[X] Act
-[X] Stop the fleeing parahumans [Ice group]
Taylor didn't have much time to actually think on what to do.
She knew the giant would be able to make a difference for whichever side she sent him at.
Of the two figures in the air, the teen made a calculated decision; it was probably New Wave. Taylor at the very least knew they had force-fields, lasers and flight. Two flying capes were most likely them.
Maybe they just had crap aim at night?
She didn't know anyone that had a cape that could use ice powers like that. Probably villains.
The teen eyed the de-materialized form of the giant, perched on top of the bus. She was pretty sure he would have been inside the bus if his form fit when materialized. He was focused on the two flying capes.
"Apprehend the flying-" even through the chaotic din of panicked passengers, the giant seemed to have heard her as he started to move towards the duo in the air, the ethereal muscle spasming as Taylor tried to keep it still, "-ice user and the other fleeing capes, non-lethally."
Taylor let the muscle tense.
Close to the flying light, a dark shape appeared on the road, illuminated in the white light.
Taylor could barely see the giant before he disappeared, followed by the crack of the concrete denting from his pivot, his momentum meaning nothing.
She wasn't able to turn her head fast enough to see what happened next, only the aftermath. And the sound.
Ice shattered.
Then a yowl.
Followed by a scream.
A new star bloomed into existence, turning night into day, casting an eerie iridescent on everything. The glowing New Wave member flew towards it.
Except it wasn't New Wave.
Without the night-blindness, Taylor could tell who it was, as the figure raised an arm, light igniting from her palm like magnesium.
Purity.
The second in command of the neo-nazis.
That was all she could tell before a wave of darkness swallowed the new star. Purity was barely able to outpace it before the bus turned into vantablack.
The shadow couldn't see.
Nor could it hear.
In some ways, it mused, that would be crippling to most fighters. It was not most fighters.
A large shape, with fangs like swords bit into it's arm, intent on retribution.
It's teeth broke into fragments against the shadow's arm.
In the second of hesitation that it caused, the shadow's knee came down on the creature, breaking extrusions that came off of it, pinning it beneath a muscled limb.
The girl had explained to it what a 'cape' was. A human with powers. This was no human.
The shadow pulled a fist back and punched down with force.
The ground sank under its impact.
Visceral and gore splattered on it's hand as the creature stopped moving.
There was resistance as it pulled back it's arm. The darkness was more than just an illusion? There must be a physical component to it.
The shadow stood.
It inhaled.
It roared.
"░░░▒▒▒▒▓▓▓███████████████!"
Vision returned.
The shadow could see the creature; it had indeed popped the lizard's head.
"█████-"
Bright blue specks shot through the edge of the darkness.
Ice filled its mouth.
Darkness re-encroached on it.
The shadow disappeared into the darkness as it sped towards the source of the attack.
The moment it left the other side of the darkness, the shadow smashed into a structure, crumpling a crater into it, glass falling like snowflakes. Looking back at the street, ice structures sectioned off the darkness, bits of it peaking through. The bright one's ally was floating above it all, dramatically raising its arms, causing black fog to rise.
All of that the shadow deemed irrelevant.
There.
With eyes better than a hawk, it picked out the source of the fog – the epicentre of where more was generating.
Several floors of the building shattered as it moved.
The walls of ice did not stop it. Nor did the resistance that the fog put up.
A second star bloomed into existence as the shadow's weapon smashed into the iceman. Darkness around them burned away.
The iceman was unharmed.
That was infuriating.
The shadow swung its sword again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
The heat turned the road into melted slag.
The girl had said not to kill the iceman. Usually, it would be an issue of control in the shadow's experience. Not an insufficient application of force.
Muscles bulged.
The flames singed the shadow.
This wasn't working.
The shadow grabbed the iceman. No fire this time. Well, additional fire. The crater around them was currently on fire, a boiling slurry.
Iceman was saying something.
The shadow didn't care.
It slammed him against the molten rock.
A miniature star appeared.
Irksome.
The figure who resembled night's sky floated closer to it.
"Good work in catching him, stranger!" The cape, for that was what she was, even though she lacked one, floated closer, "hold onto hi-"
Her arm punched herself in the torso and the woman let out a choked wheeze.
The black fog cut it off.
Against it's own will, the hand holding the iceman started to pry open.
Barely.
Something gave in between it's fingers.
Ripped fabric remained in its grip when the hand closed.
It had no idea where its quarry had gone. The fog erased sound, sight and smell…
...it didn't remove the sense of touch, however. It could feel the vibrations of something moving to the right of it. The shadow swung it's sword, the motion splitting the fog in that direction before cracking the concrete.
A narrow pathway turned off between tightly packed buildings. The shadow noticed claw marks from the lizard like creatures the group had dotting it. While its targets would have to go around the buildings, the shadow could go through them. It would catch up.
The road cracked as it tensed for another jump.
The woman of the stars floated in-front of him. "That's enough! You need to reel in your strength mister! You're doing more damage than the Undersiders!" She ordered, voice sharp.
The shadow regarded the figure.
She wasn't the girl. It wouldn't listen to her orders.
Something deep within it was telling it that this woman was dangerous.
That didn't change what the girl had told it to do.
The shadow leapt.
Something changed.
Trajectory misaligned, a force of nature inverted on it.
The corner of a building exploded as it was sheared off by the shadow's leg.
The shadow was sent spinning into the air.
There was no downward arc.
It twisted, righting itself.
An infernal magic was keeping it from descending. Gaia's domain fell away.
The figure from before approached, followed by the bright figure.
Yet that was not what it was focusing on. Rather, it was, on the fact with a view from Ouranos' domain that it could no longer see the black fog's epicentre.
Perhaps in the past, it could track them down.
That was ages ago.
The shadow faded into twinkling motes of light.
The darkness didn't come apart for what Taylor later found out to be half an hour, but felt like an eternity.
She didn't make it home for another two hours. The who-knows-how-deep lava pit in the road, in addition to several parts of the road being melted to a consistency closer to play-doh really backed up traffic.
The teen had no idea how the giant had caused any of that to happen or if it did; to be honest, she didn't know if he had caused a difference at all.
Suffice to say, she found it very hard to study that night.
Taylor got a 79% on the test.
[] Patrol – Go search for trouble [+1, QA votes for this.]
[] Research Local – Find out what's going on with the cape scene in Brockton Bay
[] Power experimentation (Taylor is currently out of ideas) – Taylor is going to mess around with her power/prep for exciting part of cape life
[] Preparations – Taylor doing prep work for the boring part of being a cape
[] Cape social (Taylor doesn't know any capes yet) – Talk to another cape
Author's Note: This was fun to write! I like writing violence! Was it fun to read?
I think one of the fun bits from the actual web novel was not knowing what people's powers were. Taylor had the vaguest of descriptions in most instances. It added a bit of mystery to it. It's something I'm trying to continue here.
Grue was incredibly horrified watching all of this go down through the darkness. Pretty sure he went home and hugged Aisha. He didn't think he was going to make it.
Fun fact; her test score was a 60+2d20 with a result of 60 + 3 + 16. If she got her notes it would have been 70+ 3d10. It's not really relevant but just a tidbit.
As always, remember to vote and if you could discuss, I would be most happy!
