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Taylor Hebert, Dovahkiin (Worm/Skyrim)

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Chapter 7
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    • Wednesday was sunny, but it was too cold for me to consider eating outside. Not that it seemed to matter though as Dean, Vicky and Amy were notably absent from the lunchroom. I wondered what was going on as I made my way over to my new friends, maybe they knew something about it.

    "Hey everybody. Is Kelly sick today?"

    "Nope, she got lucky and was Stalkered out of class." Elena replied. "There's some chatter about her getting hurt last night on PHO, I think that's why Amy left early too, so of course Glory Girl also got to skip to fly her over to the hospital." She pointed a french fry at me. "Doubt you'll get a day off though unless we get a new Ward in town."

    I sat down, thoughts whirling about what Elena had said. "What?"

    Sarah piped up, "Well, everyone knows the Wards go to school here. Except for Vista of course. So every so often some of the students will get a call from the office to pull them out of class on the premise of Wards stuff. Kelly got picked out as one of Shadow Stalker's body doubles today, so she gets an excused absence."

    Heather continued. "Unfortunately the two of us are too tall to pass for her. But, according to the Youth Guard and the school, it works at protecting secret identities."

    I pulled out my Arcadia phone, staring at it in confusion. "THAT'S why we have these phones?"

    "Pretty clever, don't you think?" Larissa commented.

    I shook my head in disbelief. "Pretty STUPID if you ask me. How hard would it be to just have the Wards homeschooled or privately tutored?"

    Ted snapped his fingers and pointed at me. "There! See? Someone else realizes it! Why would the school spend so much on giving every student a fancy smartphone with unlimited data plans and run that fancy Tinkertech Faraday cage around the building if it wasn't part of some diabolical government conspiracy to spy on our youth!"

    I paled a little. "Uh... I didn't say..."

    Ted grinned, "I know, that's actually from one of Leet's PHO tinfoil rants. It IS pretty stupid of them to go to all this trouble..." he waved his hand around, "When, as you so eloquently put it, private tutoring's a lot easier." he finished before going back to his burger.

    "The Youth Guard says it's to 'promote healthy social development for young people with powers'." Elena said.

    Ted snorted. "Riiight, and they've probably never been to the Bay either. Vista's, what, thirteen? She had to face down Hookwolf, ALONE, a few months back. You can't tell me she doesn't have nightmares about that."

    "I hadn't heard about that. I guess that would mess with your head pretty badly." I said. I knew Sophia was psychotic, and she had twisted Emma into something horrible. Dad said powers changed your thinking, made you do crazy stuff. Would I start doing that? I shuddered.

    "Sorry about that. I guess I kinda killed the mood there. But, I can't complain too much, I've already had three days off this year as Aegis, despite the fact it's ridiculous that I could be him."

    I blinked. Ted was pale enough that he might burst into flames if he went outside for too long. "That... requires an explanation."

    Larissa smiled. "Oh, let me tell it! Please!" Ted nodded.

    "You know what Aegis' powers are, right Taylor?"

    "Alexandria package. Flying Brute."

    "But he's not bulletproof like Glory Girl. He heals fast and has a shitload of hit points. Don't know if that means he's a zombie." She pulled out her phone excitedly. "Lemme show you my greatest hits album of him."

    "Woah! Not here, 'Liss." Ted turned to me sotto voce. "It's not for the squeamish, or if you've just eaten."

    "Party pooper. Anyway, thing is Aegis can adapt around getting hurt. Stab him in the chest, liver takes over for his heart. Put him in a choke hold and he starts breathing through his skin. Cut out his eyes, he can see through his fingers."

    I grimaced as I contemplated just what that photo album on Larissa's phone looked like, but motioned her to continue.

    "I'll bet he's got a Changer power that doesn't get advertised. After all, a suntan is a natural adaptation against UV radiation exposure."

    "So... Aegis being Hispanic is a disguise?"

    "Yup! He can probably change his eye color too. Aegis could be any race and nobody could tell. It also explains his hysterical strength, like when you hear about an old lady lifting a car off their grandkid. He's actually tearing his arms off while doing it, but just adapts and heals around the damage."

    That... actually made sense. It also meant I'd need to double check my suspicions on whether Carlos was a Ward or not. Still... "Ok, so where does the flight come from?"

    She pfffted and shrugged. "No clue. Powers are bullshit. For all I know Aegis figured out how to throw himself at the ground and miss."
     
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    • Shadowcub said:
    So pulling the wards out of class lets everyone know their general characteristics.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Otherway around. The public knows what the Wards look like, so Arcadia will randomly pull out students that fit that general appearance. This actually works better than you'd expect since Arcadia doesn't have to worry about bringing in a bunch of new transfers every time there's a new Ward brought in.

    Shadow Stalker, Gallant and Clockblocker all have full coverage outfits, so about half the guys and most of the girls attending can pass for them. Kid Win is harder since you can see part of his face, but in mostly white Brockton Bay, that's not going to narrow the field too much.

    Carlos is the real outlier, since his costume tends to get beat up about as much as he does, and there aren't many Latinos in the city. But, if he can adjust the melanin in his skin and eyes... (he actually can't, but PHO puts up the strangest cape theories...)
     
    In canon, Lisa kept implying that she was psychic to throw them off about what her power really was.
     
    Interlude - Panacea
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    • Amy lay down on the futon in 'her' office. Formerly one of the administrators, it was very private and even had a small shower in the bathroom. More importantly, it was well out of the way from any potental cape stalkers in the lobby, and close enough to the service elevators that she could slip out to the roof if she needed Vicky to pick her up. The hospital staff also knew to leave her alone when she was in it unless it was a truly dire emergency.

    This morning's Code Black had been pretty bad. Three dead and fifteen wounded in a gang related shooting. The E88 had decided to try muscling in on the owners of a new restaurant on the edge of Chinatown. Unfortunately, several ABB members had been inside at the time, demanding their first month's protection money.

    Guns were pulled, and bullets started flying. The owner, his wife and brother had died at the scene. A fire had started and the building wound up being a total loss, the injured being burn and smoke inhalation victims from the upstairs apartments. Of course, the gangers had all managed to escape before police could arrive. The worst victim had been the owner's son. Shot three times, twice in the chest, as well as one bullet that had creased the left side of his head, he also had second and third degree burns over most of his body, yet he had somehow remained conscious through all of it, if raving and delirious from the pain.

    At least until he Triggered.

    That was the only explanation for why both she and Vicky had nearly blacked out as they arrived. Thankfully, the orderlies had been right there and nobody else had seen it, but it meant the hospital had to deal with a cape with unknown powers. If he ever woke up that is.

    Charles Ngyuen, based on what police and the fire department had been able to recover from the building and the remains of his wallet and school ID. Now, he was homeless, orphaned, in a coma and in the process of being snatched up by the Wards if the suits from the PRT that had spoken to her not ten minutes ago were any indication.

    Amy dropped his chart to the floor, put an arm over her eyes and groaned. This city fucking sucked.

    Well hello, Browbeat! Considering his self-biokinesis and tactile TK force field, his shard pinging off Guts and Glory makes a LOT of sense. Making him a ward of the state, with a little bit of brain damage no less (more than having an extradimensional crystal entity that wants to learn by fighting all the time shoved in your head anyway) is definitely AU, but that's the point of fanfic, right?
     
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    • YuffieK said:
    Well hello, Browbeat! Considering his self-biokinesis and tactile TK force field, his shard pinging off Guts and Glory makes a LOT of sense. Making him a ward of the state, with a little bit of brain damage no less (more than having an extradimensional crystal entity that wants to learn by fighting all the time shoved in your head anyway) is definitely AU, but that's the point of fanfic, right?
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    We do know a bit about Browbeat's trigger event, you know... and this wasn't it.

    In fact, here's what Wildbow had to say about him, as excerpted here:

    He'd be about 16 or so. Younger than Clockblocker, Gallant and Aegis (recall their discussion in interlude 3, about who would be succeeding in terms of leadership). Older than Shadow Stalker and Vista.

    My leaning would be to say he'd play Baseball if anything, even if Brockton Bay doesn't have a big team, school or otherwise. There's a level of intelligence and strategy that goes into baseball that would suit him. Not necessarily a kind of intelligence and strategy that factors into superhero fights, though.

    Browbeat is an intelligent guy, but he is/was intelligent in a way that sort of puts him at arm's length from stuff. It's not that he was so smart that people ignored him or picked on him. More the opposite. He's fit, knows a lot about a lot of things, and is the sort of guy that everyone wants in their club. He's popular, fairly attractive (not necessarily the first person you'd point to in a crowd, but if your friend were to say "I like him" you wouldn't go 'really!?), and gets good grades across the board. Prospects high. He's the guy that every mother wants to have dating their daughter.

    What's the problem then? He can't buy into it. Life's a stage and all that. Anyone who talks with him too long gets/got frustrated because he tries to boil every topic down into constituent elements. All human behavior is biology or evolutionary psychology at the root, baseball is hitting a ball with a stick and he hears the cheering and thinks about affiliation and social psychology. At first it was a quirk, not something most would notice, but over time, it became more pronounced. He'd like baseball because he can focus on the strategy, the numbers that a given pitcher has for throwing fastballs vs. knuckleballs or whatever, and everything else goes quiet. He doesn't hate making out with girls or sports or anything like that, he's not humorless, he just has trouble unfocusing his eyes and taking things as they are.

    As he progressed through high school, he experienced it more and more. He became more solitary, even as his social circle kept dragging him out of the peace and quiet and back into the noise and hubbub.

    After insomnia and general indifference to life in general came to a head, and his generally blank facial expressions started to spook people, he went to a psychologist, and after studying his family history, they came to the tentative conclusion that he has symptoms suggesting he may have schizophrenia, yet to manifest, (usually appearing in early/late twenties).

    A few weeks after the diagnosis, he was on a boat with a friend's family and walked off the side, into march-temperature water. To this day, he maintains that he wasn't suicidal, that the pressure from all directions wasn't a factor - that he just felt that impulse you sometimes have when you wonder "What would happen if..." and followed through. In doing so, he [suffered major physical trauma, nearly dying, and ultimately] triggered.

    His powers? Can he shapeshift?

    His biokinesis ~can~ be used to alter his features. By and large, however, it reinforces his physical strength and durability.

    His powers in general reinforce one another. He has short range telekinesis, clumsy, and he couldn't use it to, say, thread a needle, or even hold a needle straight.

    By and large, though, the TK is a personal forcefield with some crude control, augmenting his strength multiplicatively with his physical strength. His physical strength is bolstered by his biokinesis, as he makes himself into a physical Adonis, fitting the 'huge muscled guy' superhero stereotype. He can patch up his own wounds and harden tissues, accumulate calcium into stonelike plates under his skin, and may well reflexively dampen the damage from burns (redistributing heat or heat-absorbing chemicals), poisons/venoms (kill the tissue intentionally or interpose nonorganic waste between living tissues) and electricity damage (insulating his own tissues) as the damage takes hold.

    He's a walking tank. If one aspect of his power fails, he can turn to the other, and still put up a good fight. If he were to fight Hatchet Face, the effects of his biokinesis alterations wouldn't be reverted, and he could still trade blows. If his biokinesis were reverted or screwed with somehow, he could still rely on the TK.

    His role: (Not a question, just adding)

    He's a Ward and he's not into the whole scene. He's part of the Wards primarily because the PRT found out about his power (the hospital notified the PRT when he recovered as fast as he did, PRT investigated and talked to his friend's family) and found out about his psychiatrist's appointments in the process. The family and PRT discussed options (including a stay in the Asylum in Philly - same one where Yamada, Glory Girl, Burnscar, Labyrinth and Sveta were), while they figured out a balance of mental health and powers, and ultimately decided he was safe to stay with the Wards for the time being.

    He's broken away from friends and school life in large part, though he might hold on to things he likes, like baseball - the fact that it isn't a sports team that goes to events or plays seriously on any county/state/national level means it's okay.

    As part of the team, he's not really a major participant. There's a lot of flexibility and families have say in how involved their child gets in the Wards, and both Browbeat and his parents basically take every opportunity to distance themselves from conflict. Cooperating to these ends. They're using the situation to basically get him all the help he can get and deal with the powers/prepare for the future.

    He likes his teammates and might join to help on small jobs (bank robbery), but when the ABB got more serious, he stayed back at the base. After Leviathan came, he basically put in his paperwork and asked to leave town.

    It's worth stating he's very new to all this.

    IIRC, the only contradiction that cropped up was his existence as a solo hero - forgot to add that and frankly completely forgot I'd put in that bit re: his backstory. I'd say he went out to experiment with his power and figure out his limitations, and a massive, hard-to-injure hulk of a guy got attention. Knowing he could heal, with a sort of analytical perspective, he picked a few fights to figure out his limitations, because no matter your mental state, unknown powers are spooky. Victor & Othala were one, the merchants another, and Regent a third (with Bitch happening to join in). Win-win-lose, in that order.

    Word got around, his reputation preceded him, low-level villains were reminding each other about having to watch out for the big guy, yadda yadda. The PRT found & reached out to him, and Piggot elected to use his reputation as an active solo hero to help cloud the details around his trigger event (which, with witnesses and a few doctors/nurses scratching their head, were more transparent than the PRT/B.Beat like).

    Keep in mind that he's had his powers for less time than Taylor has, as of the story's beginning.    ​
    ​
     
    Chapter 8
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    • Not sure how to respond to @Aleh, since I was quoted stating it was AU. Oh well, have some more words. Warning, there may be some feels here.

    <<<<<*****>>>>>​

    Poking around on PHO with my phone wasn't exactly easy, but it was a lot faster than using our desktop and dialup. Hmm, the settlement check had cleared, maybe we could go shopping for a good computer and internet service over the weekend.

    My search for what had been going on regarding Sophia hadn't really turned up anything though. The rumors had started because Shadow Stalker hadn't been sighted in over a week, and the logical assumption people had made was that she'd gotten injured on patrol. That had devolved into crazy speculation about how she had died on patrol and the PRT was covering it up.

    I'll admit, I took a little bit of guilty pleasure reading some of the ideas on how that might've happened. Accidentally killed by Stormtiger who had caught her while phased with one of those air concussion blasts of his and disintegrated her. Eaten by Lung. Eaten by Grue from the Undersiders... Seriously? AllSeeingEye had even made the obligatory tasteless 'Sadly, there was no ketchup.' joke, before the mods locked the thread.

    Hmm. I probably should do some testing as to what might affect me in ghost form. Something else for me to worry about as I idly put a note in my powers journal. My thoughts were interrupted by the front door unlocking.

    "Hey, Taylor." Dad said as he came in. "Work was actually pretty good today so I figured I'd come in early. How was..." Dad stopped and looked at me.

    "Taylor? When did you get a cellphone?"

    Shit! Busted! "Um. The school gave it to me Monday. They provide one for all the students. I was going to tell you that night but I never got around to it. Sorry?"

    Dad sat down with me on the couch, rubbed his face and sighed. "No... It's alright, honey. I shouldn't be so irrational about it. I guess I should get a new one too, if only so you can get a hold of me whenever." He got a somber look on his face. "If you had one before, you could've told me what was going on at school. It wouldn't have come to that..."

    "No. Dad, it's not your fault. We were... ARE both still hurting from Mom. Besides, those bitches would've broken or stolen it anyway if I had one. But... things are getting better? Aren't they?"

    He nodded and smiled a little. "Yes, sweetheart." Then he started joking. "Ye'll have to show me how it werks 'tho, Ol' man like me don't know 'bout 'dese new brainphones."

    "Daaaad..." I cried as he poked me in the arm.

    "Go on and set the table Taylor, I'll wash up. From the smell I'd say dinner's about ready?"

    "Twenty minutes?" I replied, looking at the clock.

    <<<<<*****>>>>>​

    I spent a fair bit of dinner showing off all the bells and whistles my phone had. When he'd asked why the school would give students such a high end phone, I told him what Ted had mentioned at lunch. He liked the fact that I was making new friends, but was a little more wary when I mentioned the reason I had the phone.

    "Maybe we should get something more disposable for you to use, just in case."

    "What for?"

    "That thing has GPS tracking, right? If it's something the PRT provided, they probably can access that information if they felt like it. It might be wise to not have something that could easily connect Taylor Hebert to Dovahkiin, should you ever start heroing."

    "I don't plan on wearing a mask and running the streets at night looking for thugs to beat up anytime soon. But that's a pretty good reason for me not to carry this around if I did."

    "We'll look into it Saturday. You said we should get a better computer and internet too. We'll make a day out of it. I know a few people who owe me a favor or two. I'll make some calls tomorrow, see about getting some good deals."

    "Oooh. Can we eat at that Chinese place we had the other night?"

    "Afraid not, Kiddo. Fred told me some skinheads didn't care for the place and burned it down this morning."

    "OH, COME ON! Is Kasier some kind of Food Nazi? Next thing you know he'll be torching Popeye's."

    <<<<<*****>>>>>​

    Danny sat in bed staring at the object in his hand. Despite not using it since his wife died, he still dutifully kept the phone charged, if only to keep the last voice message on it.

    "Danny, I can't give up on this offer from Princeton and the Bay is just getting too dangerous for Taylor to be growing up in. Why are you so insistent on staying and trying to turn this city around? Come with me. Brockton Bay is dying, let's leave while we still..."

    Tears were streaming down his face as the message abruptly cut off. "I'm sorry, Annette. I'm so, so sorry. God help me for not having listened to you. I have to do better. For Taylor. For Kurt and Lacey and all the rest of the Union. For this shitty city. Someone has to be willing to keep some hope alive."

    "Our Little Owl's a cape now, and I'm just muddling along like an idiot. She's so much stronger than me. So much like you. Stubborn and driven and idealistic, despite everything I let happen to her. But it's time though. I need to move on, do what I can to keep Taylor safe, even if I can't keep her from going out. I know she will. They all do, and I can't stop her, and I can't trust the PRT or anyone else."

    "Well... They say the enemy of your enemy is your friend. I doubt that, but he's probably paranoid enough that I can at least trust him to not do Taylor wrong."

    "I can only pray you'll understand when we see each other again, and watch over us until then. I Love You. Forever and Always."

    "Goodbye, Annette." Danny whispered as he pushed the 'Erase All' button.
     
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    • Whoa whoa WHOA! Annette isn't dead?

    EDIT! Okay, just reread and figured out she did die...Whoo, that was a trip and a half. Suppose he didn't use the phone because of all the metaphorical ghosts in it then?
     
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    I mean, the fact that anyone who has the means to leave stays in Brockton Bay at all seems incredibly stupid to me, so I have little sympathy on that end. That said, big deal for him to be erasing the last history of his wife when he could just be buying a new phone.

    =/
     
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