Hive Keeper (Worm/DungeonKeeper/WFTO Alt!Power)
- Thread starter Ashkari
- Start date
- Crossover
Chapter 11
Ashkari
(Verified Ink-slinger)
- Location
- United States
Update for readers just tuning in: This chapter received a bit of a do-over for the second half, so early comments regarding the chapter may not reflect the final version.
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Hey there everyone! Hive Keeper is back! Been awhile. Sorry for the abrupt sort-of hiatus; there's been a hell of a lot going on in the world lately, most of it depressing, and I hope everyone's keeping safe. I haven't been wholly idle over the past months -- I've actually been doing some writing on and off on another (as yet unpublished) piece, as well as done a few snippets here and there -- but I felt it was high past time to buckle down again and try and get back to at least writing on a schedule. How exactly that's gonna go down, I'm not sure yet, but I want to try and at least do at least a ~5k chapter a week. That may end up being split between different works, we'll see. If I do, I'll probably start the other stuff off with setting up a snippet/ideas thread of my own like others have. God knows I've got dozens of blurbs in my Scrivener archive now.
Anyhow, without further ado, here (finally) is the beginning of the aftermath of Taylor's fight.
Enjoy!
"Thank you, ma'am," the voice on the other side of the line concluded. "We'll have a team out there shortly, ETA seven minutes. Have a safe day."
Taylor snapped the Merchant's phone shut as the PRT agent cut the call, and then handed it off to one of her imps for disposal.
Calling the PRT had been simpler than she'd expected. For whatever reason, Taylor had thought they would want to press her for as much information on her powers as possible, or that they might not believe her, or any other number of complications. Instead, she'd ended up talking to a very bored-sounding, if polite, operator. One who, after getting confirmation that Taylor was willing to stick around, had merely asked her for a brief description of herself before telling her that a team was on the way. That was it. In fact, his spiel was so rote that she'd had to interrupt him in order to make sure that he'd inform the heroes that she'd changed her look, and that she had projections watching over a large quantity of prisoners that would need transport but not medical attention.
She rolled her eyes internally. This fucking city. Anyhow, next she needed to let her father know she was all right.
For certain definitions thereof, anyway, Taylor thought, closing her eyes for a moment as she pressed a trembling hand briefly against her side. Her nagas had long since finished healing her up, but... she'd nearly died, all because she'd grown overconfident and hadn't really listened properly to what Almaric had been saying. Something she was not looking forward to telling her father about.
Maybe she'd just... not mention it unless he asked? He had enough to worry about.
Well. Regardless, he'd be angry anyway if she just left him hanging, and seeing as her power was informing her that she couldn't just pluck her dad right out of the dungeon like one of her minions, that meant she'd have to send one to him.
"Almaric," Taylor called.
The warlock paused in his oversight of the captives and was at her side immediately.
"Yes, Mistress?"
Taylor leaned in quietly, lest she be overheard.
"I would like you to deliver a message to my father. He is still waiting within the dungeon; I shall transport you there. Also, as we are almost done here and frankly I'd prefer the PRT not to see you in particular just yet, I want you to remain in the dungeon and return to your research once the message is delivered."
Almaric bowed slightly. "And the message?"
Taylor decided she'd phrase it in terms of the handful of code words she and her father had already come up with. Not actually necessary, since this wasn't over the phone, but it was still good practice.
"Party's over, had fun," she recited. "John showed up and drank too much punch. Waiting for his friends to come pick him up."
He bowed, repeating the message back to her, and then Taylor sent him on his way.
That task complete, she took a minute to deposit most of her imps back into her dungeon and rotate the rest of them in and out so that they could drop off their current loads. She didn't want the PRT to show up to find a whole army loitering around, nor was there sense in risking them running off into the streets again. Afterwards, she checked in on Skidmark and Stain, whom she'd had blindfolded, hogtied, and left in the old freezer room, under the care of her oculi with orders to re-stun the capes every time they unfroze.
Things seemed fine on that front.
With the prisoners all rounded up, only a few remaining imps on cleaning duty, and the PRT on their way, Taylor decided that there weren't any further issues that demanded her immediate attention. She gave the prisoners what she hoped was an intimidating speech about how if they played nice they'd be handed over to the PRT in one piece, and how if they didn't then they'd get a 'face-full of demon-spiders'. There was some fearful muttering, particularly from the Merchants, but nobody kicked up a fuss when she had them escorted out into the street, where they were all made to sit in a large group. Last of all, she sent the gnarlings back into the building to stand guard over the drugs and weapons while she and the nagas watched over the prisoners from a distance, where she'd be clearly in view of any oncoming vehicles but hopefully out of earshot of the gang members.
Then she settled in to wait for the PRT.
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As the hotline operator had told her, she didn't have to wait very long. Soon enough, the sound of sirens began to approach in the distance, and Taylor caught sight of red figure zipping through the air towards her position.
Inwardly, she felt relief. Aegis had been more than reasonable last time, and he already had some idea of the scary nature of her powers. Moreover, he had already had some first-hand experience with them, so he'd be at least somewhat prepared for it. Hopefully the operator had actually passed on her warning; if so, those two things combined would cut short any potential misunderstandings.
She needn't have worried.
"Ah.... Keeper? You're uh... not wearing a mask?" the Ward asked hesitantly as he touched down nearby.
Taylor tried to give Aegis a reassuring smile as he glanced apprehensively at the nagas, who were standing at attention behind her. "Yeah, it's me. I gave my costume a bit of an upgrade. No more costume-shop dress for me."
"Dispatch did tell me you asked them to pass on that you'd look... uh, different," he replied, still holding himself somewhat apart. "Seems a bit of an understatement."
Taylor gave him a wry grin. "Yeah. I did tell you my power was a bit... complicated." She gestured towards herself. "This is part of that. I uh, discovered I could change my shape to an extent, and that includes clothes and armor, too. Hence, no need for a mask, since this isn't my real face. I thought it might make me more approachable, and if I keep the face consistent I can do different costume themes for different occasions."
She turned and pointed to a cluster of her remaining imps, who were breaking apart the last bits of metal debris from the street. "But see? Same guys as before. It's me."
Aegis looked in the direction she'd indicated, then visibly relaxed. He then glanced back at the nagas again. "And some new ones, I see."
"Yep. They're healer types," she told him. "They're here to help make sure nobody tries anything or gets seriously injured."
From his body language, Taylor could tell that Aegis's eyebrows had gone up at this revelation.
"Healers?" he asked, stunned. "You can make projections with healing powers?"
"Sure can!" Taylor replied cheerfully. Then she turned her smile to a sly grin. "Don't worry, I'm fully planning on working out a deal with the PRT to hire them out for... reasonable compensation."
Aegis didn't seem to have a reply to that, so instead he briefly observed her imps at work. A few were busy shoveling the remaining shards of metal from the ABB vehicles into their bags, while others were running around picking up trash, bullet casings, and discarded weapons.
Seeing this, Aegis turned back to her and gave her a grin of his own. "Cleaning up after yourself? Now that's not something you see every day, after a cape fight."
Taylor shrugged. "Hey, I figured if Squealer and the ABB were gonna donate their trucks to me, then waste not, want not."
Aegis gaped at her for a moment. "You... salvaged one of Squealers vehicles?!"
"Was I not supposed to?" Taylor asked, a note of worry creeping into her voice.
The other cape burst out laughing. "No, no, not at all! That's totally fine. Saves us a hell of a lot of trouble cleaning up the place, though I'm sure Armsmaster will probably be annoyed about not getting to study it. I just... she's going to be so pissed when she finds out."
Taylor relaxed again, smirking. "She was a bit too busy with running to be pissed, I think."
"She was actually here?" he asked with surprise. "It wasn't just some of her and Skidmark's goons driving the thing? She's usually not one to actually show her face all that much. Any idea what she was doing here?"
Taylor winced. "I, uh... may have inadvertently stumbled upon one of the Merchant's major store-houses. Or, well... some random ABB guys did and decided to try and get in good with their bosses or something. That's my guess anyway since, well, the place isn't on fire."
"I only showed up because of all the noise," she continued. "But yeah, there's, uh... a lot of drugs and money and weapons in there. Way more than it seems like there should be, actually. Aren't the Merchants supposed to be pretty small time?"
Aegis grimaced.
"They were," he grumbled. "But they've been recruiting, and it's making them bolder. It used to be they stuck to petty robberies and some low-end dealing, but now they're starting to escalate. Hitting bigger targets."
"Like the art store thing?"
"Among others," he said. "Art supply stores, chemical suppliers, pharmacies... rumor has it that either Squealer has been branching out, or they've acquired another tinker. A chemicals tinker."
A quiet buzz sounded, causing Aegis to check his belt, where he'd apparently received a text message.
"Speaking of...," he commented as he briefly read the message and typed a very short reply before hooking the phone back onto the clip. "Where is Squealer anyway? Dispatch said you had captured two capes? The PRT will be here any second."
Taylor grimaced. "Ahh... unfortunately she got away. Her, Skidmark, and those two new ones, Moist and Stain were the ones who showed, but Squealer and Moist managed to get away, and I wasn't in a good position to chase after them."
She gestured towards the building. "I've got the other two tied up and locked away in what used to be a freezer, where they can't get out, being watched over by some oculi."
"Oculi? Are those the, uh, spider things?"
She shook her head. "No, those are skargs. An oculus is, uh... like a floating eyeball thing. They've got a temporary paralysis blaster power. I'm pretty sure Stain could probably use the ink in her tattoos to cut her way free of any zip ties, so I'm having them re-stun her every few minutes so she doesn't escape. And Skidmark too, just for good measure."
Aegis gave her a look of consideration. "That's... pretty useful. Just how many different creatures can you summon?"
Taylor gave him a sideways smile. "It's complicated," she told him with a roll of her eyes.
It wasn't long before oncoming sirens grew loud enough to hurt Taylor's enhanced ears, and shortly she caught sight of a motorcycle with emergency lights turning a corner in the distance. It was followed by several vans of varying types.
The motorcycle turned out to be Miss Militia's, much to Taylor's surprise. PHO made such a big deal over the so-called 'Armscycle', and they were rare enough vehicles in Brockton in general, that it honestly hadn't even occurred to Taylor that their maneuverability might well suit other ground-bound capes enough that they would use them as well.
As Miss Militia dismounted and vehicle doors began opening, Taylor quickly took inventory of her various remaining minions, quietly snatching all but her nagas and oculi up and depositing them back into her dungeon. Aegis noticed her hands' abrupt movements, cocking his head slightly and watching her, but said nothing.
Standing to one side with her nagas behind her, Taylor watched with no small degree of apprehension as the PRT troopers began shouting orders to each other, spreading out to form a cordon around the area. Quite a number of them kept their gaze trained in Taylor's general direction, though thankfully none of them actually pointed their weapons directly her.
Not that Taylor could see their eyes behind their blank face-shields, but there was a certain air of implied menace, and who else would they be carefully watching but her and her nagas? Even her power seemed... twitchy, almost, regarding the presence of the PRT troopers. As if it was wary of them, but not outright hostile. Weirdly enough, she didn't get the same feeling from Miss Militia or Aegis.
I wonder if my power is responding to their professional paranoia? Taylor thought, forcing herself to relax.
Whatever the case, Miss Militia did still approach cautiously much like Aegis had, though she managed to make it look much more casual. Also like Aegis she eyed the two nagas who were standing completely motionless behind Taylor. Then her gaze panned over to Taylor herself, looking her costume over, and Taylor had to suppress a smirk when the other cape's eyes reached her unmasked face and widened.
She suspected she'd get that reaction quite a lot in the coming days. Good.
Taylor gave the older cape a smile, tilting her head slightly and giving a slight bow in greeting. "Miss Militia, it is an honor to meet you."
Shaking off her surprise, the other cape inclined her head back at her. "Likewise. Keeper, I presume?"
"Indeed."
Miss Militia flicked her gaze over the amassed prisoners sitting clustered together on the far side of the street. "I must say, that is a fairly impressive quantity of gang members," she commented. "ABB and Merchants both from the looks of them? What on earth happened here? Is anyone in need of urgent medical care?"
"Two different incidents," Taylor explained. "A shootout between the ABB and Merchants, followed by Merchant reinforcements attacking me after I'd subdued the first group. There were a few gunshot and knife wounds, but I've dealt with them already."
"Dealt with them?" Miss Militia asked politely.
Aegis nodded towards the nagas standing behind Taylor. "Keeper tells me these two projections of hers are healers."
"Really?" the other cape replied, fascinated. "They have powers of their own?"
"That's right," Taylor confirmed. "Most of my mi— er, projections do."
"You have others?"
"I do," Taylor replied without elaborating. Instead, she gestured to the building entrance off to her left.
"I'm sure you have questions, but first it would be prudent to secure the prisoners. There are quite a number of them, and while Skidmark is currently restrained well enough, Stain is under an effect that will wear off shortly, so best to get her foamed as soon as possible." She then repeated what she'd told Aegis.
Miss Militia nodded in reply, and spoke momentarily into a radio she pulled from her belt. One of the nearby vans disgorged a pair of PRT troopers wielding foam sprayers. They went into the building alongside several other troopers as Taylor surreptitiously scooped up her oculi and dumped them back into the dungeon.
"Thank you for sticking around, by the way," Miss Militia told her. "Many young heroes don't, which all too often makes it harder for those of us who have to deal with the cleanup."
She pulled out a pad of paper. "So, mind telling me about what happened here?"
Taylor gave the other cape a brief rundown, explaining how she'd been at her lair when she'd heard the gunshots and brought her projections to investigate, and the subsequent events that had occurred. She left out most of the specific details of the fight, though, not really wanting to give away too much about her own powers. Not yet.
Miss Militia, for her part, merely listened quietly until Taylor was finished. Afterwards, the older women silently eyed the spots in the street where the ABB trucks and Squealer's monstrosity would have been, the only real evidence of the battle being a number of bullet holes in the concrete and the askew light-post.
"I... do seem to notice a distinct lack of wrecked vehicles," Miss Militia commented.
Taylor smirked. "Indeed. Squealer left quite the mess behind. Rather than leave it for the city to deal with at taxpayer's expense, I took the liberty of disposing of the wreckage."
Miss Militia frowned slightly. "Disposed of? How? Generally that's the purview of the PRT, in order to make sure there aren't any safety issues with anything left behind."
Taylor was a bit surprised; She glanced at Aegis curiously for a moment, but the other cape had turned away briefly and was keeping an eye on the gang members, who were slowly being rounded up.
She hesitated for a moment, thinking rapidly, and then came to a decision. It wasn't like they wouldn't know soon enough. "Perhaps a demonstration is in order. But first, I have some questions of my own. I've read in some places that independents often fund themselves by seizing drug money and other valuables from gang members. Is that, in fact, actually legal?"
"To a limit," Miss Militia allowed. "It's an extension of civil forfeiture law. When a parahuman is acting within the law as a vigilante, they fall under a heading of informal law enforcement. If you plan to go that route though, you should keep records. Both for tax purposes and in case anyone makes a counter claim, although in this city that's highly unlikely to happen since it requires an appearance in person. Cash, vehicles, and certain classes of tinkertech are all fair game to be seized, although you'll need the help of the police in getting any vehicles registered to you after a waiting period. You're are also not allowed to keep things that would be normally illegal for you to posses, namely drugs and weapons. Those have to be turned over to the police."
"Would it be legal to use my power to destroy guns and drugs instead of turning them over?" Taylor asked.
Miss Militia tilted her head in curiosity. "It depends. For heroic capes specifically that's something of a grey area. Partly that's because there can be health or environmental concerns when disposing of contraband, but also because we'd prefer you turn them over to be used as evidence—"
Taylor couldn't help herself. She snorted a laugh, causing the other cape to raise her eyebrow at her.
"In this city?" Taylor explained in a dry tone. "What's the point? They'll be back on the street within two weeks and you know it."
Miss Militia just shrugged, her bandanna twitching sideways slightly as she looked away. The overall impression was that of a fairly unhappy 'what can you do?'.
"… unfortunately, I can't really disagree," she replied after a moment, shaking her head and sighing as she looked back at Taylor. "Still... busts like this can go a long way towards providing leads on suppliers, or can help with tracking down the perpetrators of other crimes. Guns in particular are monitored closely, and sometimes we can match them to a stolen shipment or even a particular crime. So you never know."
"Besides," she added, "if you turn them over you'll be paid a bounty based on the value of what you recover, which is better than just outright burning them."
"Well that's just the thing," Taylor said, rubbing the back of her head awkwardly. "They may actually be more valuable to me destroyed."
"I'm not sure I follow," the older cape replied.
Aegis cleared his throat. "I do, ma'am. Keeper's power here, among other things, allows her to… dismantle just about anything and turn it into stuff that further fuels her powers."
The other cape turned to Aegis in surprise. "How do you know that?"
"I ran into Keeper here near the tail end of my patrol yesterday," he replied, gesturing at Taylor. "We spent a little time talking. She showed me some of her powers, and I told her a little about the Wards and registration. That sort of thing."
Miss Militia gave him a long look.
"It was in the report I filed this morning," Aegis concluded cheerfully, crossing his arms with a shrug.
Taylor watched, amused, as the other cape continued to silently give Aegis something of the stink-eye for a moment, while he looked back at her, his body language clearly full of amusement. From the sounds of things, Taylor suspected he'd deliberately delayed filing his report, and had skirted but not outright broken the rules to do so.
Why he'd do that, Taylor wasn't sure. Strangely enough though, having someone present whom she knew to be on her side released a bit of the tension she felt, and she found her grip on her Keeper persona relaxing slightly.
Finally, Miss Militia turned back to Taylor.
"Seeing as that has yet to cross my desk… what does he mean, fuel your powers?" she asked.
"The answer to that is… somewhat complicated," Taylor replied. "I don't want to give the wrong impression, because I'm not a tinker. But the quick explanation is that I can turn almost anything into raw resources and then use those to, well, build things."
"That sounds a lot like a tinker to me."
Taylor shook her head. "It really isn't. Like I said. It's complicated."
"Fair enough. So why not just turn over the stuff and use the cash to buy what you need?"
"Because what I need isn't found in stores," Taylor explained. She paused. "Well... it is, but it's expensive to do it that way, not to mention would be challenging to get in the quantities I need."
She huffed in exasperation. "Also not unlike a tinker, yes, I know. Anyway, that brings us around to showing you what I did to Squealer's truck. Aegis, can you warn her about the imps? I'm going to fetch something from inside."
"Sure," the Ward replied.
Taylor made her way back into the building, excusing her way past the PRT officers who were busily hauling gang members to their feet and properly cuffing them. One of them tried to stop her when they saw her grabbing one of the plastic-wrapped bricks of who-knows-what off one of the back room tables, but she waved him off with an excuse that Miss Militia had told her to fetch one.
She made her way outside, and saw that Aegis had pulled Miss Militia across the street where they'd be out of the way. He waved for her to join them.
"Here, hold this for a second?" Taylor asked, handing the brick to Aegis and taking care not to let her claws pierce the wrappings. "Still haven't quite mastered the whole dizziness thing."
"Getting better though?" he asked as he accepted it.
"Yeah, practice has helped," Taylor informed him with a nod. "I don't fall over anymore, and can even kinda walk quickly while doing it, but it's still a little disorienting to be seeing two different places at once. Your advice came in handy, by the way."
"Good to hear. Combat-grade teleportation is powerful stuff."
Taylor watched Miss Militia's eyebrows draw together at that comment. She smirked internally but was careful not to let it show on her face; she could almost hear the other cape wondering just how many different powers Taylor had at her disposal.
Instead, she gestured to a patch of ground off to one side. "Don't be alarmed," she said to Miss Militia. "I'm just going to summon one of my creatures. They're the ones who will perform the actual disposal, and they're fully under my control."
With a twist of a hand she pulled an imp out of her dungeon, deposited it on the ground in front of her, and ordered it to remain in place. Then she motioned to Aegis to simply toss the package into the imps' bag, where it silently transformed into a small pile of gold coins.
Miss Militia's eyebrows rose sharply.
Taylor then pulled out a handful of said coins and handed them to the other cape, who examined them closely.
"Notice how...unnaturally similar to each other they are? That's because it's not real gold. It's like... the idea of gold coins, pressed into identical forms. The same holds true for certain other materials, like any kind of wood being turned into oak wood logs, and any kind of stone, silica, or even cement or clay being turned into perfectly identical stone bricks. These in turn get used to fuel my powers, with different uses consuming different mixes of resources. I completely dismantled Squealer's truck because it turns out Tinkertech converts to gold and metal, both of which are particularly useful to me."
Taylor gestured to her nagas, who were still standing at attention. "Healers, for instance, cost a significant amount of gold to summon," she concluded.
Miss Militia looked thoughtful for a moment. "And you broke down three entire vehicles using this power?"
"Yes. I've already transported the material back to my current base of operations. The trucks were part of the fight and made a real mess so I cleared them away, but I had wanted to ask first before I did anything with the drugs and weapons."
"I do appreciate that, by the way," Miss Militia replied. "Too many capes start out their careers by jumping in head first without any regard for what might get them into trouble. That's one of the reasons the Wards program exists, to provide training and support to the younger generation."
Taylor had to resist snorting in derision. Yeah no, not happening.
Miss Militia didn't press the issue or even seem to notice. Instead, she panned her gaze around the area, where the last few remaining gang members were being rounded up, while some PRT officers in specialized gear entered the building.
"Well," she said after a moment, "Given your power, I don't see much wrong with you breaking things down, at least for now. But I am afraid I'm going to need to insist that you do it here with either a PRT agent or Protectorate member present. As I mentioned before, it's illegal for you to keep certain classes of seized goods for yourself, and the Director will have my skin if I just let you walk off with them."
Taylor inclined her head. "Reasonable. And the bounty?"
"It runs about fifteen percent of the street value. A fair bit more for registered independents in good standing, since it's quite a bit easier to arrange payment promptly through official channels."
"Any idea how much that would be? I'm
not exactly an expert on drugs."
Which is something of a miracle now that I think about it, Taylor thought. Given Winslow and all.
Miss Militia chuckled. "Well, that's hard to say, seeing as I haven't even seen the interior of the building yet."
"Er... right."
Miss Militia just waved for her to follow and led the way into the building. There she drafted two of the PRT troopers to assist in inventorying the contents of the stash house. Each item was separated, tagged, and catalogued. Then photographs were taken, and only then was each item placed on a table set off to one side for Taylor to decide what to do with it.
All in all, there turned out to be a grand total of almost eighty pounds of various substances, both powder and pills, which had been stashed in various duffle bags, plus another fifteen pounds of some unidentified liquid which Aegis theorized was quite likely tinker-produced if the rumors they'd been hearing were correct.
Afterwards, the three capes moved back outside the cordon, where they wouldn't be in the way of the PRT officers who were processing the captives. As the two merchant capes were being extracted from the building, Miss Militia turned to Taylor, shaking her head, and Taylor could tell she was probably grinning under her mask.
"Good grief. Eighty pounds? This was quite the bust for your first outing. Even for Brockton Bay this isn't something you see every day. You've done a good thing here today, Keeper. Probably saved hundreds of lives."
Taylor flushed slightly at the light praise. This was, after all, one of her childhood heroes saying that she, Taylor Hebert, had done well.
"There's got to be close to two million dollars worth of drugs in there," Miss Militia commented. "Possibly more. No wonder Skidmark came running."
Taylors heart nearly stopped.
Two... million?!
Even at their lowest estimate, that would put the bounty for the haul at roughly the same size as the payout from her suit against the school.
That was.... Ok, yeah, no. That kind of money was way better to take than to convert into gold, her own paranoia about the PRT aside. She could jump start her plans much faster than anticipated with that kind of capital on hand.
Taylor forced her excitement down, sinking back into the Keeper persona as she tried to keep her expression limited to a level of 'pleased surprise' so as not to seem too eager.
"I had not realized it would be worth quite so much," she commended. "Perhaps turning it over to you is the better option. How would that work?"
"That depends a bit on you," Miss Militia told her. "Ideally, you'd come back to PRTHQ with us and we'd get you officially registered. That comes with several immediate benefits, one of which being that you would have a legal identity under your cape name, which means you can then open a bank account without compromising your civilian life. Then we'd issue you a temporary line of credit until the actual value of the contraband is determined and the bounty payment goes through, which would probably be only two or three days."
Taylor blinked. "It's that easy?"
Miss Militia huffed lightly in amusement. "We take pains to make it easy, Keeper. We may be a government organization, but that doesn't mean everything has to needlessly complicated."
"At least on your end," Aegis commented wryly, rolling his eyes. "It's a bit like getting your driver's license. Metaphorically, all you need to do is fill out a few forms and take the test and you're done. We on the other hand have to file miles of paperwork across multiple departments after you pass."
"Is there a test?" Taylor asked, now vaguely worried.
Miss Militia laughed. "Yes and no. We will need something of an overview of your capabilities, but actual powers testing is strictly optional. We would prefer that you consent to it, of course, but it's not a requirement for registering."
Taylor opened her mouth, hesitated, and then closed it again.
It sounded... a little too easy to her, which brought to mind her prior concerns regarding the way the PRT appeared to operate. On the other hand, so far both of her interactions with government capes had been far more positive than she'd expected. They may have been initially cautious, but in general they'd both open and friendly with her.
Was she just being overly paranoid? Just because the PRT outwardly appeared to be lacking certain classes of powers didn't mean that they were actively screwing non-PRT capes over. Or worse, disappearing them. There was that whole Endbringer statistics thing after all, but that wasn't exactly something she had to worry about.
Besides, anxiety aside she had been planning to come in and register. Just... in a few days, once she'd had time to plan what she wanted to say. Getting a higher percentage of two million fucking dollars was a hell of a carrot, though.
Seeing her hesitation, Aegis raised a finger. "Ah, if I may, ma'am?" he interjected, looking to Miss Militia.
The older cape raised an eyebrow at the Ward, but gestured for him to continue.
He waved Taylor aside, just out of earshot. Then after clearly choosing his words carefully for a moment, he sighed.
"Look, Keeper, let me guess: there's stuff about your power you'd really rather the PRT not know too much about, right? At least until you're ready to tell them, or until it's just obvious?"
Taylor regarded Aegis warily for a few moments, then nodded.
"Thought so. Can't say I blame you. Most capes feel that way. Including most heroes. Normally I'd say that's perfectly fine, even a good thing. In your case though? Not coming in right now is a really bad idea."
He held up his hands placatingly before Taylor could respond. "I know, I know... that sounds like a threat. It's not, I promise. But you need to look at how it's going to look from the PRT's perspective once they finish interviewing Skidmark. And he will spill everything he's got on you to them."
"Contrary to what you might think," he continued, "a lot of villains don't resist much when the PRT interrogates them after an incident. Especially when it involves a new cape on the scene. It's basically a kind of petty revenge. Plus, Skidmark isn't exactly the type who's known for keeping his mouth shut, either."
Taylor grimaced as Aegis continued.
"Worse, just out of spite he's likely to exaggerate or even outright lie to make you out to be more violent and aggressive than you are. You said it yourself: your power is scary. Unfortunately, the PRT isn't immune to that, and the best way to defuse potential issues or misunderstandings is for you to come in and talk to them."
He gave her a helpless shrug. "I know it isn't at all ideal from your perspective, but it really is for the best that you come in now. The Director can be... precipitous, when it comes to new capes she doesn't know anything about."
Then he grinned. "But hey, at least you'd get paid for your trouble, right?"
Taylor grumbled something inelegant under her breath, then sighed and nodded. The pair made their way back over to Miss Militia.
"Alright, I'm convinced. I'll come in."
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Hey there everyone! Hive Keeper is back! Been awhile. Sorry for the abrupt sort-of hiatus; there's been a hell of a lot going on in the world lately, most of it depressing, and I hope everyone's keeping safe. I haven't been wholly idle over the past months -- I've actually been doing some writing on and off on another (as yet unpublished) piece, as well as done a few snippets here and there -- but I felt it was high past time to buckle down again and try and get back to at least writing on a schedule. How exactly that's gonna go down, I'm not sure yet, but I want to try and at least do at least a ~5k chapter a week. That may end up being split between different works, we'll see. If I do, I'll probably start the other stuff off with setting up a snippet/ideas thread of my own like others have. God knows I've got dozens of blurbs in my Scrivener archive now.
Anyhow, without further ado, here (finally) is the beginning of the aftermath of Taylor's fight.
Enjoy!
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Chapter 11
Saturday, January 22nd, 2011
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Chapter 11
Saturday, January 22nd, 2011
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"Thank you, ma'am," the voice on the other side of the line concluded. "We'll have a team out there shortly, ETA seven minutes. Have a safe day."
Taylor snapped the Merchant's phone shut as the PRT agent cut the call, and then handed it off to one of her imps for disposal.
Calling the PRT had been simpler than she'd expected. For whatever reason, Taylor had thought they would want to press her for as much information on her powers as possible, or that they might not believe her, or any other number of complications. Instead, she'd ended up talking to a very bored-sounding, if polite, operator. One who, after getting confirmation that Taylor was willing to stick around, had merely asked her for a brief description of herself before telling her that a team was on the way. That was it. In fact, his spiel was so rote that she'd had to interrupt him in order to make sure that he'd inform the heroes that she'd changed her look, and that she had projections watching over a large quantity of prisoners that would need transport but not medical attention.
She rolled her eyes internally. This fucking city. Anyhow, next she needed to let her father know she was all right.
For certain definitions thereof, anyway, Taylor thought, closing her eyes for a moment as she pressed a trembling hand briefly against her side. Her nagas had long since finished healing her up, but... she'd nearly died, all because she'd grown overconfident and hadn't really listened properly to what Almaric had been saying. Something she was not looking forward to telling her father about.
Maybe she'd just... not mention it unless he asked? He had enough to worry about.
Well. Regardless, he'd be angry anyway if she just left him hanging, and seeing as her power was informing her that she couldn't just pluck her dad right out of the dungeon like one of her minions, that meant she'd have to send one to him.
"Almaric," Taylor called.
The warlock paused in his oversight of the captives and was at her side immediately.
"Yes, Mistress?"
Taylor leaned in quietly, lest she be overheard.
"I would like you to deliver a message to my father. He is still waiting within the dungeon; I shall transport you there. Also, as we are almost done here and frankly I'd prefer the PRT not to see you in particular just yet, I want you to remain in the dungeon and return to your research once the message is delivered."
Almaric bowed slightly. "And the message?"
Taylor decided she'd phrase it in terms of the handful of code words she and her father had already come up with. Not actually necessary, since this wasn't over the phone, but it was still good practice.
"Party's over, had fun," she recited. "John showed up and drank too much punch. Waiting for his friends to come pick him up."
He bowed, repeating the message back to her, and then Taylor sent him on his way.
That task complete, she took a minute to deposit most of her imps back into her dungeon and rotate the rest of them in and out so that they could drop off their current loads. She didn't want the PRT to show up to find a whole army loitering around, nor was there sense in risking them running off into the streets again. Afterwards, she checked in on Skidmark and Stain, whom she'd had blindfolded, hogtied, and left in the old freezer room, under the care of her oculi with orders to re-stun the capes every time they unfroze.
Things seemed fine on that front.
With the prisoners all rounded up, only a few remaining imps on cleaning duty, and the PRT on their way, Taylor decided that there weren't any further issues that demanded her immediate attention. She gave the prisoners what she hoped was an intimidating speech about how if they played nice they'd be handed over to the PRT in one piece, and how if they didn't then they'd get a 'face-full of demon-spiders'. There was some fearful muttering, particularly from the Merchants, but nobody kicked up a fuss when she had them escorted out into the street, where they were all made to sit in a large group. Last of all, she sent the gnarlings back into the building to stand guard over the drugs and weapons while she and the nagas watched over the prisoners from a distance, where she'd be clearly in view of any oncoming vehicles but hopefully out of earshot of the gang members.
Then she settled in to wait for the PRT.
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As the hotline operator had told her, she didn't have to wait very long. Soon enough, the sound of sirens began to approach in the distance, and Taylor caught sight of red figure zipping through the air towards her position.
Inwardly, she felt relief. Aegis had been more than reasonable last time, and he already had some idea of the scary nature of her powers. Moreover, he had already had some first-hand experience with them, so he'd be at least somewhat prepared for it. Hopefully the operator had actually passed on her warning; if so, those two things combined would cut short any potential misunderstandings.
She needn't have worried.
"Ah.... Keeper? You're uh... not wearing a mask?" the Ward asked hesitantly as he touched down nearby.
Taylor tried to give Aegis a reassuring smile as he glanced apprehensively at the nagas, who were standing at attention behind her. "Yeah, it's me. I gave my costume a bit of an upgrade. No more costume-shop dress for me."
"Dispatch did tell me you asked them to pass on that you'd look... uh, different," he replied, still holding himself somewhat apart. "Seems a bit of an understatement."
Taylor gave him a wry grin. "Yeah. I did tell you my power was a bit... complicated." She gestured towards herself. "This is part of that. I uh, discovered I could change my shape to an extent, and that includes clothes and armor, too. Hence, no need for a mask, since this isn't my real face. I thought it might make me more approachable, and if I keep the face consistent I can do different costume themes for different occasions."
She turned and pointed to a cluster of her remaining imps, who were breaking apart the last bits of metal debris from the street. "But see? Same guys as before. It's me."
Aegis looked in the direction she'd indicated, then visibly relaxed. He then glanced back at the nagas again. "And some new ones, I see."
"Yep. They're healer types," she told him. "They're here to help make sure nobody tries anything or gets seriously injured."
From his body language, Taylor could tell that Aegis's eyebrows had gone up at this revelation.
"Healers?" he asked, stunned. "You can make projections with healing powers?"
"Sure can!" Taylor replied cheerfully. Then she turned her smile to a sly grin. "Don't worry, I'm fully planning on working out a deal with the PRT to hire them out for... reasonable compensation."
Aegis didn't seem to have a reply to that, so instead he briefly observed her imps at work. A few were busy shoveling the remaining shards of metal from the ABB vehicles into their bags, while others were running around picking up trash, bullet casings, and discarded weapons.
Seeing this, Aegis turned back to her and gave her a grin of his own. "Cleaning up after yourself? Now that's not something you see every day, after a cape fight."
Taylor shrugged. "Hey, I figured if Squealer and the ABB were gonna donate their trucks to me, then waste not, want not."
Aegis gaped at her for a moment. "You... salvaged one of Squealers vehicles?!"
"Was I not supposed to?" Taylor asked, a note of worry creeping into her voice.
The other cape burst out laughing. "No, no, not at all! That's totally fine. Saves us a hell of a lot of trouble cleaning up the place, though I'm sure Armsmaster will probably be annoyed about not getting to study it. I just... she's going to be so pissed when she finds out."
Taylor relaxed again, smirking. "She was a bit too busy with running to be pissed, I think."
"She was actually here?" he asked with surprise. "It wasn't just some of her and Skidmark's goons driving the thing? She's usually not one to actually show her face all that much. Any idea what she was doing here?"
Taylor winced. "I, uh... may have inadvertently stumbled upon one of the Merchant's major store-houses. Or, well... some random ABB guys did and decided to try and get in good with their bosses or something. That's my guess anyway since, well, the place isn't on fire."
"I only showed up because of all the noise," she continued. "But yeah, there's, uh... a lot of drugs and money and weapons in there. Way more than it seems like there should be, actually. Aren't the Merchants supposed to be pretty small time?"
Aegis grimaced.
"They were," he grumbled. "But they've been recruiting, and it's making them bolder. It used to be they stuck to petty robberies and some low-end dealing, but now they're starting to escalate. Hitting bigger targets."
"Like the art store thing?"
"Among others," he said. "Art supply stores, chemical suppliers, pharmacies... rumor has it that either Squealer has been branching out, or they've acquired another tinker. A chemicals tinker."
A quiet buzz sounded, causing Aegis to check his belt, where he'd apparently received a text message.
"Speaking of...," he commented as he briefly read the message and typed a very short reply before hooking the phone back onto the clip. "Where is Squealer anyway? Dispatch said you had captured two capes? The PRT will be here any second."
Taylor grimaced. "Ahh... unfortunately she got away. Her, Skidmark, and those two new ones, Moist and Stain were the ones who showed, but Squealer and Moist managed to get away, and I wasn't in a good position to chase after them."
She gestured towards the building. "I've got the other two tied up and locked away in what used to be a freezer, where they can't get out, being watched over by some oculi."
"Oculi? Are those the, uh, spider things?"
She shook her head. "No, those are skargs. An oculus is, uh... like a floating eyeball thing. They've got a temporary paralysis blaster power. I'm pretty sure Stain could probably use the ink in her tattoos to cut her way free of any zip ties, so I'm having them re-stun her every few minutes so she doesn't escape. And Skidmark too, just for good measure."
Aegis gave her a look of consideration. "That's... pretty useful. Just how many different creatures can you summon?"
Taylor gave him a sideways smile. "It's complicated," she told him with a roll of her eyes.
It wasn't long before oncoming sirens grew loud enough to hurt Taylor's enhanced ears, and shortly she caught sight of a motorcycle with emergency lights turning a corner in the distance. It was followed by several vans of varying types.
The motorcycle turned out to be Miss Militia's, much to Taylor's surprise. PHO made such a big deal over the so-called 'Armscycle', and they were rare enough vehicles in Brockton in general, that it honestly hadn't even occurred to Taylor that their maneuverability might well suit other ground-bound capes enough that they would use them as well.
As Miss Militia dismounted and vehicle doors began opening, Taylor quickly took inventory of her various remaining minions, quietly snatching all but her nagas and oculi up and depositing them back into her dungeon. Aegis noticed her hands' abrupt movements, cocking his head slightly and watching her, but said nothing.
Standing to one side with her nagas behind her, Taylor watched with no small degree of apprehension as the PRT troopers began shouting orders to each other, spreading out to form a cordon around the area. Quite a number of them kept their gaze trained in Taylor's general direction, though thankfully none of them actually pointed their weapons directly her.
Not that Taylor could see their eyes behind their blank face-shields, but there was a certain air of implied menace, and who else would they be carefully watching but her and her nagas? Even her power seemed... twitchy, almost, regarding the presence of the PRT troopers. As if it was wary of them, but not outright hostile. Weirdly enough, she didn't get the same feeling from Miss Militia or Aegis.
I wonder if my power is responding to their professional paranoia? Taylor thought, forcing herself to relax.
Whatever the case, Miss Militia did still approach cautiously much like Aegis had, though she managed to make it look much more casual. Also like Aegis she eyed the two nagas who were standing completely motionless behind Taylor. Then her gaze panned over to Taylor herself, looking her costume over, and Taylor had to suppress a smirk when the other cape's eyes reached her unmasked face and widened.
She suspected she'd get that reaction quite a lot in the coming days. Good.
Taylor gave the older cape a smile, tilting her head slightly and giving a slight bow in greeting. "Miss Militia, it is an honor to meet you."
Shaking off her surprise, the other cape inclined her head back at her. "Likewise. Keeper, I presume?"
"Indeed."
Miss Militia flicked her gaze over the amassed prisoners sitting clustered together on the far side of the street. "I must say, that is a fairly impressive quantity of gang members," she commented. "ABB and Merchants both from the looks of them? What on earth happened here? Is anyone in need of urgent medical care?"
"Two different incidents," Taylor explained. "A shootout between the ABB and Merchants, followed by Merchant reinforcements attacking me after I'd subdued the first group. There were a few gunshot and knife wounds, but I've dealt with them already."
"Dealt with them?" Miss Militia asked politely.
Aegis nodded towards the nagas standing behind Taylor. "Keeper tells me these two projections of hers are healers."
"Really?" the other cape replied, fascinated. "They have powers of their own?"
"That's right," Taylor confirmed. "Most of my mi— er, projections do."
"You have others?"
"I do," Taylor replied without elaborating. Instead, she gestured to the building entrance off to her left.
"I'm sure you have questions, but first it would be prudent to secure the prisoners. There are quite a number of them, and while Skidmark is currently restrained well enough, Stain is under an effect that will wear off shortly, so best to get her foamed as soon as possible." She then repeated what she'd told Aegis.
Miss Militia nodded in reply, and spoke momentarily into a radio she pulled from her belt. One of the nearby vans disgorged a pair of PRT troopers wielding foam sprayers. They went into the building alongside several other troopers as Taylor surreptitiously scooped up her oculi and dumped them back into the dungeon.
"Thank you for sticking around, by the way," Miss Militia told her. "Many young heroes don't, which all too often makes it harder for those of us who have to deal with the cleanup."
She pulled out a pad of paper. "So, mind telling me about what happened here?"
Taylor gave the other cape a brief rundown, explaining how she'd been at her lair when she'd heard the gunshots and brought her projections to investigate, and the subsequent events that had occurred. She left out most of the specific details of the fight, though, not really wanting to give away too much about her own powers. Not yet.
Miss Militia, for her part, merely listened quietly until Taylor was finished. Afterwards, the older women silently eyed the spots in the street where the ABB trucks and Squealer's monstrosity would have been, the only real evidence of the battle being a number of bullet holes in the concrete and the askew light-post.
"I... do seem to notice a distinct lack of wrecked vehicles," Miss Militia commented.
Taylor smirked. "Indeed. Squealer left quite the mess behind. Rather than leave it for the city to deal with at taxpayer's expense, I took the liberty of disposing of the wreckage."
Miss Militia frowned slightly. "Disposed of? How? Generally that's the purview of the PRT, in order to make sure there aren't any safety issues with anything left behind."
Taylor was a bit surprised; She glanced at Aegis curiously for a moment, but the other cape had turned away briefly and was keeping an eye on the gang members, who were slowly being rounded up.
She hesitated for a moment, thinking rapidly, and then came to a decision. It wasn't like they wouldn't know soon enough. "Perhaps a demonstration is in order. But first, I have some questions of my own. I've read in some places that independents often fund themselves by seizing drug money and other valuables from gang members. Is that, in fact, actually legal?"
"To a limit," Miss Militia allowed. "It's an extension of civil forfeiture law. When a parahuman is acting within the law as a vigilante, they fall under a heading of informal law enforcement. If you plan to go that route though, you should keep records. Both for tax purposes and in case anyone makes a counter claim, although in this city that's highly unlikely to happen since it requires an appearance in person. Cash, vehicles, and certain classes of tinkertech are all fair game to be seized, although you'll need the help of the police in getting any vehicles registered to you after a waiting period. You're are also not allowed to keep things that would be normally illegal for you to posses, namely drugs and weapons. Those have to be turned over to the police."
"Would it be legal to use my power to destroy guns and drugs instead of turning them over?" Taylor asked.
Miss Militia tilted her head in curiosity. "It depends. For heroic capes specifically that's something of a grey area. Partly that's because there can be health or environmental concerns when disposing of contraband, but also because we'd prefer you turn them over to be used as evidence—"
Taylor couldn't help herself. She snorted a laugh, causing the other cape to raise her eyebrow at her.
"In this city?" Taylor explained in a dry tone. "What's the point? They'll be back on the street within two weeks and you know it."
Miss Militia just shrugged, her bandanna twitching sideways slightly as she looked away. The overall impression was that of a fairly unhappy 'what can you do?'.
"… unfortunately, I can't really disagree," she replied after a moment, shaking her head and sighing as she looked back at Taylor. "Still... busts like this can go a long way towards providing leads on suppliers, or can help with tracking down the perpetrators of other crimes. Guns in particular are monitored closely, and sometimes we can match them to a stolen shipment or even a particular crime. So you never know."
"Besides," she added, "if you turn them over you'll be paid a bounty based on the value of what you recover, which is better than just outright burning them."
"Well that's just the thing," Taylor said, rubbing the back of her head awkwardly. "They may actually be more valuable to me destroyed."
"I'm not sure I follow," the older cape replied.
Aegis cleared his throat. "I do, ma'am. Keeper's power here, among other things, allows her to… dismantle just about anything and turn it into stuff that further fuels her powers."
The other cape turned to Aegis in surprise. "How do you know that?"
"I ran into Keeper here near the tail end of my patrol yesterday," he replied, gesturing at Taylor. "We spent a little time talking. She showed me some of her powers, and I told her a little about the Wards and registration. That sort of thing."
Miss Militia gave him a long look.
"It was in the report I filed this morning," Aegis concluded cheerfully, crossing his arms with a shrug.
Taylor watched, amused, as the other cape continued to silently give Aegis something of the stink-eye for a moment, while he looked back at her, his body language clearly full of amusement. From the sounds of things, Taylor suspected he'd deliberately delayed filing his report, and had skirted but not outright broken the rules to do so.
Why he'd do that, Taylor wasn't sure. Strangely enough though, having someone present whom she knew to be on her side released a bit of the tension she felt, and she found her grip on her Keeper persona relaxing slightly.
Finally, Miss Militia turned back to Taylor.
"Seeing as that has yet to cross my desk… what does he mean, fuel your powers?" she asked.
"The answer to that is… somewhat complicated," Taylor replied. "I don't want to give the wrong impression, because I'm not a tinker. But the quick explanation is that I can turn almost anything into raw resources and then use those to, well, build things."
"That sounds a lot like a tinker to me."
Taylor shook her head. "It really isn't. Like I said. It's complicated."
"Fair enough. So why not just turn over the stuff and use the cash to buy what you need?"
"Because what I need isn't found in stores," Taylor explained. She paused. "Well... it is, but it's expensive to do it that way, not to mention would be challenging to get in the quantities I need."
She huffed in exasperation. "Also not unlike a tinker, yes, I know. Anyway, that brings us around to showing you what I did to Squealer's truck. Aegis, can you warn her about the imps? I'm going to fetch something from inside."
"Sure," the Ward replied.
Taylor made her way back into the building, excusing her way past the PRT officers who were busily hauling gang members to their feet and properly cuffing them. One of them tried to stop her when they saw her grabbing one of the plastic-wrapped bricks of who-knows-what off one of the back room tables, but she waved him off with an excuse that Miss Militia had told her to fetch one.
She made her way outside, and saw that Aegis had pulled Miss Militia across the street where they'd be out of the way. He waved for her to join them.
"Here, hold this for a second?" Taylor asked, handing the brick to Aegis and taking care not to let her claws pierce the wrappings. "Still haven't quite mastered the whole dizziness thing."
"Getting better though?" he asked as he accepted it.
"Yeah, practice has helped," Taylor informed him with a nod. "I don't fall over anymore, and can even kinda walk quickly while doing it, but it's still a little disorienting to be seeing two different places at once. Your advice came in handy, by the way."
"Good to hear. Combat-grade teleportation is powerful stuff."
Taylor watched Miss Militia's eyebrows draw together at that comment. She smirked internally but was careful not to let it show on her face; she could almost hear the other cape wondering just how many different powers Taylor had at her disposal.
Instead, she gestured to a patch of ground off to one side. "Don't be alarmed," she said to Miss Militia. "I'm just going to summon one of my creatures. They're the ones who will perform the actual disposal, and they're fully under my control."
With a twist of a hand she pulled an imp out of her dungeon, deposited it on the ground in front of her, and ordered it to remain in place. Then she motioned to Aegis to simply toss the package into the imps' bag, where it silently transformed into a small pile of gold coins.
Miss Militia's eyebrows rose sharply.
Taylor then pulled out a handful of said coins and handed them to the other cape, who examined them closely.
"Notice how...unnaturally similar to each other they are? That's because it's not real gold. It's like... the idea of gold coins, pressed into identical forms. The same holds true for certain other materials, like any kind of wood being turned into oak wood logs, and any kind of stone, silica, or even cement or clay being turned into perfectly identical stone bricks. These in turn get used to fuel my powers, with different uses consuming different mixes of resources. I completely dismantled Squealer's truck because it turns out Tinkertech converts to gold and metal, both of which are particularly useful to me."
Taylor gestured to her nagas, who were still standing at attention. "Healers, for instance, cost a significant amount of gold to summon," she concluded.
Miss Militia looked thoughtful for a moment. "And you broke down three entire vehicles using this power?"
"Yes. I've already transported the material back to my current base of operations. The trucks were part of the fight and made a real mess so I cleared them away, but I had wanted to ask first before I did anything with the drugs and weapons."
"I do appreciate that, by the way," Miss Militia replied. "Too many capes start out their careers by jumping in head first without any regard for what might get them into trouble. That's one of the reasons the Wards program exists, to provide training and support to the younger generation."
Taylor had to resist snorting in derision. Yeah no, not happening.
Miss Militia didn't press the issue or even seem to notice. Instead, she panned her gaze around the area, where the last few remaining gang members were being rounded up, while some PRT officers in specialized gear entered the building.
"Well," she said after a moment, "Given your power, I don't see much wrong with you breaking things down, at least for now. But I am afraid I'm going to need to insist that you do it here with either a PRT agent or Protectorate member present. As I mentioned before, it's illegal for you to keep certain classes of seized goods for yourself, and the Director will have my skin if I just let you walk off with them."
Taylor inclined her head. "Reasonable. And the bounty?"
"It runs about fifteen percent of the street value. A fair bit more for registered independents in good standing, since it's quite a bit easier to arrange payment promptly through official channels."
"Any idea how much that would be? I'm
not exactly an expert on drugs."
Which is something of a miracle now that I think about it, Taylor thought. Given Winslow and all.
Miss Militia chuckled. "Well, that's hard to say, seeing as I haven't even seen the interior of the building yet."
"Er... right."
Miss Militia just waved for her to follow and led the way into the building. There she drafted two of the PRT troopers to assist in inventorying the contents of the stash house. Each item was separated, tagged, and catalogued. Then photographs were taken, and only then was each item placed on a table set off to one side for Taylor to decide what to do with it.
All in all, there turned out to be a grand total of almost eighty pounds of various substances, both powder and pills, which had been stashed in various duffle bags, plus another fifteen pounds of some unidentified liquid which Aegis theorized was quite likely tinker-produced if the rumors they'd been hearing were correct.
Afterwards, the three capes moved back outside the cordon, where they wouldn't be in the way of the PRT officers who were processing the captives. As the two merchant capes were being extracted from the building, Miss Militia turned to Taylor, shaking her head, and Taylor could tell she was probably grinning under her mask.
"Good grief. Eighty pounds? This was quite the bust for your first outing. Even for Brockton Bay this isn't something you see every day. You've done a good thing here today, Keeper. Probably saved hundreds of lives."
Taylor flushed slightly at the light praise. This was, after all, one of her childhood heroes saying that she, Taylor Hebert, had done well.
"There's got to be close to two million dollars worth of drugs in there," Miss Militia commented. "Possibly more. No wonder Skidmark came running."
Taylors heart nearly stopped.
Two... million?!
Even at their lowest estimate, that would put the bounty for the haul at roughly the same size as the payout from her suit against the school.
That was.... Ok, yeah, no. That kind of money was way better to take than to convert into gold, her own paranoia about the PRT aside. She could jump start her plans much faster than anticipated with that kind of capital on hand.
Taylor forced her excitement down, sinking back into the Keeper persona as she tried to keep her expression limited to a level of 'pleased surprise' so as not to seem too eager.
"I had not realized it would be worth quite so much," she commended. "Perhaps turning it over to you is the better option. How would that work?"
"That depends a bit on you," Miss Militia told her. "Ideally, you'd come back to PRTHQ with us and we'd get you officially registered. That comes with several immediate benefits, one of which being that you would have a legal identity under your cape name, which means you can then open a bank account without compromising your civilian life. Then we'd issue you a temporary line of credit until the actual value of the contraband is determined and the bounty payment goes through, which would probably be only two or three days."
Taylor blinked. "It's that easy?"
Miss Militia huffed lightly in amusement. "We take pains to make it easy, Keeper. We may be a government organization, but that doesn't mean everything has to needlessly complicated."
"At least on your end," Aegis commented wryly, rolling his eyes. "It's a bit like getting your driver's license. Metaphorically, all you need to do is fill out a few forms and take the test and you're done. We on the other hand have to file miles of paperwork across multiple departments after you pass."
"Is there a test?" Taylor asked, now vaguely worried.
Miss Militia laughed. "Yes and no. We will need something of an overview of your capabilities, but actual powers testing is strictly optional. We would prefer that you consent to it, of course, but it's not a requirement for registering."
Taylor opened her mouth, hesitated, and then closed it again.
It sounded... a little too easy to her, which brought to mind her prior concerns regarding the way the PRT appeared to operate. On the other hand, so far both of her interactions with government capes had been far more positive than she'd expected. They may have been initially cautious, but in general they'd both open and friendly with her.
Was she just being overly paranoid? Just because the PRT outwardly appeared to be lacking certain classes of powers didn't mean that they were actively screwing non-PRT capes over. Or worse, disappearing them. There was that whole Endbringer statistics thing after all, but that wasn't exactly something she had to worry about.
Besides, anxiety aside she had been planning to come in and register. Just... in a few days, once she'd had time to plan what she wanted to say. Getting a higher percentage of two million fucking dollars was a hell of a carrot, though.
Seeing her hesitation, Aegis raised a finger. "Ah, if I may, ma'am?" he interjected, looking to Miss Militia.
The older cape raised an eyebrow at the Ward, but gestured for him to continue.
He waved Taylor aside, just out of earshot. Then after clearly choosing his words carefully for a moment, he sighed.
"Look, Keeper, let me guess: there's stuff about your power you'd really rather the PRT not know too much about, right? At least until you're ready to tell them, or until it's just obvious?"
Taylor regarded Aegis warily for a few moments, then nodded.
"Thought so. Can't say I blame you. Most capes feel that way. Including most heroes. Normally I'd say that's perfectly fine, even a good thing. In your case though? Not coming in right now is a really bad idea."
He held up his hands placatingly before Taylor could respond. "I know, I know... that sounds like a threat. It's not, I promise. But you need to look at how it's going to look from the PRT's perspective once they finish interviewing Skidmark. And he will spill everything he's got on you to them."
"Contrary to what you might think," he continued, "a lot of villains don't resist much when the PRT interrogates them after an incident. Especially when it involves a new cape on the scene. It's basically a kind of petty revenge. Plus, Skidmark isn't exactly the type who's known for keeping his mouth shut, either."
Taylor grimaced as Aegis continued.
"Worse, just out of spite he's likely to exaggerate or even outright lie to make you out to be more violent and aggressive than you are. You said it yourself: your power is scary. Unfortunately, the PRT isn't immune to that, and the best way to defuse potential issues or misunderstandings is for you to come in and talk to them."
He gave her a helpless shrug. "I know it isn't at all ideal from your perspective, but it really is for the best that you come in now. The Director can be... precipitous, when it comes to new capes she doesn't know anything about."
Then he grinned. "But hey, at least you'd get paid for your trouble, right?"
Taylor grumbled something inelegant under her breath, then sighed and nodded. The pair made their way back over to Miss Militia.
"Alright, I'm convinced. I'll come in."
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- Location
- United Kingdom
I don't even... Taylor not being a paranoid weirdo about authority, the authority not being paranoid weirdoes about Taylor. What even is this? 
I don't even... Taylor not being a paranoid weirdo about authority, the authority not being paranoid weirdoes about Taylor. What even is this?
Worm setting and background, without the original work's narrative imperatives. Very much "Worm as told" over "Worm as shown", too, which is all for the better.
Ashkari
(Verified Ink-slinger)
- Location
- United States
Not exactly how I'd put it, but yeah, this is a pretty succinct way of putting it.
One of my general goals in pretty much ALL my wormfics (this and others I haven't yet published any of) has been to go for a more realistic take on the setting, while at the same time doing away with a lot of the (to me, nonsensical) things WB included just to force the story along in a certain direction. My treatment back in... uh, Ch 4? I think it was, of Danny actually pursuing a lawsuit is an example of this. There's mountains of reasons why things would not have gone down the way the did in canon, with Danny being 'told by a lawyer' that 'there wasn't enough proof' -- not the least of those being that burden of proof is not necessary for a civil suit, or that Danny/Taylor's decisions would have no bearing on the police opening an investigation.
Here, as I've mentioned in comments, I'm also trying to go for a much more reasonable PRT. Partly of that is simply to be different -- a lot of people write the PRT as being hopelessly corrupt and completely unreasonable. But that's not actually canon; as you say, the setting and what WB has told us about the reality of things is quite a bit different from what Taylor experienced, because in the canon story she screwed her relationship with the PRT right from the get go. That's not to say there's no corruption or paranoia in canon --such a claim would be laughable-- but the sheer level of idiot-ball handed to them by a lot of fanfics is it's own form of flanderization. While I can and do both enjoy and make use of fanon, that's one element that I've decided I didn't want to include in Hive Keeper.
Though I'd point out that Taylor's still got a little of her own paranoia
She is, after all, going independent because she doesn't trust the PRT's (apparent) stance on Masters.
Ashkari
(Verified Ink-slinger)
- Location
- United States
Yeah, I don't actually disagree to be honest. I even have a fairly lengthy section in my notes where I spent a lot of time trying to get around that issue. Problem was, like with some other chapters, there's things I wanted to establish and it just felt really awkward to shortcut a lot of it by glossing over what the audience already knows. I just couldn't find a solution. That was in essence what a lot of the delay was at first; this chapter fought me way more than it really should have.
Eventually I just threw up my hands and said 'fuck it', because MM would want to know whats going on, and it would be weird for Aegis not to comment on changes, etc etc, and just left it as-is.
Slightly more realistic?I don't even... Taylor not being a paranoid weirdo about authority, the authority not being paranoid weirdoes about Taylor. What even is this?
- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Nice to see this story continue.
I thought it might make me more approachable
Ashkari
(Verified Ink-slinger)
- Location
- United States
Glad to see this is back, I've been looking forward to this chapter for a while.
Hope you keep up the writing, @Ashkari.
I will be
Also, if you want to continue beta-ing for me, lemme know. For this one, I didn't want to just message you out of the blue after months and make assumptions, haha. And I wanted to get it out there ASAP before I could start dragging my feet and being anxious because it's been so long Fixed, thanks!
- Location
- Oregon, USA
Realistic.I don't even... Taylor not being a paranoid weirdo about authority, the authority not being paranoid weirdoes about Taylor. What even is this?
Preeeety sure that layer was Alan, soo...
- Location
- Hackensack
I'd actually like to see a villainous Taylor do her villainy is such a way that everyone sees her as a hero. Does a Bank Robbery has to defuse a bomb that could take out a city block while doing it. PRT finds out the owner of the bank was headed for bankruptcy and was going to kill several hundred people just to cover up his fraud to get insurance money, and possibably his own theft of the contents if his vaults. PRT praises Taylor for finding out and doesn't make a stink about the money and jewels she stole cause she saved a whole heck of a lot of people doing it.... or something. Everytime she tries to do something villainous she also stumbles on someone else's plot that she has to stop to get to her own plans, thus everyone thinks she a hero, but she doesn't stop because she is still getting rich doing it cause nobody cares about the stuff she steals. You could play it straight or for laughs... but I think it would be fun. I know I could not do it justice. I don't know if it's been done before. But I thought I'd throw this thought out there.
Ashkari
(Verified Ink-slinger)
- Location
- United States
No, it wouldn't have been. Or rather, I doubt it to be the case (I mean, Danny is kind of a moron in a lot of ways in canon, so maybe I'm wrong).
There's several reasons I doubt he went to Alan though:
1. First and foremost, Alan is a divorce lawyer. While this means he has some experience with civil suits, personal injury cases are not his specialty, and this he wouldn't be the one the firm assigns to pursue such a case.
2. Second, If Alan had been the one Danny had gone to, I highly suspect that Danny would have made something of it during the school confrontation, when it became clear that Alan was more than willing to betray their friendship and long history rather than actually discipline his daughter. It seems like a pretty obvious inference that when the guy who told you there's no case to be had is also the one protecting the perpetrator, there's some shady shit going on. I doubt even Danny is that dumb.
3. With Alan being an established character, I don't see why the lawyer wouldn't have been named. Wildbow seems to delight in piling the crap onto his characters, if this was true I can't see him not namedropping Alan in there. Also supporting this idea is that Wildbow also has a very long history of not bothering with details that are relatively unimportant to the plot. (See: Merchant Capes #6 through #8, lol) Meaning that a nobody wouldn't be named, but Alan probably would since he was already established.
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- Pronouns
- Yes
To add to this:
1)Danny is (at least supposedly) not a moron and he knows what sort of Lawyer Alan is. He also would have the contact information of several lawyers due to his job so no reason to talk to Alan about this.
2)Alan giving Danny any legal advise on a subject he's not competent in is potential grounds for being disbarred, or at least censured. Not even addressing the fact his daughter was involved, the act that a divorce lawyer was giving advice where he shouldn't, could mean Alan loses his job if Danny ever mentioned Alan helped him.
Of course none of these logical reasons apply because there was no way any lawyer would have advised Danny against suing the school district and bleeding them for all he can get, and even without knowing about the long bullying campaign and Taylor's bullying notbook and the e-mails it mentions, most would probably be willing to take the case on a contingency basis.
chocolote12
A Penguin Flailing Against The Keyboard Of Life.
Yeah, that entire legal situation comes apart like a Gingerbread House of Cards dunked in a Milk Typhoon the moment it stops being backed up by author fiat. Most things in Worm do, but that one is especially egregious.
Wolfund
{Verified Historian}
- Location
- France
Worm always has been a pretty castle build on sand foundation... As long as you don't look too closely things work out, but as soon as you do look closer pretty much everything fall apart with little effort.
but at least it gave us a nice setting to play with.
Magic Outlaw
Serial Sigger
- Location
- Running away from bitches
Pretty sure she only turned the drugs into gold, she kept the cash. Though that's just my understanding of the chapter.Taylor take the cash next time!🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️
Use common sense Taylor no over explaining and volunteering anything.
Ashkari
(Verified Ink-slinger)
- Location
- United States
Taylor take the cash next time!🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️
Use common sense Taylor no over explaining and volunteering anything.
She took the cash and converted the drugs and weapons, yes.
However, after posting, I was combing back through my notes in prep for starting the next chapter and I realized I forgot something I'd been planning, which was that she supposed to turn part of drugs over to the PRT for the bounty.
I am thinking I may... well, not retcon per se, but 'clarify' we shall say, at the start of the next chapter, that what she actually did was split it with the PRT — a large chunk of it she'd turn into gold & metal, and the rest she'd turn over to the PRT both so they'll have evidence and because she wants the bounty money.
Why? Because a major drug bust like this is worth a LOT of money — even if she's only getting, say, 20% of the estimated value in bounty cash, it'd still be potentially anywhere from the hundred thousand range to the multi-millions. The Merchants aren't exactly small-time drug pushers in fanon. (For that matter, even in canon most of the gangs have pretty serious drug trades going on).
And before anyone claims bounties that size are unrealistic, do a bit of research ;P The US gov't has been known to pay out on some pretty crazy bounties just for information that leads to major busts. One can only imagine how much more for saving them the trouble
- Location
- Usa
She took the cash and converted the drugs and weapons, yes.
However, after posting, I was combing back through my notes in prep for starting the next chapter and I realized I forgot something I'd been planning, which was that she supposed to turn part of drugs over to the PRT for the bounty.
I am thinking I may... well, not retcon per se, but 'clarify' we shall say, at the start of the next chapter, that what she actually did was split it with the PRT — a large chunk of it she'd turn into gold & metal, and the rest she'd turn over to the PRT both so they'll have evidence and because she wants the bounty money.
Why? Because a major drug bust like this is worth a LOT of money — even if she's only getting, say, 20% of the estimated value in bounty cash, it'd still be potentially anywhere from the hundred thousand range to the multi-millions. The Merchants aren't exactly small-time drug pushers in fanon. (For that matter, even in canon most of the gangs have pretty serious drug trades going on).
And before anyone claims bounties that size are unrealistic, do a bit of research ;P The US gov't has been known to pay out on some pretty crazy bounties just for information that leads to major busts. One can only imagine how much more for saving them the trouble
I just assumed she took the stacks of cash they probably kept there to send back up the chain. You could add a bit where she raided their safe or something along those lines.
- Location
- Iowa, United States
- Pronouns
- Him, His, He
I absolutely love this idea. I think it would make a great fic.
I thought she told the PRT rep that there was a lot of money and drugs where she just raided.
- Location
- Iowa, United States
- Pronouns
- Him, His, He
She did. They watched her convert the drugs into gold and she sent it and the cash back to her lair, keeping the cash intact. At least that's my take on it.
"Miss Militia led the way into the building, where she drafted two of the PRT troopers to assist in inventorying the contents of the stash house. As each item was catalogued it was then either fed into an imp's bag, or, in the case of cash, was handed off to one to be carried. In either case, they everything was quickly processed, and Taylor soon found herself in possession of a staggering amount of gold and metal, alongside not an inconsiderable quantity of actual cash."
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