[]
Today was the day.
Before the scheduled time of her walking onto the stage and announcing her existence to the whole of the Bay, Glenn and a few other members of the PRT PR team went through an extensive list of practice questions just so she wouldn't be making a fool out of herself.
This irritated her as to why couldn't have they done this yesterday or any other previous day when she had nothing better to do.
Taylor sighed at it all, there was nothing she could do to change it other than being annoyed.
Still, the questions she was given were mostly tame other than the ones that could be considered 'what the fuck' questions.
/Now that is all over, we of the PRT ENE branch are happy to announce a new Ward to our local Wards team and potential new Protectorate Hero of the Bay/
'oh goody, show time' Taylor straightened herself and patted down her hero outfit at the preconceived bumps on the material, another thing she had to give credit to the PRT hired tailors was how comfy and fitting her current attire was.
Her Father and Ward friends were giving her a show of support from backstage, it sent her mind and heart feeling light and warm.
/So please make her feel welcome, introducing Washington/
And that was her que.
Taylor now slipping into the persona of Washington, a hero who in her mind was proud and humble, stern yet soft, mighty yet careful, a hero who could be relied upon in the darkest of hours.
Striding forth with a practiced gait, her movements carried her forth beyond the curtain wall and into a large room filled with flashing cameras and bunched-up reporters holding phones, notes, large cameras, and microphones.
And they all turned to face her as she walked out and up to the podium.
Her heart was starting to beat faster and her mind was practically begging her not to make her look like an idiot, Taylor didn't breathe through her mouth as she feared she would find herself shuddering from her nervousness, so she instead took calming breaths through her nose and exhaled out of her mouth which brought a brief respite to her nerves.
The audience made comments about her looks, her powers, and whether or not her cannons on display were Tinker tech.
"Greeting everyone," Taylor said, her voice somewhat echoing through the room from the speakers as she spoke into the mic on the wooden stand in front of her.
"As you have heard, I am Washington the new Ward of Brockton Bay, it'll be both my duty and my joy to be serving this city as a Ward and later into the future as a Hero of this city, I'll strive forth to bring my best to help all those in need, this is my promise." Taylor gave pause, both to pick someone in the audience to hear their question and time for her to think about a variety of responses she could give in a timely manner.
A wave of noise bombarded her ears as the crowd in front of her raised their voice in order to be the first to be selected to have their questions answered by the young teen hero.
Washington's eyes scanned the crowd and pointed her finger toward a man holding close to the Fox News team.
"Henry Blime, Fox News, Washington, are your Tinker cannons approved by the PRT and Protectorate if so how do you plan to use them against the criminals" This was a question that Taylor was asked during her earlier mock interview and quickly answered.
"That's a good question Henry and one I can easily answer, believe it or not, these cannons are in fact a part of my power, I can summon and de-summon them on command" She gave the crowd a showing as her rig glow blue before bursting into pixels then after a bit she manifested her rig back again.
This light show brought her a few claps and whistles as the display and ended a line of questioning as to whether her cannons were tinker tech.
Next, Taylor allowed another reporter to ask their question.
"Jenny Fel, from New York Times, does your hero name and power relate to anything significant" Taylor smiled at this question as yet again it was another question that was seemingly the same one from the mock interview.
"Indeed, it is a name I picked from one of our country's old World War 2 battleships, not the Iowa's mind you but the second ship of the North Carolina class, I chose Washington as well, you can see how fitting it is," Taylor says while spinning her guns around.
The next few questions that came later were easily answered, 'What is your favorite food drink, etc', what hero do you like, do you plan to move out of Brockton Bay to another city?
There was an interesting question about what her guns could fire, in the beginning, she would say the same as any battleship but thanks to Armsmaster and his specialty in miniaturization, she now had a whole Armory of shells that included rubber rounds, nets, containment foam, and tasers so she could do nonlethal takedowns without blowing up building nor street.
However technically she needed a gun license to legally fire anything that comes out of her cannons.
Soon though an agent came up to the mike and informed everyone that the time for questions was now over as next came the moment where Taylor would take her oath to uphold the law and perform to the best of her abilities as a Ward and Hero of the United States.
Something about the oath ceremony resonated with something within her, elation and pride were being brought to the forefront of her mind as she made her oath.
Once it ended the whole room burst into a round of applause and congratulated Taylor for becoming an official hero.
She received the same sort of praise from both her teammates and other older Protectorate heroes along with a few PRT troopers who jokingly said they now had to babysit another 'superpowered emotionally unstable teenager'.
Even her father said he was proud of her and that he would be there for her every step of the way, which was very sweet, and a real promise given that probably he would be announced as a protectorate hero next month, likely a bit after the next fast approaching Endringer battle just so the bitter battle would be replaced by something more upbeat and positive.
But moving onto something else now, Taylor along with her father had returned home for the afternoon as tomorrow was going to be a very busy day for Taylor, once she finished school she'd then begin her first patrol as Washington alongside the other Wards on prearranged patrol route.
Before that though Taylor found herself facing a very familiar floating wall of text.
[Countdown Complete]
[Please Select One Name]
What came next was that same wall of names, but for some reason, Taylor had a feeling that it has gotten more bloated than the last time she'd seen it two weeks ago
[Cal-141]
[Saint Anais]
[Fulgrim]
[Tengen Uzui]
[Orgami Tobiichi]
[Licht]
[Noelle Sival]
[Faust]
[Beta]
[Zeta]
[Yukime]
[Arachne]
[Shiraori]
[Garou]
[Reptera]
[Scar]
[Elizabeth Liones]
[Altair]
[Sesshomaru]
[Kiana Kaslana Herrscher of the Void]
[Mirajane Strauss]
[Angel]
[Satoru Gojo]
[Peruere Snezhevna]
[Shiro Emiya]
[Marie Antoinette (Alter)]
[Uesugi Kenshin]
[Andromeda]
[Kremhild]
[Illyasviel von Einzbern]
[Miyamoto Musashi]
[U-Olga Marie]
[Tomura Shigaraki]
[Rumi Usagiyama]
[Konako Haizono]
[Wiess Schnee]
[IJN Musashi]
[USS Washington – Fused]
[KMS Graf Zepplin]
[SN Sovetsky Soyuz]
[KMS Fritz Rumey]
[Tobirama Senju]
[Kakashi Hatake]
[Moka Akashiya]
[Sode no Shirayuki]
[Gin Ichimaru]
[Tōshirō Hitsugaya]
[Jūshirō Ukitake]
[Koneko Tōjo]
[Rossweisse]
[Vali Lucifer]
[Eucliwood Hellscythe]
[2B]
[Pietro Maximoff]
[Ororo Munroe]
…
Looking at them it was clear that the list had new additions to it.
Counting them up, Taylor found she had about 55 names to choose from, well actually she only had 54 to go from seeing how USS Washington was clearly shown that she was fused with it.
This of course didn't help her think about what name she would choose next; plus the last time she chose a name she blacked out and was sent to the hospital.
First Taylor would research every single name on the list before making an informed decision about her future choice, and thankfully her PRT-issued phone was by far, faster than that dinosaur of a computer she had in the house.
One by one from top to bottom, Taylor typed up the names in the search engine and spent most of the night doing research.
As the hours ticked by, Taylor used one of her notebooks to make a list of 'Known Names' against 'Unknown Names' along with a special section called 'Undefined Known Names'.
Known Names included the obvious historical figures and built items like the last Queen of France and the warships of World War 2.
Unknown Names included almost the rest on the list aside from a key few that fell under 'Undefined'.
Those being 'Andromeda' which she found to be a Galaxy far away, she didn't know why it was even on the list, to begin with, next was a very infamous name, 'Vali Lucifer' that last name brought her a sense of caution, it was easy to find out who Lucifer was and more importantly Taylor was having way too many questions running through her mind on the implications of such a name in her list.
Other than that, Taylor decided to exclude every male-sounding name as she had no way of knowing what would happen to her body if she chose one of them.
The next thing she excluded was most of the Unknown Names, most of them being foreign and some just she couldn't figure out, like, what would happen if she chose 'Wiess Schnee', translated as Snow White in German, would she gain powers to talk to animals and have an epic singing voice, god only knows, and she most certainly didn't.
So that left very few Known Names and three Undefined ones.
Taylor sighed and circled her pen around the names 'Andromeda', 'Arachne' and last one 'Yukihime'.
She resolved herself to choose one of these three.
But that just made it even more difficult to choose, as who out of these three would she feel comfortable with choosing?
So it came down to a Galaxy, a Spider, and a Snow Princess.
Honestly, when the thought of 'how much will these names physically change me' came up there really wasn't much of a choice to begin with.
So taking in a breath Taylors finger stretched out to her chosen name and pressed…
[]
AN: CLIFFHANGER (evil laughter intensifies) I am so evil…
But, just so everyone knows I will not be adding any more names to the list as it'll just make me focus more on them than the story I should be writing.
But that is subject to change depending on what I'm thinking about or any changes that happen in the future.
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