Today is my birthday. And while getting lunch I had an idea, so the thread gets a present.
Inspired by a random thought. What if the
Mauling Canon verse got
another visitor?
Riley sighed as she looked over the man that she'd found in the alley outside the apartment building she'd been staying in. He'd been severely injured, and she'd had to disengage the charging circuits on some of the cleverly implanted tinkertech in his body while repairing some of the damage it'd obviously taken before his arrival. She'd reconnected things since, of course. It was too bad that Amy wasn't around to heal him up faster and better, but she was on a quick trip and had left Riley behind.
The latter was probably for the better, given the state the man had been in when she'd found him. He was obviously a parahuman and she'd found him in smoking, heavily damaged power armor. Unsalvageable, as far as she could tell. The implanted tech was familiar enough to make her think that she'd worked on him at some point, not that he or the tech was familiar enough for it to have been
her-her. That wasn't nearly as surprising as it could've been a few months ago, of course, but it was still quite odd.
Nodding to herself that there wasn't anything more to do for the man, she decided to heat up some water for when he woke. He might want a hot drink, even if her options on that front were limited. Or she had some cold drink options as well, of course. She planned on listening to his story, if he was willing to tell it, before calling the PRT to report him either way.
She'd timed things well, and the man had woken just as the water reached a boil. "Evening. Would you like a drink? I've got tea, instant coffee, hot chocolate, cold water, apple juice, orange juice, and skim milk right now."
He coughed a couple of times. "Cold water will be fine."
That took her no time to gather before she brought it over to him. He accepted the glass and downed it before taking a good look at her. "Riley?"
She nodded. "I guess that means that either we meet again in the future or you're not from around here, given the things implanted in you."
He snorted. "Likely the latter." He then looked around. "Er, do you mind if I list off some names to see if you recognize any of them?"
"To see if you're somewhere you recognize, right? Might as well, but I've only recently started re-integrating into society."
That caused him to blink a couple of times, but he seemed to shrug it off. "Skitter?"
"Nope."
"Weaver?"
She shook her head.
He gulped. "Khepri?"
"I think they were half considering calling one of the Endbringers that as a codename?"
That made him shiver, but he continued. "The Techno Queen?" He flinched as he finished that one, for whatever reason. She shook her head. "Marceau? Banshee? Shy Girl? Summoner? Starfield?" He shivered again.
"None of them sound familiar."
He seemed to have relaxed. Slightly. "Saurial? Raptaur? Kaiju? Ianthe? Metis?" He paused again, looking more nervous. "Varga?"
"I think I've seen an anime that mentioned the last one? It was kinda stupid though."
"Taylor Hebert?"
That had Riley blinking. "Which one?"
The man went stiff, eyes wide. "What do you mean,
which one?"
Riley shrugged. "They both ended up outed for different reasons. There's the local Taylor Hebert, insect controller. Piper of the Wards. Currently spends a lot of time doing pest control. Then there's the non-local Taylor Hebert, came over in some kind of accident. Goes by Maul officially, and she's the scary one."
"There are
two of them? And the one that
doesn't control insects is the
scary one?"
She nodded. "Yeah. She's from another Earth Bet. Came over in an accident, killed or captured the Nine solo. Gave me a spanking and put me on the right path in the process. Being made to kill the Butcher ended up with twenty dead Endbringers, two Scions running off to do who knows what, and sweeping changes in parahumans across both world sets."
It took a moment for her to realize that he'd hyperventilated to the point of fainting. Shrugging, she took the glass he'd already downed and went to refill it for when he woke up. She also figured that she could grab a printout of the known details of both Taylor Heberts, since he seemed so concerned about them and all.
Chris stared at the printouts that Riley had given him, wanting to panic but unable to do so properly thanks to whatever drugs the girl had injected him with before he'd woken up. Not only had he
not escaped Hebert, he'd run into a world with
two of her. One that was from another world entirely. He was horrified, because that meant
they could start following him.
If that wasn't bad enough, he was stuck here for at least two more days while his implanted tech recharged. Even if Riley had fixed a number of issues he hadn't been able to correct himself. The local Hebert was bad enough, even if she
hadn't done most of the things insect-controlling Heberts usually did. But the visiting one?
The mere
idea of a Taylor Hebert that could
one-shot Endbringers with a handgun was
terrifying. That her family likely included her version of the Slaughterhouse Nine in some fashion and she'd
shrugged off the Butcher's attempt at jumping to her just made things worse. He blamed her for the seemingly-friendly Scions, but didn't trust that they were
actually friendly. That was likely some kind of trick, even if one of them had apparently wiped out a pile of Endbringers he hadn't even known about.
Getting out of here was a high priority. At the same time, it was
currently calm enough to build a new set of armor before he left.
"Hello there Helvetia," Riley's voice floated in from the other room. Who the hell was Helvetia? That was answered a moment later when Riley led another girl into the room.
"Hello," Chris said, confused.
"Hi there," the likely Helvetia said as she bounced over to him. She tilted her head before flashing a couple of times to show that she had some kind of powers. Once the light show was over she grinned. He felt a
lot better when she did so, at least physically, as though she'd healed his wounds and revitalized him. "Ooooh! Another 70767380! Your implanted technology is interesting, it works along an axis that I don't think we even knew
existed. I wonder if Coordinator will let us explore later?"
"Who or what are you?"
The girl blinked. "Right, you're not local. I'm a Troubleshooter, an upgraded Combat Engine. Probably known as Endbringers? I was sent here with a couple of others to help a then-stranded Taylor Hebert when she was attacked by the local versions. She's off playing focus for the merging of the two shard networks right now."
Shit. The dimension-hopping Hebert had
Endbringer allies as well? And this one seemed to understand his tech well enough to know both how it worked and what dimensional axis it functioned along. Not to mention that she wanted to
explore, which wouldn't be good for him because that axis was his
escape route.
At the same time, she'd apparently recharged his implanted tech. He could leave
now, and decided that it wasn't safe to stick around. It didn't take long to set things for the longest jump he could make, much further than he'd been able to go for the past five or so jumps at least.
"Well that was rude," Helvetia noted. Riley could only agree. Especially since now she needed a new guest room bed. And repairs to the floor and wall, for that matter. Or rather, did until Helvetia fixed everything a moment later, though she didn't replace the bed. "I wonder where he went?"
Riley shrugged, not sure. "He seemed to be scared of Taylor. Or any version of Taylor? He knew a lot of cape names that I suspect were for her."
"Oh. I wonder if he knows that the dimensional axis he's using is likely using her as a focal point?"
"What?"
"I don't know if it's that we just can't see them normally or that not everyone has one, but once I got a good look at his tech it was obviously using Taylors as a focal line."
"Huh."
