The Eldritch One (Celestial Forge)

[Optimal Robotics]

When I got onto the streets and running, I got back to the loft in a matter of minutes. And that just doesn't seem right. You see I wasted about a third of that time obfuscating my destination, and it's still just totally nutter butters. I mean, you would think there would be a sonic boom at some point, right? Whatever. I used a main street to go past downtown, and I expect somebody on PHO will pick up on it the next couple of days. It will be interesting to see what the cameras caught.

Anyway, I got there before even Brian did. Bitch, Alec, And Lisa are standing around the kitchen island. They look a little confused when they see me coming through the door.

"How did you... That was Faultline's landline! Across town! What the fuck!"

"Lisa, I know you've seen me run and walk faster than I should be able to before. How is this that big of a surprise?"

"There is a qualative difference between that and- You know what, no. I can see Bitch's eyes glazing over. The important thing is that you're here now. Faultline's crew is a mercenary outfit, do you have any idea why they went after you?"

"Nope. Mercenaries can be hired by anybody though, right?"

"Yeah, but they usually don't take jobs in town. Puts too much heat on them. They'd have to either hate you specifically or get paid way too much money for it..." I see her realize something as she says that. "Hold on, I'll be right back." She starts walking towards her room

"So how much are we hurting them?" Asks Alec.

"And no plotting violence until Brian gets here! He shouldn't even be ten minutes out!"

"Fine Mom!" He yells back. "Christ, these assholes ruin my plans for the night, and I can't even plot cartoonishly overblown revenge on them? What's the world coming to?"

"Alec, we live in a functioning society." He raises his eyebrows at me.

"I'll debate you on that functioning part. No seriously, I'll go get my notebook, corkboard, and red eyes, and we can make a whole ass conspiracy board." I look over to Bitch. She looks bored. I look back over to Alec.

"What were your plans for tonight?" He looks like he's going to tell me, but he's interrupted by Lisa popping out of her room.

"Jackpot people! Those rich assholes who tried screwing Taylor over suddenly have three million missing from their accounts. One million being the minimum Faultline will charge for a job in town." She power walks up to us with her laptop. "But I know her rates, and that's either too much for a civilian kidnapping, or too little for what you can do. Even before taking in how fast you actually are, or that you're part of a team."

"Could it be from laundering the money?" Asks Alec.

Lisa shakes her head. "The numbers are still wrong for that. Hmmm..." She stays like that, looking at the computer screen for a few minutes thinking. Then the front door opens.

"Hey guys, we going to get Taylor?"

"I beat you here Brian." I respond. He walks up out of the entryway and stares at us. I'm reminded that I'm still taking the form of a humanoid slime. "They didn't give me the luxury of keeping my clothes on. Would you please stop staring?"

"Sure, yeah." He walks up to the counter next to me. "What's the situation?"

"The McCormicks probably paid Faultline to kidnap Taylor here. Also she's apparently ridiculously fast."

"Have we tried asking Faultline what the fuck is up with that? She's usually willing to at least talk, right?"

"Well first of all, it hasn't even been twenty minutes since Taylor here trashed the place and set it on fire."

"Hey! I told you that wasn't my fault!"

"Second of all-" She cuts off and turns to me. "Actually, Taylor, who specifically did you fight?"

"Okay, well first of all there was the orange dude with a tail and some dude in a gas mask thing spitting fire at me. They were both out on the ground when I left. Then there was this real big ugly dude who was resistant to my acid. So I uh..." I look around to everybody's eagerly awaiting faces. "Well, he was also out of the fight by the time I called you."

"Was that it? Nobody else?"

"Well there was some chick in a wheelchair I left alone. She was just sitting there. Then there was some chick who was my lookout. She fell out of a window all on her own right after she sounded the alarm."

"An older woman?"

"No. They were both teenagers. Then when the phone call cut out, the building started transforming like I was in a goddamn Silent Hill movie. I jumped out of the window and started running at my top speed over here."

"You didn't kill anybody, did you?" Asks Brian.

"No I didn't! Or at least I don't think I did. I knocked out the fire dude, Newter got taken down by a fireball, and the last dude is definitely alive." He was hollering too loudly to be dead.

"Taylor. What did you do to him? We need to know in case Faultline starts demanding things in compensation."

"Well, I, uh, may havegougedhiseyesout." Lisa and Brian lean away from me ever so slightly. Alec smirks.

"We can work with that Taylor, don't worry about it." Lisa assures. "For now, you should go scout out their mansion here. Circle the perimeter fence, note down camera locations, guards, dogs, how high everything is, how many entrances there are, that sort of thing."

"What are you gonna do?"

"I'm going to look up the schematics for their mansion they filed with the city. Then, in an hour or two I'm going to call Faultline. See what the situation is with her, and confirm our target."

"You gonna work on stealing that three million from Faultline like the others?" Asks Alec. "That would be a nice bonus to round things off with." Lisa shakes her head.

"Unfortunately she uses the Numberman for all her mercenary funds. His system is uncrackable. And even if it wasn't he's my banker too. I don't wanna mess with him.

"Get going Taylor. Don't let them see your face, and for fuck's sake, don't let anybody touch you this time." I nod and set off for Captain's Hill. I get there in less than a minute. Goddamn that's still nuts.

There's ten cameras all around the wall, not counting whatever is at the entrances. One main and two service. The wall is ten feet high and coated with stucco. The gates are metal and the bars are too thin for even a toddler to squeeze through. No problem for me. I've engulfed a few and climbed up to the top of the wall before anybody had time to blink. Made another lap around the wall to find out the location of what looks like a security room with a dude manning it, and maybe some utility sheds. I note it all down in a tiny notebook with a rough sketch and leave. All in a matter of seconds. I am thoroughly ridiculous.

I get back to the loft fairly quickly and set my notebook down on the counter. And I seem to have walked in on an argument.

"Well we're not doing nothing!" Lisa exclaims. "That jeopardizes our teammate, and lets them know they can continue doing it. Look, she's back already. We can vote on it now."

"Kill them." From Bitch.

"Kill them." From Alec.

"Hold on, hold on, hold on. What are we voting for, and why are we jumping straight to murder?"

"What we're going to do with the McCormicks." Says Brian. "It doesn't do us any good not to have a game plan in place once we break into their place. And if one of them falls down the stairs without that being the agreed upon plan, that's kind of a massive issue." As he looks pointedly towards our teammates. "We basically have three options. Do nothing, remove their ability to strike back at us, or kill them. And as Tattletale has so unhelpfully pointed out, we can't effectively remove their ability to harm us. Even if we took away all of their money and leverage, they still have super powered family to call on."

"Guys I think we're missing something here. Why don't we just call the cops on them? Or whatever alphabet agency would matter here. All we need to do is steal the evidence and turn it over." They look at me.

"I appreciate your optimism Taylor, but that won't work here." From Lisa. "That might've worked for your run of the mill asshole or crimelord, but these people are rich. Like fuck you rich. Like fuck you, your whole family, and the couch they rode in on rich. And we're dealing with a whole family that thinks they're above the law. The court system works differently for people with money and connections like this." Connections like Emma had with her lawyer Dad.

"I vote kill them."


AN: So, Taylor's land speed. 20 times more from the slime power, 5 times from the preparation perk outside of combat, and 10 times from the other perk. 20 times 10 times 5 is 1,000. 8,000 mph running speed out of combat with 50 times speed being fiat enforced. Even in combat being 1,600 mph. She is a peer to Velocity without any of his drawbacks. This all assumes a 8mph running speed with her long legs. And I am assuming this. Sorry if this is overly crunchy for people.

Second of all is Taylor's motivations. She wants personal safety. Once she's done with Coil and these guys she's going to go to the PRT for probational hero status. After all they let that psychopath Sophia get away with, they won't bat an eye at her antics will they?


Powers this chapter

Starting HUB | Satisfactorio Builder (Satisfactory-factorio Gauntlet) (100CP)

Starting HUB (100CP)
Instead of starting with a box containing only the most critical components of the HUB, you start with a prefab base in a box. Set it up anywhere, and as long as you empty it out you can move it around. This base has a craft bench, equipment workshop, a molecular analysis machine, an RTG that produces a small amount of power perpetually, and a spot for the research dropship to land. In addition, it has a rack with a few standard storage boxes and a bunk room big enough for all of you. You start with all recipes that you get from completing the HUB in-game unlocked. Respawns monthly. In addition, you can keep this and drop it at your starting location in future Jumps, if you want.

 

[Optimal Robotics]

I pull up to the Palanquin in the van, with a large fishtank in the back. The things I do for a client. Let me tell you it was a goddamn nightmare getting Taylor moved after she fucking melted. Had to drive extra slow to avoid her slipping through the cracks between the riveted metal sheets.

I put the van in park and get out of the van. Only to be greeted with the sight of one of Labyrinth's grungier landscapes slowly taking over the building. Are all my people sleeping on the job here?! I spot Shamrock running up to me.

"Boss! Boss! The Taylor girl woke up, and everything went to shit!"

"Oh goody. Is she still here?"

"No, I, uh, fell out a window as soon as she looked at me, and it took me a minute or two to get out of the pile of trash I fell in. Then I got into the building as soon as a window broke and she jumped out from the second story, and I tried chasing after her, but she was too fast, and now I can't get back in because of Labyrinth." Oh boy.

"Nothing's broken is it?"

"No, but I'm super sore and bruised right now. My power never did anything like this to me before!"

"Calm down, we will get through this. First things first though." I walk up to where the main entrance would be and start crumbling it away. I'm not worried about damaging my club. Labyrinth's power does some sort of overlay thing.

"Holy shit we're saved!" Yells out somebody on the dance floor.

"Everybody!! Please form a calm and orderly-" and they're rushing us. I pull Shamrock to the side as we wait out the human stampede. Hopefully nobody gets trampled this time. When that's run it's course we go into the club to try and find the staircase up. We know where it is normally, but Labyrinth's landscapes always get a little bit wonky.

Once up there I take in the scenery. An eyeless Gregor is tending to Newter. He put some kind of foam all over his chest, with an untreated gash all the way down his abdomen. Looks like he's lucky to still have all his guts inside him with how deep it is. Spitfire's body is laying limply further down the hallway.

"What the hell happened here Gregor?!"

"Boss lady!" He snaps to attention. "The little lady escaped and went totally apeshit. Newter tried putting her down again, but their striker powers canceled each other out."

"Striker power?"

"Acid, felt like. I was able to stop it by secreting oil where she was touching me, but then she just went for my eyes..." Looking around I see some elongated scoring marks on the hardwood finish that could be shaped like footprints. If you squint.

"Did she show us any other surprises?"

"She was incredibly fast. I was minding Labyrinth when I heard the scuffle outside. I popped out to look, and I couldn't even blink before she was on me." Hrrm. And we don't even know what her mouths do.

"We were underpaid for this job. Shamrock, how is Spitfire?"

"She's still breathing."

"Good news, don't move her. Go tend to Labyrinth. I got some calls to make." I walk briskly over to my office. Once the terrain receded I called the ambulance for my people. My second call was to our client.

"Ah Faultline, how good to hear from you. I trust you have good news?"

"Well it was going fantastically until about a half hour ago. Tell me, did you know that Taylor was a high rated mover?"

"...Now listen-"

"You fucking asshole, you knew! You do not fuck over your mercenaries like that unless you want them dead. Do you want us dead Mr. McCormick?"

"No I don't want you dead. It's just, it's just your prices are downright extortionist! We don't have the kind of liquid cash it would've taken! And every other mercenary is taken up by that asshole Coil."

"You lied to me about my target's capabilities because you don't like my rates? You think my monopoly on freelance mercenary work is unfair?"

"Yes."

"Oh my God, do you know how many families I've all but beggared to give them a shot at revenge at my normal rates you whiny little shit? More than one. And your little sob story isn't nearly as compelling to me as theirs. Sell off some assets you cheap asshole."

"Do not talk to me like that. I paid you for a job and I expect it to be completed promptly and in full."

"I'll talk to the asshole who tried to cheat me however I want. Matter of fact, I just heard Taylor Hebert, the basic brute parahuman does not actually exist. Job done, no refunds. I'm gonna need fifteen million to go after Taylor Hebert, the brute changer mover striker nightmare combo that does exist."

"Grrk!" I savor his impotency for a couple seconds. Serves him right.

"You know, just between you and me, it would've only been ten million, but then I had to apply the asshole tax. But hey, if you have a problem with my extortionist prices, feel free to go to one of my many, many local competitors. Or you can go cry to the cops about this. Let me know how that-"

*Click*

Well that was easy.

---

About an hour later I had gotten done with the circus that was getting my people into the hospital and the PRT off my back. Then I got a phone call. I look at the caller ID as I picked up the phone.

"Hello Tattletale, you know my rates."

"..."

"Tattletale?"

"I hear you kidnapped my adorable new teammate earlier today." Oh shit. "In her civilian identity."

"Tattletale I've already dropped the job and the client. This entire fiasco was more trouble than it's worth."

"Oh, so the only reason my girl isn't getting beaten or tortured to death right now by some rich assholes is because she made it too much trouble? I'm sure she would just love to hear that. Think it would make her mad enough to go for round two?"

"Don't you dare moralize at me you fucking psychopath. I don't always get to choose where my money comes from, the rich do. That is my lot in life as a mercenary. You find me one that says they have a clean record, and I'll show you a goddamn liar. Or a newbie.

"I can see your point of view here though. This was a bitch move, intentional or not. In return I can let you hire me for a night at my regular out of town prices. We can hit up my former client's place and bump them off tonight." Their security was fairly pathetic all things considered. "I'm not giving you their names until the check clears though."

"Oh God, you think I'm going to pay you in exchange for kidnapping my teammate? Fat fucking chance of that! And I already know who hired you, it was the McCormicks wasn't it?" I feel my breath hitch in my throat slightly. "Oh I knew it! We'll be paying them a visit soon ourselves, don't you worry about that. Oh, one last thing. Why did you undress her when you kidnapped her?"

"Oh for fuck's sake, we didn't undress her. Newter knocked her out and she melted out of her clothes once she reverted to her nonstandard biology. We even still have them in the bedstand next to where we were keeping her. Not my fault she wasn't in a looting mood when she made her escape. Feel free to send somebody over to pick them up whenever."

"...I'll be in touch." And she hangs up. That's worrying. Well at least I got one thing from this conversation. Whatever Tattletale's power is it isn't mind reading. Nobody can read minds through the phone.

 

[Optimal Robotics]

I get the sneaking suspicion that Brian doesn't want to kill these people. It started with his apparently lackluster arguments against it when we voted on it, and has extended to his attitude all throughout our trip to the McCormick's place. He's being sulky.

To be fair to him I don't want to kill these people. Killing the dude at the party isn't something I'd care to repeat, and these are grieving parents. That said pretty much the worst case scenario is that they start sending teams of capes to murder me or worse, and that's already happening. I don't see any way to stop them from doing that given their connections. Kinda like the Nazis I killed. You don't let those kinds of people have any kind of power over you. Just ask the Jews.

Anyways it looks like Grue here is trying to talk us out of this one last time. "Guys, are you sure we wanna do this? Once we go lethal there's no going back. The PRT will come after us. They'll run news stories about us."

"I'm sure." I say. "Just as long as we don't have to kill any kids... Hey, these guys don't have any kids do they?" I look to Tattletale.

"They, uhh, had a kid." I give her a blank stare.

"Anyways, yeah I'm sure. The plan one more time?"

Grue sighs. "We're going with shock and awe. First we smash into the wall with Bitch's dogs into the gate house and see what Tattletale can do to the security system from there. If that fails you're going to climb over the wall and open up the gate however you can.

After that we go in with all our powers on full blast and tie up anybody you see. Bitch is on straggler duty. You all gather up the McCormicks in a central location. I'm not going to be in the room when you execute them. We all good with that?" A chorus of assents and yesses answer him.

"Good. Let's do this thing." We spring into action at that. We're a couple blocks down from our destination right now in an alley, so we gotta charge down the street on Bitch's dogs. I'm on foot because I can. Grue is holding off on his smoke for now so we don't get discovered early, but there's always the chance somebody just decides to call the cops on us from the dogs barreling down the street alone.

The dogs smash into the gate house easily enough, and I speed inside to lock everybody down as quick as I can. It was just two people. Tattletale comes in behind me and gestures to bring one of them over to the computer screen. She jacks something into the computer and gets the password from looking at this guy's eye movements. Somehow. Then she works her magic on the computer.

"I've done all I can here. All right guys, we got anywhere between ten and twenty minutes before the fuzz shows up. Let's make 'em count!"

We bumrush the mansion with myself going on ahead. I have plenty of zip ties on me and I intend to use them. I'm told I gotta really string people out if I can, and failing that to tie their hands to something behind them. Removing their leverage apparently makes them less likely to escape apparently. I rounded up three grounds workers outside, smashed into the window and grabbed the cook, and found five more security personnel inside. Nobody I caught even had a chance to resist.

While I was doing all that apparently Grue, Regent, and Tattletale intercepted the McCormicks on the way to their panic room while I was systematically searching the ground and upper floors. Along with four of their staff. There are just the two of them here, so I take them both on my shoulders up to a better location.

"It's gotta be the living room." Says Regent as he's shaking a can of black spray paint. "I saw it coming in and it has just the perfect wall for this."

"What the fuck do you think you're doing you gutter trash filth. Put us down." From the dude. The lady is just thrashing, shrieking, and trying to claw at me.

"We brought duct tape, right?" I ask. Grue grunts and hands me a roll. I form a third appendage to shut them up with. I let Alec lead the way. We come to a real posh living room with a glass table, a big chandelier, and the swankiest wood carved furniture I've ever seen in real life. Alec unceremoniously shoves the central table to the side.

"Hey Grue, mind helping me with this couch before you go?" Grue shakes his head in exasperation, but does help him with the couch. Once they got it where the table was, he leaves the room.

"Finally, the plainest flat wall in the building." He starts spray painting a black 'they' onto it. Tattletale is messing around with the lady's cell phone.

"Anything good on there?"

"Unfortunately not. Anyways, let's get this over with." I set them down on the couch facing the ongoing defacing of their wall. I bring my hand up and form a couple acid 'drills' with it. They're still struggling, but they're not able to do anything against my grip strength.

"Nuh-uh, not like that." As she throws the phone to the side. "Use this." She hands me her gun.

"What? Why?" I've never even handled a gun before let alone fire one.

"You don't want the PRT to connect this to your other kills, do you?" Fine, fine. I take the gun and pull the trigger on the woman. Nothing happens. Well they start struggling harder, but nothing of consequence happens.

"Gotta turn the safety off hun." I level a stare at her. After a few seconds of fumbling with the gun-

*BANG*

Wow. That was loud. And messy. Holy shit, this couch is ruined. I turn it to the man and

*BANG*

Well then. Some blood got on me somehow. I dissolve it and start walking out of the room.

"Guys wait up, I gotta finish this." From Alec. I roll my eyes.

"If the cops show up we're leaving Regent." From Tattletale.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." He was, in fact, able to finish before the cops showed up. Or the PRT.

Armsmaster​

"So what do you make of this Triumph?" I ask our newest team member. Fresh out of the Wards and his first crime scene is a double homicide. What strange luck.

"Well It looks like a revenge killing." Gesturing to the wall.

They know what they fucking did

All in black spray paint. It certainly looks that way, yes.

"But revenge for what is the question. The Undersiders have been acting as a professional robbery crew up until now, right? Ocean's 11 type stuff?"

"A bit more low brow than that, but yes. The main issue here is that we don't really have that much on them. They've been nobodies and ghosts up until now. Nobody's wanted to snitch on them because they've been hitting drug dens and other illegal enterprises. And they've always gotten away without a trace until recently. This is a drastic change in behavior."

*Ring Ring*

I check the caller ID. Its Dragon.

"Yes Dragon, I'm at a crime scene right now."

"I know. I tried your lab and they said you weren't there. We were supposed to be working on the Endbringer tracking system tonight." I wince. That is important. I shouldn't be wasting time here with a petty homicide. Only reason I'm here right now is because their rich family was making pitiful mewling noises at the director. Just like these guys did when... Wait a minute.

"In the interest of getting this case off of you as soon as possible I've taken the liberty of looking into their finances. It seems they've made several suspicious money transfers into various Number Man accounts totaling five million dollars tonight. They've also started selling various assets off to make those millions." Number Man. Well the finances are a dead end.

"Well I've done all I can do. I have some things to take care of at the lab. Triumph, this case is yours now."

"Uh, sir?"

"Just make sure to request all the records we have on one Taylor Hebert once you get back to headquarters. She may or may not be a lead here."

"Sir I don't think I'm ready for-"

"Then have console send you over Miss Militia. She has a good head on her shoulders for protocol. You can do this Triumph, I have faith in you.

"I have work to do with Dragon at the lab now. See you later." I get on my motorcycle and head on over back to the oil rig.

Now we've gotten satellites in the air, buoys in the ocean, and radio towers on land all sending us telemetry data on their positions. And so far it seems like none of them are being purposely taken down by the Endbringers. We'll have to see if this trend holds true past the next attack. It would be disastrous if we came to rely on this only for them to start smashing all that infrastructure to bits afterwards.


Powers this chapter:

Stone-age Otaku (Earth Girls) (200CP)
It takes a lot of patience and a lot of repetition to make a good blade from a stone. You don't bore, at all, and your hands are always steady. Between different attempts at the same task, you can pick out the tiniest differences between the last attempt and the attempt before that (and the ones before that...) to work out precisely what needs to be tried the next time.

 

[Optimal Robotics]

After Armsmaster left me holding the bag to go flirt with his girlfriend, I decided to go interview the mansion staff. Most of these suckers got zip tied to radiators or chairs, so we've been slowly freeing them. Once they're free we question them on what happened one by one.

The gardeners and security were useless. The gardeners because they just don't know anything and the security are too professional to say anything. These particular ones are from Barkely Security Solutions, a firm in Boston that has a reputation for being a pain in the ass when interacting with law enforcement.

We got our big break from the cook. She's a sweet Latino woman who relied on the McCormicks for her livelihood. She seems quite angry at their deaths.

"And then I saw a flash of blue jump through the window. I was screaming bloody murder at all the glass shards flying into the room, but I guess all the security was busy with their own problems. Then I got pulled to the ground and zip tied to the underside of the sink." This matches with the other testimony. What little we got.

"And let me tell you, thank goodness I regularly clean out the spiders or else I'd be quite more frazzled than I am now."

"Ma'am, I don't doubt your cleaning abilities, but would I be able to get a description of your assailant?"

"Oh, yes, ahem. It was a bluish blob thing that restrained me. I managed to get a good look while it was shoving me into that cupboard. Generally blobby and with a wide mouth. Almost too fast to catch a glimpse of."

"Thank you miss." That also matches what we were able to get out of the security cameras. Most of which were scrambled. "Are you able to tell us who would want to kill the McCormicks?" Her eyes darken.

"It must have been that Herbert girl, the puta. She killed their only kid, and they've been obsessed ever since. He had his share of issues, but he hardly deserved to be killed over them! Now, I know they did something unwise with those enforcers in town, but that wasn't a killing offence either!" I keep my face neutral at the revelation. I add that to the list of things to investigate.

"Were there any reasons in particular that you think the Herbert girl did this?"

"He was yelling into the phone earlier today with somebody about her. He was very mad. You will bring these killers to justice won't you? I do not have anywhere to go after this, this job was everything to me!"

"We'll do our best ma'am." I get up and start interviewing the others. Miss militia arrived on scene soon after and started organizing the troopers better than I could. About an hour and a half of interviews, and all we got to show for it was one woman who overheard a phone conversation. Better than nothing I guess.

Once I got back to base I requisitioned everything we had on the Herbert girl only to be summoned up by Director Piggot. Oh boy. I made my way up with all due haste and found myself standing with Armsmaster and a clerk from the offices. She buzzed her secretary to let us in when I entered the room.

"Do you know why you all are here?"

"I can take a guess." From Armsmaster. I shake my head no, while the clerk just cowers.

"Let's start with you." Looking at the clerk. "Why didn't you forward the Palanquin recordings to my office immediately?"

"Be-be-because that's against protocol ma'am! I can't go over my supervisor's head like that without getting censured somehow! I marked it as urgent and sent it up the chain! They would have made their way to you sometime tonight or tomorrow morning! I couldn't have known they'd end up dead hours later! Government just doesn't work that fast!" She stares him down until he grows pale and looks to the floor.

"Get out of my sight." He all but flees the room. Once he's gone she turns toward Armsmaster.

"What the fuck were you thinking leaving Triumph alone to process a crime scene like you did? Especially one as high profile as that?"

"I was thinking I should be working on the Endbringer early detection system. You know, the thing that could save all of our lives one day."

"I'll need you to give them an apology Armsmaster."

"Over my cold dead body! Never in my life will I apologize for saving lives from those abominations. If you put me in a room with these rich pricks I'll tell them exactly what I think of them. That's a promise." She stares at him for about a minute. He doesn't budge.

"Collin-"

"Director, you push me on this and I transfer. I will not tolerate any political fuck fuck games getting in the way of this work."

"Fine." She grinds out. "Since you don't have any interest in this case you can leave." He nods and leaves the room.

"Triumph, you're here because we have the Palanquin bugged on general principle, and today's recordings are pertinent to the McCormick case. First up is an recording made by miss Hebert."

"What the fuck is it this time Faultline?"

"Tattletale it's Taylor. I've been kidnapped, and wherever this is is on fire, and that last part is definitely not my fault."

We listen to the rest of the recording, and then the two after that. It paints a damning picture of the McCormicks. I take special note of the second call. There's a lot of information that's going to have to go in Taylor's file from that alone.

"So, what do you think of all this?" She asks me.

"I think this 'Tattletale' is dangerous. From how she discourages Taylor from calling the authorities to how casually she threatens and presumably blackmails another parahuman gang. I'd bet money she's one of the deciding factors on why the heist group went lethal in their response here."

"I agree. I'll be issuing a directive to take her out first in any confrontation with the Undersiders. Looks like she's one of those thinkers you don't want talking under any circumstances. Your thoughts on Taylor?"

"We should ignore this. Sweep it under the rug if at all possible. If this ever goes to court she could tie this up for years. Maybe even get off on self defense with a good enough lawyer."

"Mmm, unfortunately that's not an option. Those billionaire pricks the deceased call family are out for blood. They have connections with half the goddamn Senate, and a good chunk of the House too. If we're seen doing nothing, none of our careers will last the month. Can't release these tapes either. They're not exactly, ah, admissable in court.

"What's going to happen is we're going to be doing a bunch of busywork instead of actually tracking Taylor and the Undersiders down. Write up daily reports for me, and make them the wordiest nothing burgers you possibly can. Make a bunch of sham patrols too. In the safest and most boring patrol routes you can think of. I don't want you injured actually tangling with the Undersiders. Taylor's powers seem like a nightmare to deal with. I'm going to be making alot of meaningless noise on the news about this too. Now get to 'work'."

"Yes ma'am!" I salute at her.

"Oh, and none of this gets put down in any kind of report or recorded in any form. Wouldn't want the wrong people to get a hold of this information." I nod and leave the room.

---

A few minutes later I'm in a free meeting room with Assault and Battery. The heroes who responded to the Palanquin incident.

"So, what's this all about newbie?" Asks Assault. "Usually it isn't the least senior team member calling these things."

"Well it turns out our cases are linked. It looks like the McCormicks tried to have Taylor Hebert kidnapped. She escaped Faultline's crew earlier today and went on to kill the people who hired them with her new team just hours later."

"Oh for fuck's sake! Isn't she that girl Shadow Stalker bullied into triggering? I swear we're going to be cleaning up that little psychopath's messes for months yet."

"Yep. Anyways we got a description of her powers from a shady source. Described her as a 'brute changer mover striker nightmare combo.' would either of you have some insights from the scene to elaborate on that?"

"Well the striker power is probably acid." Says Battery. "We saw some serious chemical burns on the case fifty threes that Faultline employs."

"Oh my God, she's Acidbath! But with a mover power instead of a blaster one. Holy shit, please tell me we're not the ones fighting her."

"Official word is she's low priority with a lot of showboating concerning her to prevent any outside interference. But we still gotta update her file."

"Hmm, let's go with brute/breaker 4+, mover 4+, and striker 5+." Says Assault.

"Striker 5?" I ask.

"Starting her out that high because acid melts containment foam. And Brute is from the girl she took down. Several broken ribs, and a concussion. We were able to take her statement in the hospital. Apparently she picked her up and threw her against the wall like a rag doll."

"Didn't Armsmaster rate her as a projection master?" Asks Battery.

"Maybe?" He shrugs. "I'm gonna be honest, I wasn't paying all that much attention at the time. We can square that circle later though puppy, these are just preliminary ratings. Say, do we have a cape name for her?"

"No. We have almost nothing on the Undersiders. We know about Grue and Hellhound from previous encounters, but the only reason we even know Tattletale's name is from a phone call. Then there's that completely unknown fourth dude."

"Well lucky us, I guess that means we get to name her then, now don't it?" He says with a greasy smile.

"...How does Amoeba sound?"


AN: I'm trying not to spend much word count rehashing scenes. Those phone conversations are from chapter 21 and the Faultline interlude. I also don't include the perks or author's notes in my word count either. I know somebody was concerned about that earlier.

 

[Optimal Robotics]

I drum my fingers against the diner booth table. I look up to the T.V. to see that fat bitch Piggot lambasting my daughter on the local news again. Even if it's just her cape identity. I've already had an entire weekend of that, I don't need it here!

"Hey waiter, could you change the channel? I wanna watch the game." I have to yell it out for him to hear me. Perfect location for a clandestine meeting conversation wise.

"Which game?"

"Any game. This news is depressing." He nods, and a short while later it changes to a hockey game. It works. And it doesn't even distract me enough so that I miss Taylor walking in. Her eyes widen as she sees me, and she starts power walking to my location.

"Dad! What the hell are you doing here?! The entire point of us setting up this dead drop is that we are never in the same place at the same time!" She stage whispers at me.

"The entire point of this is so we can communicate even when we're apart, and I can't wait till Wednesday for you to get back to me on this! Taylor what the fuck were you thinking killing those people?!"

"Dad, weren't you the one who told me never to let any kidnappers get you away from the public? That what they would do to you behind closed doors would always be so much worse than what they would try in public? They already sent a kidnapping team after me. A cape team. And I know I told you this in my letter. I was just removing a threat to my life at the source."

"Well that's not what the news is reporting! Don't roll your eyes at me Taylor, this is important. There is a manhunt for you right now. You are a fugitive. And this all could have been avoided relatively easily."

"How."

"You could have unmasked and accused them. Make a media circus out of it."

"It wouldn't have stopped them."

"It could have! And if it didn't, it would be the rich guy unambiguously punching down. The narrative would have changed."

"And my secret identity?"

"Taylor, secret identities exist so capes don't have people hounding them day and night. So they can have a life outside of cape stuff. As much as it hurts to say it you have no life outside of cape stuff. You're on the run, I'm on the run, somebody blew up our fuckin' house last night,"

"Wait what?"

"Emma blew up your social life before all this, and killing that rot powered idiot seems to have done the same in Arcadia. And yes, somebody blew up our fucking house last night. Probably wasn't the Nazis. They would've done that weeks ago."

"Okay, table that bit about our house, cause we're definitely talking about that later, but what about high school? We fought for that transfer to Arcadia."

"Honey, Arcadia is a sunk cost fallacy right now. You can print diamonds out of basically anything, you don't need school. And if you do need school, you can go take night classes in New York or something. You have options."

"Fine I have options, I can go places. That won't stop assholes like-" Her face goes blank and she stops talking. I see a wisp of smoke curl up from where she's scratching at the table.

"Taylor?"

"We're being watched again. By Coil's people. I recognize the stupid radio crackling." She doesn't recognize the stupid radio crackling. That's one of our code phrases. It means he split the timeline and is currently fucking around in his other timeline. When I'm here.

"He wouldn't dare start something so publicly." A filthy lie and we both know it. What to talk about now that we're being watched? "So about our house blowing up. I just found out around noon, and the cops told me it was an explosive device instead of incendiary. Nothing else yet."

"Well it sounds like somebody from out of town then. All the local players would know how empty that place is. Do you think I'll have to finish what I started with the McCormicks? Or is that not smart enough?"

"Ahhh, well if you need to crack some heads, then you need to crack some heads. But for the love of God keep an eye out for any opportunities to get the truth out. I know you plan on being a hero after all this, but they won't accept you after too many shenanigans."

"But Sophia-"

"Killed some two bit gangsters and never made the news. It's unfair, but that matters. Speaking of all this, how much did those team members of yours contribute to the decision to kill them?"

"Well everybody but the shadow guy. He tried to stop it, but we outvoted him. Tattletale was very supportive of me."

"She's the thinker?"

"Yes." I give her a deadpan stare.

"Thinkers aren't infallible honey. You need to understand that smarts don't necessarily make you smart. Did she even bring up the possibility of waging an information warfare against them?"

"...That's not fair." I shrug in response.

"You should listen to that shadow guy. He seems like he has a good head on his shoulders."

"Are you ready to order?" From the waiter. He just walked up to us.

"Yes, I'll have the mushroom swiss burger." And Taylor gets her own sandwich. After we ordered we set up a system to set up a new line of communication. Maybe an actual dead drop this time who knows? Anyways we aren't actually discussing it here. I'm going to shake any tails I may have, and she'll follow me to my current place. We'll set it up there. Once we're both there she speaks up again.

"Tattletale can't split her power between taking down Coil and the McCormicks. Her usage of it is limited."

"Well if all the other McCormicks are after you right now, she's gonna have to do it anyways, right?" She turns her head and starts mumbling.

"Taylor, I don't like bursting your bubble like this, but if I don't do it reality will. And let me tell you reality is an asshole. It'll take all your dreams, aspirations, and hapiness, and grind them into so much dust. As much as it shames me to admit it, the only reason I'm not a drunken mess right now is good old fashioned spite. As much as I'd like to get things back to normal right now, I'd much rather see you succeed and thrive. So don't let anybody screw you over or kill you, okay?"

"Okay Dad. See you later." She gives me a(n almost) spine cracking hug, and leaps out of the window.

She stuck the landing. That's my girl.

 

[Optimal Robotics]

I'm just about to start eating dinner when an alert pops up on my phone. It's my tracking software compiling an automatic report for me. Taylor Hebert just got done with school with perfect attendance for the day. Huh. I could've sworn we killed her last night. Let's trawl through the data, make sure it isn't flinging me a false positive. My tracking software operates by trawling social media sites and any available data feed, collates it all, and gives me something to work with. This information was gained through a combination of teacher entered attendance records, and school security footage. And she is present, no doubt about that.

"Apollo! I thought you said there weren't any survivors in that explosion!"

"I said there weren't any human survivors Tech Support. If she's still alive and kicking she's either not human anymore, or she wasn't there to begin with. You know how literal my power is. And either one of those gives us valuable information."

"Well that may be, but that's a right fine mess we've made though. If she wasn't on alert before, she definitely is now. Go tell the goon squad we're not done here, I'm going to do some more in depth research on our target." He leaves the hotel room slightly miffed. Petulance doesn't really look good in a suit, but all fresh triggers need their egos pricked sooner or later.

Let's see, looking through her school records... She recently transfered in from Arcadia. Hmm, school transfers are standard practice for fresh Wards, but there aren't any of those in this town. School records in Winslow depict her as a serial delinquent, not unexpected. Social media depicts... a concerted bullying campaign that mostly succeeded in driving her off social media.

I'm sorry, what the fuck? Said campaign was orchestrated by the queen bees of the school. And the recently unmasked Ward that had her home firebombed by the Nazis. Said firebombing coincided suspiciously closely with Taylor's transfer. Looks like the only reason she wasn't prosecuted for all this was how phenomenally bad it would have made the PRT look if it ever went to court. Like wow, I'm actually kind of impressed at the balls it takes to just brazenly walk out and about after all that. Good thing we're not planning to take this to court then, isn't it?

Looking at the data it looks like we made a few bad assumptions regarding the timeline. I seem to have found a video of her trigger event. We previously assumed she had her trigger event in the confrontation with Anthony, but it seems she had a bit more experience with her power than that. She wasn't at her place because of a confrontation with the Nazis of all people. Figured they would've gotten along like a house on fire considering what they did to the girl who triggered her. And then there was the fatal mistake Randy made with the local mercenaries. Silly of him not to lean on family connections in the first place, but I'm not blaming him after what happened with Grandma.

Diving into what happened the day of my Brother's death, it seems the timeline was a little bit more impressive than I thought it was. Almost immediately after the Taylor girl ripped through downtown at speeds that should've seen every single window on her route shattered at the least. I only figured this out because my data mining programs found an anomaly with peoples clothes getting ruffles by the wind all the way down main street. I didn't even know for sure it was her until a couple seconds of footage caught her on top of the house walls scouting. Mental.

From the direction she was going, and came from, the Undersider's base of operations is somewhere in the docks district of town. Unfortunately the camera coverage over there isn't nearly enough to pinpoint their location. Apparently that, and other large sections of the city are in massive disrepair. That and the ABB have apparently made it a habit to wreck any cameras in their slice of town whenever they find them. Annoying. I guess that means I'll have to deal with the possibility of Lung, or the serial suicide bomber interrupting this operation. Good thing I'm a backline kinda guy.

Moving on with my research, I look over to the only altercation there's any footage of. The Boardwalk robbery. She wasn't moving nearly as fast here than she otherwise would have. Probably getting used to her powers then, and not at all angry enough to use it to her full potential. And the guards managed to shock her with their handheld tasers. Good to know. Getting the PRT reports are easy enough as well. They have her as a brute/breaker four plus, mover four plus, and striker five plus. That mover rating should be a six or seven from what I gathered, and that striker rating was a complete surprise to me. Good to know what I need to plan around. I take out my phone.

"Vinny! The hit didn't go as planned. I need Horrorshock, a brute immune to electricity, and three more squads of guys." He makes confused noises at me.

"No, that was a Transformers character. Hasbro actually sent us a letter about that. No, I'm talking about our electricity tinker. You know, the Russian?" More confused noises.

"Cause it's the only thing fast enough to tag her, and she's already shown a weakness to it. Look, can you get it done or not?" Affirmative noises.

"Excellent. I'll meet them tomorrow at the airport." I hang up. Honestly, he should be glad I'm going through him at all.

"Holy shit, you know how much of a pain in the ass the mercs were when I gave them the bad news?" As Apollo opens the door again.

"Quite a bit less than I care about. Now. Question time."

"Oh, son of a bitch, do we have to? The idiot grunts already gave me a headache."

"Of course we have to! I'm not letting that bitch slip through my fingers again! First question. How many of the Undersiders survive against the team I'm building in a straight fight?"

"Only Grue survives in a straight fight. What a waste of a question. This is a getaway crew, you think they're going to fight fair?"

"True, but I'm not planning on fighting fair either. Next question. What are the chances the Undersiders come after us if we kidnap Taylor's dad?"

"Forty two percent." I raise my eyebrows.

"Wow, what a cold-hearted bitch."

"Could be team dynamics. They already stuck their necks out over your brother."

"Maybe. What are the chances the Undersiders come after us if we kidnap one of them."

"I can't answer that. It's too similar to the other question." I grunt in annoyance.

"What are the chances our people run into significant trouble from the locals, other than the Undersiders, if we're careful in our search for them."

"Fifty percent."

"...Yeah, I'll take those odds. Send out the boys while we're waiting for our team to assemble. Never hurts to have more information on our targets."



AN: And just so you guys know, Taylor's blank power is fully functioning against this guy

Powers gained this chapter

Inexhaustible QE Comm Link (Eclipse Phase) (100CP)
Two fingernail-sized Quantum Entanglement communication arrays. If each is installed in a separate device, those two devices can communicate instantaneously no matter the distance. Unlike standard QE comms in the setting, the qubits are not expended when information is transmitted. It has the bandwidth of a high-speed fibre optic connection.

 

[Optimal Robotics]

I sip on my bedtime tea before turning the TV on to get one last look at the news tonight. Only to do a spit take as I see the Undersiders just murdered the local McCormicks without informing me. There goes a perfectly serviceable night, straight down the crapper. Even if I'm not called in tonight, I'll most likely have to waste the entirety of tomorrow at the PRT headquarters doing absolutely nothing of substance. A quick call to headquarters does confirm that I'm not needed in tonight though.

The morning after confirms my suspicions. I'm called into work to work on this problem. And by work on this problem, I mean get shuffled to the side because Piggot still hates me while other people draw up plans for various scenarios. Fine by me.

This morning before I went to work I spun up a disposable timeline and assumed my supervillain identity. When I was in my secure limo, flanked by my mercenaries I called Tattletale.

"Yes boss?"

"Tattletale what the fuck."

"Boss I can explain-"

"And you will. In person. Where are you now?"

"I'm at the loft."

"I'll be there shortly." I signal to the driver where to go. True to my word we arrived there not fifteen minutes later. Once I stop at the building I exit the limo, flanked by my bodyguards, and heedless of the homeless and poor gawking at me. They won't matter once I close the timeline. Tattletale exits the building shortly and almost meekly walks up to me.

"Yes boss?" One of my guards steps up and opens a small faraday caged box.

"I need you to give up your phone so we can go to my base. It's a security measure you see."

"Uh, boss, I gotta tell you, you do not want me to give up my phone right now." Hmm, usually she's either more afraid or cautious than this. No matter. I signal my man. "How about we just discuss this upst-Hey!!" As her grabs her, wrenches the phone from her grasp, and shoves her in the limo. I follow them in and signal the driver to gun it. Personal confrontations with the Undersiders rarely ever go well whenever I make such a poor first impression.

"So Tattletale-"

"Fuck you boss." How rude. She should really know better than this. I backhand her to shut her up.

"So as I was saying, how could you possibly think killing the McCormicks was a good idea?"

"I'm surprised you know their names." She winces at her own speech, blood dribbling down the corner of her mouth. "You don't seem the type to care about people who stuck to the background like they did."

"Tattletale you made the news. And beyond that I at least know the names of everybody who donates at the local police ball. Now answer the question."

"Fine. You remember when I called about the enforcers screwing with Taylor?"

"Vaguely."

"Well that was the McCormicks. They did it in retaliation to her killing their precious little boy in self defence, and they hired Faultline's crew to kidnap her once I undid all their hard work on that end. We couldn't very well let something like that go, could we?"

I groan in irritation. "You realize you could've called me to help with this, right? This is the exact type of thing I'm equipped to handle."

"What, and have any of the team any more indebted to you than they already are?" She sneers. "Fuck that noise." The car jolts as she finishes talking, and she gives me a huge shit eating grin. I pay neither of those things any mind. The roads in this town are hot fucking garbage, and Tattletale won't be smiling for long once I get her back to my base. I let the conversation drop from there. She only gets smug like this once she thinks she got something over on me, and I won't be getting anything else out of her with polite conversation. It's going to be fun dragging the truth out from her.

When we get to the entrance the mercenaries perform their usual security checks on my car to make sure I don't have a bomb on me or something. Not so pointless-

"EEEAUGH!!" From one of my outside mercenaries. What the fuck? My confusion turns to horror once I turn to look, and see Taylor in her slime form take out three more goons in two seconds.

"I told you not to take my phone away, didn't I?" Tattletale says over the clatter of impotent gunfire.

"You little bitch!" As I punch her in the head. The gunfire has all but stopped by now, and the guards in here have their guns pointed at the door. That speed is far too quick for comfort.

"I wondurr," she slurs. Taylor has her hand on the door now. "Since you're so surprised by this, does that make me the better thinker?" I take my gun out and shoot her in the fucking head as Taylor wrenches the door open. I catch the barest instant of my mercenaries opening fire before the timeline ends with a flash of blue in front of my eyes.

Well that's not good.

---

The one bright spot in Tattletale having more leverage on Taylor than I do is that She doesn't know that I know that. This means I can go looking for more than she does without her realizing what's going on. Hopefully she doesn't try anything while I can't torture anything out of her. I did try again during the weekend, but all that did was get the timeline cancelled even faster.

I got my chance on Monday. Danny screwed up that infuriatingly effective dead drop by attending himself. I got to listen in on the most interesting of conversations regarding the McCormicks. Good to know I'm not the only one agonizing over the Undersider's stupidity. I spin up a disposable timeline.

"Move in and abduct Danny Hebert."

"Yes boss." Unfortunately they all die depressingly quickly, and impressively violently. They even managed to hit her with tinker tech weapons, but they did all of fuck and all against her. The hell am I even paying for those things for? And things aren't going much better in the other timeline.

"We're being watched again. By Coil's people. I recognize the stupid radio crackling."

"Oh heellll naw!" And the feed cuts out.

"Report. What's going on?"

"I'm sorry boss, but I'm not staying here. Feel free to fire us or whatever, but we're not gonna die like George and the others did." As I hear their truck turn on, and the feed cut out altogether shortly afterwards. Hmm. Unfortunate that I only had one team on scene. I maybe could have kept one team in the dark, and then had them take over once the other one ran away. Unfortunately I didn't anticipate such an opportunity presenting itself tonight, and any other team would've taken too long to get there. And now they're all probably going to be inconveniently skittish about spying on her. At least Tattletale was telling the truth about her minor thinker power that identified my wire when she recruited her.

About an hour later one of my informants called. Apparently there are some mercenaries searching for the Undersiders uncomfortably close to their base. Hmm, is it worth it to save them? Well they could still be useful in the future. I spin up a disposable timeline and send some of my mercenaries out. If they fail I'll close it, and if they succeed I'll keep it. And hey, apparently my men need a confidence boost in me.

A short time later my mercenaries contact me. Two injuries and the enemy team eradicated. Good enough for me.

 

[Optimal Robotics]

"But then he said he's gonna treat me like a monogamous girlfriend, and if I want anything more or less than that I'm gonna have to tell him! I mean what the hell do I even say to all that!!"

"Tell him what you want?"

"It's not that simple!"

"Uh, yes it is?" I glare at her. "Hey, don't give me that. I tried to warn you off of him, but you just had to go for the bad boy. Why are we even talking about this anyways? Didn't we agree not to talk about romance with each other?"

"You're the only one I can talk to. Alec is the source of my problems, I'm not talking with Dad or Brian about this, and Bitch just looked at me like I was a moron."

"Do you not have any friends at school to talk to about this?"

"Not anybody I trust with my love life. And Amy stopped talking to me after I killed the McCormick kid."

"Amy Dallon?"

"Yeah?"

"You were on speaking terms with-no. No that's not important right now. Get your key out, nobody should bother us here."

"Are you sure you want to go back in there? You looked pretty spooked last time."

"Yes I'm sure! There's nothing I can do about your incredibly stupid stockpile except blow it up early. So I'm ignoring it. What I would like to do is check back every ten days to see if we can find a pattern on how and when you get stuff. But we can't afford to be that laid back about things." Well when she puts it like that I'm surprised she even waited six days. It's still Monday right now, just a couple hours after my Dad chewed me out for killing the rich people. Then all of a sudden she brightened up, came out of her room, and dragged me away to check on my key dimension.

Enough stalling. I take out my key and open up the chosen door with it. Nothing much looks like it changed in the entryway.

"I'll check up on the facilities portion real quick." I tell her.

"Wait-" And I'm gone. Nothing changed on that section of the complex. Thank God. "-up!"

"I'm done."

"Oh come on Taylor! You could at least let me look through there at least once."

"It's not all that interesting, trust me. At least not after looking at the stockpile. Come on, let's go cataloguing things." I walk us down the storage corridor. First up is the futuristic gun thing room. Labeled Buildy Gun. Opening the door I see a big change. The back of the room now has a bunch of interlocking steel plates stacked side by side.

"Hey, uh, Lisa. Any idea what this is?"

"Not really no. I can tell it's designed to be able to be compacted like this, and it can be assembled into another shape. Sort of like a tent. But I couldn't tell you what the final shape is supposed to be, and I don't see any way to get it out of this room intact with how tightly it fits in here."

"Let's table that as a mystery for now then. Onwards." The next item on the list is the living crystal. Labeled Taydenite Crystal.

"Well I can tell you it hasn't grown." Lisa tells me.

"All I needed to know. Moving on." Next door was not labeled Antimatter Storage, surprisingly, but Glove Of The East. Which means this place rearranged itself when I wasn't looking again. Joy. The item in question is actually a pair of pink fingerless gloves with a heart pattern on the backs.

"Lisa?"

"I'm not sure. Some sort of improperly configured energy transference device?"

"Lisa they're cloth gloves. You know what? No, that's not the issue. If you're right and these are tinkertech, then that means these gloves were custom made for a purpose. Probably one you're not familiar with. How reliable is your power when evaluating other technology?"

She frowns. "Usually pretty reliable. Though you're right that I don't have the first clue what I'm looking at here. I just thought these were some well made gloves before I used my power."

"Could be an issue if I keep getting really off the wall stuff."

"We'll deal with it if it comes up. Next item?" She clips out. The next door is labeled Comm Link. The room has a pedastle with a box on it. In that box are two Bluetooth looking things. You know, like the ones assholes wear.

"Definitely tinkertech." Well no shit Lisa. Wouldn't be much of a windfall if it wasn't. I don't think my power really does unimpressive. I pointedly don't say that though. She sounded a little irritated right after I questioned her power.

"And now comes the testing. I think I'll only go for the futuristic gun thing, and the communicator. The other items are either useless, too specialized, or too dangerous." We're both ignoring the fifth and final door here. The label is what I expected it to be, and that's all I need to know about it.

"You going to go to the ship graveyard to test this?"

"Nope! My legs are powerful and fast. I'm going out of town a few miles for this. I don't want any homeless butting in and selling any information about me." She nods and I give her one of the earbuds. I start running out of town with the two devices inside my slime. I'm less worried about getting them wet than I am losing them to air resistance at the speeds I'm going. I'm also not letting them touch each other, remembering the experiments with the phones and banana. After about five minutes I'm a decent ways out of town. I'm in the middle of a field right now. A little bit of fumbling with unfamiliar buttons on my ear later and Lisa picks up.

"Testing, one two three. Is it working?"

"Yeah I can hear you. Incredibly clearly really. I'm not getting any of the quality loss I would on a phone call." It is then that I hear the telling noise of

*RATATATATA*

Automatic gunfire. I've had far too much experience with it these past two months to mistake it for anything else.

"What the fuck?! Tattletale are you all right?"

"Yeah I am. It looks like a dustup between some out of towners and Coil's men. I don't think they know I'm here yet."

"Oh hell. You think this has anything to do with my house blowing up?"

"Maybe? I don't know. Taylor that could have been literally anybody. Good chance it was Coil given the games he was playing with us over the weekend."

"No I don't buy that. Everything he did was completely deniable. Even right now this isn't even happening in the other timeline. Did you need me to come back there?"

"No, I'm fine. I ducked inside a building, and none of these guys are after any civilians. I'll be all right."

"If you're sure, but call me immediately if anything changes."

"Will do." And she hangs up. Next up is the buildy gun. The wacky thing has three triggers and seven buttons. After a few minutes of fiddling with it all a hologram popped up. Also Coil chose this timeline to keep. A couple more seconds has me find the use for the third trigger. It locks the gun in place and starts building the hologram with a strangely satisfying sound. Not using this in any kind of fight then. That lockdown effect could be deadly in a fight.

The structure itself is very familiar. I can recognize a good portion of the metal plates used in the construction. This was the tent thing in the buildy gun room. There's what looks like two generators on one end, an industrial workbench and storage chest on the other, some sort of scaffolding all along the top, and an efficiency apartment in the middle. In the apartment is what looks like a very small bathroom, two bunks built into the wall, various storage spaces also built into the wall, an office space, and a holographic computer. This is all really futuristic looking too. The whole setup is raised up from the ground on a rugged metal grating, and just a metal floor in the apartment. There aren't any amenities in here. For example, no bedding in the bunk beds, but I assume that can be added later. I could just live off the grid like this, couldn't I?

Can I undo this? I'm not going to be able to use this right here. I'm in the middle of what I assume to be a farmer's field. Private property. That's liable to get me shot, even if it won't do much to me. About a minute of fiddling I figure it out, and the gun sucks the building up just the same as it built it. Weird.

After all that I run at top speed back to town. I haven't heard back from Lisa and I'm kind of worried. Once I'm back in the city I slow down a lot. And I mean I slow down a whole lot, far more than is reasonable for just avoiding traffic and pedestrians. I'll have to test this later. See if I'm finally cycling out powers or something. I am able to find Lisa speedily enough though. There's a bunch of dead and unfamiliar mercenaries littered in the streets in the general area where we were taking stock of my new stuff. She waves me down after a couple seconds searching.

"Taylor. Why didn't you call?"

"Didn't want to get you caught. And if you were already caught they would've had the headset."

"Ah. Well I'm fine. I'm guessing he kept the timeline?"

I nod. "Any idea what this was about? These guys were racially diverse so they don't belong to any of the local gangs."

"Not directly anyways. We do have direct access to one of the participants though. Let's ask." She takes out her telephone and dials a number. I lean in close to listen

"Hey boss. I couldn't help but notice your mercenaries shooting some other mercenaries concerningly close to the base. Do I get to know what that's about?"

"Ah Tattletale. You should be thanking me right now. Those mercenaries were from out of town. Asking about the Undersiders. Probably about those rich people you killed a few days back." Oh boy.

"Ah. Any idea how long that's going to take to shake out?"

"No. I'll let you know when I have something for you to do."

"One last thing. If you protect us too obviously that could give away that we work for you, and I find myself concerned how that would work out for me."

"Oh, rest assured Tattletale. I have plenty use for your team no matter how all this turns out. I am a flexible man." And he hangs up.

"Slimy fucker." She says.

"Agreed. Now give me that headset. I'm going to give it to my Dad so we can talk without risking leaving a trail to him." She gives it over. Nice. I can test it more thoroughly later.

 

[Optimal Robotics]

I stayed with Alec last night. After a couple hours of stressing over it I decided if it's not broke it don't need fixing. If I ever figure out what I want from him I'll have to work up the courage for it then. And that's future Taylor's problem. Hopefully I don't make a habit of screwing her over too often.

Left the earpiece with Kurt at the union building this morning along with a message that I'll be calling after school. Told him to get it to Dad, and I have confidence he'll get that done by the time I'm off from school. I got the other one in the pocket dimension right now. Hopefully we can figure out a new schedule where I can call every day. Heh, moved out, and I'm probably going to have more conversations with Dad in the next month than I have in literal years.

I'm in the library right now during lunch chewing through some math books. Really interesting stuff. I never knew calculus had so many uses in modern society and science. Staggering really. My studies are interrupted by somebody sitting across from me.

"Taylor what the fuck! Why did you kill the McCormicks?" She stage whispers towards me. I look up to see Amy there.

"Hello there Amy, my day's been great. How has yours been? Is your sister doing okay?" I snark at her.

"Don't give me that! I told you how Mom is, I can't be friends with a killer no matter how justified it was. Could you answer the damn question?"

"Nope. How about I ask you a question instead though?"

"Taylor-"

"How often are the rich and powerful held accountable for their actions?"

"Taylor that is not an excuse. You need to go to the authorities, you can fight whatever this is. You don't have to take getting publicly slandered like this." I give her a look. Just from that I can tell we've had far different experiences with authority in our lives.

"In order to do that I'd need literally any kind of proof, the ability to speak in public, the money to combat their lawyers, and a sympathetic judge. The ability to combat injustice does not exist in a vacuum Amy. You need both the will and resources to see it through. I'm not your mother. I do not have the resources to see a court battle through against them."

"You could have done it though! You could have slowed them down, put them behind bars."

"And would that have stopped them from sending people after me in retaliation?"

"Yes!"

"No. Prisoners in this country are afforded various rights. Among them being correspondence with their loved ones, confidential communications with their lawyer, and visitation. These are all well and good in normal circumstances. Commendable even. But all of these avenues of communication can be used to get revenge on me. And that's before you factor in what can be accomplished with bribery." During my rant her face started getting more and more incredulous.

"Taylor, that doesn't happen in real life. That's nuts."

"No, it does happen. Just not to people who matter." I return to my books with a vengeance at that. She gets up and leaves shortly after, apparently at a loss for words.

---

Next period is history class. The teacher here is one of the better ones. Actually engaging, with props and such. When everybody is seated he addresses the class.

"Hello everybody, I see you're all here. That's a very good thing considering we have a special guest today." He gestures to the back of the class while giving a meaningful look. I'm startled out of my lazy posture by the sound of some sort of light metal clanking. Looking back I see the actual Armsmaster stepping up to the front of the class. He hesitates a split second on seeing me, and my heart skips a beat. But the moment passes, thank God.

"Good morning kids. Today I was given permission by the school to give you all a presentation. The topic today will be how the first few months of a Parahuman's career typically goes." Oh thank God, it's just a general recruitment pitch. I proceed to ignore the slideshow he puts on to ponder how this surprised me. The teacher's been cycling out superhero mannequins every day for a couple weeks now. And I guess Armsmaster is just able to stand that still. I mean I guess the beard could've given it away, but I suppose fake hair technology has been getting better and better lately. And I wasn't paying all that much attention to begin with. Hmmm. How did the rumors slip by me? This is fifth period right now, and they would've had time to circulate by now. No, wait, I know. I spent all of my lunch in the library. Having friends to keep you in the loop does nothing if you don't keep in the loop with them. Crap.

I jerk up in surprise as a particularly bloody picture comes up in the slideshow. "And this is what happened to her when Hookwolf caught up with her." Holy shit man! Is he allowed to show this? It shows her guts, lungs and brain spilled onto the pavement! With her outfit and skin generally mangled besides! "I have no desire to come across this any other time in my career. Please do yourself and everybody around you a favor and join either the Wards or Protectorate if you want to do hero work. You'll live longer." He has everybody's undivided attention right now. Not that it lasts long after he switched to a more statistical slide.

"Now let's take a look at what happens to the typical villain in their first months." And on and on it went. I started reading a book I got from the library about IT security solutions I got from the library once I totally zoned out. Not really all that much to it. Most IT is just getting faster connections and such. We're at the point where you really have to get into the weeds to find or close a new exploit, and it's just easier to go after the people you can dupe out of their passwords anyways. Probably why Tattletale is so effective. She's playing the player and not the game most of the time. I'm also throttling my reading speed down to a more reasonable level. I'd rather not give myself away to the heroes over something as stupid as impatience.

It's that way reading this book near the end of class that I register a twinge not quite as extreme as the gore filled picture in the way Armsmaster is presenting himself. I look up only to come face to face with an undeniable feeling of uncomfortable certainty. Not unlike the antsy feeling in my lower back that would force me to go out and move my body in some way. All of Armsmaster's equipment is broken. Okay, well not all of it. The LED lights accenting his armor, and about half his utility belt doesn't register. But everything else does. The vast majority of his armor, including all the joints, his halberd, and everything that doesn't look like a grenade is flat out busted. Yet he's moving around and taking questions like nothing is wrong. I raise my hand.

"Yes miss. In the hoodie."

"Yeah, how often does tinkertech break?"

"Ah. A bit off topic, but the answer to that question is far too often. A tinker will typically have to devote a portion of his time to maintenance of his or her equipment to keep it all in working order. A notable exception to this is Dragon, with the ability to reverse engineer other tinker's tinkertech. Next question. The boy right next to her." Oh my God. Well one is hardly a pattern, but if that pattern holds then all tinkers are frauds. Or orks. Their power isn't that they invent stuff, it's that anything they build ever works at all! Holy crap! Um... Can I actually do anything with that information? Probably not, but I do have a new thinker power to test out.

The rest of the day is filled with nervous energy and barely being able to wait to go home. Once school got out I was barely able to restrain myself from unmasking myself with a dead sprint to the hideout. And on my way to the hideout I passed a bunch of broken down old areas that also twinged my new sense. Well not really a sense. I was just able to pick out every single broken camera and lock by instinct on my way to Tattletale. Well I assume broken. No way there's so much tinkertech around with the newly revealed limitation I just found out about. God this is going to be hell on my paranoia.

Tattletale was either extremely pleased or extremely jealous when I finally managed to drag her out to tell her about this. I couldn't tell which.



Powers this chapter:

Honor the Machine Spirit (Warhammer 40k - Adeptus Astartes) (400CP)
Apothecaries tend to the bodies of the dead, Chaplains to their spirits. Techmarines tend to the spirits of the Machine. You are a skilled salvager. For example, while others might see a destroyed tank, you can see a way to salvage usable parts, perhaps restoring another vehicle to fighting trim or finding a way to save unique weapon systems to be re-used another day. This also gives you a strong grounding in the Rites of Reverse Engineering, able to examine unknown technology and figure out basic functionality by comparing it to devices you are already familiar with. You also have a much broader definition of the word 'damaged', able to restore machinery that others would swear was inoperable or destroyed given enough time and as long as you have enough of the original damaged parts to work with.

 

[Optimal Robotics]

"So you're saying you can't tell the difference between broken shit and tinkertech?"

"Yep." She looks around.

"You do realize we're in one of the most rundown sections of the city, right?"

"And it's doing horrible things to my paranoia."

"Yeah, that tracks." As her face goes deadpan. "So what did you expect me to do about it?"

"Help me with power testing? I don't know! I'm sure we could brainstorm something between the two of us."

"So, we going to the waffle place again?"

"I was thinking my storage. I have to see if Dad got the other communication device." She nods and we go to a secluded door to use my key. I go to the earpiece, put it on, and after a moment of hesitation I push the dial button. A couple seconds pass where I think whatever space this is is interfering with the connection, but it does finally connect.

"Hey there! Is this Taylor?" Dad asks.

"Yes! Yes it is. So I've got to tell you about my day." And I proceed to tell him all about the most important bits of it. "So, thoughts?"

"How the hell did New Wave find out about your identity?"

"Really Dad? I was kinda hoping we could talk about my new power." Lisa edges up next to me real close at that. Probably to eavesdrop considering it's on the side with the communicator.

"And we can do that. It's just that I find the fact they know at all suspicious. They couldn't have found out from the PRT. If they knew your secret identity, then Armsmaster would've arrested you, not continue on with his Wards pitch." Huh. He would have, wouldn't he? "And then there's the matter of timing. It looks like they found out right after you were confirmed to survive our house being bombed. And then their daughter demanded answers instead of holding her cards close to her chest like she should have."

"Goddamnit!" From Lisa. "I thought I was supposed to be the smart one here. I can totally see it too, how did I miss this?"

"I take it that's your thinker then? Heh! The energy and vitality of youth is nothing next to the experience and deviousness of old men. Well we can thank our lucky stars that the PRT and New Wave aren't communicating with each other at least. Otherwise Armsmaster would've had a lot more to say to Taylor in particular."

"Yeah yeah yeah. So what do you think about Taylor's power? Because I was thinking I would try getting various broken things. See how far up the tech tree and how badly damaged it has to be to register as broken."

"Good idea little lady. Taylor have you tried fixing anything you see as broken yet?"

"No?"

"Well try it out. Stands to reason there would be a use for this new sense, wouldn't there?"

"What!? No there doesn't! Powers come with lots of dumbass caveats all the goddamn time!"

"Does that make it not worth testing?"

"..." From both me and Lisa

"Well try it out, see how it goes. Talk to you tomorrow Taylor. Try not bringing your friend next time either. She's a bit too excitable for this old man's tastes."

"Wait, dad, what are we going to do if you lose your earpiece or it runs out of battery?"

"Then we'll start the dead drop back up again." And he hangs up. I look over to Lisa who's staring at me intensely.

"I swear to God Taylor, if it turns out you just pulled a tinker power on top of all your other bullshit I might just have to fucking shoot somebody out of pure envy." I nervously laugh at that.

Power testing was innocuous enough. Started with looking at the cracked and broken blacktop on the nearest streets. That didn't trigger my new instinct at first, but I could focus on it and I could tell it was caused by heat buckling and contracting in the cold. Geeze power, what profound insights you give me. Broken security cameras were a given in this part of town, and so were broken locks where places got broken into. We went to a pawn shop to take a look at things. Just about one in ten things here ping my senses as broken in one form or another. And about half of those were in the DVD section.

"Come here Taylor." As she waves to the counter. "Does this catch your fancy?" The code we decided on just before entering. Meaning she found a minor flaw in whatever she's pointing at. She's pointing at a switchblade hand painted in a Hello Kitty motif.

"Nope." Would've said hell no based on the paint job, but that was my answer for me being able to tell something's wrong with it. In the end we bought a switch blade for each of us to deflect suspicion. The cashier was technically supposed to ask for our IDs before the purchase, but nobody in their right mind is gonna deny a couple of teenage girls the ability to defend themselves in this town.

"So, what was wrong with the knife?" Once we were a safe distance away.

"The blade was slightly bent. Nothing deal breaking, but enough to make cutting a little more awkward. So what kind of broken stuff did you see?"

"Mostly DVDs. Couldn't see anything wrong with any of the knives. Sprinkled all around here and there otherwise."

"Mmm. Makes sense. So it probably doesn't care about low quality goods then. Let's move on to the next part of the test." The next part of the test being going to a hardware store, and offering one of the neighbors to fix their broken door handle with a replacement. The neighbor in question being a suspicious sort. Not that I blame him. Free shit doesn't usually fall out of the sky in Brockton Bay after all. Anyways we convinced him with minimal swearing on Lisa's part. He insisted on doing the installation himself though.

After that we brought the stupid thing back to the base. Disassembling it revealed that it was, in fact, not tinkertech. Yippee. It also revealed the problem. Some of the internals were bent. Just enough to make a slight grinding noise whenever the door knob was turned, and prevent the lock from turning completely. The dude this originally belonged to has other locks.

Naturally I got to work bending this into shape right away. Now what I expected to happen was bending it all out of shape into an irreparable mess. A natural conclusion considering my complete lack of appropriate tools and my unfamiliarity with this model of doorknob. What actually happened was I managed to get it more or less in shape. It still ground out when turning the handle even if the lock was fixed. I was not satisfied with this. I know I can roughly fix things, but I want to know if I can do better. I got to work trying to melt the metal into place inside of myself. One piece at a time to avoid any silly fusions. At the end of it, the knob was working perfectly. I also figured out electroplating, but better and with acid. Cool.

"Hey you finally done over there?" From Alec on the couch. Looking at the clock, it seems it's been about an hour and a half since I started. "Wanna play couch co-op?" As he pats the seat next to him. "Or skip straight to bed and have some fun~"

"Nah I'm hungry. Gonna make dinner."

"All right. I'll finish this level and then join you."

Nice. So the fridge is pretty well stocked at the moment. For a given definition of 'well stocked'. Brian or Lisa must've gone out and bought things today. There's some actual ingredients in here. Vegetables, milk, and other basic ingredients. In the cupboard is... a cake mix. Fuck it, yeah, I could go for some cake.

I set some potatoes to boil to start with. Twelve total. Four for each of us in the apartment. Then I remember Bitch's dogs. Twenty potatoes. While that was boiling I preheated the oven to four hundred degrees fahrenheit and mixed up the cake batter. Once that was done I put the cake in the oven, then the potatoes on a cookie sheet with slits in them. Also the heat isn't bothering me at all. Neat. Half an hour for the cake, fifty minutes for the potatoes. Set the cake to cool, then take the potatoes out. Mash some cheese and sour cream into three fifths of the potatoes, while keeping their shape. It's too bad I don't have any bacon bits.

As an afterthought I heat up another pan to test my heat resistance. I test it with oven mitts on. No need to be stupid about things. After a couple of minutes I don't feel any pain or burning. I feel the heat rising and the mitts are singed, but no pain. And no painless burns either. Hmmm. Well the potatoes are done. I just gotta ice the cake once it's done cooling.

"So Alec, so much for joining me after the level, huh?" As I look over. He whips his head over to me and furrows his brow.

"Taylor it hasn't even been five minutes. What the fuck?"

"Huh?"


AN: The New Wave thing wasn't what I was referring to about the previous chapter btw. I don't expect y'all to keep track of the dates even if I keep a spreadsheet for that.


Powers gotten this chapter

Costumer (Terraria - Journey's End) (100CP)
Many objects, especially with regards to armor, place function over form. Now, you don't have to settle for armor that is good but an eyesore. You can take any item you possess and 'overlay' it on top of a similar item, changing the second item's appearance to match the first, while maintaining all of its functionality, protective qualities, etc.