carlos, "We should probably get going; we don't want to miss the ferry."


"Yeah you're right", the Hispanic boy said as the two headed to the door. "The game was fun, see you later", he said with a wave.


"See ya", Taylor and Missy chorused, returning the wave.


The girls heard him talking to Rory as the door closed, "You hear abou-."


"Can't believe you beat all of us", said Taylor with a glance over at Missy.


"I can't believe I won, I was totally out of money till Rory landed on my place", replied Missy as she flopped down into the chair Rory had been sitting in; the sudden motion causing a red ball cap to fall off the armrest.


"I think Rory forgot his hat", said Taylor, craning her neck to look at it over the table. She held out her hands, "I'll get it to him."


Even as she caught the hat Taylor was already reaching out with her senses. Finding the two was easy; Rory was represented by a rather jagged pattern of bright yellow and green while Carlos had interlocking red and white stripes. Not wanting Rory to accidentally walk into her she jumped to a point behind him.


"-don't think most of them deserve that", Rory said.


"Tell that to someone who hasn't seen a bunch of those 'moderates' just stand there and watch people get beaten to a pulp", seethed Carlos.


"I have", Rory said darkly before sighing and running a hand through his hair. "Look, all I'm saying is that someone thinking the Patriots have a point doesn't make them evil on its own."


Carlos turned his head to look at Rory and caught sight of Taylor following quietly behind the two unsure of what to do about the argument. Carlos' expression quickly shifted from anger to surprise before settling on mild embarrassment, "Ummm."


Rory, wondering what had interrupted Carlos also turned to look at Taylor; who promptly seized the opportunity to fulfil her task and escape yet another uncomfortable situation resulting from her teleporting in on someone. "You forgot your hat", she said quickly, offering up the item in question.


"Uh, thanks", said Rory taking the ball cap and putting it on.


"Welcome", she said before teleporting back to Missy.


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A/N: Not a proper chapter it was originally the start of 1.8 but I couldn't get it to work with the rest of what I have planned. Takes place sometime between 1.7 and 1.8.

 

[thor8797]

Effigy – 1.8​

Taylor paced around her room, nervous energy keeping her from to siting still or focusing on anything for very long. The funeral was tomorrow, or more accurately given the time, later today.


Attempting to distract herself she looked out at the rest of the base with her senses. Armsmaster and Missy were the only two capes still on the base with the rest either out on patrol or gone home; idly Taylor wondered why her friend chose to stay overnight on the base so often. The only other people on the base were a handful of security people, clerks, and scientists working overtime.


She threw a glance over at the folder on her desk, she'd already read it over once tonight, and it felt like studying for a test that was never going to happen.


Turning her mind to a different distraction she thought of the note she had found taped to her door a few hours earlier. The note was from Dr. Caldwell explaining that they had finally finished testing the materials she was made of. All of it shared the same general properties; tough, highly temperature resistant, and most importantly were relatively easy to produce. They couldn't match top of the line tinker materials but were comfortably mid-upper tier; at the bottom was an apology for not being able to tell her in person.


Taylor felt an odd glow of pride at that before her thoughts inevitably came back to the funeral and the possibility of her memories returning.


With her memories back she could stop feeling like a fake; wearing a face and name from a life she hadn't lived.


Looking at the clock told her it was barely past one in the morning.


The next few hours felt like an eternity to Taylor, alone with her thoughts.


-----------------------------------


Taylor hadn't really grasped that someone was dead until now. Intellectually she had known what it meant but standing there with all the other attendees, watching the casket close and the pall bearers take up their positions; it finally hit her. Danny Hebert, her father, was dead.


Up until that point the ceremony had been a blur of new faces, greetings and condolences; she didn't say much only listened as others spoke about her father's life. A few names and faces stayed with her however; like Kurt and Lacey Dawkins a couple who had worked with her father and had been friends of family for years. Emma and her father were also there dressed in the same subdued dark clothing everyone else, including Taylor, seemed to be wearing.


The sunny, warm weather contrasted sharply with the somber atmosphere of the people gathered near the entrance of the graveyard; Taylor had noted that this was the only situation she had encountered where her slightly solemn neutral expression was almost completely appropriate.


Despite the small number of people many wore expressions of pain, grief and sadness; a small traitorous part of Taylor's mind was glad for the detachment her lack of memories brought her.


She'd heard that the dead often looked like they were sleeping; she couldn't see it. It was too artificial; his balding hair had been carefully combed, his eyes were closed and he was wearing a freshly cleaned blue suit.


Taylor's focus was snapped back to the present by the slight squeak of the handles the pall bearers used to lift the coffin. As she turned with the rest of the attendees to follow them warmth enveloped both of her hands. Looking to her left she found Hannah had taken her hand and was looking at her with concern, a glance to the right showed Emma doing the same complete with a similar expression.


"Are you ok?" Emma asked before Hannah could get a word in.


"I'm alright", Taylor replied quietly, looking away from the other girl.


"Are you sure?" Hannah asked from the other side.


"I- yeah", Taylor said, hoping her tone wouldn't give her away.


"Alright", Hannah said, glancing at Emma. It was clear neither of them believed the girl.


Following the casket as it made its way past the rows and rows of headstones the group finally came to the freshly dug grave. Daniel Hebert would be laid to rest next to his wife.


'If I hadn't triggered would I be buried here too?' Taylor wondered.


While the rest of the group came to a stop the pall bearers continued onwards to the grave, silently and efficiently lowering the casket to its final resting place. For a second everyone stopped, feeling that there should have been more to the moment, some physical sign showing the significance of the event.


None came.


There was a pause before Alan Barnes shook off the feeling and stepped into position behind Danny's headstone. Clearing his throat he pulled out a sheet of paper, "Danny was a good friend of both me and my family." Another pause as he worked up the will to continue, "He was a friend, co-worker, and father to everyone here. . ."


That was the point Taylor lost track of the eulogy. She had come to a realization at those words; she hadn't come here for her father. She hadn't come here to pay her respects to the man who, by all accounts, had died trying to protect her.


She was here because she thought she would benefit from it.


". . .may he rest in peace, god speed Danny", Alan said as calmly as he could. Reverently he folded up the piece of paper before rejoining the group, wiping the tears off his face.


There was an expectant pause before Emma quietly broke into Taylor's thoughts, "You're supposed to toss a handful of dirt in."


Breaking free of the people to either side of her Taylor mechanically walked over to the pile of dirt that had been dug up earlier. Reaching down she took a handful of still wet dirt before stepping over to the grave.


"I'm sorry", she whispered to her father as the dirt fell, her hopes of regaining her memories falling with it.


Her thoughts whirled inside her, who was she sorry for? Herself? Her father?


She had come here, certain that she would regain her memories; she hadn't even felt a hint of them.


'I came to a funeral because I thought I could get something out of it. What does that say about me?' Taylor thought as she heard the muted patter of dirt hitting wood.


Head down she trudged back to where Hannah and Emma were standing.


She didn't say a word for the rest of the proceedings.


--------------------------------------


Hannah was almost frantic as she ran back to Taylor's room with the key she had gotten from the base security office.


She had tried to get Taylor to talk to her on their way back to the Rig from the funeral; as soon as they arrived the younger girl had teleported away. Hannah had almost sprinted from the dock to Taylor's room only to find it locked.


The first thing she noticed after throwing the door open was the mess of papers scattered across the right side of the room, she recognized one of the pictures among the mess; an image of pre-trigger Taylor smiling up from the floor.


Taylor herself had her back to the opposite wall with her arms wrapped around her legs and her face pressed against her knees.


"Taylor?" Hannah asked as she cautiously approached the girl.


The younger girl didn't respond to Hannah as she slowly advanced across the room.


"Please, say something", Hannah said, dropping to her knees in front of the other girl.


Receiving no response she leaned forward and pulled Taylor into an awkward hug, "Talk to me Taylor, I can't help if I don't know what's wrong."


Without saying anything Taylor reached up and wrapped her arms around Hannah. They stayed like that for a few minutes before the truth started to spill out.


"I-I'm a fake", the dark haired girl said, a hint of desperation in her voice as she pressed closer; her nose digging uncomfortably into Hannah's shoulder.


Hannah felt like she was taking an exam she hadn't studied for; she couldn't exactly run off to grab Dr. Gavel at the moment and the wards weren't on the base in the middle of the day. Part of her marvelled at how much had happened so far today; it wasn't even past one in the afternoon yet.


"How so?" Hannah asked soothingly, trying to make sense of the situation.


"I'm not Taylor; I can't even remember being her."


"But you were and still are Taylor Hebert, it doesn't matter whether you can remember or not; you're here and you're real."


"But I'm just wearing her name and face, I don't- there's nothing else."


Hannah let out a sigh as she tried to think of something to say to the girl, "Everyone but you accepts that you are Taylor Hebert, you don't need to be exactly the same as you were before you changed. No one expects that."


Taylor's grip tightened a bit more eliciting a grunt from Hannah. "Sorry", she mumbled, releasing her grip on the older woman and returning her gaze to her knees.


Hannah took the opportunity to lean back, "Taylor, look at me." She spoke evenly, placing her hands on the other girl's knees, "Don't try to force yourself to be the same person."


"But my memories-"


"-Aren't coming back", Hannah interrupted quietly, looking Taylor directly in the eye.


Taylor's shoulders slumped at that; a part of her had known that for a while, it was something that had turned up when she researched Cases. None of them had ever gotten their memories back. Hearing it said out loud spelled the end of the unspoken hope that they would come back.


"I don't want you to waste away chasing an impossible goal", Hannah said sadly, fortunately she had (hopefully) figured out what to say to distraught girl. "Who's your best friend?"


"What?" The question came out of nowhere for Taylor knocking her off her increasingly gloomy train of thought. "What does that have to do with anything?"


"Humour me, it'll make sense soon."


"O-k, Missy."


"What's your favourite colour?"


"Green?" Taylor said, unsure of where this was going.


"Favourite smell?"


"Mint tea."


"How many people have you met?"


"A lot? I don't know exactly how many."


"How many of them do you think remember you? How many people have you talked to? How many memories have you left with other people? If nothing else that man whose life you saved will remember you." As she spoke Hannah mentally crossed her fingers and offered prayers to every deity she could think of that the words coming out of her mouth would help.


For her part Taylor's body language had gone from clearly upset to something a bit more thoughtful; she wasn't relaxed by and standard but she was at least thinking about what Hannah had said.


"You are your own person Taylor, all I'm asking is that you keep that in mind", the olive skinned woman said before pulling the girl into another hug.


"Ok", Taylor said, her voice almost a whisper; she didn't sound completely convinced but it was a far cry from the completely lost tone she had had earlier.


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A/N: The last scene here was pretty hard for me to write so I hope it turned out ok. Next up will be the end-of-arc interludes.