Can I just say that I love the fact that your post about runes is 42 words long which is hilarious since 42 is the answer to the meaning of life, the universe, and everything.
Incense and Powdered Diamond
- Thread starter Lucifra
- Start date
Can I just say that I love the fact that your post about runes is 42 words long which is hilarious since 42 is the answer to the meaning of life, the universe, and everything.
A Lovely View
- Pronouns
- She/They
Taylor meets another cape duo, albeit not an entirely stable one.
"Nay, lass, it was… odd," said Odin, eyes gaining a faraway look, at the same time that Danny frowned with a "Now that you mention it…"
"Yeah. That's probably a…" Taylor trailed off then swore. "Holy shit, they lost Vista."
"Who?" asked Danny, frowning.
"Oh, right, you wouldn't have known. She's one of the Wards, something like thirteen years old. If she went missing… well, she's a strong Cape. If she's missing, she'd probably have at least a couple of the gangs looking to get her on side…"
"So, she's a kid in danger because of her power?" Seeing Taylor's nod, Danny sighed. "I don't suppose I can convince you to not go out with logic, like by saying you don't have a costume?"
"Sorry, dad. If nothing else, I'm probably the one who can find her fastest if no one knows really where she's going, and I can actually manifest a costume." She held up the notebook she'd taken with her to Truth's office with which to occupy her time, which showed a rough sketch of a woman in mail armor with a conical helmet. "I think I can make this with the runes, like this."
Two runes manifested, hovering over Taylor's head in silver light. One rune resembled a Y with the stem extending up into the triangle formed by the upper section, and the other resembled two angular p's, the triangles facing inward and touching.
In a flash of light, Taylor was wearing a silvery shirt that appeared, on closer inspection, to be made of tiny chain mail, as well as leggings of the same metal, silvery leather bracers on her arms, boots on her feet, and the helmet in her sketch, covering her face from the nose up. Picked out in gold on the chest and helmet was a rune consisting of two parallel lines angled down and to the right at the top of a long vertical stalk, surrounded by a golden circle of other, smaller runes.
Odin lost his distant look for a moment and nodded in approval as Taylor tested her range of motion amidst the sound of rustling metal, catching her figurative breath after her mystical exertion.
"See? Ready-made armor." Taylor grinned at her father.
Danny sighed. "Fine, but be safe. Odin, make sure she stays safe."
"Will do, dad," said Taylor quietly.
Odin just nodded, still gazing off into the distance with a pensive look.
Taylor then set off, the sounds of her armor quieter, on an irregular path, almost meandering through her neighborhood and beyond.
As she traveled, her mind reached out to all the bugs in her range and they stirred, forced to wakefulness in the still-strong chill of winter to cast their senses out, looking for Brockton's wayward Ward. When Taylor's range left them behind, they hid away once again, shunning the biting cold of January.
For a handful of hours, Taylor came up empty, occupying her attention (the portion of it not carried through the Administrator to her searchers, that is) with discussion of the Runes with Odin, and she started drifting towards the Docks.
Then, abruptly, she found something.
Her head jerked off to the side, interrupting Odin's explanation of how to weave together kaunaz and hagalaz for the restraint of prisoners with ice without the risk of frostbite, and Taylor started jogging off towards a warehouse.
"What did you see, lass?" asked Odin, eye narrowing.
"Found her, I think," said Taylor quietly, booted feet tapping out a quiet rhythm on the asphalt as Taylor crossed a number of streets. She gestured to a warehouse that appeared much the same as any other, saying "She's in here, so if we can check in on her and ma-"
A thrown brick bounced perfectly off of Taylor's helmet with an oddly disappointing 'thwack' sound. "Not another step," came a high, clear voice, "or the next one isn't a brick."
Atop the warehouse stood a tall, dark-haired woman with a bow in her hands, red vaguely samurai-like costume contrasting with the drab concrete of the warehouse.
"Now," the archer said, "what the fuck are you doing here, and how do I get you to leave?"
"I, uh… well, the PRT kind of outed Vista as a missing child, and I just wanted to see if she was okay?"
"You say that as if it makes things better," said the taller woman, nocking an arrow. "Why were you in a position that the PRT would have outed her to you?"
"Uh…" Taylor floundered, trying to come up with a reason.
"You're under suspicion for being a Cape, methinks," said Odin quietly.
"Well?"
"I, uh… they think I might be a cape, so they were probably thinking they should try and recruit me early, I think? I'm not sure, we just came home and they were there." Taylor shrugged.
"Right. Sure, Othala Jr. would just show up out of the goodness of her heart after having a Ward outed to her. You got Hookwolf waiting in the wings in case you don't get what you want, or what?" She drew the arrow back, teeth bared.
"Mina. She's not a Nazi," came a wavering voice from behind the archer.
"And how do you know that?" asked the newly-identified Mina, no small amount of bite remaining in her voice.
"Because," said Melissa Byron in her Vista costume, stepping into Taylor's field of view, "that's Taylor Hebert. With that name, none of the Nazis in this town would touch her."
"Same reason I left the PRT building on Thursday," said Vista, removing her visor to reveal a jagged, prismatic starburst in the place of her irises and pupils. "I found your file in the PRT archive."
Taylor's blood froze. "What?"
"Yeah, it's surprisingly thorough for just being a couple of weeks out from your Trigger Event." Vista all but collapsed into a low-slung fabric chair, pulling a bottle of water from nowhere.
"What do you mean, 'my file'? Why does the PRT have a file on me to begin with?" Odin put his hand on Taylor's shoulder, all but radiating calm and somewhat blunting her reaction.
"Oh, yeah, that. They have data on a lot of prospective parahumans, especially ones who spend a lot of time around theirs."
Taylor blinked, gobsmacked. "What does that mean? Do they think my dad is a cape, or something?"
Vista laughed bitterly. "As if. No, as it turns out, Shadow Stalker's been harassing you for a year and a half, plus causing your Trigger, and the PRT fucking knew."
"She what." An exterminator in a house about two blocks away was very surprised by the sudden, ferocious activity of the termite colony he was trying to deal with.
Missy frowned. "Wait, you didn't know?"
"If I knew," said Taylor, all emotion missing from her voice, "I very much would have done something about it by now."
There was a moment of tense silence, then Mina broke it by laughing, a sharp-edged sound that distinctly unnerved Taylor. "You've got bite, kid. I like it. Just make sure you've got an alibi whenever you disappear the bitch."
Taylor blinked, startled out of her anger. "Wait, what?"
"Ignore her," said Vista, clearly trying and failing to conceal her irritation behind a professional façade. "My cousin picked up bad habits from her previous social circle, and I'd like to help work with her to rectify that in the future.
"What kind of social group jumps straight to murder?" asked Taylor, frowning. Odin, meanwhile, gazed at the archer with new regard and perhaps a shade more compassion.
"The Teeth," replied Mina, taking a bow before Vista could stop her. "My apologies, I don't think we've been properly introduced. Mina Byron, better known as either Missy's cousin or Quarrel, the Woman who Never Misses."
Vista brought down her fist, and in an odd twist, it slammed down onto Quarrel's head with an odd sound not dissimilar to a wooden mallet impacting on a human head. "Like I said. Bad habits." Then, she looked up. "It's about time we get going. The Empire is closing in on us here with heavy Cape support, and as much as I would take great pleasure in beating them up, I'm not sure you're up to it, since you haven't even had a debut yet." The diminutive Shaker stood and stretched, then slipped her visor back on. "For now, you should probably go back to school. The PRT is gonna start looking for inconsistencies in your records so they can try and press-gang you into joining them, so try and avoid giving them leverage as long as you can until the lawsuit really gets off the ground."
"Wait, how did you know we were suing?" asked Taylor.
Vista gave her a look that conveyed profound disappointment in Taylor's mental faculties. "That's the way that things work in this world, unless you want to become a villain." With that, Vista took a step in a direction that humans don't have words for and vanished.
Mina sighed, scooping up her bow. "Look, the kid's just a bit of a drama queen right now. I'll try to get her to talk to Panacea more, or something, but… well, you're coming off your Trigger Event about now anyways, right? Imagine that, but worse, and she feels like she can't trust anyone to do anything reasonable, standard teenager shit turned up to eleven." Quarrel looked up, visibly calculating, then reached into her pocket for a scrap of paper and scribbled a phone number on it. "Here. It's the burner we're using. Hopefully talking to people around her own age would help her, but you don't have to." With that, she took a step in the same odd direction that Vista did and vanished.
Taylor looked towards Odin. "What just happened?"
"I believe," he said, "that you just blitzed the friend-making process."
The shorter woman coughed, glaring up at the taller cape. "What happened," she growled, wincing, "is that Quarrel fucking abandoned us. She said something about me being a kid, or something, then just fucking attacked me and left."
The tenth Butcher would have questioned Hemorrhagia more. He had spent far more time with Quarrel, as a function of being the one who saved her and thus being more aware of how Hemorrhagia's story was bullshit. He would have known (and did know) that Quarrel would have done anything for her little cousin, and would have made the connection of Hemorrhagia's use of the word kid. He would have, in short, stood by Quarrel and averted the issues to come.
Unfortunately, the tenth Butcher was too broken by his own death to convince the rest of the Chorus to stand by Quarrel, whose seniority Hemorrhagia had always been jealous of, or even to make the connection to her cousin.
"Alright," growled the Butcher, teeth bared. "You got my attention. Any idea where she's going?"
"Brockton, probably," replied the (internally) smug Hemorrhagia. "She's always missed that fucking shithole of a city.
"Okay then," said the Butcher, face twisted into an expression that only a small number of people would make the mistake to call a smile, and an even smaller number would survive unmolested. "Get everyone else, have them ready to leave tomorrow. We're paying the bitch a visit, and seeing if we can't set up back in the Bay. Marquis and the Nine are gone, now, so let's see if we can't reclaim what's ours."
"Gladly." Hemorrhagia left the kitchen, and only then, out of the Butcher's sight, did she let the smirk fighting its way onto her face out to play. Finally she was getting that arrogant bitch Quarrel dealt with, one way or another (killing the Butcher was a death sentence, if she even managed that with such a weak power), and she couldn't be happier.
This chapter fought me a lot more than previous chapters in this work, but at least I have a concrete direction to go from here.
Horny Jail population: 3.5 (Manton, Siberian, Hemorrhagia, and Quarrel)
One note: Shaper contained an OC alien god who is dead and gone, and will (probably) not be back outside of Panacea's inherited memories.
That's about it, so read, review, enjoy, and have a nice day.
-----
I expected this to be out a lot sooner, I just… well, life decided to vibe check me to the next dimension.-----
"So, I take it I'm not the only one who thought that question about Melissa Byron was weird, right?" asked Taylor once they got inside."Nay, lass, it was… odd," said Odin, eyes gaining a faraway look, at the same time that Danny frowned with a "Now that you mention it…"
"Yeah. That's probably a…" Taylor trailed off then swore. "Holy shit, they lost Vista."
"Who?" asked Danny, frowning.
"Oh, right, you wouldn't have known. She's one of the Wards, something like thirteen years old. If she went missing… well, she's a strong Cape. If she's missing, she'd probably have at least a couple of the gangs looking to get her on side…"
"So, she's a kid in danger because of her power?" Seeing Taylor's nod, Danny sighed. "I don't suppose I can convince you to not go out with logic, like by saying you don't have a costume?"
"Sorry, dad. If nothing else, I'm probably the one who can find her fastest if no one knows really where she's going, and I can actually manifest a costume." She held up the notebook she'd taken with her to Truth's office with which to occupy her time, which showed a rough sketch of a woman in mail armor with a conical helmet. "I think I can make this with the runes, like this."
Two runes manifested, hovering over Taylor's head in silver light. One rune resembled a Y with the stem extending up into the triangle formed by the upper section, and the other resembled two angular p's, the triangles facing inward and touching.
In a flash of light, Taylor was wearing a silvery shirt that appeared, on closer inspection, to be made of tiny chain mail, as well as leggings of the same metal, silvery leather bracers on her arms, boots on her feet, and the helmet in her sketch, covering her face from the nose up. Picked out in gold on the chest and helmet was a rune consisting of two parallel lines angled down and to the right at the top of a long vertical stalk, surrounded by a golden circle of other, smaller runes.
Odin lost his distant look for a moment and nodded in approval as Taylor tested her range of motion amidst the sound of rustling metal, catching her figurative breath after her mystical exertion.
"See? Ready-made armor." Taylor grinned at her father.
Danny sighed. "Fine, but be safe. Odin, make sure she stays safe."
"Will do, dad," said Taylor quietly.
Odin just nodded, still gazing off into the distance with a pensive look.
-----
Once Taylor had left her house (through the back, to try and obfuscate where she was coming from), she traced a rune that vaguely resembled the letter R, albeit more angular, in the air with silver light, which burst with the sound if a ship's oars dipping into the sea.Taylor then set off, the sounds of her armor quieter, on an irregular path, almost meandering through her neighborhood and beyond.
As she traveled, her mind reached out to all the bugs in her range and they stirred, forced to wakefulness in the still-strong chill of winter to cast their senses out, looking for Brockton's wayward Ward. When Taylor's range left them behind, they hid away once again, shunning the biting cold of January.
For a handful of hours, Taylor came up empty, occupying her attention (the portion of it not carried through the Administrator to her searchers, that is) with discussion of the Runes with Odin, and she started drifting towards the Docks.
Then, abruptly, she found something.
Her head jerked off to the side, interrupting Odin's explanation of how to weave together kaunaz and hagalaz for the restraint of prisoners with ice without the risk of frostbite, and Taylor started jogging off towards a warehouse.
"What did you see, lass?" asked Odin, eye narrowing.
"Found her, I think," said Taylor quietly, booted feet tapping out a quiet rhythm on the asphalt as Taylor crossed a number of streets. She gestured to a warehouse that appeared much the same as any other, saying "She's in here, so if we can check in on her and ma-"
A thrown brick bounced perfectly off of Taylor's helmet with an oddly disappointing 'thwack' sound. "Not another step," came a high, clear voice, "or the next one isn't a brick."
Atop the warehouse stood a tall, dark-haired woman with a bow in her hands, red vaguely samurai-like costume contrasting with the drab concrete of the warehouse.
"Now," the archer said, "what the fuck are you doing here, and how do I get you to leave?"
"I, uh… well, the PRT kind of outed Vista as a missing child, and I just wanted to see if she was okay?"
"You say that as if it makes things better," said the taller woman, nocking an arrow. "Why were you in a position that the PRT would have outed her to you?"
"Uh…" Taylor floundered, trying to come up with a reason.
"You're under suspicion for being a Cape, methinks," said Odin quietly.
"Well?"
"I, uh… they think I might be a cape, so they were probably thinking they should try and recruit me early, I think? I'm not sure, we just came home and they were there." Taylor shrugged.
"Right. Sure, Othala Jr. would just show up out of the goodness of her heart after having a Ward outed to her. You got Hookwolf waiting in the wings in case you don't get what you want, or what?" She drew the arrow back, teeth bared.
"Mina. She's not a Nazi," came a wavering voice from behind the archer.
"And how do you know that?" asked the newly-identified Mina, no small amount of bite remaining in her voice.
"Because," said Melissa Byron in her Vista costume, stepping into Taylor's field of view, "that's Taylor Hebert. With that name, none of the Nazis in this town would touch her."
-----
"So how do you know about me?" asked Taylor once they'd retreated inside the warehouse, camping furniture scattered across the bare concrete floor."Same reason I left the PRT building on Thursday," said Vista, removing her visor to reveal a jagged, prismatic starburst in the place of her irises and pupils. "I found your file in the PRT archive."
Taylor's blood froze. "What?"
"Yeah, it's surprisingly thorough for just being a couple of weeks out from your Trigger Event." Vista all but collapsed into a low-slung fabric chair, pulling a bottle of water from nowhere.
"What do you mean, 'my file'? Why does the PRT have a file on me to begin with?" Odin put his hand on Taylor's shoulder, all but radiating calm and somewhat blunting her reaction.
"Oh, yeah, that. They have data on a lot of prospective parahumans, especially ones who spend a lot of time around theirs."
Taylor blinked, gobsmacked. "What does that mean? Do they think my dad is a cape, or something?"
Vista laughed bitterly. "As if. No, as it turns out, Shadow Stalker's been harassing you for a year and a half, plus causing your Trigger, and the PRT fucking knew."
"She what." An exterminator in a house about two blocks away was very surprised by the sudden, ferocious activity of the termite colony he was trying to deal with.
Missy frowned. "Wait, you didn't know?"
"If I knew," said Taylor, all emotion missing from her voice, "I very much would have done something about it by now."
There was a moment of tense silence, then Mina broke it by laughing, a sharp-edged sound that distinctly unnerved Taylor. "You've got bite, kid. I like it. Just make sure you've got an alibi whenever you disappear the bitch."
Taylor blinked, startled out of her anger. "Wait, what?"
"Ignore her," said Vista, clearly trying and failing to conceal her irritation behind a professional façade. "My cousin picked up bad habits from her previous social circle, and I'd like to help work with her to rectify that in the future.
"What kind of social group jumps straight to murder?" asked Taylor, frowning. Odin, meanwhile, gazed at the archer with new regard and perhaps a shade more compassion.
"The Teeth," replied Mina, taking a bow before Vista could stop her. "My apologies, I don't think we've been properly introduced. Mina Byron, better known as either Missy's cousin or Quarrel, the Woman who Never Misses."
Vista brought down her fist, and in an odd twist, it slammed down onto Quarrel's head with an odd sound not dissimilar to a wooden mallet impacting on a human head. "Like I said. Bad habits." Then, she looked up. "It's about time we get going. The Empire is closing in on us here with heavy Cape support, and as much as I would take great pleasure in beating them up, I'm not sure you're up to it, since you haven't even had a debut yet." The diminutive Shaker stood and stretched, then slipped her visor back on. "For now, you should probably go back to school. The PRT is gonna start looking for inconsistencies in your records so they can try and press-gang you into joining them, so try and avoid giving them leverage as long as you can until the lawsuit really gets off the ground."
"Wait, how did you know we were suing?" asked Taylor.
Vista gave her a look that conveyed profound disappointment in Taylor's mental faculties. "That's the way that things work in this world, unless you want to become a villain." With that, Vista took a step in a direction that humans don't have words for and vanished.
Mina sighed, scooping up her bow. "Look, the kid's just a bit of a drama queen right now. I'll try to get her to talk to Panacea more, or something, but… well, you're coming off your Trigger Event about now anyways, right? Imagine that, but worse, and she feels like she can't trust anyone to do anything reasonable, standard teenager shit turned up to eleven." Quarrel looked up, visibly calculating, then reached into her pocket for a scrap of paper and scribbled a phone number on it. "Here. It's the burner we're using. Hopefully talking to people around her own age would help her, but you don't have to." With that, she took a step in the same odd direction that Vista did and vanished.
Taylor looked towards Odin. "What just happened?"
"I believe," he said, "that you just blitzed the friend-making process."
-----
"What the fuck happened here?" snarled the Butcher, looming over Hemorrhagia.The shorter woman coughed, glaring up at the taller cape. "What happened," she growled, wincing, "is that Quarrel fucking abandoned us. She said something about me being a kid, or something, then just fucking attacked me and left."
The tenth Butcher would have questioned Hemorrhagia more. He had spent far more time with Quarrel, as a function of being the one who saved her and thus being more aware of how Hemorrhagia's story was bullshit. He would have known (and did know) that Quarrel would have done anything for her little cousin, and would have made the connection of Hemorrhagia's use of the word kid. He would have, in short, stood by Quarrel and averted the issues to come.
Unfortunately, the tenth Butcher was too broken by his own death to convince the rest of the Chorus to stand by Quarrel, whose seniority Hemorrhagia had always been jealous of, or even to make the connection to her cousin.
"Alright," growled the Butcher, teeth bared. "You got my attention. Any idea where she's going?"
"Brockton, probably," replied the (internally) smug Hemorrhagia. "She's always missed that fucking shithole of a city.
"Okay then," said the Butcher, face twisted into an expression that only a small number of people would make the mistake to call a smile, and an even smaller number would survive unmolested. "Get everyone else, have them ready to leave tomorrow. We're paying the bitch a visit, and seeing if we can't set up back in the Bay. Marquis and the Nine are gone, now, so let's see if we can't reclaim what's ours."
"Gladly." Hemorrhagia left the kitchen, and only then, out of the Butcher's sight, did she let the smirk fighting its way onto her face out to play. Finally she was getting that arrogant bitch Quarrel dealt with, one way or another (killing the Butcher was a death sentence, if she even managed that with such a weak power), and she couldn't be happier.
-----
And that's that! The two runes used for the armor are Algiz and Mannaz, the rune on her helmet is Ansuz, and the "speed" rune (it does much more than that) is Raidō.This chapter fought me a lot more than previous chapters in this work, but at least I have a concrete direction to go from here.
Horny Jail population: 3.5 (Manton, Siberian, Hemorrhagia, and Quarrel)
One note: Shaper contained an OC alien god who is dead and gone, and will (probably) not be back outside of Panacea's inherited memories.
That's about it, so read, review, enjoy, and have a nice day.
- Pronouns
- She/They
That rune combo actually wouldn't work as written to constrain Movers like Vista or Strider, and it's not guaranteed to work on a Brute.
Omake: Heimdall, Keeper of the Bifröst
- Pronouns
- She/They
Here's part 2 of the original omake series in Implacable that spawned this story.
In response to Vista's question, all four Dallons (Panacea was on the couch alongside Vista) turned to look at Pisces. "What do you mean, what happened to your eye?" asked Glory Girl.
"Ah, the girl has Heimdall's curse. No use for it, lass. You should show them," said Odin.
Taylor sighed, then let the manifestation of her previous power vanish, revealing her sweaty and bloody prison jumpsuit and the ruin where her eye once was. "It was the PRT Trooper who finally subdued me, since confoam didn't work because of my shields."
Panacea stood up and moved towards Taylor. "May I..." She reached for Taylor's hand.
"I guess." Taylor shrugged.
Panacea took her hand, then her eyes widened. "They didn't give you any medical treatment? At all?"
Taylor snorted. "That would defeat the point of cowing me into submission."
Glory Girl's jaw dropped. "That can't be legal."
"Neither was what Piggot pulled on dad, and yet..." Taylor shrugged. "Here we are."
"God, Taylor, I am so, so, so sorry. I'm sorry we didn't see what you were going through, we didn't see what you were trying to say, we didn't see what Shadow Stalker was doing to you, we didn't see-"
Panacea pressed her thumb into the side of the girl's neck, and she slumped bonelessly back into the couch. "She was spiraling. She's still too close to her Second Trigger to really have stabilized, mentally."
"That's not why we're so shocked! How'd you do that?" asked Glory Girl, eyes wide.
"Unconsciousness from lack of blood to the brain comes in seconds. I pinched off her carotid, she should be awake in a minute or two."
"Hmm..." Odin frowned in Taylor's peripheral vision. "This one's one to watch, methinks. In any case, once the child awakens, you might wish to discuss things with your allies."
Taylor nodded sharply, then strode over to the couch. "Alright, what's the situation with dad?"
Brandish was the first to sit down, and also the first to answer. "Relatively well. The DA has the 'evidence' that the PRT managed to collect," the scorn in her tone was palpable, "and it looks like they have no grounds to prosecute, given that it's related to a suit against the school for negligence based on their refusal to protect you with regards to the emails, so he'll be released in a day or two. Our next actions are to file suit against the PRT for police brutality both against you and your father, his arm was broken in three places when they took him into custody and untreated for several hours. Your situation should only help that situation, since loss of an eye is much more dramatic than just a broken arm and nine days of withholding medical care is just... unconscionable."
"That makes sense, but... I escaped from PRT custody." Taylor winced. "I'm not exactly sure they'd be understanding about that."
Vista shook herself awake. "Ah! What happened?"
Flashbang frowned, leaning forward. "I might have a solution."
"Oh?" asked Brandish, turning a gimlet eye on him.
"Yes. Vista only left the PRT seconds before Pisces left the Rig, and she got here well over five minutes faster than Pisces. Even accounting for the different distances, that's still faster than any of us, even Laserdream if she was here." He turned to Vista.
"How fast do you think you can get to New York?"
"What is it?"
"It's the Ward Vista, from Brockton Bay. She says she walked here, and we have her getting a full medical work-over about that," replied the duplicator.
Legend frowned, calling up his memory of the Wards. "Isn't that... isn't that the Shaker with spatial manipulation powers?"
"Correct, sir."
"She should be able to use her power to get here relatively quickly without being harmed too much, then. Why is she in Medical?" Legend asked, already walking towards the relevant wing.
"She collapsed in the lobby. Preliminary analysis is that she had a Second Trigger, since her brain scan shows a different Gemma setup than her initial records."
Legend blinked. "Isn't she thirteen?"
"Twelve. She's thirteen later this year."
He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "In that case, let's go see what caused a twelve year old girl to have a Second Trigger." He kept walking, despite the urge to transition to his Breaker state and hurtle there as fast as he could.
When he got to the door, he was greeted with a "Hi, Legend!" and a cheery wave from the Ward in question, despite her being pale and clammy enough to put a number of people he'd seen missing limbs after an Endbringer fight to shame.
"I was told... that you walked from Brockton Bay?" he asked, deciding to open the conversation by learning more about the situation.
"Oh, yeah. Director Piggot... well, she's treating the Wards like tools and forgetting we're people too, and the Youth Guard were useless, and New Wave couldn't stand up to the PRT alone, so I figure why not try and talk to the big cheese?" Vista's cheery voice were at odds with the words, which sent chills down his spine.
"What do you mean, treating the Wards like tools?"
"Oh, right. Well, Shadow Stalker caused this other girl's Trigger Event, then she broke out of the locker Shadow Stalker locked her in and broke her jaw before she realized she had powers, so Piggot press-ganged her without doing anything to Shadow Stalker. Then, she triggered a no-knock warrant on Pisces' house while she was there, and she got arrested and her eye got absolutely ruined, and then they threw her in solitary for nine days without giving her any medical attention, and then she Second Triggered about the same time that I learned out about this and Second Triggered." As far as Legend could tell, this was said using one breath.
"I'm sorry, what? Why didn't the Youth Guard step in before any of this could happen?" asked Prism, frowning.
Vista laughed, far too bitterly for someone so young. "The Youth Guard doesn't do jack shit. They just fine us whenever our paperwork isn't all filled out, or when they catch the PRT supervisor making a mistake."
"No, no they don't. They fine the PRT, and you're supposed to be supervised by the Protectorate." Legend turned to Prism and asked "What the actual hell is going on in Brockton Bay?"
"Shit's fucked," chirped Vista, and with the absurd mismatch of those words coming from Vista in these particular circumstances, both of the adult heroes burst into laughter.
"On what grounds?" asked Armsmaster, frowning under his visor.
"Pisces has had a Second Trigger. This Second Trigger allows her to Master any person she touches with at least three of her shields, to similar effect to the member of the Fallen known as Valefor. The members of New Wave and Vista are to be assumed to have been Mastered, as we have surveilance footage of Vista and Pisces entering the Dallon household, and then later the remaining members of New Wave at approximately the same time that Vista left for New York," Piggot lied.
Armsmaster frowned. "Given what information we have of Pisces' alleged trigger event, I highly doubt that a Second Trigger would induce such a power in Pisces."
"Armsmaster, have you had any contact with the Parahuman fugitive known as-" began Director Piggot.
Every internet-connected device within earshot dinged pleasantly.
Armsmaster quickly read something on his visor, then frowned. "Director Piggot, you have been relieved of your duty by order from Chief Director Costa-Brown, and are to be remanded into FBI custody based on your abuses of power as PRT Director."
"I- You- This is a result of Pisces Mastering high-level PRT operatives! I am invoking Chapter 8, section 9, subsec-"
Armsmaster raised his halberd and a dart shot forth from the tip, impacting her on the arm.
"You- Arrest him for asshult... asshu..." The former director's voice quickly became more and more slurred, then she collapsed to the ground, unconscious.
"Legend," said Armsmaster, pressing the index finger of his off hand to his helmet, "Director Piggot has been neutralized."
"Good work, Armsmaster. We'll take it from here," Legend replied, flying in through an open door flanked by Prism, Ursa Aurora, and a number of PRT troopers with New York patches.
"Understood, sir. I'll return to the Rig, now."
"Before you leave, call in all the Wards except Vista and Pisces. We have to have... a talk with them."
"Yes, sir."
I'm working on Ch. 7 now, and hopefully I get it out before the new year.
That's about it, so read, review, enjoy, and have a nice day!
-----
Heimdall, Keeper of the Bifröst
-----
When Pisces walked into the Dallon house, she was greeted by a too-familiar voice. "Oh, god, what happened to your eye?"Heimdall, Keeper of the Bifröst
-----
In response to Vista's question, all four Dallons (Panacea was on the couch alongside Vista) turned to look at Pisces. "What do you mean, what happened to your eye?" asked Glory Girl.
"Ah, the girl has Heimdall's curse. No use for it, lass. You should show them," said Odin.
Taylor sighed, then let the manifestation of her previous power vanish, revealing her sweaty and bloody prison jumpsuit and the ruin where her eye once was. "It was the PRT Trooper who finally subdued me, since confoam didn't work because of my shields."
Panacea stood up and moved towards Taylor. "May I..." She reached for Taylor's hand.
"I guess." Taylor shrugged.
Panacea took her hand, then her eyes widened. "They didn't give you any medical treatment? At all?"
Taylor snorted. "That would defeat the point of cowing me into submission."
Glory Girl's jaw dropped. "That can't be legal."
"Neither was what Piggot pulled on dad, and yet..." Taylor shrugged. "Here we are."
"God, Taylor, I am so, so, so sorry. I'm sorry we didn't see what you were going through, we didn't see what you were trying to say, we didn't see what Shadow Stalker was doing to you, we didn't see-"
Panacea pressed her thumb into the side of the girl's neck, and she slumped bonelessly back into the couch. "She was spiraling. She's still too close to her Second Trigger to really have stabilized, mentally."
"That's not why we're so shocked! How'd you do that?" asked Glory Girl, eyes wide.
"Unconsciousness from lack of blood to the brain comes in seconds. I pinched off her carotid, she should be awake in a minute or two."
"Hmm..." Odin frowned in Taylor's peripheral vision. "This one's one to watch, methinks. In any case, once the child awakens, you might wish to discuss things with your allies."
Taylor nodded sharply, then strode over to the couch. "Alright, what's the situation with dad?"
Brandish was the first to sit down, and also the first to answer. "Relatively well. The DA has the 'evidence' that the PRT managed to collect," the scorn in her tone was palpable, "and it looks like they have no grounds to prosecute, given that it's related to a suit against the school for negligence based on their refusal to protect you with regards to the emails, so he'll be released in a day or two. Our next actions are to file suit against the PRT for police brutality both against you and your father, his arm was broken in three places when they took him into custody and untreated for several hours. Your situation should only help that situation, since loss of an eye is much more dramatic than just a broken arm and nine days of withholding medical care is just... unconscionable."
"That makes sense, but... I escaped from PRT custody." Taylor winced. "I'm not exactly sure they'd be understanding about that."
Vista shook herself awake. "Ah! What happened?"
Flashbang frowned, leaning forward. "I might have a solution."
"Oh?" asked Brandish, turning a gimlet eye on him.
"Yes. Vista only left the PRT seconds before Pisces left the Rig, and she got here well over five minutes faster than Pisces. Even accounting for the different distances, that's still faster than any of us, even Laserdream if she was here." He turned to Vista.
"How fast do you think you can get to New York?"
-----
"Legend? There's something you might need to see," said Prism, frowning at the door to his office."What is it?"
"It's the Ward Vista, from Brockton Bay. She says she walked here, and we have her getting a full medical work-over about that," replied the duplicator.
Legend frowned, calling up his memory of the Wards. "Isn't that... isn't that the Shaker with spatial manipulation powers?"
"Correct, sir."
"She should be able to use her power to get here relatively quickly without being harmed too much, then. Why is she in Medical?" Legend asked, already walking towards the relevant wing.
"She collapsed in the lobby. Preliminary analysis is that she had a Second Trigger, since her brain scan shows a different Gemma setup than her initial records."
Legend blinked. "Isn't she thirteen?"
"Twelve. She's thirteen later this year."
He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "In that case, let's go see what caused a twelve year old girl to have a Second Trigger." He kept walking, despite the urge to transition to his Breaker state and hurtle there as fast as he could.
When he got to the door, he was greeted with a "Hi, Legend!" and a cheery wave from the Ward in question, despite her being pale and clammy enough to put a number of people he'd seen missing limbs after an Endbringer fight to shame.
"I was told... that you walked from Brockton Bay?" he asked, deciding to open the conversation by learning more about the situation.
"Oh, yeah. Director Piggot... well, she's treating the Wards like tools and forgetting we're people too, and the Youth Guard were useless, and New Wave couldn't stand up to the PRT alone, so I figure why not try and talk to the big cheese?" Vista's cheery voice were at odds with the words, which sent chills down his spine.
"What do you mean, treating the Wards like tools?"
"Oh, right. Well, Shadow Stalker caused this other girl's Trigger Event, then she broke out of the locker Shadow Stalker locked her in and broke her jaw before she realized she had powers, so Piggot press-ganged her without doing anything to Shadow Stalker. Then, she triggered a no-knock warrant on Pisces' house while she was there, and she got arrested and her eye got absolutely ruined, and then they threw her in solitary for nine days without giving her any medical attention, and then she Second Triggered about the same time that I learned out about this and Second Triggered." As far as Legend could tell, this was said using one breath.
"I'm sorry, what? Why didn't the Youth Guard step in before any of this could happen?" asked Prism, frowning.
Vista laughed, far too bitterly for someone so young. "The Youth Guard doesn't do jack shit. They just fine us whenever our paperwork isn't all filled out, or when they catch the PRT supervisor making a mistake."
"No, no they don't. They fine the PRT, and you're supposed to be supervised by the Protectorate." Legend turned to Prism and asked "What the actual hell is going on in Brockton Bay?"
"Shit's fucked," chirped Vista, and with the absurd mismatch of those words coming from Vista in these particular circumstances, both of the adult heroes burst into laughter.
-----
"I'm declaring Master/Stranger conditions for all PRT and Protectorate forces," said Director Piggot."On what grounds?" asked Armsmaster, frowning under his visor.
"Pisces has had a Second Trigger. This Second Trigger allows her to Master any person she touches with at least three of her shields, to similar effect to the member of the Fallen known as Valefor. The members of New Wave and Vista are to be assumed to have been Mastered, as we have surveilance footage of Vista and Pisces entering the Dallon household, and then later the remaining members of New Wave at approximately the same time that Vista left for New York," Piggot lied.
Armsmaster frowned. "Given what information we have of Pisces' alleged trigger event, I highly doubt that a Second Trigger would induce such a power in Pisces."
"Armsmaster, have you had any contact with the Parahuman fugitive known as-" began Director Piggot.
Every internet-connected device within earshot dinged pleasantly.
Armsmaster quickly read something on his visor, then frowned. "Director Piggot, you have been relieved of your duty by order from Chief Director Costa-Brown, and are to be remanded into FBI custody based on your abuses of power as PRT Director."
"I- You- This is a result of Pisces Mastering high-level PRT operatives! I am invoking Chapter 8, section 9, subsec-"
Armsmaster raised his halberd and a dart shot forth from the tip, impacting her on the arm.
"You- Arrest him for asshult... asshu..." The former director's voice quickly became more and more slurred, then she collapsed to the ground, unconscious.
"Legend," said Armsmaster, pressing the index finger of his off hand to his helmet, "Director Piggot has been neutralized."
"Good work, Armsmaster. We'll take it from here," Legend replied, flying in through an open door flanked by Prism, Ursa Aurora, and a number of PRT troopers with New York patches.
"Understood, sir. I'll return to the Rig, now."
"Before you leave, call in all the Wards except Vista and Pisces. We have to have... a talk with them."
"Yes, sir."
-----
And that's all that I already wrote in this omake series! I might revisit it, or I might not, I'm not sure.I'm working on Ch. 7 now, and hopefully I get it out before the new year.
That's about it, so read, review, enjoy, and have a nice day!
It's weird to me that you go the implacable route with the PRT but the Danny dad route is all sunshines and rainbows.
Like I'm all for semi competent Danny Hebert but it feels like we skipped a few (several) steps to get there from caring more about his dockworkers than Taylor and only associating at the dinner table.
But we already have plenty of plot on the other hand so I'm more than willing to ignore it for the Michael bay moments we are hopefully getting to soon.
Like I'm all for semi competent Danny Hebert but it feels like we skipped a few (several) steps to get there from caring more about his dockworkers than Taylor and only associating at the dinner table.
But we already have plenty of plot on the other hand so I'm more than willing to ignore it for the Michael bay moments we are hopefully getting to soon.
Disingenuously Normal
- Pronouns
- She/They
Taylor goes back to school, then talks with a friend.
"Thanks, dad. You have a good day too." Taylor smiled at her father, a small, reserved expression, before she walked out the door, Odin hovering over her shoulder.
"You know they're not going to be kind to you." It wasn't a question.
Taylor shook her head. "That's a foregone conclusion. I'm just going to do what I've always done: stand firm, hold fast."
"The darkness cannot last, lass," replied Odin, nodding sagely. "Aye, that ye can, with the one crucial difference that is the fact that you're not alone."
A wave of comfort pulsed through Taylor's connection to her bugs, a show of what support the Administrator could offer.
"Yeah, thanks, Odin. Plus, I just have to hold out until Mr. Truth gets his lawsuit rolling, right? There's an end I'm holding out for, at least," said Taylor.
"That's true, lass, but ye may not be up to the confrontation with the ones who almost killed ye."
"Ready or not, I still have to face them eventually." Taylor sighed, then drew herself upright, resolve glimmering in her eyes. "People like us don't get to run away from something just because we're afraid. Besides," she said, eyes flashing with determination, "even if she does try something, we have options."
Odin grinned, clapping Taylor on the back. "That's the spirit, lass!"
Taylor nodded. "Alright. Here we go, nothing can bring me down now!"
"Well, well, well," sneered Emma, lip curled, "look what the cat dragged in."
"No cat worth the name would go anywhere near her," replied Madison, arms crossed.
"Move, please. I need to get to my locker," said Taylor, having to fight not to clench her jaw.
"Oh? That anxious for a redo, little mouse?" asked Sophia, a predatory gleam in her eyes. "If you want, I can finish the job, not that it'd take very much for a worm like you."
It was only the fact that Taylor was actively offloading her emotions through the Administrator that let her keep her stoic façade in place.
It was not, however, enough to still her tongue.
"Oh, wow," Taylor shot back, "the mighty Queen of Winslow, Sophia Hess, needs two hounds to feel safe approaching the little worm she tried to kill without repercussions. What a magnificent show of strength!"
"Shut the fuck up, you worthless little bitch!" snapped Sophia, shoving Taylor up against the row of lockers. "You don't get to speak to me like that, you dumb little prey, not without consequences.
"And who decides this?" said Taylor, emboldened by both Odin's presence and what memories of his remained in her head.
"Who the fuck else? I do! I'm the apex predator of Winslow, you don't get to contest this decision!" sneered Sophia. She then hauled Taylor back and slammed her against the locker again, twice, before hurling her to the floor and kicking her in the ribs, breaking something with a sharp snap and leaving a partial shoeprint on her shirt.
Taylor just wheezed out a low whine and curled up.
"That's what I fuckin' thought, you little bitch. Stay fucking down." And with that, Sophia turned on her heel and strode away, brushing away the fly buzzing in her face. With her went the rest of the students, save for Emma, who just stood over Taylor.
"I'm sorry," she said listlessly, "but you were holding me back because you were too weak. I can't afford to keep you close like I did, not when I need to be strong now."
"Then why…" wheezed Taylor, clutching at her injured rib, "why did you and Sophia try and kill me? Why keep coming after me?"
"You were holding me back, even after I cut you out of my life. You're the last link to the old me, the weak me who died in that alley." Emma knelt over Taylor and caressed her face almost gently. "For old times' sake, I'm telling you this: Leave now, if you can. If you don't…" Emma stood, looking down at Taylor with sadness in her gaze. "Well, if you don't, I can't be responsible for what happens to you, especially if Sophia gets a hold of you."
Emma's footsteps receded down the hall as tears rolled down Taylor's face, mourning the loss of the girl who she had grown up with.
Then, she struggled to her feet, slipping a phone that was already recording audio and using it to snap a picture of the shoeprint on her shirt before returning it to her pocket and making her way to the nurse's office, leaning against the wall for support.
"Oh, it's you," grumbled the woman, whose well made up face twisted into a scowl the moment she saw Taylor. "What is it this time, you brat?"
"Sophia kicked me in the chest," said Taylor, gesturing to the general area of the partial shoe print, "and something snapped."
"Yeah, right," sneered the woman. "You just want drugs, don't you?"
"To be clear, are you refusing to even look before refusing me medical treatment?" asked Taylor, voice not displaying the anger and indignation she felt at the denial.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever, brat. Get out of here, before I write you up for your shit."
Taylor sighed, wincing as her lungs pressed against the broken rib, then complied. "If you insist."
"I do."
Taylor left the nurse's office, still in pain, but with a much more dangerous weapon against Winslow than she had before, and that brought a smile to her lips.
"This is literally the second time we've met in the hospital. At least wait until we have three times so we can call it a pattern," grumbled Taylor.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. So, what are you here for this time?" asked the shorter teenaged cape, poking Taylor in the cheek.
"As it turns out," said Taylor quietly, "Sophia's got a strong kicking leg."
"No kidding," said Panacea. "You've got three broken ribs, and some of the pieces are getting awfully close to your lungs." She gave Taylor a gimlet stare. "This happened at Winslow, right?"
"Uh, yeah? Why?" Taylor shuddered as she felt the bone moving and resetting itself inside her skin, then relaxed as the bones clicked into place and the pain vanished.
"I would have expected the nurse to offer at least some medical attention in a case like this. Even without my power, it should have been obvious that these ribs were bad, and that you made them worse by moving with them broken." The statement was delivered in exactly the dry, matter-of-fact tone that Panacea had cultivated to shame her patients into coughing up details of the situation.
"I, uh… was kind of turned away from the nurse because she thought I was drug seeking? She didn't even bother looking at me." Taylor cringed, expecting Panacea's wrath to erupt.
"So let me get this straight," said Panacea, ignoring Taylor's giggle at the insinuation that she would do anything in a manner even remotely resembling "straight", the result of Panacea baring her soul to both Taylor and her sister the day the two first spoke. "You were injured in a confrontation with Sophia before school today, and were refused medical treatment and subsequently went through an entire day of classes with broken ribs."
"Uh, that sounds right…"
The ensuing tirade of profanity taught Taylor, who had been babysat by the dockworkers and picked up on their cursing habits, a thing or two.
The first thing out of her mouth after that was "You're suing the fuck out of them, right?"
"Uh, yeah, for the first time I ended up in the hospital this year, and this'll help," responded Taylor.
"Good. Nail the fuckers to the wall."
Taylor blinked. "I didn't realize you were so…"
"Bitchy? Vengeful? So much of an asshole?" Panacea snorted. "Yeah, you and everyone else."
"…I'll go with 'vindictive'," said Taylor.
"What, exactly, were you expecting? They deliberately, by action, inaction, or both, caused harm to my friend. Of course I'm pissed!" said Panacea, voice rising to a shout by the end.
"I… I'm your friend?" asked Taylor, with fragile hope audible in her voice.
Panacea's voice softened somewhat. "Of course you're my friend, Taylor. You're entirely too good of a person, and entirely too compatible with me not to become at least somewhat friendly, and the whole divine responsibility to fight… well, a shared purpose can bring any two people closer together."
Taylor didn't notice the blush on Panacea's face, too busy reeling at the revelation that she had a friend again.
Eventually, she looked up at Panacea, tears beading at the corners of her eyes. "Thank you, for that. I haven't had a friend since… well, since Emma, and it's nice."
Panacea tugged her hood down, revealing Amy, and then she pulled Taylor into a hug. "Believe me, I haven't had many friends either, not many who aren't Victoria's friends first and foremost. I'm just… well, I'm worried about you, is all. Winslow sounds like hell, from what you've told me, and you're going to be on the front lines elsewhere… I don't know, I just worry about you."
Taylor smiled. "It's… it's good to have someone who cares, someone my own age."
"Of course." Amy ran her hands through Taylor's well-cared-for hair. "Not to change the topic, but I love the way your hair looks. Do you mind if I-"
They were interrupted by a brisk knocking on the door.
"This is the PRT, we have some questions for Taylor Hebert?"
Amy looked at Taylor with some concern, who just shrugged in reply. "No idea," she mouthed, which wasn't strictly true, but given the circumstances, she was willing to dissemble a little bit to reassure her first friend in years.
The cross-marked hood came back up, and Panacea stood to open the door and glare at the trooper standing just outside. "What?" she snapped, drawing the stress of her position around her like a shawl.
"Uh, Panacea, ma'am. We're hoping to talk to Miss Hebert alone?"
"Tough. Taylor's still delicate from the incident on the 3rd of January, and attending school with three broken ribs isn't doing her any favors. I'm staying here to supervise her condition until such time as I'm confident that I didn't miss something and she gets discharged." Panacea stepped to the side, allowing the PRT officer into the room. "Make it snappy."
Another two officers remained outside the room while the first approached Taylor's bed. "Miss Hebert, I have to ask you a couple of questions."
"Second time this week," grumbled Taylor. "Fire away."
"First off," started the agent, "would you mind explaining the events of January 3rd in detail?"
Fuck, thought Taylor.
It was certainly recently, given that the anomalous steps had only begun showing up within the past month or so, but given the difficulty in determining which steps were her power's dictates and which steps were… other… she could be forgiven for not noticing exactly when they showed up.
Still, between her, Kurt, and Rebecca, there was more than enough Thinkerpower available to realize that something had caused the Path to Victory to shift, or possibly that something was interfering with it.
Given that a great many of the anomalous steps identified had had something to do with either Project Terminus or areas that could conceivably impact it in some way, Brockton Bay was likely to be either the location of the anomaly, or host to something important to the anomaly.
She just hoped it wouldn't be too effort-intensive, since she had to split her focus between managing the Doctor's various plans to ensure success and keeping Rebecca's pet organization afloat, but she strongly suspected that she'd find a way.
She didn't have the context to realize the fact that her issue was a result of something outside of the narrow capabilities of Shards. After all, the divine ward Odin had used to protect Taylor from the Simurgh's sight wasn't limited to just her form of precognition.
I was recently inspired to start another WIP, unfortunately (or, from certain points of view, fortunately), so look forward to a third longfic centered around one of my gender envy characters in Star Wars.
That's about it, so read, review, enjoy, and have a nice day!
-----
I said I'd have the chapter out by the new year, and on god, I am delivering. Anyways, enjoy your corporatism present!-----
"Have a good day at school, Taylor," said Danny, reluctance audible in his voice. He hadn't taken to Vista's suggestion of Taylor going back to school, since they wouldn't be able to get her out of Winslow until the lawsuit really started to pick up steam, but he understood the necessity of the gambit."Thanks, dad. You have a good day too." Taylor smiled at her father, a small, reserved expression, before she walked out the door, Odin hovering over her shoulder.
"You know they're not going to be kind to you." It wasn't a question.
Taylor shook her head. "That's a foregone conclusion. I'm just going to do what I've always done: stand firm, hold fast."
"The darkness cannot last, lass," replied Odin, nodding sagely. "Aye, that ye can, with the one crucial difference that is the fact that you're not alone."
A wave of comfort pulsed through Taylor's connection to her bugs, a show of what support the Administrator could offer.
"Yeah, thanks, Odin. Plus, I just have to hold out until Mr. Truth gets his lawsuit rolling, right? There's an end I'm holding out for, at least," said Taylor.
"That's true, lass, but ye may not be up to the confrontation with the ones who almost killed ye."
"Ready or not, I still have to face them eventually." Taylor sighed, then drew herself upright, resolve glimmering in her eyes. "People like us don't get to run away from something just because we're afraid. Besides," she said, eyes flashing with determination, "even if she does try something, we have options."
Odin grinned, clapping Taylor on the back. "That's the spirit, lass!"
Taylor nodded. "Alright. Here we go, nothing can bring me down now!"
-----
Well, thought Taylor, I stand corrected."Well, well, well," sneered Emma, lip curled, "look what the cat dragged in."
"No cat worth the name would go anywhere near her," replied Madison, arms crossed.
"Move, please. I need to get to my locker," said Taylor, having to fight not to clench her jaw.
"Oh? That anxious for a redo, little mouse?" asked Sophia, a predatory gleam in her eyes. "If you want, I can finish the job, not that it'd take very much for a worm like you."
It was only the fact that Taylor was actively offloading her emotions through the Administrator that let her keep her stoic façade in place.
It was not, however, enough to still her tongue.
"Oh, wow," Taylor shot back, "the mighty Queen of Winslow, Sophia Hess, needs two hounds to feel safe approaching the little worm she tried to kill without repercussions. What a magnificent show of strength!"
"Shut the fuck up, you worthless little bitch!" snapped Sophia, shoving Taylor up against the row of lockers. "You don't get to speak to me like that, you dumb little prey, not without consequences.
"And who decides this?" said Taylor, emboldened by both Odin's presence and what memories of his remained in her head.
"Who the fuck else? I do! I'm the apex predator of Winslow, you don't get to contest this decision!" sneered Sophia. She then hauled Taylor back and slammed her against the locker again, twice, before hurling her to the floor and kicking her in the ribs, breaking something with a sharp snap and leaving a partial shoeprint on her shirt.
Taylor just wheezed out a low whine and curled up.
"That's what I fuckin' thought, you little bitch. Stay fucking down." And with that, Sophia turned on her heel and strode away, brushing away the fly buzzing in her face. With her went the rest of the students, save for Emma, who just stood over Taylor.
"I'm sorry," she said listlessly, "but you were holding me back because you were too weak. I can't afford to keep you close like I did, not when I need to be strong now."
"Then why…" wheezed Taylor, clutching at her injured rib, "why did you and Sophia try and kill me? Why keep coming after me?"
"You were holding me back, even after I cut you out of my life. You're the last link to the old me, the weak me who died in that alley." Emma knelt over Taylor and caressed her face almost gently. "For old times' sake, I'm telling you this: Leave now, if you can. If you don't…" Emma stood, looking down at Taylor with sadness in her gaze. "Well, if you don't, I can't be responsible for what happens to you, especially if Sophia gets a hold of you."
Emma's footsteps receded down the hall as tears rolled down Taylor's face, mourning the loss of the girl who she had grown up with.
Then, she struggled to her feet, slipping a phone that was already recording audio and using it to snap a picture of the shoeprint on her shirt before returning it to her pocket and making her way to the nurse's office, leaning against the wall for support.
"Oh, it's you," grumbled the woman, whose well made up face twisted into a scowl the moment she saw Taylor. "What is it this time, you brat?"
"Sophia kicked me in the chest," said Taylor, gesturing to the general area of the partial shoe print, "and something snapped."
"Yeah, right," sneered the woman. "You just want drugs, don't you?"
"To be clear, are you refusing to even look before refusing me medical treatment?" asked Taylor, voice not displaying the anger and indignation she felt at the denial.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever, brat. Get out of here, before I write you up for your shit."
Taylor sighed, wincing as her lungs pressed against the broken rib, then complied. "If you insist."
"I do."
Taylor left the nurse's office, still in pain, but with a much more dangerous weapon against Winslow than she had before, and that brought a smile to her lips.
-----
"We have to stop meeting like this," said Panacea."This is literally the second time we've met in the hospital. At least wait until we have three times so we can call it a pattern," grumbled Taylor.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. So, what are you here for this time?" asked the shorter teenaged cape, poking Taylor in the cheek.
"As it turns out," said Taylor quietly, "Sophia's got a strong kicking leg."
"No kidding," said Panacea. "You've got three broken ribs, and some of the pieces are getting awfully close to your lungs." She gave Taylor a gimlet stare. "This happened at Winslow, right?"
"Uh, yeah? Why?" Taylor shuddered as she felt the bone moving and resetting itself inside her skin, then relaxed as the bones clicked into place and the pain vanished.
"I would have expected the nurse to offer at least some medical attention in a case like this. Even without my power, it should have been obvious that these ribs were bad, and that you made them worse by moving with them broken." The statement was delivered in exactly the dry, matter-of-fact tone that Panacea had cultivated to shame her patients into coughing up details of the situation.
"I, uh… was kind of turned away from the nurse because she thought I was drug seeking? She didn't even bother looking at me." Taylor cringed, expecting Panacea's wrath to erupt.
"So let me get this straight," said Panacea, ignoring Taylor's giggle at the insinuation that she would do anything in a manner even remotely resembling "straight", the result of Panacea baring her soul to both Taylor and her sister the day the two first spoke. "You were injured in a confrontation with Sophia before school today, and were refused medical treatment and subsequently went through an entire day of classes with broken ribs."
"Uh, that sounds right…"
The ensuing tirade of profanity taught Taylor, who had been babysat by the dockworkers and picked up on their cursing habits, a thing or two.
The first thing out of her mouth after that was "You're suing the fuck out of them, right?"
"Uh, yeah, for the first time I ended up in the hospital this year, and this'll help," responded Taylor.
"Good. Nail the fuckers to the wall."
Taylor blinked. "I didn't realize you were so…"
"Bitchy? Vengeful? So much of an asshole?" Panacea snorted. "Yeah, you and everyone else."
"…I'll go with 'vindictive'," said Taylor.
"What, exactly, were you expecting? They deliberately, by action, inaction, or both, caused harm to my friend. Of course I'm pissed!" said Panacea, voice rising to a shout by the end.
"I… I'm your friend?" asked Taylor, with fragile hope audible in her voice.
Panacea's voice softened somewhat. "Of course you're my friend, Taylor. You're entirely too good of a person, and entirely too compatible with me not to become at least somewhat friendly, and the whole divine responsibility to fight… well, a shared purpose can bring any two people closer together."
Taylor didn't notice the blush on Panacea's face, too busy reeling at the revelation that she had a friend again.
Eventually, she looked up at Panacea, tears beading at the corners of her eyes. "Thank you, for that. I haven't had a friend since… well, since Emma, and it's nice."
Panacea tugged her hood down, revealing Amy, and then she pulled Taylor into a hug. "Believe me, I haven't had many friends either, not many who aren't Victoria's friends first and foremost. I'm just… well, I'm worried about you, is all. Winslow sounds like hell, from what you've told me, and you're going to be on the front lines elsewhere… I don't know, I just worry about you."
Taylor smiled. "It's… it's good to have someone who cares, someone my own age."
"Of course." Amy ran her hands through Taylor's well-cared-for hair. "Not to change the topic, but I love the way your hair looks. Do you mind if I-"
They were interrupted by a brisk knocking on the door.
"This is the PRT, we have some questions for Taylor Hebert?"
Amy looked at Taylor with some concern, who just shrugged in reply. "No idea," she mouthed, which wasn't strictly true, but given the circumstances, she was willing to dissemble a little bit to reassure her first friend in years.
The cross-marked hood came back up, and Panacea stood to open the door and glare at the trooper standing just outside. "What?" she snapped, drawing the stress of her position around her like a shawl.
"Uh, Panacea, ma'am. We're hoping to talk to Miss Hebert alone?"
"Tough. Taylor's still delicate from the incident on the 3rd of January, and attending school with three broken ribs isn't doing her any favors. I'm staying here to supervise her condition until such time as I'm confident that I didn't miss something and she gets discharged." Panacea stepped to the side, allowing the PRT officer into the room. "Make it snappy."
Another two officers remained outside the room while the first approached Taylor's bed. "Miss Hebert, I have to ask you a couple of questions."
"Second time this week," grumbled Taylor. "Fire away."
"First off," started the agent, "would you mind explaining the events of January 3rd in detail?"
Fuck, thought Taylor.
-----
Contessa wasn't sure when the Path to Victory first started to show errors.It was certainly recently, given that the anomalous steps had only begun showing up within the past month or so, but given the difficulty in determining which steps were her power's dictates and which steps were… other… she could be forgiven for not noticing exactly when they showed up.
Still, between her, Kurt, and Rebecca, there was more than enough Thinkerpower available to realize that something had caused the Path to Victory to shift, or possibly that something was interfering with it.
Given that a great many of the anomalous steps identified had had something to do with either Project Terminus or areas that could conceivably impact it in some way, Brockton Bay was likely to be either the location of the anomaly, or host to something important to the anomaly.
She just hoped it wouldn't be too effort-intensive, since she had to split her focus between managing the Doctor's various plans to ensure success and keeping Rebecca's pet organization afloat, but she strongly suspected that she'd find a way.
She didn't have the context to realize the fact that her issue was a result of something outside of the narrow capabilities of Shards. After all, the divine ward Odin had used to protect Taylor from the Simurgh's sight wasn't limited to just her form of precognition.
-----
And that's that!I was recently inspired to start another WIP, unfortunately (or, from certain points of view, fortunately), so look forward to a third longfic centered around one of my gender envy characters in Star Wars.
That's about it, so read, review, enjoy, and have a nice day!
I will bring the marshmallows to roast.
- Pronouns
- She/They
Good, it delivered the emotional gut punch I wanted. I was hoping that the whole "misguided pity" angle would make it hurt just that little bit more.
Uh… maybe? I mean, Mouse and Old Coyote aren't in Brockton at the moment, but the Teeth might make enough of a mess to put the brakes on Taylor's lawsuit and keep Sophia in the field for long enough for them to arrive. Not sure, but either way, there's room enough in horny jail for her and her little
I actually feel bad for Contessa in general, since she's an orphan with an alien supercomputer fucking with her neurochemistry while she became a child soldier for a war that never really ended, and given what the Doctor and Rebecca put her up to, she has to be all kinds of fucked up in the head. At least Odin isn't actively hostile to her
Honestly shit's fucked, and not even necessarily just in Brockton Bay. To borrow a line from… well, it's pretty famous, but most relevantly the Implacable thread on SB, may it rest in threadmark heaven: "if it can be destroyed by the truth, then maybe it deserves to be."
I hope you brought enough to share, young man.
For me, the "misguided pity" angle was lost in the overwhelming wave of action and emotion Taylor encountered.
Of course I will bring enough marshmallows for everyone, however, the marshmallows are not available yet.
Interlude 1: Coil, Aides Truth, Butcher XIII
- Pronouns
- She/They
The plot marches on, even through other eyes.
Also, I am not a lawyer or other legal professional, and while I might have a little information more than normal about the internal workings of a school district, I'm not an actual school administrator so what I say is probably not super accurate to real life. (Ah, saying this disclaimer reminds me of the Good Old Implacable days.)
Oh, he'd never admit to it, to anyone he wasn't imminently about to kill at least, but it was true.
Taylor Hebert was causing him problems, in multiple ways.
Piggot's response to her existence was obviously not great for his plans, but it was… manageable, if not perfect. He just had to get himself on record as against the course of action she was taking and he'd have maneuvered himself into a good position to take over as ENE's director once her tower of cards fell.
She was also talking with New Wave, potentially strengthening their capabilities, which would need to be carefully managed, going forwards.
The most direct was that she existed as a free agent, and one with such limited information about her abilities available to boot.
That wasn't for lack of trying, mind you. He'd made his efforts to elicit reactions from her, to take his own measure of her abilities (in throwaway timelines. He's no idiot), but… well, it hadn't worked out. The first time, he'd gotten… something, but it was some sort of odd sensory effect, as reported by his mercenaries in PRT uniforms, combined with the sounds of insects and some sort of energy blasts, before they started screaming. He had dropped that timeline quite quickly.
He had managed to track her on her visit to Vista and Quarrel, fortunately, but that just brought up more questions. The armor was… an odd costuming choice, given the presence of the Empire 88 in the city and the runic markings on said armor, but given the fact that his watchers had noted the presence of what looked to be some sort of hovering runic sigils (futhark, from all reports) before she activated what seemed to be a Mover effect, given that she covered much more ground than should be possible...
It was likely a highly versatile ability similar to Eidolon's, then, given the scope of abilities she had demonstrated, which was… worrying. His plans for the city were… robust, yes, but not robust enough to handle the bumbling interference of a child with delusions of grandeur and the parahuman equivalent of a nuclear warhead strapped to her fist.
Her involvement with Shadow Stalker's civilian identity shouldn't have been a problem… except for the fact that Piggot had decided to take the position that she should bury anything she could about her Trigger event. He'd had to scheme for almost a week to get permission to approach her over Vista, and that only worked because Piggot didn't trust parahumans as far as she, in all her disabled, out-of-shape-lack-of-glory, could throw them, and her personal biases let him smooth-talk her into investigating the Hebert girl.
Of course, since he'd… well, he didn't panic, he didn't, but the fact that he'd pulled back in both timelines meant that he had to investigate her again, and… well, apparently Panacea was sandbagging far more than he had been aware, given the way that she grabbed two of his mercenaries and they practically exploded into chunks of bloody viscera.
Given the circumstances, he felt justified in ending his assault on the hospital before the rest of New Wave arrived, even if he had managed to put down Panacea and failed to get more information about Taylor Hebert than her ability to escape the hospital on lockdown. Even if they weren't hiding any additional powers like Panacea, they were far more likely to reply violently over the death of their publicity cash cow than over the mid-tier Shaker who was already pulling away from New Wave.
He didn't see the bloodstained hand before it grabbed his ankle, blood corroding through his suit somehow. It barely got to his flesh before he felt something squirming within his chest.
The rupturing of the first something in his chest was only the first by random chance, since a number of other things burst at almost the same time, ending the timeline and making him realize that Panacea was a solid contender for the most dangerous cape in the city if she had somehow managed to survive multiple bullets directly to the head.
This was… a problem, in so many ways.
He almost didn't notice the report of Hebert's lawyer showing up, in the timeline where he'd stayed in his base, although in retrospect he would wish he had. The involvement of Aides Truth would inevitably have led to his own discovery, had his hand not been tipped thanks to Odin's- well. That is for another time, now, isn't it?
Not for himself, no. Direct applications of power aside, he'd amassed enough soft power over the years to all but guarantee that any person foolish enough to go after him would find themselves very swiftly out of a job, if the magnitude of their act was not sufficient to require his… direct retaliation.
No, he was concerned for Odin's successor.
She might have been being relatively discreet, for human standards, but even if he hadn't been able to see Odin's spirit offering her advice just as Mimir had for the Allfather, he had more than enough experience spotting godlings to catch this one, especially since she was well on her way to apotheosis, albeit not nearly close enough to have the protections of the Runes' favor.
Not nearly close enough to properly deal with the kind of timeline manipulation that Coil favored.
That kind of brute-force quantum bridging was likely all that could be wrested from the mind of a dying god (and there was no mistaking it for anything but stolen knowledge, not when it was that sloppily done) and was easily seen through, but the kid hadn't grown into her power enough to use any of the simpler methods of bridging timelines.
He was just thankful that, for all that power could be used for, Coil seemed content to play puppetmaster in a small town.
Of course, the man's small ambitions were still enough to present problems, especially since he had his hooks sunk deep into local government. That was actually why he was taking action at all: Odin's kid had gotten the eye of the PRT in a bad way, and he was more than willing to help her out when they were brazen enough to approach her in the middle of the hospital after being attacked at her school.
It took some convincing to let him past the front desk to her room since the PRT had already gone in, but after a few invocations of his position as her lawyer, as well as the presence of her father (who had, fortunately enough, arrived at about the same time as him) to vouch for him, had managed to get him into the room.
As he entered, flicking the voice recorder in his pocket on, he absently took note of Panacea in the right-hand corner, glaring at the PRT troopers looming over the girl looking too small in the bed.
"-a simple question, kid. Just tell us what happened on the third, and we'll be out of your hair." The trooper's voice seemed calm, on the surface, but there was an edge of irritation in his voice that spoke to how hard either Coil or Piggot was leaning on them for results.
He took the barest of instants to reach out across the fading link to the recently-abandoned timeline and register a pile of dead ex-Coil on the floor and Panacea laying hands on Taylor, knitting together a pair of bullet wounds in her arm, put a number of conclusions together about Coil's gambit, then refocused on the task at hand.
"What in the name of Mike are you doing?" asked Truth, crossing his arms.
The three troopers all turned at once, hands twitching towards their sidearms. "Sir," said the one standing over Taylor, "this is a PRT matter, Mr…"
"Aides Truth, Esquire," he replied. "Next to me is Danny Hebert, father of that teenager you're interrogating with just an underage medical intern in the room. No offense, Panacea." The edge in his voice disappeared with the last sentence.
"None taken, sir," replied the New Wave cape, still pressed against the wall.
"Good. Now then," he said, turning his focus back to the troopers, "you can tell me what you're doing interrogating a minor without a parent or legal guardian present in a hospital, of all places."
"Standard PRT Procedure, sir," the trooper lied. "We keep abreast of police systems for potential persons of interest, then under certain circumstances like this one we try to get in touch with them about the situation in question."
"In that case," said Truth, keeping an iron grip of his powers to prevent them from acting up, "why were you asking about the incident on the 3rd of January now, when she's in the hospital for a separate issue?"
Truth could see it put the troopers on the back foot, but the self-appointed spokesperson recovered admirably. "That I cannot talk about due to an ongoing internal PRT investigation."
Truth's eyebrows rose. "Is that so. In that case, we'll have it out in court, since you decided to drag my client into it. If you have nothing else to say here, then I suggest that you leave."
"If you insist," said the trooper, jerking his chin up. They left, albeit not without their faceless helmets lingering on Truth for a moment.
He turned to Taylor, offering a shade of a nod to Odin on the opposite side of Taylor as Panacea on his way. "Are you okay?" asked Truth.
"Well enough," said Taylor, hints of her predecessor's warrior temperament showing through in her voice. "Thank you for showing up so quickly, Mr. Truth."
"Of course, kid," he replied. "Once Panacea gets you cleared, go home and take a break. I assume that a police report has been filed based on what the troopers said?"
Taylor nodded. "Yeah, I said that I was attacked on school grounds by Sophia Hess again, and denied medical treatment at school."
"In that case, we should be able to have a case for having the school shut down. Do not go to school tomorrow, I should be able to get a judge to sign off on some kind of intervention within a few days." Truth turned to Panacea. "Call me if any legal issues come from this situation and Brandish is unable to help. Your mother should have my contact information, but if not, the Heberts should be able to reach me."
The tired-looking young woman nodded. "Thank you for the offer, sir."
"Thank you again for all your help, Mr. Truth," said Danny Hebert, nodding to the Greek-looking lawyer.
"Of course. I'll be in touch once I have a date for preliminary court proceedings against Winslow. Have a great day," he replied, nodding to all of the people present in the room before departing. He paused on Panacea for a moment, registering her own burgeoning divinity, before continuing on his way out.
Interesting. He wasn't aware that she'd found godhood too.
In any event, he had things to do, both here and… elsewhere, both as part of his contract to Odin's kid and otherwise.
Hades exited the hospital, acknowledging Thanatos' presence with a pulse of mystical power, then continued on his way. Death never stopped, after all, and neither did its gods.
"So, you finally killed the Butcher, then, Leverage?" replied the Empire 88's leader, deceptively relaxed, with Krieg, Hookwolf, Crusader, and Stormtiger at his back.
The Butcher, standing alone, bared their teeth. "I did what you never could, kid," they replied, silvering hair catching the sunlight as they cocked their head and grinned, a feral, toothy expression under the faceguard that the Butchers had adopted three years before Jack Slash had driven them from Brockton Bay.
The Butcher saw Kaiser's lips thin through their bloodsight, metal armor doing nothing to block the parahuman sense. "Why are you in Brockton Bay, Butcher?"
"Oh, that?" The Butcher twitched violently, then fixed Kaiser with their glare. "We're here for the filthy traitor who abandoned us and tried to kill Hemorrhagia. No one betrays the Teeth, not if they want to survive."
"And you know that Quarrel is here." Both of them knew that to be the case, but it had to be said, for formality's sake.
"Yes. Don't worry, brat, your twig of Gesellschaft will be left completely undamaged, so long as you don't stand in our way."
Kaiser really only had one option here, having no way to properly counter the Butcher (and, to a lesser extent, Spree and Vex), that let him walk away from this meeting saving any degree of face.
"Very well then, Butcher. I grant you leave to hunt your wayward member in my city."
The Butcher smirked. "Most gracious of you. Don't worry, it should be a quick in and out operation. After all, Quarrel isn't exactly a threat to me."
Anyways, like I said last chapter, I started a (relatively) Fay-centric fanfic, I have two chapters of There Is No Death, There Is Only The Force up.
That's about it, so read, review, enjoy, and have a nice day!
-----
Some of the stuff that Calvert says is… not great, and I just want to make it clear that his views are not representative of mine.
Also, I am not a lawyer or other legal professional, and while I might have a little information more than normal about the internal workings of a school district, I'm not an actual school administrator so what I say is probably not super accurate to real life. (Ah, saying this disclaimer reminds me of the Good Old Implacable days.)
-----
Thomas Calvert was… concerned.
Oh, he'd never admit to it, to anyone he wasn't imminently about to kill at least, but it was true.
Taylor Hebert was causing him problems, in multiple ways.
Piggot's response to her existence was obviously not great for his plans, but it was… manageable, if not perfect. He just had to get himself on record as against the course of action she was taking and he'd have maneuvered himself into a good position to take over as ENE's director once her tower of cards fell.
She was also talking with New Wave, potentially strengthening their capabilities, which would need to be carefully managed, going forwards.
The most direct was that she existed as a free agent, and one with such limited information about her abilities available to boot.
That wasn't for lack of trying, mind you. He'd made his efforts to elicit reactions from her, to take his own measure of her abilities (in throwaway timelines. He's no idiot), but… well, it hadn't worked out. The first time, he'd gotten… something, but it was some sort of odd sensory effect, as reported by his mercenaries in PRT uniforms, combined with the sounds of insects and some sort of energy blasts, before they started screaming. He had dropped that timeline quite quickly.
He had managed to track her on her visit to Vista and Quarrel, fortunately, but that just brought up more questions. The armor was… an odd costuming choice, given the presence of the Empire 88 in the city and the runic markings on said armor, but given the fact that his watchers had noted the presence of what looked to be some sort of hovering runic sigils (futhark, from all reports) before she activated what seemed to be a Mover effect, given that she covered much more ground than should be possible...
It was likely a highly versatile ability similar to Eidolon's, then, given the scope of abilities she had demonstrated, which was… worrying. His plans for the city were… robust, yes, but not robust enough to handle the bumbling interference of a child with delusions of grandeur and the parahuman equivalent of a nuclear warhead strapped to her fist.
Her involvement with Shadow Stalker's civilian identity shouldn't have been a problem… except for the fact that Piggot had decided to take the position that she should bury anything she could about her Trigger event. He'd had to scheme for almost a week to get permission to approach her over Vista, and that only worked because Piggot didn't trust parahumans as far as she, in all her disabled, out-of-shape-lack-of-glory, could throw them, and her personal biases let him smooth-talk her into investigating the Hebert girl.
Of course, since he'd… well, he didn't panic, he didn't, but the fact that he'd pulled back in both timelines meant that he had to investigate her again, and… well, apparently Panacea was sandbagging far more than he had been aware, given the way that she grabbed two of his mercenaries and they practically exploded into chunks of bloody viscera.
Given the circumstances, he felt justified in ending his assault on the hospital before the rest of New Wave arrived, even if he had managed to put down Panacea and failed to get more information about Taylor Hebert than her ability to escape the hospital on lockdown. Even if they weren't hiding any additional powers like Panacea, they were far more likely to reply violently over the death of their publicity cash cow than over the mid-tier Shaker who was already pulling away from New Wave.
He didn't see the bloodstained hand before it grabbed his ankle, blood corroding through his suit somehow. It barely got to his flesh before he felt something squirming within his chest.
The rupturing of the first something in his chest was only the first by random chance, since a number of other things burst at almost the same time, ending the timeline and making him realize that Panacea was a solid contender for the most dangerous cape in the city if she had somehow managed to survive multiple bullets directly to the head.
This was… a problem, in so many ways.
He almost didn't notice the report of Hebert's lawyer showing up, in the timeline where he'd stayed in his base, although in retrospect he would wish he had. The involvement of Aides Truth would inevitably have led to his own discovery, had his hand not been tipped thanks to Odin's- well. That is for another time, now, isn't it?
-----
Aides Truth, as he went by nowadays, was… somewhat concerned.
Not for himself, no. Direct applications of power aside, he'd amassed enough soft power over the years to all but guarantee that any person foolish enough to go after him would find themselves very swiftly out of a job, if the magnitude of their act was not sufficient to require his… direct retaliation.
No, he was concerned for Odin's successor.
She might have been being relatively discreet, for human standards, but even if he hadn't been able to see Odin's spirit offering her advice just as Mimir had for the Allfather, he had more than enough experience spotting godlings to catch this one, especially since she was well on her way to apotheosis, albeit not nearly close enough to have the protections of the Runes' favor.
Not nearly close enough to properly deal with the kind of timeline manipulation that Coil favored.
That kind of brute-force quantum bridging was likely all that could be wrested from the mind of a dying god (and there was no mistaking it for anything but stolen knowledge, not when it was that sloppily done) and was easily seen through, but the kid hadn't grown into her power enough to use any of the simpler methods of bridging timelines.
He was just thankful that, for all that power could be used for, Coil seemed content to play puppetmaster in a small town.
Of course, the man's small ambitions were still enough to present problems, especially since he had his hooks sunk deep into local government. That was actually why he was taking action at all: Odin's kid had gotten the eye of the PRT in a bad way, and he was more than willing to help her out when they were brazen enough to approach her in the middle of the hospital after being attacked at her school.
It took some convincing to let him past the front desk to her room since the PRT had already gone in, but after a few invocations of his position as her lawyer, as well as the presence of her father (who had, fortunately enough, arrived at about the same time as him) to vouch for him, had managed to get him into the room.
As he entered, flicking the voice recorder in his pocket on, he absently took note of Panacea in the right-hand corner, glaring at the PRT troopers looming over the girl looking too small in the bed.
"-a simple question, kid. Just tell us what happened on the third, and we'll be out of your hair." The trooper's voice seemed calm, on the surface, but there was an edge of irritation in his voice that spoke to how hard either Coil or Piggot was leaning on them for results.
He took the barest of instants to reach out across the fading link to the recently-abandoned timeline and register a pile of dead ex-Coil on the floor and Panacea laying hands on Taylor, knitting together a pair of bullet wounds in her arm, put a number of conclusions together about Coil's gambit, then refocused on the task at hand.
"What in the name of Mike are you doing?" asked Truth, crossing his arms.
The three troopers all turned at once, hands twitching towards their sidearms. "Sir," said the one standing over Taylor, "this is a PRT matter, Mr…"
"Aides Truth, Esquire," he replied. "Next to me is Danny Hebert, father of that teenager you're interrogating with just an underage medical intern in the room. No offense, Panacea." The edge in his voice disappeared with the last sentence.
"None taken, sir," replied the New Wave cape, still pressed against the wall.
"Good. Now then," he said, turning his focus back to the troopers, "you can tell me what you're doing interrogating a minor without a parent or legal guardian present in a hospital, of all places."
"Standard PRT Procedure, sir," the trooper lied. "We keep abreast of police systems for potential persons of interest, then under certain circumstances like this one we try to get in touch with them about the situation in question."
"In that case," said Truth, keeping an iron grip of his powers to prevent them from acting up, "why were you asking about the incident on the 3rd of January now, when she's in the hospital for a separate issue?"
Truth could see it put the troopers on the back foot, but the self-appointed spokesperson recovered admirably. "That I cannot talk about due to an ongoing internal PRT investigation."
Truth's eyebrows rose. "Is that so. In that case, we'll have it out in court, since you decided to drag my client into it. If you have nothing else to say here, then I suggest that you leave."
"If you insist," said the trooper, jerking his chin up. They left, albeit not without their faceless helmets lingering on Truth for a moment.
He turned to Taylor, offering a shade of a nod to Odin on the opposite side of Taylor as Panacea on his way. "Are you okay?" asked Truth.
"Well enough," said Taylor, hints of her predecessor's warrior temperament showing through in her voice. "Thank you for showing up so quickly, Mr. Truth."
"Of course, kid," he replied. "Once Panacea gets you cleared, go home and take a break. I assume that a police report has been filed based on what the troopers said?"
Taylor nodded. "Yeah, I said that I was attacked on school grounds by Sophia Hess again, and denied medical treatment at school."
"In that case, we should be able to have a case for having the school shut down. Do not go to school tomorrow, I should be able to get a judge to sign off on some kind of intervention within a few days." Truth turned to Panacea. "Call me if any legal issues come from this situation and Brandish is unable to help. Your mother should have my contact information, but if not, the Heberts should be able to reach me."
The tired-looking young woman nodded. "Thank you for the offer, sir."
"Thank you again for all your help, Mr. Truth," said Danny Hebert, nodding to the Greek-looking lawyer.
"Of course. I'll be in touch once I have a date for preliminary court proceedings against Winslow. Have a great day," he replied, nodding to all of the people present in the room before departing. He paused on Panacea for a moment, registering her own burgeoning divinity, before continuing on his way out.
Interesting. He wasn't aware that she'd found godhood too.
In any event, he had things to do, both here and… elsewhere, both as part of his contract to Odin's kid and otherwise.
Hades exited the hospital, acknowledging Thanatos' presence with a pulse of mystical power, then continued on his way. Death never stopped, after all, and neither did its gods.
-----
The Butcher folded their arms, glaring at the metal-clad fool in front of him. "Kaiser."
"So, you finally killed the Butcher, then, Leverage?" replied the Empire 88's leader, deceptively relaxed, with Krieg, Hookwolf, Crusader, and Stormtiger at his back.
The Butcher, standing alone, bared their teeth. "I did what you never could, kid," they replied, silvering hair catching the sunlight as they cocked their head and grinned, a feral, toothy expression under the faceguard that the Butchers had adopted three years before Jack Slash had driven them from Brockton Bay.
The Butcher saw Kaiser's lips thin through their bloodsight, metal armor doing nothing to block the parahuman sense. "Why are you in Brockton Bay, Butcher?"
"Oh, that?" The Butcher twitched violently, then fixed Kaiser with their glare. "We're here for the filthy traitor who abandoned us and tried to kill Hemorrhagia. No one betrays the Teeth, not if they want to survive."
"And you know that Quarrel is here." Both of them knew that to be the case, but it had to be said, for formality's sake.
"Yes. Don't worry, brat, your twig of Gesellschaft will be left completely undamaged, so long as you don't stand in our way."
Kaiser really only had one option here, having no way to properly counter the Butcher (and, to a lesser extent, Spree and Vex), that let him walk away from this meeting saving any degree of face.
"Very well then, Butcher. I grant you leave to hunt your wayward member in my city."
The Butcher smirked. "Most gracious of you. Don't worry, it should be a quick in and out operation. After all, Quarrel isn't exactly a threat to me."
-----
Famous last words, Leverage.Anyways, like I said last chapter, I started a (relatively) Fay-centric fanfic, I have two chapters of There Is No Death, There Is Only The Force up.
That's about it, so read, review, enjoy, and have a nice day!
Last edited:
Kagemoto
I stand against the Infinite Horizon
- Location
- Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high.
- Pronouns
- She/They
He doesn't know that Quarrel could vacate his brain cavity through his ear. Quarrel suspects she could (and she would in a heartbeat, if it meant keeping Vista safe), but she's the only one who's harboring that suspicion.
Tisaku
Head Chief Thinkomancer
- Pronouns
- She/They
Ah, no. That is exactly as it should be (a pile of meat that was once Coil).
Noticed Truth showing up. I will admit the sentence structure obfuscates that a little bit but not too too much imo.
Tisaku
Head Chief Thinkomancer
-Except he almost missed it. Therefore he did notice.-
Kagemoto
I stand against the Infinite Horizon
- Location
- Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high.
First Bite at the Apple
- Pronouns
- She/They
Taylor comes face to face with the Teeth, for a given value of face to face.
Turning her attention to her bugs, she sensed three groups of people, all shooting at each other (and splattering her bugs).
One group was disorganized and covered in spikes and… well, suffice it to say that Taylor had no doubt that they were the Teeth, since while she'd been young when they were driven from the city by the Nine, the threat of the Butcher returning to the Bay was one of the things she was concerned about even with her powers.
The second group was also disorganized and lacking in obvious identifying themes that she could make out with her bugs, but the presence of more Oni Lee clones appearing to take bullets for them made it obvious that they were the ABB.
The third was only two people atop a building, one with a tall recurve bow in her hands and standing protectively over the slumped-over form of the other, smaller person, which was not a good sign.
As the truck rolled to a stop, Taylor tore her seat belt off and all but leapt out of the car, already calling up the runes to conjure her armor and landing in a classic three-point landing.
"T-Taylor? What are you doing?" There was a tremor of fear in his voice.
"I can see Vista and Quarrel in a three-way fight over there," said Taylor. "If nothing else, I need to get them out."
He sighed. "You're not going to stop for anything I say, are you?"
She shook her head. "I can't, dad. Not if I want to know that I did all I could."
"Then stay safe, Taylor. I'll get to the Docks, it's probably safer than home right now." Taylor nodded, and then closed the door.
"Stay safe, dad," she said, holding her right hand out in front of her, palm up, to summon a Raidō rune. With that, she blurred into motion, relying on her sense of where her bugs were to avoid the fighting and make her way to Quarrel and Vista safely.
When Taylor ran up the side of the building and emerged on top, Quarrel sent a shaft her way without even looking, relying on her power to nail the shot. If not for Taylor's hand blurring up to catch the arrow, guided by the rune's magic, it would have gone through her helmet's eyehole and probably taken her one remaining eye, but as it was, she was safe.
"Watch your allies," said Taylor crossly, flicking the arrow back as the support of the concept of a Journey faded at having reached the destination.
Without looking, Quarrel snapped her right hand out, caught the arrow, then re-nocked it and planted it in a Teeth gangster's foot, leaving him easy prey for Oni Lee to slit his throat. "Noted. Can you do anything for Vista? She took a fall after the damn Oni bastard tried to slit her throat and knocked herself out. Also, what am I supposed to call you in costume?"
"Probably?" Taylor frowned, trying to remember which runes that she'd discussed with Odin were useful for healing. "And , uh…" Mentally, she sent a plea for suggestions to Odin.
"Volur. Plural form of volva, for a… female diviner is close, in this language, but the concept doesn't carry over quite that well," said Odin.
Sending a mental pulse of gratitude to him, Taylor said "You can call me Volur."
Taylor knelt over Vista, Ansuz flickering to life on the forehead of her helm for insight into the girl's condition, and then sighed. "No major damage, just a minor concussion. I should be able to heal this, if you want to escape with-"
"No, I'm finishing what I started. Butcher's a fucking bastard, he won't stop until one of us is dead, but he ain't showed yet. Probably slugging it out with Lung, the ass."
"...right." Taylor remembered when the Protectorate had beaten off Lung a few years back, but she was skeptical that any one cape not on the Triumvirate, even the Butcher, could do it single-handedly without a whole lot of luck. Then, she focused, and the right rune bubbled up out of her memory. "There might be a slight lightshow," she said.
The rune that appeared over Vista, which resembled a large B made out of two triangles touching at one corner, was approximately the size of Quarrel's bow, which itself was tall enough to come almost up to the ex-Teeth cape's bust (which Taylor had to almost force herself not to focus on once the rune burned out, since in her position it was almost directly at her eye level).
A moment later, Vista blinked her eyes open blearily. "Taylor? Whassgoinon?"
"Teeth ambush," said Quarrel firmly. "Some dude in a demon mask showed up and helped distract 'em, and it sounds like your local dragon's fighting the Butcher, but we're still dealing with things." She cocked her head. "Hey, Volur. You got anything good at range?"
"I have a trick or two," said Taylor, drawing together a swarm of every bug the Administrator was willing to give her within her radius. Then, she almost smacked herself as she remembered a simpler solution than just "biblical plague".
She focused, visualizing the effect she wanted as she got to her feet, then spread her hands as if to throw a volleyball.
The rune that appeared over the assembled gangsters would have reminded them of lessons on integrals in calculus classes, had they had any.
Of course, it didn't last long, vanishing in a sprinkle of golden embers as Taylor staggered, visibly drained, but it did its job, putting a significant portion of both sides' unpowered forces to sleep, as well as staggering the two Teeth capes present.
Once they'd regained their balance, the two capes turned to glare at Taylor. One flicked a hand, sending a spray of what looked like glass shards up to shatter against Taylor's armor, doing nothing more than sending her staggering back. The other clenched her fists as red liquid gathered along her arms and legs, solidifying into claws on her hands and feet to allow her to begin to climb the building.
Vista shoved out with both hands, and one eye-searing moment later, the climbing cape was abruptly across the street while still on the building, and Quarrel spared a shaft for the woman (which knocked her off the building, landing awkwardly next to her compatriot) as she sent the majority of her ammunition at the other cape, who was forced to pull her odd shards of not-glass back to defend herself, maintaining a constant motion of the things to thwart Quarrel's power and chew through her arrows.
"Anything else?" snapped Quarrel, snapping off a shot that curved around to hit the one that wasn't covered in blood- or at least it would have had it not been shredded by the shards of not-glass.
"Sowilo," said Odin. "Either the lightning punches through the villain's shields or the flash and bang will stun them."
Taylor nodded. "Let's try… this!" She threw her hand forwards as if throwing a javelin, and a rune that appeared like a capital sigma which had its top and bottom portions pulled apart appeared in front of her. "Close your eyes and cover your ears," she hissed.
The air took on an almost greasy quality as Taylor staggered, drained by the effort of multiple effects larger than she'd tried before, and then-
The air split with a sound like an artillery cannon going off, and everything went white.
The ringing in Taylor's ears cleared up faster than she expected, and she blinked her eye open to see Quarrel pinning the Shaker to the street through her shoes, then swerving an arrow to smack her in the face and knock her down, at which point arrows seemed to almost erupt from her costume, leaving her flat on her back with almost no mobility. Vista, meanwhile, was hurling bricks with her power ar the blood-covered one, a pile of the things on top of the building they were on shrinking slowly but surely as she wore her target down.
Or at least, she was, until Oni Lee appeared behind them, knife flashing towards Quarrel. The archer cape lunged backwards, arrow held backwards in her hand to take him in the chest and destroy the clone before he could give her more than a scratch.
"Fuck," said Quarrel, eyes darting around to try and track the ABB teleporter and failing. "Alright, kiddies, time to tag out. I can't nail the Oni reliably when he's jumping around and I don't feel comfortable giving him free reign at either of you, so we'll leave him to fight Hemorrhagia and Vex."
"Sounds like a plan," said Taylor, still a little short of breath from the relatively large showing of raw power she'd put on. "Gimme a sec and I can speed our escape along."
"Nifty," said Quarrel, stabbing another Oni Lee clone in the throat with the arrow still clenched in her fist and then sending the arrow towards the presumable Hemorrhagia covered in red liquid and repeating the process, draining her remaining quiver a little too quickly for comfort. "Vista, get us a path out of here so that when Volur here is ready, we can book it but good."
With these orders, Taylor saw Odin's esteem of the other cape rise a few notches, an assessment that she shared.
"Got it," the diminutive Shaker replied, turning away from the two active Teeth capes and waving her hands. In a matter of seconds, a building two streets away abruptly closed the distance to their building, and immediately after that another two buildings (both further than the first) followed suit, forming a pseudo-bridge for them to cross away from battle.
Now that Taylor had had a moment to breathe, she brought in the swarm she'd been gathering for the whole fight and hurled it at the Teeth capes, quite handily disrupting their efforts to regroup and (in Vex's case) disrupting line of sight and preventing attacks. Then, she flicked a Raidō rune into the air above her party of three, letting the concept of a journey wrap around all three of them and speed their steps. "We're good, let's get going," she said, putting deed to word and jogging across the nearly adjacent rooftops (albeit not without some discomfort from the eye-searing effects of Vista's power).
The other two capes followed suit, evidently more used to the distortions by the way they didn't even flinch when crossing the boundaries between rooftops.
Once they made it to the last rooftop in the line, Vista relaxed her grip on space's metaphorical balls and the other buildings were abruptly no longer next to theirs, leaving them about a mile away from the site of the fight.
"Alright," said Taylor, sitting down on a conveniently located brick chimney, "so why are the Teeth back in the Bay? Present company excluded, of course. I already know why you're here."
"Uh… yeah, so I didn't leave under the best of terms, per se, since I got pissy when Hemorrhagia tried to stop me from coming to help Vista. She never liked me to start with, so I bet this is her convincing the Butcher that I betrayed them or some shit. I dunno, why d'you ask?" Quarrel finally slung her bow on her back, grimacing at her nearly empty quiver.
Taylor sighed gustily. "Great. So now we have to stay out of reach of both the Protectorate and the Teeth, both of which have great justifiable reason to hunt us down and/or come after us in our sleep."
"But the Unwritten Rules would-" begun Vista.
"Unwritten Rules ain't gonna stop the Butcher, nothing stops them, and since the PRT's already been sniffing around your personal identity, Volur, I wouldn't put too much trust in 'em there, or at least not the identity protection aspect."
Taylor's head fell into her hands. "I should have stayed in bed this morning," she groused.
"And the Teeth?" growled Lung, already suspecting the answer given the timing of the Butcher driving him back.
"I attempted to capitalize on the obfuscation that the fresh trigger left behind and eliminate their capes, but Hemorrhagia and Vex were too canny for me to defeat, and when the Butcher arrived, the men retreated. I engaged the Teeth and managed to wound Reaver before being pushed back."
"Very well. And our losses?"
"Minor. The unpowered Teeth were unskilled rabble, and aside from at Vex and Hemorrhagia's hands, none of our men died."
"That is still unacceptable. We will need greater firepower to return this insult as the Teeth deserve." Lung went silent in contemplation for a moment. "I believe I have a solution. Tell me, what do you know about the woman known as the Cornell Bomber?"
"Not much beyond her nationality, Lung-sama. I believe she used some sort of exotic explosive effects to threaten the campus, but the exact mechanism eludes me. She may be a Tinker, or a Nuker."
"I see." More silent contemplation. "I believe that she will suit our needs admirably. Make preparations for a trip to New York. This woman's power will greatly strengthen our reach and potentially even remove the Butcher from the board without killing her, given the portion of the campus that is frozen in time."
"It will be done, Lung-sama." Oni Lee turned to leave the room.
"It might even allow for the restoration of your previous mindset," mused Lung quietly, once the other man had gone.
Oni Lee had once been a cunning man, a powerful advisor and an equal to Lung himself, back when he held hope of driving Kaiser and his ilk from the city. Now, the man's powers had taken their toll on him, stealing his initiative and keen tactical wit save for occasional flashes of genius. If the woman was a Nuker, she would be incapable of restoring Oni Lee, but if not… in that case, Tinkers could do anything they put their minds to, if given ample resources and a link to their specialty.
Even if she failed… well, Cranial's services were always for hire.
Lung sighed, putting thoughts of the man who had once been his most faithful friend (and recovering that man) out of his mind. He had a gang war to fight, and musing on maybes wouldn't serve him and his men. No, only actual tactical thought would win this war.
Lung sat alone in his room and plotted the downfall of the Teeth, and while that might not have been frightening to most, it was only because they underestimated the cape who had once fought Leviathan to a standstill.
The Teeth would fall before him, as all challengers before them and all yet to come save for the beast who sank Kyushu, its ilk, and the woman in the hat. Lung would not be so humiliated again.
This he swore, on the spirits of his ancestors and the blood he had shed for his city: The Teeth would burn.
FYI, the thing that Oni Lee calls Quarrel is just Japanese for archer, as far as I'm aware (Google is limited in its ability to help, and it's all I had to work with).
I'm taking a little bit of liberty with the thing Bakuda did at Cornell, since iirc she didn't actually set off a time stop bomb there.
That's it, so read, review, enjoy, and have a nice day!
-----
This month has been… not great. Things have cooled down some, and my muse finally let me get back to this fic.-----
The first sign of things going wrong on Taylor's way home was Oni Lee being hurled into the road hard enough to explode into a cloud of ash that very inconveniently decided to make itself at home on the windshield of the truck.Turning her attention to her bugs, she sensed three groups of people, all shooting at each other (and splattering her bugs).
One group was disorganized and covered in spikes and… well, suffice it to say that Taylor had no doubt that they were the Teeth, since while she'd been young when they were driven from the city by the Nine, the threat of the Butcher returning to the Bay was one of the things she was concerned about even with her powers.
The second group was also disorganized and lacking in obvious identifying themes that she could make out with her bugs, but the presence of more Oni Lee clones appearing to take bullets for them made it obvious that they were the ABB.
The third was only two people atop a building, one with a tall recurve bow in her hands and standing protectively over the slumped-over form of the other, smaller person, which was not a good sign.
As the truck rolled to a stop, Taylor tore her seat belt off and all but leapt out of the car, already calling up the runes to conjure her armor and landing in a classic three-point landing.
"T-Taylor? What are you doing?" There was a tremor of fear in his voice.
"I can see Vista and Quarrel in a three-way fight over there," said Taylor. "If nothing else, I need to get them out."
He sighed. "You're not going to stop for anything I say, are you?"
She shook her head. "I can't, dad. Not if I want to know that I did all I could."
"Then stay safe, Taylor. I'll get to the Docks, it's probably safer than home right now." Taylor nodded, and then closed the door.
"Stay safe, dad," she said, holding her right hand out in front of her, palm up, to summon a Raidō rune. With that, she blurred into motion, relying on her sense of where her bugs were to avoid the fighting and make her way to Quarrel and Vista safely.
When Taylor ran up the side of the building and emerged on top, Quarrel sent a shaft her way without even looking, relying on her power to nail the shot. If not for Taylor's hand blurring up to catch the arrow, guided by the rune's magic, it would have gone through her helmet's eyehole and probably taken her one remaining eye, but as it was, she was safe.
"Watch your allies," said Taylor crossly, flicking the arrow back as the support of the concept of a Journey faded at having reached the destination.
Without looking, Quarrel snapped her right hand out, caught the arrow, then re-nocked it and planted it in a Teeth gangster's foot, leaving him easy prey for Oni Lee to slit his throat. "Noted. Can you do anything for Vista? She took a fall after the damn Oni bastard tried to slit her throat and knocked herself out. Also, what am I supposed to call you in costume?"
"Probably?" Taylor frowned, trying to remember which runes that she'd discussed with Odin were useful for healing. "And , uh…" Mentally, she sent a plea for suggestions to Odin.
"Volur. Plural form of volva, for a… female diviner is close, in this language, but the concept doesn't carry over quite that well," said Odin.
Sending a mental pulse of gratitude to him, Taylor said "You can call me Volur."
Taylor knelt over Vista, Ansuz flickering to life on the forehead of her helm for insight into the girl's condition, and then sighed. "No major damage, just a minor concussion. I should be able to heal this, if you want to escape with-"
"No, I'm finishing what I started. Butcher's a fucking bastard, he won't stop until one of us is dead, but he ain't showed yet. Probably slugging it out with Lung, the ass."
"...right." Taylor remembered when the Protectorate had beaten off Lung a few years back, but she was skeptical that any one cape not on the Triumvirate, even the Butcher, could do it single-handedly without a whole lot of luck. Then, she focused, and the right rune bubbled up out of her memory. "There might be a slight lightshow," she said.
The rune that appeared over Vista, which resembled a large B made out of two triangles touching at one corner, was approximately the size of Quarrel's bow, which itself was tall enough to come almost up to the ex-Teeth cape's bust (which Taylor had to almost force herself not to focus on once the rune burned out, since in her position it was almost directly at her eye level).
A moment later, Vista blinked her eyes open blearily. "Taylor? Whassgoinon?"
"Teeth ambush," said Quarrel firmly. "Some dude in a demon mask showed up and helped distract 'em, and it sounds like your local dragon's fighting the Butcher, but we're still dealing with things." She cocked her head. "Hey, Volur. You got anything good at range?"
"I have a trick or two," said Taylor, drawing together a swarm of every bug the Administrator was willing to give her within her radius. Then, she almost smacked herself as she remembered a simpler solution than just "biblical plague".
She focused, visualizing the effect she wanted as she got to her feet, then spread her hands as if to throw a volleyball.
The rune that appeared over the assembled gangsters would have reminded them of lessons on integrals in calculus classes, had they had any.
Of course, it didn't last long, vanishing in a sprinkle of golden embers as Taylor staggered, visibly drained, but it did its job, putting a significant portion of both sides' unpowered forces to sleep, as well as staggering the two Teeth capes present.
Once they'd regained their balance, the two capes turned to glare at Taylor. One flicked a hand, sending a spray of what looked like glass shards up to shatter against Taylor's armor, doing nothing more than sending her staggering back. The other clenched her fists as red liquid gathered along her arms and legs, solidifying into claws on her hands and feet to allow her to begin to climb the building.
Vista shoved out with both hands, and one eye-searing moment later, the climbing cape was abruptly across the street while still on the building, and Quarrel spared a shaft for the woman (which knocked her off the building, landing awkwardly next to her compatriot) as she sent the majority of her ammunition at the other cape, who was forced to pull her odd shards of not-glass back to defend herself, maintaining a constant motion of the things to thwart Quarrel's power and chew through her arrows.
"Anything else?" snapped Quarrel, snapping off a shot that curved around to hit the one that wasn't covered in blood- or at least it would have had it not been shredded by the shards of not-glass.
"Sowilo," said Odin. "Either the lightning punches through the villain's shields or the flash and bang will stun them."
Taylor nodded. "Let's try… this!" She threw her hand forwards as if throwing a javelin, and a rune that appeared like a capital sigma which had its top and bottom portions pulled apart appeared in front of her. "Close your eyes and cover your ears," she hissed.
The air took on an almost greasy quality as Taylor staggered, drained by the effort of multiple effects larger than she'd tried before, and then-
The air split with a sound like an artillery cannon going off, and everything went white.
The ringing in Taylor's ears cleared up faster than she expected, and she blinked her eye open to see Quarrel pinning the Shaker to the street through her shoes, then swerving an arrow to smack her in the face and knock her down, at which point arrows seemed to almost erupt from her costume, leaving her flat on her back with almost no mobility. Vista, meanwhile, was hurling bricks with her power ar the blood-covered one, a pile of the things on top of the building they were on shrinking slowly but surely as she wore her target down.
Or at least, she was, until Oni Lee appeared behind them, knife flashing towards Quarrel. The archer cape lunged backwards, arrow held backwards in her hand to take him in the chest and destroy the clone before he could give her more than a scratch.
"Fuck," said Quarrel, eyes darting around to try and track the ABB teleporter and failing. "Alright, kiddies, time to tag out. I can't nail the Oni reliably when he's jumping around and I don't feel comfortable giving him free reign at either of you, so we'll leave him to fight Hemorrhagia and Vex."
"Sounds like a plan," said Taylor, still a little short of breath from the relatively large showing of raw power she'd put on. "Gimme a sec and I can speed our escape along."
"Nifty," said Quarrel, stabbing another Oni Lee clone in the throat with the arrow still clenched in her fist and then sending the arrow towards the presumable Hemorrhagia covered in red liquid and repeating the process, draining her remaining quiver a little too quickly for comfort. "Vista, get us a path out of here so that when Volur here is ready, we can book it but good."
With these orders, Taylor saw Odin's esteem of the other cape rise a few notches, an assessment that she shared.
"Got it," the diminutive Shaker replied, turning away from the two active Teeth capes and waving her hands. In a matter of seconds, a building two streets away abruptly closed the distance to their building, and immediately after that another two buildings (both further than the first) followed suit, forming a pseudo-bridge for them to cross away from battle.
Now that Taylor had had a moment to breathe, she brought in the swarm she'd been gathering for the whole fight and hurled it at the Teeth capes, quite handily disrupting their efforts to regroup and (in Vex's case) disrupting line of sight and preventing attacks. Then, she flicked a Raidō rune into the air above her party of three, letting the concept of a journey wrap around all three of them and speed their steps. "We're good, let's get going," she said, putting deed to word and jogging across the nearly adjacent rooftops (albeit not without some discomfort from the eye-searing effects of Vista's power).
The other two capes followed suit, evidently more used to the distortions by the way they didn't even flinch when crossing the boundaries between rooftops.
Once they made it to the last rooftop in the line, Vista relaxed her grip on space's metaphorical balls and the other buildings were abruptly no longer next to theirs, leaving them about a mile away from the site of the fight.
"Alright," said Taylor, sitting down on a conveniently located brick chimney, "so why are the Teeth back in the Bay? Present company excluded, of course. I already know why you're here."
"Uh… yeah, so I didn't leave under the best of terms, per se, since I got pissy when Hemorrhagia tried to stop me from coming to help Vista. She never liked me to start with, so I bet this is her convincing the Butcher that I betrayed them or some shit. I dunno, why d'you ask?" Quarrel finally slung her bow on her back, grimacing at her nearly empty quiver.
Taylor sighed gustily. "Great. So now we have to stay out of reach of both the Protectorate and the Teeth, both of which have great justifiable reason to hunt us down and/or come after us in our sleep."
"But the Unwritten Rules would-" begun Vista.
"Unwritten Rules ain't gonna stop the Butcher, nothing stops them, and since the PRT's already been sniffing around your personal identity, Volur, I wouldn't put too much trust in 'em there, or at least not the identity protection aspect."
Taylor's head fell into her hands. "I should have stayed in bed this morning," she groused.
-----
"Lung-sama, the kyūjūtsushi and her allies have escaped from our confrontation with them and the Teeth. It appears to be a fresh trigger, the kyūjūtsushi herself, and also Vista, of the Wards here in Brockton Bay." Oni Lee's voice was precise, crisp, and nearly emotionless."And the Teeth?" growled Lung, already suspecting the answer given the timing of the Butcher driving him back.
"I attempted to capitalize on the obfuscation that the fresh trigger left behind and eliminate their capes, but Hemorrhagia and Vex were too canny for me to defeat, and when the Butcher arrived, the men retreated. I engaged the Teeth and managed to wound Reaver before being pushed back."
"Very well. And our losses?"
"Minor. The unpowered Teeth were unskilled rabble, and aside from at Vex and Hemorrhagia's hands, none of our men died."
"That is still unacceptable. We will need greater firepower to return this insult as the Teeth deserve." Lung went silent in contemplation for a moment. "I believe I have a solution. Tell me, what do you know about the woman known as the Cornell Bomber?"
"Not much beyond her nationality, Lung-sama. I believe she used some sort of exotic explosive effects to threaten the campus, but the exact mechanism eludes me. She may be a Tinker, or a Nuker."
"I see." More silent contemplation. "I believe that she will suit our needs admirably. Make preparations for a trip to New York. This woman's power will greatly strengthen our reach and potentially even remove the Butcher from the board without killing her, given the portion of the campus that is frozen in time."
"It will be done, Lung-sama." Oni Lee turned to leave the room.
"It might even allow for the restoration of your previous mindset," mused Lung quietly, once the other man had gone.
Oni Lee had once been a cunning man, a powerful advisor and an equal to Lung himself, back when he held hope of driving Kaiser and his ilk from the city. Now, the man's powers had taken their toll on him, stealing his initiative and keen tactical wit save for occasional flashes of genius. If the woman was a Nuker, she would be incapable of restoring Oni Lee, but if not… in that case, Tinkers could do anything they put their minds to, if given ample resources and a link to their specialty.
Even if she failed… well, Cranial's services were always for hire.
Lung sighed, putting thoughts of the man who had once been his most faithful friend (and recovering that man) out of his mind. He had a gang war to fight, and musing on maybes wouldn't serve him and his men. No, only actual tactical thought would win this war.
Lung sat alone in his room and plotted the downfall of the Teeth, and while that might not have been frightening to most, it was only because they underestimated the cape who had once fought Leviathan to a standstill.
The Teeth would fall before him, as all challengers before them and all yet to come save for the beast who sank Kyushu, its ilk, and the woman in the hat. Lung would not be so humiliated again.
This he swore, on the spirits of his ancestors and the blood he had shed for his city: The Teeth would burn.
-----
And that's about it!FYI, the thing that Oni Lee calls Quarrel is just Japanese for archer, as far as I'm aware (Google is limited in its ability to help, and it's all I had to work with).
I'm taking a little bit of liberty with the thing Bakuda did at Cornell, since iirc she didn't actually set off a time stop bomb there.
That's it, so read, review, enjoy, and have a nice day!
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Keep forgetting to ask, but are the problems with the PRT (the forced recruitment, the way Vista was treated, etc) only a local problem, or is it a problem nationwide?