Arche 02.04 Vote option correction
Fate/In Glory Of (Worm)
- Thread starter Jefardi
- Start date
- Crossover Modern Superhero
Arche 02.05
[X] Accept: Nikki hasn't been on a guided tour of the PRT ENE HQ. Be a guided tourist!
Nikki, as it turns out, had never been to the most tourist trap place in the city, despite living here for nearly a year.
Taylor could remember going there exactly once as a child, with her dad as her mom had raised a big stink about it. In fact it was one of the rare few times she could remember them arguing…
It was for the next day, a Thursday, that Nikki had signed them up for going on the 5PM guided tour of the Parahuman Response Team's East-North-East headquarters. She had even offered to drive both of them there.
Taylor stared at Nikki's car.
It more resembled a brick beaten into a vague car shape, and with how many dents were in it that might just be the case. The entire thing was bare metal and rust except for a splotch of pink paint stubbornly clinging on to the hood as if to remind people that this thing had once looked decent long before Taylor was born.
The windows were so tinted that it might have been illegal, and speaking of windows, the left passenger side had a mess of duct-tape covering one entirely. Probably covering bullet holes. If it didn't have bullet holes, Taylor would eat her own hat.
Taylor was entirely sure that she was going to need shots after just looking at the thing. She feared using the door handle.
She looked at Nikki.
"No."
Nikki lost the proud smile on her face. "No?" She asked.
Taylor wordlessly gestured to the car for a few seconds, none of which seemed to phase Nikki. "It's a death trap."
Nikki looked at the car, confusion written across her face. "There's not a single blade or weapon in my car though?"
The ravenette blinked.
"I don't think any amount of tetanus shots will save me from being near it."
Nikki jittered in place for a moment. "I-I am sorry friend. I did not think that it would be so dangerous. The inside is free of tetanus if that is okay?"
Taylor sighed. "Sure. Fine." She gave a wary look at the door before double checking that her gloves were on, before pulling open the passenger-side door.
It was like the difference in a room once you turned on the light.
The inside was clean, crisp, and smelled faintly like firework smoke. The seats looked new and were a grey colour like the floor, and it looked far more modern than the outside suggested.
It had cupholders and phone chargers!
The window with tape over it wasn't even broken!
Taylor closed the door.
She opened it again.
It still looked the same.
She turned to Nikki.
"How?"
Nikki cocked her head to the side. "Camouflage. The outside looks terrible so people won't break into it."
Taylor pressed a hand against the seat. It was surprisingly a good mix between squishy and firm. The padding was still there. "Did you buy a beater and then restore the inside, or, get a new car and make the outside look…" she gestured to it.
"Ah. I fixed up the insides, and beat up the outside a bit to make it look worse. The tape was my idea, and the window tint." Nikki answered. "You do want to still hang out with me, right?"
"Huh? Yeah." Taylor looked back from the seat to Nikki.
Instantly Nikki brightened up a smile replacing the tentative worry Taylor had barely been able to glimpse. "Awesome! The front is better because the seats can recline." She quickly moved around the car and got into the driver's seat, buckling herself in. "Come on, the tour is scheduled to start soon!"
Taylor took a seat as the car rumbled to life, Nikki giving a happy hum as she pulled out of the parking spot.
Now it was just her and a person she met a week ago in an enclosed space…
Suggestions (not votes) for conversation topics?
[] Write-in
Author's Note: This isn't a vote. It really isn't. I am merely fishing for conversation suggestions people might want and if I like them, I'll add them to the conversation. It's a long drive across something like half the city.
I will rarely just straight ask for a write-in as given this is cross posted on two sites, it would end up with people unable to have the same discussion on the write-in votes. In the future, if I do write-in, there will be a primary vote to gather write-ins and a secondary one to actually vote on them.
Nikki, as it turns out, had never been to the most tourist trap place in the city, despite living here for nearly a year.
Taylor could remember going there exactly once as a child, with her dad as her mom had raised a big stink about it. In fact it was one of the rare few times she could remember them arguing…
It was for the next day, a Thursday, that Nikki had signed them up for going on the 5PM guided tour of the Parahuman Response Team's East-North-East headquarters. She had even offered to drive both of them there.
Taylor stared at Nikki's car.
It more resembled a brick beaten into a vague car shape, and with how many dents were in it that might just be the case. The entire thing was bare metal and rust except for a splotch of pink paint stubbornly clinging on to the hood as if to remind people that this thing had once looked decent long before Taylor was born.
The windows were so tinted that it might have been illegal, and speaking of windows, the left passenger side had a mess of duct-tape covering one entirely. Probably covering bullet holes. If it didn't have bullet holes, Taylor would eat her own hat.
Taylor was entirely sure that she was going to need shots after just looking at the thing. She feared using the door handle.
She looked at Nikki.
"No."
Nikki lost the proud smile on her face. "No?" She asked.
Taylor wordlessly gestured to the car for a few seconds, none of which seemed to phase Nikki. "It's a death trap."
Nikki looked at the car, confusion written across her face. "There's not a single blade or weapon in my car though?"
The ravenette blinked.
"I don't think any amount of tetanus shots will save me from being near it."
Nikki jittered in place for a moment. "I-I am sorry friend. I did not think that it would be so dangerous. The inside is free of tetanus if that is okay?"
Taylor sighed. "Sure. Fine." She gave a wary look at the door before double checking that her gloves were on, before pulling open the passenger-side door.
It was like the difference in a room once you turned on the light.
The inside was clean, crisp, and smelled faintly like firework smoke. The seats looked new and were a grey colour like the floor, and it looked far more modern than the outside suggested.
It had cupholders and phone chargers!
The window with tape over it wasn't even broken!
Taylor closed the door.
She opened it again.
It still looked the same.
She turned to Nikki.
"How?"
Nikki cocked her head to the side. "Camouflage. The outside looks terrible so people won't break into it."
Taylor pressed a hand against the seat. It was surprisingly a good mix between squishy and firm. The padding was still there. "Did you buy a beater and then restore the inside, or, get a new car and make the outside look…" she gestured to it.
"Ah. I fixed up the insides, and beat up the outside a bit to make it look worse. The tape was my idea, and the window tint." Nikki answered. "You do want to still hang out with me, right?"
"Huh? Yeah." Taylor looked back from the seat to Nikki.
Instantly Nikki brightened up a smile replacing the tentative worry Taylor had barely been able to glimpse. "Awesome! The front is better because the seats can recline." She quickly moved around the car and got into the driver's seat, buckling herself in. "Come on, the tour is scheduled to start soon!"
Taylor took a seat as the car rumbled to life, Nikki giving a happy hum as she pulled out of the parking spot.
Now it was just her and a person she met a week ago in an enclosed space…
Suggestions (not votes) for conversation topics?
[] Write-in
Author's Note: This isn't a vote. It really isn't. I am merely fishing for conversation suggestions people might want and if I like them, I'll add them to the conversation. It's a long drive across something like half the city.
I will rarely just straight ask for a write-in as given this is cross posted on two sites, it would end up with people unable to have the same discussion on the write-in votes. In the future, if I do write-in, there will be a primary vote to gather write-ins and a secondary one to actually vote on them.
Arche 02.06
"How long have you been drawing for?"
Nikki was almost constantly drawing when Taylor saw her, even when talking or eating. This was the first time she had seen her for more than five minutes not drawing. Asking about clearly a beloved hobby seemed natural.
...it was also weirding Taylor out slightly not to see her sketching.
"Only a few years!" Nikki answered, "it's… nice?"
Seemed odd for someone who spent so much time doing it, "you don't like it…?" If she didn't, Taylor would be quite surprised.
"No. I like it! But where I come from, there wasn't any use for it. Not really." Nikki admitted softly. "Here though, I have a lot of time to myself, not just surviving, and now I feel like there is a use for it?" The girl shrugged. "I cannot find a way to explain it."
Taylor didn't know how to respond to that, glancing out the side window.
They were making surprisingly good time towards the PRT building. Her projection was somehow following along, unbothered by vehicles as her vague sense of it gave her an inkling that it had gone through several vehicles.
"It helped with disguising the car. I really thought this would fall apart from a breeze." Taylor supplied after a moment.
"Good for keeping thieves away." Nikki remarked. "Won't be long now, the building is coming up! Traffic sure is light today!" She hummed. "Usually it's a lot worse."
"Do you drive by the boardwalk often?"
"Nope! Not really! Most of the time I drive to do errands!" Nikki answered as she flipped on her turning signal and waited at a stop sign.
Taylor hummed in response, as she fiddled with her gloves. "How long have you been in the bay?"
"Just a few months. We moved here from Boston, the Teeth are scary and everything is too expensive there!" Nikki answered.
Taylor let out a soft snort, things were cheaper here because it was a dumpster actively trying to light itself on fire. Then she caught on, "did you have a run in with the Teeth?" The gang had originally formed in Brockton Bay and outside of a few fuzzy memories of them being mentioned, Taylor could hardly recall the time before they moved out of the city.
"Hard to look the Butcher in the eyes and decide to stay in their hunting grounds you know?" Nikki offered, suddenly sounding very sour about the ordeal.
Taylor stared in more than a little shock at Nikki, "you had a run in with the Butcher? The Butcher? How?!"
"Turns out the Teeth do munchies raids on gas stations." There was a long pause of silence where Nikki did nothing but focus on the road. Then very softly she added. "They just killed him?" It was a statement of fact, but the tone was questioning. As if Nikki could not grasp why.
"Killed who?" The question immediately escaped from her mouth followed by immediate regrets.
"The clerk. Not at first. But after they had taken almost all the food and left. The Butcher came back and… killed him." Nikki was still, all except for the movements she needed to drive the car. But she was still otherwise.
"I am used to violence." She admitted. "My home was full of it. But not like that."
Taylor couldn't help but glance towards her power. The sooner she was ready, the better.
"I don't know if the bay is any better."
"I have yet to see someone die. So we will see about that!" Nikki said, her mood now returning to it's normal setting of excitable golden retriever.
It was weird, talking like this. In the before times, she and Emma had been so close that she never had to search for something to talk about- there were no silences either. It was probably why she hadn't branched out before Winslow, socially.
"What of the bay have you seen?" Besides clearly not the PRT HQ. Or anyone dying. Which as far as Taylor knew, meant Nikki stayed far away from the north-side of the city.
"Mostly the southern half." Nikki replied. "Although, I have seen that market place above the Boardwalk! Full of cool stuff."
"What kind of cool stuff?" She was curious as to what someone who hadn't be born and raised her would considered interesting.
"Mostly the wood carvings. But there was a girl who did metal statues." Nikki answered. "And an older lady who does painting. Art related stuff."
Taylor nodded, though she belated realized that Nikki couldn't see it, given she was hyper focused on the road. "Did you see, uh, what's her name… Parian. I heard she's been giving doing promotions for stores there."
"I've heard of her. Never caught anything she was promoting. She's a cape?" Nikki asked before slowing to a stop thanks to a red-light.
"Yeah, controls dolls."
"Mm. Heard about the new rogue? Limbmaster I think?"
Taylor groaned, she had, in fact, heard of the cape. "Yes." She had seen some of that cape's ads at the library. They were eye searingly neon orange and pink, with the letters outlined in bright cyan, the letters themselves gradient. "I've seen ads for them. Still don't know what it's for, "Its Limb to Limb warfare with these prices!". " She quoted the one whose slogan had been ingrained into her eyes. She swear she could see the after-image of it when she closed her eyes.
"Ah. She does replacement limbs! A Tinker or whatever they're called. Need one replaced or want a Limb that can shoot like a gun? She's got it." Nikki paused. "Does Miss Militia have one? It'd be cool if she got a gun arm."
"I think her power is so she doesn't need that kind of stuff."
"Ah, but what if someone stops her power? Then BANG! Gun arm. They would never see it coming!" She started rolling forwards, suddenly hitting the breaks and beating her horn as someone barreled through a red-light.
"Shit!" Taylor grabbed onto the side of the car at the near miss. The traffic in this city...
A few seconds later they started moving again.
"I don't think many people want to give up their arm."
"I don't see why. I would! I mean. The ABB exists doesn't it? I have seen a lot of rumors about them targeting girls for their brothels. Better safe than sorry, yes?" She hummed. "I'm fairly certain we are almost there."
"Yeah… should be just on the left."
A building made of glass, remarkable only for the large shield logo stenciled into the largest window came into view as the car pulled into a small parking lot.
Pick two, if Wards base is picked, then PRT tour has to be selected as well:
[] PRT tour
-[] Wards base
[] Containment Foam demonstration
[] Gift shop
Author's note: I've had this done for the past two days, surprisingly. It was just deciding on how I was going to do the vote.
Sorry for the delay!
The gift shop probably doesn't have furbies. I make no promises either way.
Nikki was almost constantly drawing when Taylor saw her, even when talking or eating. This was the first time she had seen her for more than five minutes not drawing. Asking about clearly a beloved hobby seemed natural.
...it was also weirding Taylor out slightly not to see her sketching.
"Only a few years!" Nikki answered, "it's… nice?"
Seemed odd for someone who spent so much time doing it, "you don't like it…?" If she didn't, Taylor would be quite surprised.
"No. I like it! But where I come from, there wasn't any use for it. Not really." Nikki admitted softly. "Here though, I have a lot of time to myself, not just surviving, and now I feel like there is a use for it?" The girl shrugged. "I cannot find a way to explain it."
Taylor didn't know how to respond to that, glancing out the side window.
They were making surprisingly good time towards the PRT building. Her projection was somehow following along, unbothered by vehicles as her vague sense of it gave her an inkling that it had gone through several vehicles.
"It helped with disguising the car. I really thought this would fall apart from a breeze." Taylor supplied after a moment.
"Good for keeping thieves away." Nikki remarked. "Won't be long now, the building is coming up! Traffic sure is light today!" She hummed. "Usually it's a lot worse."
"Do you drive by the boardwalk often?"
"Nope! Not really! Most of the time I drive to do errands!" Nikki answered as she flipped on her turning signal and waited at a stop sign.
Taylor hummed in response, as she fiddled with her gloves. "How long have you been in the bay?"
"Just a few months. We moved here from Boston, the Teeth are scary and everything is too expensive there!" Nikki answered.
Taylor let out a soft snort, things were cheaper here because it was a dumpster actively trying to light itself on fire. Then she caught on, "did you have a run in with the Teeth?" The gang had originally formed in Brockton Bay and outside of a few fuzzy memories of them being mentioned, Taylor could hardly recall the time before they moved out of the city.
"Hard to look the Butcher in the eyes and decide to stay in their hunting grounds you know?" Nikki offered, suddenly sounding very sour about the ordeal.
Taylor stared in more than a little shock at Nikki, "you had a run in with the Butcher? The Butcher? How?!"
"Turns out the Teeth do munchies raids on gas stations." There was a long pause of silence where Nikki did nothing but focus on the road. Then very softly she added. "They just killed him?" It was a statement of fact, but the tone was questioning. As if Nikki could not grasp why.
"Killed who?" The question immediately escaped from her mouth followed by immediate regrets.
"The clerk. Not at first. But after they had taken almost all the food and left. The Butcher came back and… killed him." Nikki was still, all except for the movements she needed to drive the car. But she was still otherwise.
"I am used to violence." She admitted. "My home was full of it. But not like that."
Taylor couldn't help but glance towards her power. The sooner she was ready, the better.
"I don't know if the bay is any better."
"I have yet to see someone die. So we will see about that!" Nikki said, her mood now returning to it's normal setting of excitable golden retriever.
It was weird, talking like this. In the before times, she and Emma had been so close that she never had to search for something to talk about- there were no silences either. It was probably why she hadn't branched out before Winslow, socially.
"What of the bay have you seen?" Besides clearly not the PRT HQ. Or anyone dying. Which as far as Taylor knew, meant Nikki stayed far away from the north-side of the city.
"Mostly the southern half." Nikki replied. "Although, I have seen that market place above the Boardwalk! Full of cool stuff."
"What kind of cool stuff?" She was curious as to what someone who hadn't be born and raised her would considered interesting.
"Mostly the wood carvings. But there was a girl who did metal statues." Nikki answered. "And an older lady who does painting. Art related stuff."
Taylor nodded, though she belated realized that Nikki couldn't see it, given she was hyper focused on the road. "Did you see, uh, what's her name… Parian. I heard she's been giving doing promotions for stores there."
"I've heard of her. Never caught anything she was promoting. She's a cape?" Nikki asked before slowing to a stop thanks to a red-light.
"Yeah, controls dolls."
"Mm. Heard about the new rogue? Limbmaster I think?"
Taylor groaned, she had, in fact, heard of the cape. "Yes." She had seen some of that cape's ads at the library. They were eye searingly neon orange and pink, with the letters outlined in bright cyan, the letters themselves gradient. "I've seen ads for them. Still don't know what it's for, "Its Limb to Limb warfare with these prices!". " She quoted the one whose slogan had been ingrained into her eyes. She swear she could see the after-image of it when she closed her eyes.
"Ah. She does replacement limbs! A Tinker or whatever they're called. Need one replaced or want a Limb that can shoot like a gun? She's got it." Nikki paused. "Does Miss Militia have one? It'd be cool if she got a gun arm."
"I think her power is so she doesn't need that kind of stuff."
"Ah, but what if someone stops her power? Then BANG! Gun arm. They would never see it coming!" She started rolling forwards, suddenly hitting the breaks and beating her horn as someone barreled through a red-light.
"Shit!" Taylor grabbed onto the side of the car at the near miss. The traffic in this city...
A few seconds later they started moving again.
"I don't think many people want to give up their arm."
"I don't see why. I would! I mean. The ABB exists doesn't it? I have seen a lot of rumors about them targeting girls for their brothels. Better safe than sorry, yes?" She hummed. "I'm fairly certain we are almost there."
"Yeah… should be just on the left."
A building made of glass, remarkable only for the large shield logo stenciled into the largest window came into view as the car pulled into a small parking lot.
Pick two, if Wards base is picked, then PRT tour has to be selected as well:
[] PRT tour
-[] Wards base
[] Containment Foam demonstration
[] Gift shop
Author's note: I've had this done for the past two days, surprisingly. It was just deciding on how I was going to do the vote.
Sorry for the delay!
The gift shop probably doesn't have furbies. I make no promises either way.
Arche 02.07
[X] PRT tour
-[X] Wards base
The shadow watched as the girl and her classmate walked into the transparent building.
Since his appearance, nothing of particular note had happened.
The girl went to a place of learning, listened to her paidotribes, went to her dwelling, talked to the ragged man, and then stared into the light box.
Perhaps the biggest difference from the beginning of this, was her current companion.
It reminded the shadow most of a bird, there was a certain grace and gracelessness to it that could not come naturally in its experience. At first it had been cautious of it, but none of its instincts said that it would do harm and the shadow accordingly did nothing to impede it.
At present, the girl and birdgirl were waiting in the entryway of a large building, with a far too happy woman leading them and a few dozen others. The shadow did not like someone this happy. Birdgirl was happy, but genuine. This woman pinged as dis-genuine in her cheer. It rankled it.
No one else seemed to be perturbed by this.
Rather the girl seemed to be happy, perhaps a bit indulgent if the shadow judged correctly. She was following along with the group as they were led deeper into the fortification.
Make no mistake, it was a fortification. There were armed guards, soldiers. Of what kind of armaments, the shadow could not tell, as they looked to have tubes connected to a satchel and covered in cylindrical devices.
Once again, none of this seemed to be a surprise to the girl. From what it was gathering, she had been through this fortress before. The bird girl had most definitely not. She was practically vibrating in excitement. The shadow had seen less excited children receive their first spear.
The slow procession continued, stopping every few dozen pous, causing the crowd to make noises of admiration as they stared at metal scraps, or a painting. Even the glass enclosure in the below ground area got a long pause. It was a curious thing, looking at them.
There was metal of some variety that coated and intertwined with their construction, elements that were hidden from view that meshed into a singular form and created something more. Something far stronger than the individual components could ever hope to be through mechanisms beyond its understanding. At least current it's understanding.
The shadow pondered it as the group moved on.
The group was led to a checkpoint where half their number in soldiers joined them.
None seemed to be inclined to violence towards the girl or the bird-like companion. The shadow's hackles were raised regardless, as the throng of people got more and more excited as they came upon a door.
An extruding bit of wall was pressed causing a loud noise ring out, something the shadow was sure none of the people could hear as it was happening on the far side of several walls.
The wall slide open, the metal frame receding into the wall. Revealing...
No one inside a rather spacious room.
Both the girl and the bird-like one were visibly disappointed. The companion especially, looking like a stream whose source had been dammed.
Their discontentment took some time to overcome before they were back to normalcy, albeit with a lack of energy less inherent in their motions.
It didn't change the fact that the girl had a small smile on her face when she returned to her abode at the end of the day.
What is Taylor going to do over the weekend when she has free time, i.e. not doing school work?
[] Patrol
[] Research the cape scene in Brockton Bay
[] Power experimentation
[] Costume/Name/Presentation Preparations
Author's Note: Not going to lie, the least interesting options were picked. Sadly, Taylor did not get to use containment foam launcher today. Plus KindredVoid whiffed on the rolls hard.
Decided to change it up with the giant's POV for the tour.
Anywho, the weekend power vote, here we go!
-[X] Wards base
The shadow watched as the girl and her classmate walked into the transparent building.
Since his appearance, nothing of particular note had happened.
The girl went to a place of learning, listened to her paidotribes, went to her dwelling, talked to the ragged man, and then stared into the light box.
Perhaps the biggest difference from the beginning of this, was her current companion.
It reminded the shadow most of a bird, there was a certain grace and gracelessness to it that could not come naturally in its experience. At first it had been cautious of it, but none of its instincts said that it would do harm and the shadow accordingly did nothing to impede it.
At present, the girl and birdgirl were waiting in the entryway of a large building, with a far too happy woman leading them and a few dozen others. The shadow did not like someone this happy. Birdgirl was happy, but genuine. This woman pinged as dis-genuine in her cheer. It rankled it.
No one else seemed to be perturbed by this.
Rather the girl seemed to be happy, perhaps a bit indulgent if the shadow judged correctly. She was following along with the group as they were led deeper into the fortification.
Make no mistake, it was a fortification. There were armed guards, soldiers. Of what kind of armaments, the shadow could not tell, as they looked to have tubes connected to a satchel and covered in cylindrical devices.
Once again, none of this seemed to be a surprise to the girl. From what it was gathering, she had been through this fortress before. The bird girl had most definitely not. She was practically vibrating in excitement. The shadow had seen less excited children receive their first spear.
The slow procession continued, stopping every few dozen pous, causing the crowd to make noises of admiration as they stared at metal scraps, or a painting. Even the glass enclosure in the below ground area got a long pause. It was a curious thing, looking at them.
There was metal of some variety that coated and intertwined with their construction, elements that were hidden from view that meshed into a singular form and created something more. Something far stronger than the individual components could ever hope to be through mechanisms beyond its understanding. At least current it's understanding.
The shadow pondered it as the group moved on.
Ward DCs:
Triumph: 65
Shadow Stalker: 88
Vista: 68
Kid Win: 76
Clockblocker: 73
Aegis: 71
Rolling…
Triumph: 65
Shadow Stalker: 88
Vista: 68
Kid Win: 76
Clockblocker: 73
Aegis: 71
Rolling…
The group was led to a checkpoint where half their number in soldiers joined them.
None seemed to be inclined to violence towards the girl or the bird-like companion. The shadow's hackles were raised regardless, as the throng of people got more and more excited as they came upon a door.
An extruding bit of wall was pressed causing a loud noise ring out, something the shadow was sure none of the people could hear as it was happening on the far side of several walls.
The wall slide open, the metal frame receding into the wall. Revealing...
Triumph: 30
Shadow Stalker: 35
Vista: 45
Kid Win: 14
Clockblocker: 21
Aegis: 2
Shadow Stalker: 35
Vista: 45
Kid Win: 14
Clockblocker: 21
Aegis: 2
No one inside a rather spacious room.
Both the girl and the bird-like one were visibly disappointed. The companion especially, looking like a stream whose source had been dammed.
Their discontentment took some time to overcome before they were back to normalcy, albeit with a lack of energy less inherent in their motions.
It didn't change the fact that the girl had a small smile on her face when she returned to her abode at the end of the day.
What is Taylor going to do over the weekend when she has free time, i.e. not doing school work?
[] Patrol
[] Research the cape scene in Brockton Bay
[] Power experimentation
[] Costume/Name/Presentation Preparations
Author's Note: Not going to lie, the least interesting options were picked. Sadly, Taylor did not get to use containment foam launcher today. Plus KindredVoid whiffed on the rolls hard.
Decided to change it up with the giant's POV for the tour.
Anywho, the weekend power vote, here we go!
Arche 02.08
[X] Costume/Name/Presentation Preparations
It was early afternoon on Saturday as Taylor sat in the library.
Technically she could do this at home, and would probably have more privacy, but something about the act of getting out of the house made this more… official to her.
For the moment, she was trying to decide how to present herself when she went out; costume, name, etc. The important ways to disguise her identity so she was tracked back to her house and stabbed to death in the night like Fleur had been a few years ago when New Wave had unmasked.
Well, she was pretty sure she could tell the giant to defend her during her sleep. Probably. Her dad wouldn't be so lucky, however. It was an important consideration.
Taylor refused to let her future cape life and non-cape life overlap. Absolutely refused. She even had a social life now. Kind of. Nikki was probably her friend. That counts, right?
Taylor was faced with a unique conundrum.
Her power wasn't linked to her physical body- she had yet to find a range limit.
This afforded her a rare opportunity in the world of parahumans; being able to use her power from a distance. In fact, she could take it one step further.
Once upon a time, a young Taylor had just started to get into murder mysteries- a favourite of her mother's, albeit something of a guilty pleasure. At some point, the discussion had come to the best murder mystery and her mom had made the comment, "the best murder mystery is the one that no one knows is a murder mystery."
It was that sentiment that came back to her now:
The best way to keep anyone from finding her real identity might be to be entirely removed from her power. If there was no cape whose real identity was Taylor Hebert, it would be exceedingly harder to find out that Taylor Hebert was a parahuman.
There were downsides to this approach.
She would have to rely on some way to remotely relay information to the giant, as well as have a way for him to communicate with others unless she went for a fully silent route.
On the other hand, not only would it put her identity more out of focus, but it would physically keep her away from harm. Flip-side being that it would be harder to get the giant to come to her if something did happen.
Each had its own merits; staying close to the giant gave her more control over it, while staying away kept her safe.
There were pros and cons for each.
She just needed to weigh them.
[] In the thick of Action
[] Remote control Giant
Author's Note: That was a close vote; 11 to 8. Anywho, short chapter given there isn't much for me to say. Going to be a couple of short chapters now. Two chapters a week seems to be a good pace at the moment.
Choose carefully.
There will be important consequences for whats voted on here.
It was early afternoon on Saturday as Taylor sat in the library.
Technically she could do this at home, and would probably have more privacy, but something about the act of getting out of the house made this more… official to her.
For the moment, she was trying to decide how to present herself when she went out; costume, name, etc. The important ways to disguise her identity so she was tracked back to her house and stabbed to death in the night like Fleur had been a few years ago when New Wave had unmasked.
Well, she was pretty sure she could tell the giant to defend her during her sleep. Probably. Her dad wouldn't be so lucky, however. It was an important consideration.
Taylor refused to let her future cape life and non-cape life overlap. Absolutely refused. She even had a social life now. Kind of. Nikki was probably her friend. That counts, right?
Taylor was faced with a unique conundrum.
Her power wasn't linked to her physical body- she had yet to find a range limit.
This afforded her a rare opportunity in the world of parahumans; being able to use her power from a distance. In fact, she could take it one step further.
Once upon a time, a young Taylor had just started to get into murder mysteries- a favourite of her mother's, albeit something of a guilty pleasure. At some point, the discussion had come to the best murder mystery and her mom had made the comment, "the best murder mystery is the one that no one knows is a murder mystery."
It was that sentiment that came back to her now:
The best way to keep anyone from finding her real identity might be to be entirely removed from her power. If there was no cape whose real identity was Taylor Hebert, it would be exceedingly harder to find out that Taylor Hebert was a parahuman.
There were downsides to this approach.
She would have to rely on some way to remotely relay information to the giant, as well as have a way for him to communicate with others unless she went for a fully silent route.
On the other hand, not only would it put her identity more out of focus, but it would physically keep her away from harm. Flip-side being that it would be harder to get the giant to come to her if something did happen.
Each had its own merits; staying close to the giant gave her more control over it, while staying away kept her safe.
There were pros and cons for each.
She just needed to weigh them.
[] In the thick of Action
[] Remote control Giant
Author's Note: That was a close vote; 11 to 8. Anywho, short chapter given there isn't much for me to say. Going to be a couple of short chapters now. Two chapters a week seems to be a good pace at the moment.
Choose carefully.
There will be important consequences for whats voted on here.
Last edited:
Arche 02.09
[X] Remote control Giant
Taylor couldn't quite say what started to convince her as she looked at the pros and cons.
It may have been the hesitation of being within sight of some of the monsters like Lung or Hookwolf if she didn't have to. Especially since, while she was fairly certain that the giant would defend her, she didn't know for certain.
Nor was she especially keen on testing that.
Alternatively was the fact that obfuscated her identity.
However, she knew what reason made her decide on this above all else.
Worse case scenario, she could always stick closer to the giant in the future. The reverse was not true.
...it didn't hurt that it would keep it from spilling onto her in-case something went catastrophically wrong. Physically, at least.
Still, that left the question of how she was going to practically implement this.
As near as she could tell, Taylor had two issues that needed to be addressed in this regard; her awareness of what was going on and finding a way to relay orders to the giant.
On the one hand; the easiest way she could think of, was through technology. Find a way to attach a camera to it as well as an earpiece of headphone.
Using a camera and an earpiece required money and she didn't know the first thing about either of them. For instance, Taylor didn't know how to get a camera to stream whatever it was seeing when it wasn't connected to the internet. At least with the headphone idea, she could, at worst, give the giant a walkie-talkie.
...though…
...given how the last testing in the forest went, the giant might be able to hear her regardless of distance. Or it had really good hearing…
She started to write in her notebook.
Things to test next time.
There were several other aspects she was concerned about.
Such as going the technology route, if whatever she handed him also disappeared when he went… invisible? Intangible?
Even more tests for later, though she was pretty sure it was intangible.
Another was that if something interfered with the handset, she was basically cut off. Powers were weird and even ignoring the esoteric effects of someone who could shoot sunbeams, the capes with technology powers could easily make something to cut off a twenty dollar radio. Or track it down.
There was another way to do it, one that would be entirely safe for Taylor.
It was an idea that had occurred to her during her last day at Winslow, during her computer class.
She could give the giant orde- directions. With when, if, else, and then statements. Have him go completely autonomous during the day.
There were a multitude of questions that came with that idea; she had no idea if he could do multiple directions like that, or even more than two directions that were long term. Taylor hadn't tried to give him more directions than to move to a single location or punch something, all of which it did quickly enough she didn't have a chance to try.
Again, things to test in the forest.
The benefits if this worked would be… immense.
She could send the giant off at any point of the day. It would be much harder to guess that Taylor Hebert is a cape, if her power is across town saving a kitten stuck in a tree while she was in geometry class. Much harder to track her down as well. No weak link in that regard.
Three major concerns came from this methodology, assuming the giant could even take commands this way;
The first, besides not knowing if she could stack commands like that, was the fact she had no idea if he had any personality. She only got a vague sense of the giant being linked to her… in a way she couldn't describe.
How does one describe the fire betwixt the stars, the molecules moving so fast and far that only their absence could be recorded? Of faint swells of concepts, changing, evolving, degrading smothered under a haze that pressed against all of it...
That was the best way Taylor could describe the link between her and the giant. It was so alien yet so very, very human.
...regardless, the point was, she just didn't know what it would do when it wasn't around her. It might not even follow any directives she gave.
That brought up the second issue.
Taylor had a fair bit of programming experience. If a line of code conflicts, you get unexpected results or the program stops. Add that to a super-powered giant where a myriad of different powers were thrown into the mix, and the result could be anything under the sun. She wouldn't know either until after the fact.
If something went wrong, she had no way to course-correct.
That was terrifying.
Finally, was the fact that he couldn't or at least hadn't communicated yet.
He didn't look exactly…
Taylor glanced up from her desk to where she knew he was, barely visible to her in some sense that couldn't be translated to coherent speech. Staring at a tall Asian teen like he was debating the best way to kill her and her entire family and everyone who ever knew her before salting their graves.
...the most friendly.
Misunderstandings were likely.
A soft sight escaped her as her head gently plonked against her notepad.
This was going to be a lot of work.
For the first time in two weeks, Nikki wasn't in the lunchroom. She had begged off saying she would need to take a call during it and had been very apologetic to the point that Taylor had started to feel bad.
Hopefully everything was okay?
Still, that left Taylor and her quesadilla of questionable quality without a plan for the next hour.
There weren't too many tables that didn't contain a group. Taylor might have gotten a friend, but the idea of committing a social faux pas by sitting at a table that had no one she knew was too great.
In fact, the only person she could see sitting alone was the angry wheelchair girl from before. Somehow the no-man's land around her had grown as the girl took an angry bite out of her sandwich.
Taylor was reasonably sure she could sit in that area and no one would bother her. She had experience with making herself not noticed.
There was also the case that in the eleven days she had been here, she still had yet to go to the school library- she could cram the food in her mouth and see what the school's library was like. As much as she liked Nikki, she didn't think the girl was capable of quiet and spending the better part of an hour browsing their catalogue sounded lovely.
Alternatively, she could sit alone, read a book from home and hope no one would talk to her. Hope really, really hard!
...oooor see if she could find Nikki and eat with her after her call ends.
Where does Taylor eat her lunch?
[] Near angry wheelchair girl; her rage will keep everyone else away, right?
[] Consume food as quickly as possible and check out the library.
[] Alone, with her invisible friend and a book. It is not in the bathroom! Progress!
[] Wait like a creep for Nikki's call to be done. Food will be distinctly cold.
Author's Note: Hello, hello! Time for a social based vote!
In the previous chapter I was sorely tempted to have Taylor mention that if she went with remote, that she could always walk back the decision but thought it would weigh things too heavily towards one side. I really enjoyed the discussion!
Slowly but surely we are getting to the violence. The glorious violence.
For reference purposes, its the first day of February at the end of this chapter.
...aaaaand now have fun with the votes!
Taylor couldn't quite say what started to convince her as she looked at the pros and cons.
It may have been the hesitation of being within sight of some of the monsters like Lung or Hookwolf if she didn't have to. Especially since, while she was fairly certain that the giant would defend her, she didn't know for certain.
Nor was she especially keen on testing that.
Alternatively was the fact that obfuscated her identity.
However, she knew what reason made her decide on this above all else.
Worse case scenario, she could always stick closer to the giant in the future. The reverse was not true.
...it didn't hurt that it would keep it from spilling onto her in-case something went catastrophically wrong. Physically, at least.
Still, that left the question of how she was going to practically implement this.
As near as she could tell, Taylor had two issues that needed to be addressed in this regard; her awareness of what was going on and finding a way to relay orders to the giant.
On the one hand; the easiest way she could think of, was through technology. Find a way to attach a camera to it as well as an earpiece of headphone.
Using a camera and an earpiece required money and she didn't know the first thing about either of them. For instance, Taylor didn't know how to get a camera to stream whatever it was seeing when it wasn't connected to the internet. At least with the headphone idea, she could, at worst, give the giant a walkie-talkie.
...though…
...given how the last testing in the forest went, the giant might be able to hear her regardless of distance. Or it had really good hearing…
She started to write in her notebook.
Things to test next time.
There were several other aspects she was concerned about.
Such as going the technology route, if whatever she handed him also disappeared when he went… invisible? Intangible?
Even more tests for later, though she was pretty sure it was intangible.
Another was that if something interfered with the handset, she was basically cut off. Powers were weird and even ignoring the esoteric effects of someone who could shoot sunbeams, the capes with technology powers could easily make something to cut off a twenty dollar radio. Or track it down.
There was another way to do it, one that would be entirely safe for Taylor.
It was an idea that had occurred to her during her last day at Winslow, during her computer class.
She could give the giant orde- directions. With when, if, else, and then statements. Have him go completely autonomous during the day.
There were a multitude of questions that came with that idea; she had no idea if he could do multiple directions like that, or even more than two directions that were long term. Taylor hadn't tried to give him more directions than to move to a single location or punch something, all of which it did quickly enough she didn't have a chance to try.
Again, things to test in the forest.
The benefits if this worked would be… immense.
She could send the giant off at any point of the day. It would be much harder to guess that Taylor Hebert is a cape, if her power is across town saving a kitten stuck in a tree while she was in geometry class. Much harder to track her down as well. No weak link in that regard.
Three major concerns came from this methodology, assuming the giant could even take commands this way;
The first, besides not knowing if she could stack commands like that, was the fact she had no idea if he had any personality. She only got a vague sense of the giant being linked to her… in a way she couldn't describe.
How does one describe the fire betwixt the stars, the molecules moving so fast and far that only their absence could be recorded? Of faint swells of concepts, changing, evolving, degrading smothered under a haze that pressed against all of it...
That was the best way Taylor could describe the link between her and the giant. It was so alien yet so very, very human.
...regardless, the point was, she just didn't know what it would do when it wasn't around her. It might not even follow any directives she gave.
That brought up the second issue.
Taylor had a fair bit of programming experience. If a line of code conflicts, you get unexpected results or the program stops. Add that to a super-powered giant where a myriad of different powers were thrown into the mix, and the result could be anything under the sun. She wouldn't know either until after the fact.
If something went wrong, she had no way to course-correct.
That was terrifying.
Finally, was the fact that he couldn't or at least hadn't communicated yet.
He didn't look exactly…
Taylor glanced up from her desk to where she knew he was, barely visible to her in some sense that couldn't be translated to coherent speech. Staring at a tall Asian teen like he was debating the best way to kill her and her entire family and everyone who ever knew her before salting their graves.
...the most friendly.
Misunderstandings were likely.
A soft sight escaped her as her head gently plonked against her notepad.
This was going to be a lot of work.
For the first time in two weeks, Nikki wasn't in the lunchroom. She had begged off saying she would need to take a call during it and had been very apologetic to the point that Taylor had started to feel bad.
Hopefully everything was okay?
Still, that left Taylor and her quesadilla of questionable quality without a plan for the next hour.
There weren't too many tables that didn't contain a group. Taylor might have gotten a friend, but the idea of committing a social faux pas by sitting at a table that had no one she knew was too great.
In fact, the only person she could see sitting alone was the angry wheelchair girl from before. Somehow the no-man's land around her had grown as the girl took an angry bite out of her sandwich.
Taylor was reasonably sure she could sit in that area and no one would bother her. She had experience with making herself not noticed.
There was also the case that in the eleven days she had been here, she still had yet to go to the school library- she could cram the food in her mouth and see what the school's library was like. As much as she liked Nikki, she didn't think the girl was capable of quiet and spending the better part of an hour browsing their catalogue sounded lovely.
Alternatively, she could sit alone, read a book from home and hope no one would talk to her. Hope really, really hard!
...oooor see if she could find Nikki and eat with her after her call ends.
Where does Taylor eat her lunch?
[] Near angry wheelchair girl; her rage will keep everyone else away, right?
[] Consume food as quickly as possible and check out the library.
[] Alone, with her invisible friend and a book. It is not in the bathroom! Progress!
[] Wait like a creep for Nikki's call to be done. Food will be distinctly cold.
Author's Note: Hello, hello! Time for a social based vote!
In the previous chapter I was sorely tempted to have Taylor mention that if she went with remote, that she could always walk back the decision but thought it would weigh things too heavily towards one side. I really enjoyed the discussion!
Slowly but surely we are getting to the violence. The glorious violence.
For reference purposes, its the first day of February at the end of this chapter.
...aaaaand now have fun with the votes!
Arche 02.10
[X] Near angry wheelchair girl; her rage will keep everyone else away, right?
Taylor weighed her options.
She really didn't feel like trying to rush eating. Nor did she think that Nikki particularly wanted to be bothered…
...and the tall girl didn't particularly want to sit in her normal spot, like some kind of sad loser. People tended to keep their distance around Nikki. It was understandable, she could be intense. She'd probably be asked to move to make room for some group or end up actually sitting next to other students as more filed into the cafeteria.
She glanced towards the only person that distinctly had space around herself.
The angry girl was at the end of one of the long tables, the actual end given her wheelchair. There was a nearly five seat radius around her that no one was touching.
Sitting at the edge of that radius seemed like a good idea. It was quiet, the students closest to the angry girl were silent even.
Perfect.
Casually, well, as casually as someone trying to be casual she sat three seats away from the girl.
Good so far.
She removed the packaging from her quesadilla and picked it up, her eyes looking up from her food.
The wheelchair girl's eyes were boring into Taylor. Once their eyes met the girl practically snarled. "Fuck. Off."
Anger welled in her.
A month removed from the locker and nearly two and a half from daily run-ins with Emma, Sophia and Madison had changed Taylor in some ways. Having a friend (probably? That's what Nikki is, right?) helped her not fold immediately. Knowing that she was a parahuman gave her a sense of security- what could this girl do to her? It's not like she was hurting anyone. She wasn't even sitting near the girl!
In the past she would have left, head down, muttered apologies.
Now she glared back, spitefully even, and took a bite out of her quesadilla, promptly ignoring some of it dripping onto her hands.
The angry girl continued to stare, and her fury was mounting as her face reddened and she trembled.
Then her eyes began to shine, and her lips quivered.
The wheelchair bound girl almost face-planted into her food as she put her head down and began to cry into her arms.
It wasn't fake crying either, it was the wretched ugly kind of crying. The kind that made you suck in air just to sob.
Slowly, to Taylor's growing horror, the din of conversation in the room died down as she could feel eyes looking at her. Looking away from the sobbing girl, everyone was openly staring at her and the girl.
Oh.
Oh shit.
She looked at the girl.
I did this.
Taylor froze.
She was completely out of her depth here.
Like the coward that Emma called her, she fled.
The shadow watched as the girl sat in an enclosed cube among many, the room containing a two tone tiled floor.
She had her fingers pressed tightly against each other, arms twitching as she made to cross them.
There was no threat to slay, no great enemy it could find to protect her from.
She glanced at the shadow every so often, the fidgeting stilling for a moment when she did.
All it could do was remain by her side.
Taylor needs to spend time thinking about not school, and her future cape career seems like the perfect distraction;
[] Patrol [QA is giving this a vote, +1]
[] Research the cape scene in Brockton Bay
[] Power experimentation
[] Name/Presentation preparations
Author's Note: ...yeah, that just happened.
Given that the votes were overwhelming for wheelchair girl on both SB and SV, I figured not to wait around. Benefits of doing short chapters is I can bust them out quickly.
Please don't crash right after I post...
Taylor weighed her options.
She really didn't feel like trying to rush eating. Nor did she think that Nikki particularly wanted to be bothered…
...and the tall girl didn't particularly want to sit in her normal spot, like some kind of sad loser. People tended to keep their distance around Nikki. It was understandable, she could be intense. She'd probably be asked to move to make room for some group or end up actually sitting next to other students as more filed into the cafeteria.
She glanced towards the only person that distinctly had space around herself.
The angry girl was at the end of one of the long tables, the actual end given her wheelchair. There was a nearly five seat radius around her that no one was touching.
Sitting at the edge of that radius seemed like a good idea. It was quiet, the students closest to the angry girl were silent even.
Perfect.
Casually, well, as casually as someone trying to be casual she sat three seats away from the girl.
Good so far.
She removed the packaging from her quesadilla and picked it up, her eyes looking up from her food.
The wheelchair girl's eyes were boring into Taylor. Once their eyes met the girl practically snarled. "Fuck. Off."
Anger welled in her.
A month removed from the locker and nearly two and a half from daily run-ins with Emma, Sophia and Madison had changed Taylor in some ways. Having a friend (probably? That's what Nikki is, right?) helped her not fold immediately. Knowing that she was a parahuman gave her a sense of security- what could this girl do to her? It's not like she was hurting anyone. She wasn't even sitting near the girl!
In the past she would have left, head down, muttered apologies.
Now she glared back, spitefully even, and took a bite out of her quesadilla, promptly ignoring some of it dripping onto her hands.
The angry girl continued to stare, and her fury was mounting as her face reddened and she trembled.
Then her eyes began to shine, and her lips quivered.
The wheelchair bound girl almost face-planted into her food as she put her head down and began to cry into her arms.
It wasn't fake crying either, it was the wretched ugly kind of crying. The kind that made you suck in air just to sob.
Slowly, to Taylor's growing horror, the din of conversation in the room died down as she could feel eyes looking at her. Looking away from the sobbing girl, everyone was openly staring at her and the girl.
Oh.
Oh shit.
She looked at the girl.
I did this.
Taylor froze.
She was completely out of her depth here.
Like the coward that Emma called her, she fled.
The shadow watched as the girl sat in an enclosed cube among many, the room containing a two tone tiled floor.
She had her fingers pressed tightly against each other, arms twitching as she made to cross them.
There was no threat to slay, no great enemy it could find to protect her from.
She glanced at the shadow every so often, the fidgeting stilling for a moment when she did.
All it could do was remain by her side.
Taylor needs to spend time thinking about not school, and her future cape career seems like the perfect distraction;
[] Patrol [QA is giving this a vote, +1]
[] Research the cape scene in Brockton Bay
[] Power experimentation
[] Name/Presentation preparations
Author's Note: ...yeah, that just happened.
Given that the votes were overwhelming for wheelchair girl on both SB and SV, I figured not to wait around. Benefits of doing short chapters is I can bust them out quickly.
Please don't crash right after I post...
Arche 02.11
[X] Power experimentation
Guilt or shame.
Taylor was trying to decide which of the two was what she felt more of.
There was a subtle difference. Guilt was probably the winner, though she felt ashamed all the same.
She trudged to her spot in the woods.
Given that she had come here a few times it was definitely her spot, now.
Plus the large, shattered tree made it easy to find.
Taylor's mouth opened before closing. She took in a single breath before letting it out, vapour condensing in the air. Leave school drama at school. Time for something far more important.
The muscle tensed.
Ever faithful, the giant appeared at the command.
She looked at the giant, whose yellow eyes were pinpointed on her.
First thing's first- she fished out of her backpack a walkie-talkie that she had dug out from the basement. It was a cheap plastic and faded pastel colours but it would serve its purpose. She had even remembered to test it and put in new batteries.
"Please hold out your hand, palm up, fingers uncurled."
The giant knelt, holding out his hand.
Green eyes assessed at the motion, that was new. Taylor had yet to see the giant do anything it had not been specifically told to do. Kneeling down to presumably make it easier to accept the handset was different. Or perhaps he had yet to have a chance to display any of his own initiative?
The steel like flesh did not even show any give when the two way radio was placed in his palm.
"Do not break the radio, uh, the device I gave you." Taylor clarified after a moment- she had no idea if the giant knew what a walkie-talkie was, let alone a radio.
The giant kept staring at her.
The muscle relaxed.
Physically she was alone again, even if she knew the giant was a few feet away.
Taylor paced a few strides, trying to put some warmth into her legs, before she pulled on the impossible muscle.
Her power reappeared with the walkie-talkie.
She fist-pumped in victory.
If it hadn't then it would have cut off a lot of her plans. At the very least it didn't mean any of that couldn't work.
Reaching over she turned on the walkie-talkie in his hand.
"Don't move until I tell you to, please."
With that, she started to jog away.
Compared to the previous few times, she wasn't quite as rushed as she had been. Whereas before, her power might last a few minutes, she was now approaching upwards of an hour of time where she could keep it active before her head started to pound.
Plus, hiking out to the middle of nowhere was nice. Not that she was going to stop and admire the scenery but it was a nice, appreciable difference to the urban decay of the city.
After making a good fifteen minutes away from the giant, she double checked that her walkie-talkie was off before whispering out loud, "come here."
Taylor waited a moment, either to see the slate black form approaching her in the treeline or from above it. Given neither, she nodded to herself, turning on the handheld radio.
"Please walk here."
The reason she asked the giant to walk was twofold; Taylor had no idea if he would try to jump to her where he would land: he might even land on her by accident. It certainly wouldn't be something she could survive. The secondary reason was so she can see if she could give nestled orders.
"When you get here, please, stand on one leg for a minute."
She waited a beat.
"Pick up a tree."
She left the directives unordered- part of this was to see if the giant did them in any particular order.
"Punch a tree."
That was as much as she got before she heard a booming CRACK.
Taylor pinched the bridge of her nose.
"After you get here, please pick up a tree."
"Punch a tree stump once you've stopped walking."
"Set down the tree."
"Stand on a tree stump when you get here."
That was as far as she could get before the giant trotted into her view, his long legs allowing it to eat up the distance at a far faster clip than Taylor could. Or the fact that the power looked like it was almost entirely muscle, so the term 'walk' may have not been closer to Taylor's fastest run in terms of speed. And then some.
The giant stopped a few yards away from her before it's arm blurred and the nearest tree was no longer connected to the ground. By the time Taylor had started to process that, two noises of supernatural violence prevailing against nature blotted out everything, causing her to wince and cover her ears, instinctively curling inwards.
When she opened her eyes after another unholy noise, what she saw was a second tree's trunk in her power's arms, roots holding clumped dirt weighing a great deal. More importantly, the giant was standing on one foot.
Or he was.
Evidently holding standing on one foot was not in its wheelhouse of abilities, and the giant slowly tipped over, landing with a muffled thud- audible even with a layer of snow deadening it.
Fingers the width of her wrist opened, letting the tree fall from it's grasp.
Taylor stared.
Without him standing, she noticed that where the first tree it had punched was, was now gone. Not like someone had erased it from existence with a magic poof, but where a tree's stump had presumably been – Taylor hadn't gotten a good glimpse of her power punching a tree in half – there was now a two foot deep… crater is the only word she could think of. Bits of powderized wood sat at the bottom of the earthen divot.
Her eyes wandered as she thought.
Footprints the size of her torso dotted the snow giving a clear trail from where it had come- wait, he doesn't leave footprints when he isn't active, does he?
The girl looked back at her power as it stood up.
The walkie-talkie was still in it's hand, undamaged.
On a hunch, she held out her hand.
Taylor didn't tremble as her vision darkened, a shadow cast upon her as the giant delicately dropped it into her palm. Well, turned it's hand slightly sideways, allowing it to fall out of its palm and making her have to dart forward to grab it.
This had presented a lot of interesting information about her power.
The giant, in some manner, wasn't a complete automaton. It took some manner of initiative and did indeed remember orde- directions given to it. Albeit, directives that had to be clearly worded as her power seemed to take them quite literally.
It also seemed to be able to use the walkie-talkie without issue. That was good.
A solid amount of progress towards remotely doing cape activities. At the absolute minimum, she still needed to find a way to see what was going on to give new directions to the giant. It could end up like what happens to Scion; as far as everyone knew he put the same importance on every action whether he was fighting Endbringers or a trash fire.
Now that she wasn't having to replace… things, due to… people, Taylor actually had some money. She could probably spring for an earpiece and…
Taylor sat down on a rock and looked up at the giant, its yellow eyes staring back at her.
"I don't know how to do this." She admitted, "I could buy an earpiece, um, bluetooth device and have you wear it. But you don't speak. I wouldn't know what's going on. Or who is talking to you. I guess you could put it on speaker mode."
She hemmed and hawed for a moment. "I could buy a phone, two phones. Have the earpiece hooked up to that. I just… I don't want to. Buy one." Taylor refused to pout as she looked at the destroyed trees. "Or have one." She snorted. "I could just have you hold on to both."
The raven haired girl watched the snow fall for half a minute, the divot slowly being filled in.
She pointed to a tree.
"Please destroy it as much as you can in one strike. As strong as you can."
Colour started to leave the air.
There was little colour in a forest in winter; white, brown, blue, grey and green. That faded, muted, as another colour came into existence.
A deep sangria, borderline black, swelled up from within the giant, spreading across it. What had once been a lead grey, was now tinged pink. Taylor's first thought was that it was her power's blood, yet the dark red had not moved in any form that she knew of like blood did.
Yellow eyes bled into the same colour of violence.
Blue motes fell down its right hand as a stone slab shaped to that vaguely of a club- or perhaps a sword appeared- nearly pitch-black in colouration, though she could see the light catching it's sharpened edge.
The giant's arm wound back, holding the weapon that was longer than Taylor was tall.
The club stopped before it even began its descent.
Taylor looked at it. Then the tree.
A minute passed.
Then a second.
What is going on?
Taylor knew she wasn't at her time limit- she was a long ways off from the last time she had recorded the time and hadn't felt any strain yet. She knew she had given clear instructions.
"Is something wrong?"
The giant lowered his arm, the pink tinge leaving it as it looked at Taylor, eyes fading back into yellow.
"Um…"
She reviewed what she said.
"You've destroyed trees before. That's not the issue. Is it in one strike that's the problem? Or destroying all of it?" Taylor had learned more about trees than she thought she would ever need to know given it was her primary metric for measuring her power. "Do… are you unable to destroy it in one hit? I know roots go pretty far down, especially for old trees like this…"
Green eyes looked at the giant.
"If its impossible does it not work?"
This is where she hit a conundrum.
She didn't exactly know what is considered 'impossible' to her power, precisely because she didn't know what it could fully do.
The muscle twitched.
Taylor frowned. She had not pulled at the muscle. What was that?
It was hard to describe the feeling, grappling around in the darkness. Her dad had once shown her he could wiggle his ears and that's what it felt like; trying to strain to get a muscle you'd never felt before to move.
At least, she had felt something. That gave Taylor something to go off of.
It took a while for Taylor to realize she was seeing something new.
White lines formed in the corner of her vision- she only realized that she was seeing something different, when she looked away, the sight getting a better contrast when there was no snow in her sight. Yet the moment she looked at, say, a tree, the half formed points faded.
It only fully stabilized when she looked at the giant.
Intricate, flowing penmanship scrawled across her sight.
Parts of it made sense.
She could understand the… attributes(?) for lack of a better word. The numbers were meaningless without context but she did understand what they were saying.
What was a Noble Phantasm?
Alignment made… no sense, as far as she could tell; her power wasn't insane. It was remarkably well behaved if anything.
H/W had to be height and weight, which was something she could actually double check at some point.
True name… was a bunch of squiggles that kept changing. Not like a digital clock whose characters kept changing, no, the lines looked akin to fractal worms that kept crawling into shapes that they didn't hold, disappearing and reappearing at random.
The final one…
She couldn't read it, or even observe it. The longer she looked at it, the more it hurt, a sickly heat that was spreading through her. Taylor barely was able to pull her eyes away from that line when it started to get hard to breath. The heat started to burn her-
Looking away, she clutched at her chest, as air started to circulate into her lungs, the itching warmth leaving her in bits and pieces.
Her stomach rebelled, as a hand went to her mouth, bile coating the back of her throat as she tried to take calming breaths.
What the hell is this?
School the next day was… not something Taylor was looking forward to.
She had messed up.
What is she going to do about it?
[] Try to apologize – The longer the wait the more awkward it gets. Bite the bullet. Get it over with.
[] Find out information on her – do this with more information, but it will fester most likely. Or make it more awkward!
[] Ignore her – Just ignore the fact that you made a girl cry by staring at her. Feel like a real hero!
[] Ask Nikki about her – she might know… but she is also something of a social pariah...
[] Send the giant to throw her into the Bay – No more problem!
Author's Note: Here, have a chapter!
Still not happy on the latter half of this.
Power experimentation is fun!
Please vote! Also discussions are good and I do take the occasional thing from it even if I'm mostly silent… I don't trust myself to not accidentally spoil something.
Guilt or shame.
Taylor was trying to decide which of the two was what she felt more of.
There was a subtle difference. Guilt was probably the winner, though she felt ashamed all the same.
She trudged to her spot in the woods.
Given that she had come here a few times it was definitely her spot, now.
Plus the large, shattered tree made it easy to find.
Taylor's mouth opened before closing. She took in a single breath before letting it out, vapour condensing in the air. Leave school drama at school. Time for something far more important.
The muscle tensed.
Ever faithful, the giant appeared at the command.
She looked at the giant, whose yellow eyes were pinpointed on her.
First thing's first- she fished out of her backpack a walkie-talkie that she had dug out from the basement. It was a cheap plastic and faded pastel colours but it would serve its purpose. She had even remembered to test it and put in new batteries.
"Please hold out your hand, palm up, fingers uncurled."
The giant knelt, holding out his hand.
Green eyes assessed at the motion, that was new. Taylor had yet to see the giant do anything it had not been specifically told to do. Kneeling down to presumably make it easier to accept the handset was different. Or perhaps he had yet to have a chance to display any of his own initiative?
The steel like flesh did not even show any give when the two way radio was placed in his palm.
"Do not break the radio, uh, the device I gave you." Taylor clarified after a moment- she had no idea if the giant knew what a walkie-talkie was, let alone a radio.
The giant kept staring at her.
The muscle relaxed.
Physically she was alone again, even if she knew the giant was a few feet away.
Taylor paced a few strides, trying to put some warmth into her legs, before she pulled on the impossible muscle.
Her power reappeared with the walkie-talkie.
She fist-pumped in victory.
If it hadn't then it would have cut off a lot of her plans. At the very least it didn't mean any of that couldn't work.
Reaching over she turned on the walkie-talkie in his hand.
"Don't move until I tell you to, please."
With that, she started to jog away.
Compared to the previous few times, she wasn't quite as rushed as she had been. Whereas before, her power might last a few minutes, she was now approaching upwards of an hour of time where she could keep it active before her head started to pound.
Plus, hiking out to the middle of nowhere was nice. Not that she was going to stop and admire the scenery but it was a nice, appreciable difference to the urban decay of the city.
After making a good fifteen minutes away from the giant, she double checked that her walkie-talkie was off before whispering out loud, "come here."
Taylor waited a moment, either to see the slate black form approaching her in the treeline or from above it. Given neither, she nodded to herself, turning on the handheld radio.
"Please walk here."
The reason she asked the giant to walk was twofold; Taylor had no idea if he would try to jump to her where he would land: he might even land on her by accident. It certainly wouldn't be something she could survive. The secondary reason was so she can see if she could give nestled orders.
"When you get here, please, stand on one leg for a minute."
She waited a beat.
"Pick up a tree."
She left the directives unordered- part of this was to see if the giant did them in any particular order.
"Punch a tree."
That was as much as she got before she heard a booming CRACK.
Taylor pinched the bridge of her nose.
"After you get here, please pick up a tree."
"Punch a tree stump once you've stopped walking."
"Set down the tree."
"Stand on a tree stump when you get here."
That was as far as she could get before the giant trotted into her view, his long legs allowing it to eat up the distance at a far faster clip than Taylor could. Or the fact that the power looked like it was almost entirely muscle, so the term 'walk' may have not been closer to Taylor's fastest run in terms of speed. And then some.
The giant stopped a few yards away from her before it's arm blurred and the nearest tree was no longer connected to the ground. By the time Taylor had started to process that, two noises of supernatural violence prevailing against nature blotted out everything, causing her to wince and cover her ears, instinctively curling inwards.
When she opened her eyes after another unholy noise, what she saw was a second tree's trunk in her power's arms, roots holding clumped dirt weighing a great deal. More importantly, the giant was standing on one foot.
Or he was.
Evidently holding standing on one foot was not in its wheelhouse of abilities, and the giant slowly tipped over, landing with a muffled thud- audible even with a layer of snow deadening it.
Fingers the width of her wrist opened, letting the tree fall from it's grasp.
Taylor stared.
Without him standing, she noticed that where the first tree it had punched was, was now gone. Not like someone had erased it from existence with a magic poof, but where a tree's stump had presumably been – Taylor hadn't gotten a good glimpse of her power punching a tree in half – there was now a two foot deep… crater is the only word she could think of. Bits of powderized wood sat at the bottom of the earthen divot.
Her eyes wandered as she thought.
Footprints the size of her torso dotted the snow giving a clear trail from where it had come- wait, he doesn't leave footprints when he isn't active, does he?
The girl looked back at her power as it stood up.
The walkie-talkie was still in it's hand, undamaged.
On a hunch, she held out her hand.
Taylor didn't tremble as her vision darkened, a shadow cast upon her as the giant delicately dropped it into her palm. Well, turned it's hand slightly sideways, allowing it to fall out of its palm and making her have to dart forward to grab it.
This had presented a lot of interesting information about her power.
The giant, in some manner, wasn't a complete automaton. It took some manner of initiative and did indeed remember orde- directions given to it. Albeit, directives that had to be clearly worded as her power seemed to take them quite literally.
It also seemed to be able to use the walkie-talkie without issue. That was good.
A solid amount of progress towards remotely doing cape activities. At the absolute minimum, she still needed to find a way to see what was going on to give new directions to the giant. It could end up like what happens to Scion; as far as everyone knew he put the same importance on every action whether he was fighting Endbringers or a trash fire.
Now that she wasn't having to replace… things, due to… people, Taylor actually had some money. She could probably spring for an earpiece and…
Taylor sat down on a rock and looked up at the giant, its yellow eyes staring back at her.
"I don't know how to do this." She admitted, "I could buy an earpiece, um, bluetooth device and have you wear it. But you don't speak. I wouldn't know what's going on. Or who is talking to you. I guess you could put it on speaker mode."
She hemmed and hawed for a moment. "I could buy a phone, two phones. Have the earpiece hooked up to that. I just… I don't want to. Buy one." Taylor refused to pout as she looked at the destroyed trees. "Or have one." She snorted. "I could just have you hold on to both."
The raven haired girl watched the snow fall for half a minute, the divot slowly being filled in.
She pointed to a tree.
"Please destroy it as much as you can in one strike. As strong as you can."
Colour started to leave the air.
There was little colour in a forest in winter; white, brown, blue, grey and green. That faded, muted, as another colour came into existence.
A deep sangria, borderline black, swelled up from within the giant, spreading across it. What had once been a lead grey, was now tinged pink. Taylor's first thought was that it was her power's blood, yet the dark red had not moved in any form that she knew of like blood did.
Yellow eyes bled into the same colour of violence.
Blue motes fell down its right hand as a stone slab shaped to that vaguely of a club- or perhaps a sword appeared- nearly pitch-black in colouration, though she could see the light catching it's sharpened edge.
The giant's arm wound back, holding the weapon that was longer than Taylor was tall.
The club stopped before it even began its descent.
Taylor looked at it. Then the tree.
A minute passed.
Then a second.
What is going on?
Taylor knew she wasn't at her time limit- she was a long ways off from the last time she had recorded the time and hadn't felt any strain yet. She knew she had given clear instructions.
"Is something wrong?"
The giant lowered his arm, the pink tinge leaving it as it looked at Taylor, eyes fading back into yellow.
"Um…"
She reviewed what she said.
"You've destroyed trees before. That's not the issue. Is it in one strike that's the problem? Or destroying all of it?" Taylor had learned more about trees than she thought she would ever need to know given it was her primary metric for measuring her power. "Do… are you unable to destroy it in one hit? I know roots go pretty far down, especially for old trees like this…"
Green eyes looked at the giant.
"If its impossible does it not work?"
This is where she hit a conundrum.
She didn't exactly know what is considered 'impossible' to her power, precisely because she didn't know what it could fully do.
The muscle twitched.
Taylor frowned. She had not pulled at the muscle. What was that?
It was hard to describe the feeling, grappling around in the darkness. Her dad had once shown her he could wiggle his ears and that's what it felt like; trying to strain to get a muscle you'd never felt before to move.
At least, she had felt something. That gave Taylor something to go off of.
It took a while for Taylor to realize she was seeing something new.
White lines formed in the corner of her vision- she only realized that she was seeing something different, when she looked away, the sight getting a better contrast when there was no snow in her sight. Yet the moment she looked at, say, a tree, the half formed points faded.
It only fully stabilized when she looked at the giant.
Intricate, flowing penmanship scrawled across her sight.
True Name: ┌╪╓╒ï↑╬╙
Master:[Ϙ̸̡̡̡̨̡̡̛̣͇͚͇̺̳̦̤̼̮̺̰̦̯̙̪͉̹̬̖͙̱͓̣̜͉͙̤͚̞͖̯͔̲̙̘̱̱̬̰͕̞͕͉̳̜̥̳̜̥͈̲͓̩͇͍̰͇͖͇͇̼͇̼̯̖̰̦̖̰̫̘͉̩̙͌͒̂̿̊͌̓̈́̈́̌̓̒̇̈͐̀͊͋̀͗̃̓́̈́̐̾͐̓̆͌͑̏͂̋̽̋̀̄̉̄̃̀͊̐̇͂̂̒̿̄̎͊́̃͗͛̿̈́͌̚̕͘̚͘̚͘͜͜͜͝͝͝͝͝͠͠͝͝͝ͅͅυ̸̧̢̡̡̨̨̢̛̛̤̥̻̳͎͉͙̗̜̦̦̦̥̜̺͍̣͍͙̘̦͍̼͈̻͚̙͖̺̦͖̯͙͔̦̹̳̥̝͉̯̠̯̘̭̘̭͎̜͈̟̬̯͖̮̼̞͉̹͚̍̀͛͒̎͆̐̍̉̊̔̍̇͌̂̉̌͛̈́̀̃̿́͒̈́͂͗̓̅̊̊̏̆̀̄̎͑͂̽͛̆̋́́̽͋̀̈́̏́̌̏̍̐͊̀̈́̅͘͘͘̕̚̕͘͜͝͝ͅǝ̴̢̨̨̢̢̧̛̛̥̹̬͔̲̖̘̟͙͍̬͍̪̗͙̮̟̜͕̳̙̳͎̭͉͕̳̙̮̹̮̞͎͎̗̹͈͎̜̼̘̗̻̺̟̳̟̰̬̗̱̱͎̞̜͚̟̙̗̼͕̟͆̒̓̋̓̈̑̇͛̒̀̽́̆̿̎̃̎̄͌̓̉̑̐̇͂̀̿̀̽̎͒̓́̈͋̽̍̃̀̐̀̀̆̐̽͛͌͌͂̒͌̑̀̐̂̿̚̕͘̚̕͘͘͜͝͝͠͠ͅɿ̶̨̨̨̢̢̧̢̢̧̧̧̢̧̰͙̫͔̝͚̠͍̲̺͙̯͖̹̳̠͕̘͎̠̘͚͉̹͈̳̫̫̖̠͇͇̺͚͍̘͇̩͙̘̜̗̖̩͓̤̝̘̝̭͖̭̼̘͙͕̮̗̭̝͆́͜ͅͅͅͅͅô̷̧̡̢̧̱͖̪͈̘̠̣̤̯̝̮͚͓̖͕̠̻̭̻̯̱͙̲̞̩̺̤̮̳̒͗͜͝ͅͅn̴̡̡̡̨̡̨̧̨̛̠̳̙̮̬̟̜͎͖̫̭̳̬̟̰̠͈̖͖̙͓̦̞̤̬̠͚̞̲̮͉͍̰̹̤̘͙͎̝͔͔͔̖̺̮̝̙̤̣̠̥̭͚͉̝̮̺̘͍̘̼͙͇̮̰̠̳̲̦̖̦̫͔̖̰̻̊̌̈́̋̍́̂̋͐́̈̎͆̒̍̇͘͜͜͜͠͝ ̷̧̛͖͚̱̬̰͓̗̙̺̱̖̄̓̾̽̿̇͌̀̑̌̍̾̏́̒́͗͆̋̽͒͗͘͘̚͘̚͘͠͝͠ǝ̴̡̢̡̨̢͚̬̟̞͙̼̣̪̱̪̻̘̗͈͎̺̬̞̠̙̜̹͕̼̪͈̺̫̹̮͇̭̲̥͖̰̥̺̙̹͍̪̲̼̗͈͈̝͕͙̻͖̲̼͈͖͇̠̥͍̗̟̍̕͜͜l̴̛̯̞̮͇͊̌̂͊̀́͗̓̈́̒͆͌́̏̏̉̄̅͌̿̀͊̾̅̂͂͐̐̀̉͒̐́̆͛̇̈́̿̉͊́́̀́̾̊̌̀̊̚̕͘̕̚̚͝͝͠ ̸̨̨̡̡̨̡̨̧̻̣̭͙̖̳̭̫̯̞͇͓̣̥͓̼͓̮̣̼̮͇̟̱̣̫̖̥̟̘̟̭̙̱͎̪͚̬̙̟͉͇͎͖̬͉̞̞̪̼̬̥̝̖͍̲̦͓̠͈͕͔͕͙͚̙͎̺̰̹̥̻̞̲͚̟̪̗̐̔͊͗̈́͒̅̄́̉̈́͆̓̌͆͒͌͆̓͊̉̊̽̊̽͆̓̽͑̕̚̕͜͜͝͝͝͝ĉ̴̡̢̧̢̢̢̢̢̛̼͖̗̥̦̠̪̞͔̭̤͖̭͇͓̖̩̹̰̪̻̫̪̼͎̯͍͚͓͉̤̦̫͕̼̪͎̰̩̻̣͚̣͕̬̜̫͎̙͕̭̊̇͆̀̑̓͛̀̄̆͆́́̌̌͌̊̊́̍̈̈́̎̃͊̽̈̇̽̊͗̅̎̅́͌̌̇̍̒͌̒͗̅̂̈́̑̒̂̓͗̎̈́̿̋̈́̅̈́͒̈̋̑̎̀̌̓̄̎͒͋̆̅̒̆͐͊̃̋͋̎͑̚̕̚͘̚͜͜͠͝͝͝͝͝͝͠͝͠͝ͅͅį̸̧̨̢̧̡̧̨̢̧̛͈̻͎̪̩͙͚̱̫̤̱̪͔̠̱̫̠͙̦̳̩̙̬͖̩̲̯͈̩̱͉̮̖͉̰̺̞͇͓̠͖̦̦͓̬̼͉̜̬̰̻̂͋͌͂̀͂̿͂͌̎̅͊͌̈̐̾͊͆͐͂̒̓̾̒̌̚͠ͅΰ̴̨̢̞̝̰̮͇̹̝̣̣͍͍̘̪̻̟̹͖̗̣͍̤͖̠̜͓͆̇́̈́̎̽̑́̀͌̃̍̌̎͒͋̄̈͆̉̍̆̀͛̂̏̀͋̿̒̈́̊͌̈́͌̆̍͑͌̓̐͊̌̊̋̃̅̐͒͋̄̊͛̚̚̚̚̕̕͜͜͜͝͝͠͝į̷̡͈̟͓̰̞̗̜̰̙̖̳̝̪̩̘͇̖̣̦͇̫̞̖̲̩̼͍̥̰͕̤̫̈͂̑͗͂̄̎͂̒̓͛̔̐͛̈̽͆̈́͑̊̿̿͒̇͘͜͜͜͜͠͠]
H/W: 253cm, 311kg
Alignment: Chaotic Insane
Strength: 100
Endurance: 50
Agility: 50
Energy: 50
Luck: 40
Noble Phantasm: 100
Master:[Ϙ̸̡̡̡̨̡̡̛̣͇͚͇̺̳̦̤̼̮̺̰̦̯̙̪͉̹̬̖͙̱͓̣̜͉͙̤͚̞͖̯͔̲̙̘̱̱̬̰͕̞͕͉̳̜̥̳̜̥͈̲͓̩͇͍̰͇͖͇͇̼͇̼̯̖̰̦̖̰̫̘͉̩̙͌͒̂̿̊͌̓̈́̈́̌̓̒̇̈͐̀͊͋̀͗̃̓́̈́̐̾͐̓̆͌͑̏͂̋̽̋̀̄̉̄̃̀͊̐̇͂̂̒̿̄̎͊́̃͗͛̿̈́͌̚̕͘̚͘̚͘͜͜͜͝͝͝͝͝͠͠͝͝͝ͅͅυ̸̧̢̡̡̨̨̢̛̛̤̥̻̳͎͉͙̗̜̦̦̦̥̜̺͍̣͍͙̘̦͍̼͈̻͚̙͖̺̦͖̯͙͔̦̹̳̥̝͉̯̠̯̘̭̘̭͎̜͈̟̬̯͖̮̼̞͉̹͚̍̀͛͒̎͆̐̍̉̊̔̍̇͌̂̉̌͛̈́̀̃̿́͒̈́͂͗̓̅̊̊̏̆̀̄̎͑͂̽͛̆̋́́̽͋̀̈́̏́̌̏̍̐͊̀̈́̅͘͘͘̕̚̕͘͜͝͝ͅǝ̴̢̨̨̢̢̧̛̛̥̹̬͔̲̖̘̟͙͍̬͍̪̗͙̮̟̜͕̳̙̳͎̭͉͕̳̙̮̹̮̞͎͎̗̹͈͎̜̼̘̗̻̺̟̳̟̰̬̗̱̱͎̞̜͚̟̙̗̼͕̟͆̒̓̋̓̈̑̇͛̒̀̽́̆̿̎̃̎̄͌̓̉̑̐̇͂̀̿̀̽̎͒̓́̈͋̽̍̃̀̐̀̀̆̐̽͛͌͌͂̒͌̑̀̐̂̿̚̕͘̚̕͘͘͜͝͝͠͠ͅɿ̶̨̨̨̢̢̧̢̢̧̧̧̢̧̰͙̫͔̝͚̠͍̲̺͙̯͖̹̳̠͕̘͎̠̘͚͉̹͈̳̫̫̖̠͇͇̺͚͍̘͇̩͙̘̜̗̖̩͓̤̝̘̝̭͖̭̼̘͙͕̮̗̭̝͆́͜ͅͅͅͅͅô̷̧̡̢̧̱͖̪͈̘̠̣̤̯̝̮͚͓̖͕̠̻̭̻̯̱͙̲̞̩̺̤̮̳̒͗͜͝ͅͅn̴̡̡̡̨̡̨̧̨̛̠̳̙̮̬̟̜͎͖̫̭̳̬̟̰̠͈̖͖̙͓̦̞̤̬̠͚̞̲̮͉͍̰̹̤̘͙͎̝͔͔͔̖̺̮̝̙̤̣̠̥̭͚͉̝̮̺̘͍̘̼͙͇̮̰̠̳̲̦̖̦̫͔̖̰̻̊̌̈́̋̍́̂̋͐́̈̎͆̒̍̇͘͜͜͜͠͝ ̷̧̛͖͚̱̬̰͓̗̙̺̱̖̄̓̾̽̿̇͌̀̑̌̍̾̏́̒́͗͆̋̽͒͗͘͘̚͘̚͘͠͝͠ǝ̴̡̢̡̨̢͚̬̟̞͙̼̣̪̱̪̻̘̗͈͎̺̬̞̠̙̜̹͕̼̪͈̺̫̹̮͇̭̲̥͖̰̥̺̙̹͍̪̲̼̗͈͈̝͕͙̻͖̲̼͈͖͇̠̥͍̗̟̍̕͜͜l̴̛̯̞̮͇͊̌̂͊̀́͗̓̈́̒͆͌́̏̏̉̄̅͌̿̀͊̾̅̂͂͐̐̀̉͒̐́̆͛̇̈́̿̉͊́́̀́̾̊̌̀̊̚̕͘̕̚̚͝͝͠ ̸̨̨̡̡̨̡̨̧̻̣̭͙̖̳̭̫̯̞͇͓̣̥͓̼͓̮̣̼̮͇̟̱̣̫̖̥̟̘̟̭̙̱͎̪͚̬̙̟͉͇͎͖̬͉̞̞̪̼̬̥̝̖͍̲̦͓̠͈͕͔͕͙͚̙͎̺̰̹̥̻̞̲͚̟̪̗̐̔͊͗̈́͒̅̄́̉̈́͆̓̌͆͒͌͆̓͊̉̊̽̊̽͆̓̽͑̕̚̕͜͜͝͝͝͝ĉ̴̡̢̧̢̢̢̢̢̛̼͖̗̥̦̠̪̞͔̭̤͖̭͇͓̖̩̹̰̪̻̫̪̼͎̯͍͚͓͉̤̦̫͕̼̪͎̰̩̻̣͚̣͕̬̜̫͎̙͕̭̊̇͆̀̑̓͛̀̄̆͆́́̌̌͌̊̊́̍̈̈́̎̃͊̽̈̇̽̊͗̅̎̅́͌̌̇̍̒͌̒͗̅̂̈́̑̒̂̓͗̎̈́̿̋̈́̅̈́͒̈̋̑̎̀̌̓̄̎͒͋̆̅̒̆͐͊̃̋͋̎͑̚̕̚͘̚͜͜͠͝͝͝͝͝͝͠͝͠͝ͅͅį̸̧̨̢̧̡̧̨̢̧̛͈̻͎̪̩͙͚̱̫̤̱̪͔̠̱̫̠͙̦̳̩̙̬͖̩̲̯͈̩̱͉̮̖͉̰̺̞͇͓̠͖̦̦͓̬̼͉̜̬̰̻̂͋͌͂̀͂̿͂͌̎̅͊͌̈̐̾͊͆͐͂̒̓̾̒̌̚͠ͅΰ̴̨̢̞̝̰̮͇̹̝̣̣͍͍̘̪̻̟̹͖̗̣͍̤͖̠̜͓͆̇́̈́̎̽̑́̀͌̃̍̌̎͒͋̄̈͆̉̍̆̀͛̂̏̀͋̿̒̈́̊͌̈́͌̆̍͑͌̓̐͊̌̊̋̃̅̐͒͋̄̊͛̚̚̚̚̕̕͜͜͜͝͝͠͝į̷̡͈̟͓̰̞̗̜̰̙̖̳̝̪̩̘͇̖̣̦͇̫̞̖̲̩̼͍̥̰͕̤̫̈͂̑͗͂̄̎͂̒̓͛̔̐͛̈̽͆̈́͑̊̿̿͒̇͘͜͜͜͜͠͠]
H/W: 253cm, 311kg
Alignment: Chaotic Insane
Strength: 100
Endurance: 50
Agility: 50
Energy: 50
Luck: 40
Noble Phantasm: 100
Parts of it made sense.
She could understand the… attributes(?) for lack of a better word. The numbers were meaningless without context but she did understand what they were saying.
What was a Noble Phantasm?
Alignment made… no sense, as far as she could tell; her power wasn't insane. It was remarkably well behaved if anything.
H/W had to be height and weight, which was something she could actually double check at some point.
True name… was a bunch of squiggles that kept changing. Not like a digital clock whose characters kept changing, no, the lines looked akin to fractal worms that kept crawling into shapes that they didn't hold, disappearing and reappearing at random.
The final one…
She couldn't read it, or even observe it. The longer she looked at it, the more it hurt, a sickly heat that was spreading through her. Taylor barely was able to pull her eyes away from that line when it started to get hard to breath. The heat started to burn her-
Looking away, she clutched at her chest, as air started to circulate into her lungs, the itching warmth leaving her in bits and pieces.
Her stomach rebelled, as a hand went to her mouth, bile coating the back of her throat as she tried to take calming breaths.
What the hell is this?
School the next day was… not something Taylor was looking forward to.
She had messed up.
What is she going to do about it?
[] Try to apologize – The longer the wait the more awkward it gets. Bite the bullet. Get it over with.
[] Find out information on her – do this with more information, but it will fester most likely. Or make it more awkward!
[] Ignore her – Just ignore the fact that you made a girl cry by staring at her. Feel like a real hero!
[] Ask Nikki about her – she might know… but she is also something of a social pariah...
Author's Note: Here, have a chapter!
Still not happy on the latter half of this.
Power experimentation is fun!
Please vote! Also discussions are good and I do take the occasional thing from it even if I'm mostly silent… I don't trust myself to not accidentally spoil something.
Arche 02.12
[X] Try to apologize – The longer the wait the more awkward it gets. Bite the bullet. Get it over with.
Feelings ate at Taylor.
Guilt had been supplanted by the fact that this felt like the kind of thing that Sophia would have done.
Going to school, hanging out with Nikki at lunch did little to dampen it. Actually, if anything, that worsened it. Especially when Taylor started to notice the wide berth she was being given by other students.
She was going to apologize.
For what… Taylor… really didn't know. It just felt like the right thing to do. That was the real clincher. She didn't want to be like the trio. Even accidentally. She didn't want to do it during lunch, not where others could easily see her and turn it into spectacle.
Which was why when she saw the wheelchair girl leaving the school at the end of the day, she went for it.
Besides, what's the worst that can happen?
The shadow didn't know what the girl was trying to do.
If it was to anger the cripple, then she was succeeding.
Her tone was earnest. That earnestness meant nothing to the cripple. Perhaps less than nothing.
It had seen helots with less hate in their eyes than the cripple had as it looked at it's girl. The shadow had a certainty to it that this would end in violence.
There was a sense the shadow had, from experience or from its origins, it couldn't say, but it knew that something was going to happen. Something violent.
It almost seemed as if it was coming from one of the metal bo-
The cripple started to laugh.
Warm liquid with brown pellets slowly cascaded down Taylor's forehead, some of it covering her glasses as she pulled them off her face to look at the offending substance.
...this was bird shit.
A giggle escaped the blurry form of the wheelchair girl.
The escaping giggles turned into loud laughter that had quieted down by the time that Taylor got one of her lens cleared off.
"Yeah, really feels like that's life sometimes. Doesn't it? Shit on from above." the crippled jerked her chair in place and began to roll forwards, towards one of the cars.
Taylor sighed. Somehow this was an improvement. Talking sucked.
"Guess it shits on both of us, doesn't it locker girl?" She asked as she left Taylor's range of hearing. "Can't stay mad at someone who's got the same luck as me. Apology accepted."
It took a moment for the comment to click; the elation that this whole had worked followed by dread that someone knew about it in the school.
Annoyance won out as she realized she still had bird shit in her hair.
"Fuck this day."
What does Taylor do socially/academically for the rest of the week at school outside of the norm?
[] Get off-campus lunch with Nikki.
[] Actually try to talk with wheelchair girl. It can't be more of a disaster, right?
[] Vent to her power. Being a teenager sucks.
[] Try and get ahead of studying.
[] Finally get around to new reading material.
Author's Note: Surprise! New chapter!
...it was confluence of coincidences that got a new one out in less than five hours. Unlikely to happen again.
Couple days until next chapter, I swear. Probably. It helps that this one was written in like thirty minutes.
Feelings ate at Taylor.
Guilt had been supplanted by the fact that this felt like the kind of thing that Sophia would have done.
Going to school, hanging out with Nikki at lunch did little to dampen it. Actually, if anything, that worsened it. Especially when Taylor started to notice the wide berth she was being given by other students.
She was going to apologize.
For what… Taylor… really didn't know. It just felt like the right thing to do. That was the real clincher. She didn't want to be like the trio. Even accidentally. She didn't want to do it during lunch, not where others could easily see her and turn it into spectacle.
Which was why when she saw the wheelchair girl leaving the school at the end of the day, she went for it.
Besides, what's the worst that can happen?
The shadow didn't know what the girl was trying to do.
If it was to anger the cripple, then she was succeeding.
Her tone was earnest. That earnestness meant nothing to the cripple. Perhaps less than nothing.
It had seen helots with less hate in their eyes than the cripple had as it looked at it's girl. The shadow had a certainty to it that this would end in violence.
There was a sense the shadow had, from experience or from its origins, it couldn't say, but it knew that something was going to happen. Something violent.
It almost seemed as if it was coming from one of the metal bo-
The cripple started to laugh.
Warm liquid with brown pellets slowly cascaded down Taylor's forehead, some of it covering her glasses as she pulled them off her face to look at the offending substance.
...this was bird shit.
A giggle escaped the blurry form of the wheelchair girl.
The escaping giggles turned into loud laughter that had quieted down by the time that Taylor got one of her lens cleared off.
"Yeah, really feels like that's life sometimes. Doesn't it? Shit on from above." the crippled jerked her chair in place and began to roll forwards, towards one of the cars.
Taylor sighed. Somehow this was an improvement. Talking sucked.
"Guess it shits on both of us, doesn't it locker girl?" She asked as she left Taylor's range of hearing. "Can't stay mad at someone who's got the same luck as me. Apology accepted."
It took a moment for the comment to click; the elation that this whole had worked followed by dread that someone knew about it in the school.
Annoyance won out as she realized she still had bird shit in her hair.
"Fuck this day."
What does Taylor do socially/academically for the rest of the week at school outside of the norm?
[] Get off-campus lunch with Nikki.
[] Actually try to talk with wheelchair girl. It can't be more of a disaster, right?
[] Vent to her power. Being a teenager sucks.
[] Try and get ahead of studying.
[] Finally get around to new reading material.
Author's Note: Surprise! New chapter!
...it was confluence of coincidences that got a new one out in less than five hours. Unlikely to happen again.
Couple days until next chapter, I swear. Probably. It helps that this one was written in like thirty minutes.
Last edited:
Arche 02.13
[X] Try to get ahead of studying.
Taylor was behind when it came to schoolwork.
It wasn't like she wasn't doing her homework, it's more that Winslow's curriculum was not up to the standard. That on top of the transfer had placed her farther behind- she was still having to do make-up assignments to at least pad out her grade so as to not have the final half of the school year be worth a disproportional amount.
This was all a very long way to say that she was going using study hall to its utmost instead of reading Mona Lisa Overdrive.
Doing geometry classwork. Because that's just how life was sometimes.
Taylor sighed as she leaned back, trying to blink away numbers from her eyes.
A nearby chair creaked.
The sound drew her attention as a girl sat down at the nearest table, before plopping her steel-toe boots on said table, a long healing scar stretching from the corner of her mouth to her ear, where part of it was missing. That was not her most defining trait, however.
Rather it was how she was looking at Taylor like she was an insect to dissect; debating whether she should start pulling at the wings or the antenna.
It kind of felt like Sophia.
Taylor wanted no part of this.
The girl barely twitched as a stack of paper swatted her upside the head. "Eve be nice." A girl with a body that would have made Emma jealous chastised before sitting down causing the other one to grumble lightly and look away.
Shaking her head, Taylor went back to her angle bisect worksheet.
Normally Taylor wouldn't have a problem with others in the study hall, at least here in Clarendon. Normally, of course, that was because others were here to study.
"Kass."
"Kass."
"Kass."
It finally stopped, blessed silence, qu-
"Hey Kass."
Frigging hell.
"Eve, I have to get this English homework done. I wanna try and get ahead in Rogues n' Heroes."
Taylor looked up at the two just in time to catch the shorter one, Eve(?), pout.
"Lame game."
The other gave her a glare. "It's not lame."
"Doom was better." Eve smirked much to the other's, Kass(?), consternation.
"They're not even the same genre!"
"Doesn't matter."
"You can't compare Doom to an rpg- no, not falling for that bait. If you want attention, you can wait or bother somebody else."
"You told me to be nice."
"I will pay anyone to babysit you."
"Fuck you."
The other girl merely snorted as Taylor tried to get back to the worksheet.
It wasn't hard work, truly. It was just a lot of it.
After this she had biology worksheets. Then several chapters in her history textbook to read. It was going to take a while to get fully caught up, but at least this freed up some of her time on the weekend. Truly, what Taylor was hoping for was that if she put her nose to the grindstone long enough, she could get ahead enough that if she ever needed to skip a day for a cape related reason, she wouldn't get behind.
That da-
A paper airplane glided into her shoulder before falling out of the air with all the grace of a dead bird.
She looked down at it.
Then she looked up.
Eve looked at the airplane with a bored if somewhat sad expression on her face. "...there were no survivors." She loudly whispered to Taylor, her hands moving as she folded another piece of paper. "Want one? I can do different shapes n' sizes."
"Miss Coldwin." The teacher overseeing the room spoke up, "can you please not throw paper in the classroom."
"It's a distinct possibiliTY-" Eve huffed and sent the girl next to her a withering look, one that she returned with innocence. "...Sure, teach."
She looked back to Taylor, "So, want one?"
Taylor sighed.
It might have been better to just study in the lunchroom.
Taylor got a fair bit of school work done and has an early power/cape related vote;
[] Patrol [QA is giving this a vote, +1]
[] Research the cape scene in Brockton Bay
[] Power experimentation
[] Name/Presentation preparations
[] Cape social (Taylor doesn't know any capes yet)
Author's note: A very smol social-ish thing snuck in to spice up me writing Taylor studying.
Yay.
Also have an update, sorry I took a week!
Taylor was behind when it came to schoolwork.
It wasn't like she wasn't doing her homework, it's more that Winslow's curriculum was not up to the standard. That on top of the transfer had placed her farther behind- she was still having to do make-up assignments to at least pad out her grade so as to not have the final half of the school year be worth a disproportional amount.
This was all a very long way to say that she was going using study hall to its utmost instead of reading Mona Lisa Overdrive.
Doing geometry classwork. Because that's just how life was sometimes.
Taylor sighed as she leaned back, trying to blink away numbers from her eyes.
A nearby chair creaked.
The sound drew her attention as a girl sat down at the nearest table, before plopping her steel-toe boots on said table, a long healing scar stretching from the corner of her mouth to her ear, where part of it was missing. That was not her most defining trait, however.
Rather it was how she was looking at Taylor like she was an insect to dissect; debating whether she should start pulling at the wings or the antenna.
It kind of felt like Sophia.
Taylor wanted no part of this.
The girl barely twitched as a stack of paper swatted her upside the head. "Eve be nice." A girl with a body that would have made Emma jealous chastised before sitting down causing the other one to grumble lightly and look away.
Shaking her head, Taylor went back to her angle bisect worksheet.
Normally Taylor wouldn't have a problem with others in the study hall, at least here in Clarendon. Normally, of course, that was because others were here to study.
"Kass."
"Kass."
"Kass."
It finally stopped, blessed silence, qu-
"Hey Kass."
Frigging hell.
"Eve, I have to get this English homework done. I wanna try and get ahead in Rogues n' Heroes."
Taylor looked up at the two just in time to catch the shorter one, Eve(?), pout.
"Lame game."
The other gave her a glare. "It's not lame."
"Doom was better." Eve smirked much to the other's, Kass(?), consternation.
"They're not even the same genre!"
"Doesn't matter."
"You can't compare Doom to an rpg- no, not falling for that bait. If you want attention, you can wait or bother somebody else."
"You told me to be nice."
"I will pay anyone to babysit you."
"Fuck you."
The other girl merely snorted as Taylor tried to get back to the worksheet.
It wasn't hard work, truly. It was just a lot of it.
After this she had biology worksheets. Then several chapters in her history textbook to read. It was going to take a while to get fully caught up, but at least this freed up some of her time on the weekend. Truly, what Taylor was hoping for was that if she put her nose to the grindstone long enough, she could get ahead enough that if she ever needed to skip a day for a cape related reason, she wouldn't get behind.
That da-
A paper airplane glided into her shoulder before falling out of the air with all the grace of a dead bird.
She looked down at it.
Then she looked up.
Eve looked at the airplane with a bored if somewhat sad expression on her face. "...there were no survivors." She loudly whispered to Taylor, her hands moving as she folded another piece of paper. "Want one? I can do different shapes n' sizes."
"Miss Coldwin." The teacher overseeing the room spoke up, "can you please not throw paper in the classroom."
"It's a distinct possibiliTY-" Eve huffed and sent the girl next to her a withering look, one that she returned with innocence. "...Sure, teach."
She looked back to Taylor, "So, want one?"
Taylor sighed.
It might have been better to just study in the lunchroom.
Taylor got a fair bit of school work done and has an early power/cape related vote;
[] Patrol [QA is giving this a vote, +1]
[] Research the cape scene in Brockton Bay
[] Power experimentation
[] Name/Presentation preparations
Author's note: A very smol social-ish thing snuck in to spice up me writing Taylor studying.
Yay.
Also have an update, sorry I took a week!