The Eldritch One (Celestial Forge)

[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.

 

[Optimal Robotics]

Wake up before Alec, freshen up, and put clothes on. I'd wake him up to say goodbye before school, but that would make him grumpy. Put on my underwear, then my pants-What the fuck just happened to my pants!? I know I just put them on, but my legs are feeling distinctively breezy and the pants are still showing up in the mirror.

"Alec? Alec I need your help here!" As I shake him awake.

"Mrrrgh!" Comes the indignant sound from his lips.

"Alec I need your help, come on."

"Waaaaat."

"I need your help, doofus. My pants disappeared as soon as I put them on!"

"What are you talking about?" As he reaches out. "Your pants are right he-" As his hand reaches my thigh. I lightly slap him away as he starts exploring.

"Not now you horndog! I need to know where my pants went!"

"Well your panties are still there. Have you tried taking your pants off?" I try it... And the pants come back, fully tangible. I put the pants back on and they go intangible again.

"Rrrgh!" As I fight back an encroaching headache. "What the fuck am I supposed to wear if I can only actually wear underwear?"

"Pasties and a C-string?" I look at Alec in confusion. What? What even is that? "Have you tried not making your pants all ghosty?"

"Like it would be that easy." I proceed to take them off and very purposely put them on while trying to have them stay solid. It works.

"..."

"Going back to bed now." He turns over.

---

At school my homework goes by quickly. Lisa called me in the middle of second period. I had to hang up as quickly and as subtly as I could for that. I don't want people knowing I'm on the Ward's network. I silenced my phone immediately afterwards too. Just to be safe. Honestly, what was she thinking calling me like that? At the end of class I start moving to the bathrooms to call her back.

"Hey there Taylor!" I feel a sense of elation as an arm hooks around my shoulders. It's Victoria Dallon. Wasn't she not allowed to associate with me? "There's something over here you just have to see." She veers us into a sharp right out of a one way door out of the school.

"What are you doing? Where are we going?" As she literally swoops me off of my feet and starts flying. She waits until we're a few hundred feet in the air before answering. Her aura switches to fear.

"So I heard you murdered the McCormicks."

"Fuck's sake, not this again. I am not dealing with your sanctimonious bullshit." I proceed to melt through her grip.

"The hell?"Took a little bit of doing to make sure she couldn't grab onto my clothes, but my speed was up to the task. Then I reshaped myself to kick off of her full force when we physically separated. Gave her a little bit more airtime than I expected considering her ratings.

Now falling... falling was an experience. Certainly exhilarating, but I'm not sure I would ever pay for skydiving. Though my actual thought process at the time was an endless stream of the word 'fuck' five thousand times in a row.

About halfway down I barely had the presence of mind to protect my phone. I did a terrible job. The shape I made as I fell made it so that the top of the goo pile where it was originally was tilted to the side when I hit the ground. The thing survived, but now it has a cracked screen. Thankfully I didn't land on anybody. I landed on the roof of some office building or something. With nobody around I quickly moved to the roof access stairwell. I jimmied the lock with shape shifting slime easily enough, despite whatever the hell adrenaline analogue is currently racing through my system. I've been practicing that the last couple times a fake timeline blew through, to apparently great effect. Closing and locking the door behind me should hopefully shake off Victoria in her full Glory Girl mode. I take out my phone and dial Lisa.

"Oh holy shit you called back! I thought you got picked up by the school administration or something."

I take a deep breath. "All right. I think I may have an inkling, but what were you calling about before?"

"Some asshole hacked the local T.V. this morning. All channels broadcasting to Brockton Bay got overwritten by this dude in a gasmask with static eyes. He detailed a very biased account of your killing off the McCormicks. And he unmasked you. And he put a fifteen million dollar bounty on all of our heads. Alive. I was trying to make sure you were okay."

"Well either Glory Girl or New Wave just tried to cash that in. My money's on New Wave after the talk with Dad last night."

"Yeah, mine too." She bites out. "Where are you now?"

"A stairwell in the building I dropped on."

"Dropped on?!"

"Yeah. Glory Girl tried to take me up to keep me from escaping. Luckily physical trauma doesn't even hurt me. What now, should I go back to school?"

"Fuck no, get back to the loft. We'll decide what to do from there."

"Will do." And I hang up the phone.

Back at the loft was real boring. I saw the whole video from the news. Lisa forgot to mention the reward was still on offer for turning me into the authorities, but only for seven and a half million. That was what New Wave were probably after. All this was also on PHO and a couple other sites, despite their continued efforts to take it down. Thorough. Thorough and annoying.

Half hour of playing co-op games with Alec later I finally got it into my head to try Dad on the comms. Going into a locked closet at super speed was enough to not alert my roommates to my dimension thingy, and I got the earpiece. Dad answered almost immediately.

"Hey Dad, did you see the news?"

"Yeah, and I'm real pissed about it. I take it something went horribly wrong?"

"Yeah, Glory Girl tried delivering me to the PRT."

"Those sons of-" As he started swearing. For, uh, a while. Didn't repeat himself once. Kind of impressive honestly. The door opens up during his tirade to reveal Lisa.

"Hey there Taylor! Good to see you unharmed."

"Hey there Lisa! I'm gonna have to let you go Dad."

"All right. Talk to you later kiddo." Click.

"So Taylor, I have some bad news."

"Oh boy."

"So this guy doesn't have a cape name that he goes by, but the PRT calls him The Instigator. From what I can tell from the research I had time to do, he supports false flag attacks, puts out anti-PRT misinformation, supports corporations, and just generally screws with the government.

"What he actually is, is an IT tinker. And the PRT only knows that through extensive thinker work on the subject. The prick is fully half the reason the PRT uses air gapped servers and stupidly draconian security measures. The other half being foreign spies. He's also a lot of the reason they're so focused on public relations work."

"There any good news here?"

"Well he has to actually be in the city to pull off what he did. Even a tinker of his caliber and funding needs equipment in the area to actually do stuff. And his specialty is especially limiting in that regard. The local infrastructure has to be up to snuff to support the strain he puts on the system."

"So there should only be a few physical pathways to the actual cable junction that he could've taken to do that hack."

"That too yes."

"And I'm assuming that we can't actually do anything on the Internet or else we'll give away our positions?"

"Oh absolutely."

"So I have an idea to go research some paper schematics for the local internet structure. Do you have any better ideas to save us from this absolute nightmare slog?"

She just sighs in defeat.

---

It's about an hour later at the ISP building. They also run the telephone and cable services. Absolutely mental. State protected monopoly on strategically important infrastructure. How the flying fuck does this stand? Well anyways, it worked out for us. The receptionist had that dead eyed look that all service workers have. Adrenaline pumped through her system and perked her up a bit when she saw me and Tattletale stroll up here in full costume. She was so exhausted it barely made a difference though. She accepted a three hundred dollar bribe for us to have a looky loo through their records. Her only requests being that we not destroy anything, and document any changes we make in the process. Probably broke just about a hundred rules right then, but she was beyond caring.

"You know, I'm surprised it was this easy Tattletale."

"Ha! That's because it wasn't. She called the PRT about five minutes after we settled in."

I quickly look over to the door and then to Tattletale.

"Don't worry about it. I trust you to get us out of here without any complications. And she's either ignorant or unwilling to go after the bounty. And we've made impressive progress on our goal here." She's not wrong. I've had amazing luck picking out binders and files to go through. I started drawing up a map of likely and unlikely, but still possible locations for taps and/or 'legitimate' hacking equipment could be plugged in. Nothing in the docks or northward, but that still leaves a lot of ground to cover. And map out.

"First thing we'll go after after the cable access points are the ISP server locations. We'll plug in some diagnostics and see what spits out anomalous data. See if he got them to lie for him and cover his tracks, or even better if he didn't."

My phone rings. I pick up.

"Yes Regent?"

"Holy shit Taylor, you're not going to believe what happened!"

"What, what is it?"

"Well somebody was recording the phone calls at the Palanquin, and just anonymously submitted a certain conversation to the news stations." I get a sinking feeling in my gut. The only conversation I had from that phone had Lisa saying Alec's real name on it. "Apparently Faultline called up Mr. McCormick up and chewed his ass on the bad intel he gave them, and he all but fucking admitted it on tape that he hired them to kidnap you."

"Haha!" As a smile creeps onto my face.

"Oh that's not all! Not fifteen fucking minutes after the news broke the PRT announced that they were dropping all charges! Apparently they don't take too kindly to frame jobs and also declared gas mask dickhead's bounty illegal."

"Hell yeah! Things are finally looking up for me!"

"And even right now the super hacker is trying to erase all evidence of wrongdoing. He just deleted four threads on PHO discussing this right before my eyes. If that's not an admission of guilt I don't know what is!"

"I hope they manage to keep the documentation of this." I say with all seriousness.

"Don't worry. The PRT might not be the best with infosec, but the director here is like a bulldog with a bone. She's not letting this shit slide. So, what are your plans for after all this blows over?"

"I'm not sure I'm comfortable planning that far ahead. But I am going to be contacting a certain lawyer in the near future." I say with an evil smile.

Carol Dallon has at least one thing to answer for. Victoria may make a good hero, but she didn't strike me as clever enough to come up with that maneuver she pulled on me.

Spoiler: AN:

Don't worry guys Taylor isn't after too much here.
Also Danny's swearing brought to you by the Dawi

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KjHclWPVij0
God I wish I was that creative

Powers gained this chapter

Common Magic (Nexus 2.0) (200CP)
Light is something everyone has, regardless if they are a fighter or not. As such, even the most common laborer will use it to their advantage. You find your abilities are easier to use when turned towards a profession that doesn't involve fighting. Crafting, farming, construction, cooking, and any other profession is able to benefit from your various abilities with great ease.

 

[Optimal Robotics]

Emily Piggot​

"Yes?" I answer the phone.

"Carol Dallon is here. Should I let her in?"

"Hell no, let the dumb bitch stew for a little bit. Do I have any pending calls?"

"Well, uh, there is the principal of Arcadia on the line-"

"Perfect, patch him through." A couple seconds later a very stressed sounding man is patched through to me. Well tough luck asshole, we're all stressed today!

"D-d-director Piggot, what a lovely surprise! I thought I would be getting the deputy director like usual."

"He's busy, what can I do for you?"

"Well as I'm sure you know, the issue of Taylor Hebert came up again today. She issued a complaint against another student and we have the video evidence to back it up, but..." I swear to God, the stupidity of bureaucrats.

"Sir, do you happen to know what happened to the last principal who screwed over Taylor Hebert when she was the victim?"

"No?"

"She's in jail awaiting trial on multiple felonies. Including bribery, child endangerment, and improper disposal of toxic waste."

"Uhh,"

"You see Taylor seems to have a habit of making PR shit bombs that explode all over, and at the slightest provocation. I got hit, Shadow Stalker" the fucking psychopath. "Got hit, Winslow got hit, the McCormicks got hit, this 'newscasting' asshole got hit, and New Wave is about to be hit. I would label her a Thinker if I didn't know what her power actually is. And all this is secondary to the violence she can achieve under her own power.

"Listen. Has she ever shown any indication of being anything other than the shy little bookworm all your other reports paint her as?"

"Uh, no."

"Then I would say protect yourself, and your school, by following the letter of the law here."

"Yes ma'am!" And he hangs up. Thank God. For a second there I was afraid he was about to expel her over that stupid bounty in the name of protecting the students. I didn't even have to tell him the real reason I wanted her still in school. Which is to lock down a ridiculously versatile mover for seven hours every single school day. And who knows, she might actually get properly socialized in her time there! Weirder things have happened. Like Assault marrying Battery.

Another call comes in not ten seconds after that. This time from Deputy Director Rennick. I answer.

"Good news?"

"I'm afraid not. We've been denied WDGD access and nobody is coming to reinforce."

"What! What the fuck are they thinking!? This asshole is a national threat! Now he finally overextends and we have a chance to nail him to the fucking wall and they don't wanna go for it?!"

"I don't even know anymore Emily." He wearily sighs.

"...We're being sabotaged." I growl out.

"Possibly. I'm going to put out some more fires that have undoubtedly popped up."

"Make sure Armsmaster makes some more air gapped copies of those recordings. That dickhead already deleted the decoys on our servers."

"Will do." Click. I call up my secretary.

"Send Carol in."

Carol Dallon​

"The Director will see you now." About time too. A standard power play to make me wait, but never one that stops being annoying. I walk through the door and stand in front of the Director's desk.

"Carol Dallon. Take a seat, we have something to discuss." I pointedly remain standing and look at the failure of a woman in front of me. Pallid skin and failing kidneys. She should've either retired long ago, or called on Amy to heal her by now.

"Be like that then. Me, and everybody with a brain really, noticed you sent out a statement suspiciously synchronized with the announcement made by The Instigator. Condemning the actions made by Taylor Hebert. Tell me, have you been in contact with the man himself?"

"I don't see how that's any business of yours."

"Believe me I wish it wasn't. The man is a politically motivated worm and we finally caught him dead to rights in a lie. Here let me give you some reading material." As she hands me over a dossier. "We can't prove it in a court of law, but we've noticed a pattern of behavior from him. He shows up in town, starts pushing a narrative, usually a lot more subtly than this, and opinion starts turning against the PRT. In about half of such cases he starts coordinating with a local team or independent, and their star starts to rise. Then they falter or get involved in some controversy. And lo and behold, the Elite swoops in, totally coincidentally to pick up the pieces.

"The Nazis are bad enough Carol, I'd rather not have another out of town villain team put down roots in this city." I tighten my grip on the folder. I'm going to fucking eviscerate the man once I find him.

"Was that everything?"

"Yes. Unless you had something to share that would make the investigation into The Instigator go any smoother."

"No I don't think I do. What are you going to be doing about the Undersiders? They're still a villain group."

"What about the Undersiders? Aside from the recent unpleasantness, the only thing they've ever done is knock over gang establishments. The only reason they aren't a vigilante group is because of previous classifications. Nobody cares!"

"I see. I think I'll be leaving now." She makes no moves to stop me. Good. That's only led to shouting matches in the past. I will, of course, have to review the evidence she presented me, but I have no reason to doubt it. Not after that journalistic mousetrap that put all of New Wave in a tight spot. It is, of course, going to be just the thing to force me into opposing the Instigator. Entirely truthful as well. I hate that Piggot has such a good read on me.

I make it to the parking lot when my phone rings.

"Hello Carol."

"Yes? Who is this?"

"This is Taylor, and I believe your daughter just tried to have me arrested this morning." Ice runs through my veins.

"How did you get this number."

"Public directories. You would be absolutely floored to find out how much information is just available to those who know how to look."

"And what the hell do you want?"

"I want you to tell me why I shouldn't press kidnapping charges on your daughter." Shit. We didn't know it was a setup at the time, but that's not something a jury might care about with all the public outcry surrounding Taylor here.

"You wouldn't. You just got cleared of a murder charge, you wouldn't jump straight to blackmail."

"I find I don't really give a shit about the legality of a situation when a rich asshole is using it as a shield from the consequences of their own actions. You see I was reading a legal ethics book a few days ago. It turns out it's a disbarrable offense to threaten a lawsuit, harass, or otherwise try to ruin somebody's life in retaliation for reporting a crime."

"Miss Hebert, blackmail is when you don't report a crime in exchange for something. This is still illegal." And really stupid to boot.

"Yeah, I'm not talking about you. One of your coworkers, a Mr. Alan Barnes, threatened this the last time I tried reporting his daughter for stealing my shit. I want him gone from your firm in a week's time."

"Taylor I can't do that. He's under contract, he's... I don't have that power." I may be a named partner, but he's a partner and a divorce attorney. He's a sizable chunk of our income all on our own. Nobody will go for it.

"Ah, there is. 'Our goal being to spark a New Wave of accountability and moral standing amongst all the heroes in this country.' I guess I know where all that idealism and optimism ends. Right when it gets difficult for you personally. A hypocrite like all the others." That bitch! How dare she use our unmasking speech against me! Fleur fucking died for that!! I feel a sparking on my hands. I force myself to calm down before I destroy my phone.

"You forget I came prepared for a little bit of inconvenient moral flexibility. Either your daughter pays for the crime she committed, probably on your orders, or the shit bag lawyer who threatened and coerced a formerly defenseless little girl gets fired. Your choice." My guts twist at the ultimatum. Despite my hard line on Taylor's crimes I was aware of the Shadow Stalker situation. Kind of hard not to be with that horrible video out there. I remember thinking that the whole story was either far worse or overblown compared to what was shown. This morning I thought it was overblown, now I'm thinking it's far worse.

"I'm going to need a majority partner vote to oust him. And they're going to need more than 'trust me bro' as a source for this. The reality of the situation will not conform to what you want it to be just because you're angry about it."

"Then pull his email history. I can guarantee you'll find something you can take to the bar association." And she hangs up. Well shit. I guess I can send our tech support to go after that, but do I think they'll find anything? Let's see, what can I remember about the man in question? I remember him bragging to me he vouched for Shadow Stalker's character a few times. Well son of a bitch.

My phone rings again. I answer.

"Hello Carol this is Principal Danvers."

"Yes?"

"Well, there's no easy way to say this, but..."

"Out with it man."

"We're going to have to expel your daughter."



AN: again guys I'm not a lawyer. I don't know if that's a disbarrable offense or not.

Also Taylor can't guarantee shit, she's just talking out her ass at the end there.

 

[Optimal Robotics]

After giving Carol her ultimatum, I turned my attention back to the Parahuman trying to ruin my life. I spent the next hour scouring the entire goddamn city for any kind of elicit cable taps without any guarantee I would recognize them as such. And this is going to be the easy part. Brockton Bay might be a small city, but it's still a city. And I can't go anywhere near my top speed while doing an in depth search like this, so we're taking the dogs. Fortunately we found what we were looking for in the third location I searched. My senses blared to me that this thing on the cables is tinkertech. It looks like it's bolted on. The top bit is a camera looking thing facing off in a random direction, and where a lense would normally be is a boxy flat surface with five small lenses attached.

"Tattletale? That don't look like it belongs."

"Looks like a, uh, directional wifi bridge." She takes out a map and looks at the thing again. "It's facing this way, which means..." She traces her finger along the map. "They're at the Super 8 motel in the South-West section of town!"

"Excellent! Let's go kill us a lying prick." We go back to the rest of the team. They're keeping the staff off of us while we look around. Funnily enough the only thing they insisted on was for the two of us going into the work area to wear fluorescent safety equipment. Weird, but I stopped Tattletale from laughing it off. Safety first and all that, and she is the squishiest one here.

---

During the dog ride to the motel we were very subdued. Only thing anybody said, was Grue when he told us to go in hard and go in fast. And Regent when he tacked on 'without any lube.' Guess he got over his earlier squeamishness about killing. The motel was in sight in under a half hour. Good time. Only...

"Everybody stop!! Something's wrong!!" I scream. There are several 'broken' auras coming from the motel. Several more than the presence of an IT tinker would suggest, and all of them attached to the metal grating on the windows and entrance. And there just isn't any way all of those locks are broken.

Fortunately Bitch heeded my warning, and gave out a shrill whistle signalling the dogs to stop. Unfortunately, due to my viscous nature, I slipped out of the straps keeping me attached to the dogs. I landed about two feet in front of the entrance.

"Oh-ho-ho-ho! It seems we have a clever one here, da?" A big burly man in dark jeans, a red and white striped shirt, a ski mask, and a festive hat steps forward.

"And just who the hell are you supposed to be?!" Regent yells out. I get up and lunge at him. He catches me as I try to dissolve his skin.

"In Soviet R-r-russia, Valdo finds you!!" As he rolls the 'R'. "Nice try leetle lady." I feel him peel me off of him after just a couple seconds. I only got through his shirt! I tried to counter the throw, but I overcommitted in my melting attempts by half a second. That's all it took for him to grab on and throw me past the entrance. And that's when the pain hit. Mind melting sensory depriving PAIN. I'm vaguely aware of a fight going on in the background, but I can't focus on it. NO!! I will not let these dickheads win today. They have directly stated their intent to kill me and mine. Even if I can't see what I'm doing I have to move.

So I do.

I flailingly get up and move in a direction as fast as I can. The random spasms the electricity force on me, force me to the ground more than once, but through a couple iterations of trial and error I figure out that they can't fuck with my shape shifting. Now I don't know exactly how long I spent randomly flailing about, but I know I was eventually able to start doing so in random directions. One such flail I was able to put my full force into moving into a single direction. I felt something smoosh my front, then give under my weight.

Was that a wall? Wasn't this a brick building? I don't have time to contemplate that anymore as more movement was forced out of me. By some stroke of luck I managed to force myself out of another wall and have my senses returned to me through the absence of pain. The street here... There's a shrinking dog bleeding on the sidewalk, a cloud of darkness further up, and Waldo being thrown out of it. He's followed not long after by a bedraggled looking Tattletale.

"Taylor! He can absorb electricity! Don't let him touch the building!" Absorbs electricity? I break out my biggest mouth to smile for her.

"What wonderful news!" I grab this mother fucker by the feet and smash him directly into the building, destroying a good chunk of wall. And then before he can reach for me I swing him again, keeping his arms away from me with centrifugal force. And then I swing him again and again and again as fast as I can like a goddamn looney tunes character, demolishing another chunk of the wall each time. By the time I got done with the entire outside wall, half the building collapsed inside itself, and the electrical trap looked like it turned itself off. I tossed Waldo on the ground, blood coming out of his nose and eyes half lidded.

"Tattletale, is it safe?" She stares at me a little dumbfounded.

"Yeah, uh, you trashed it."

*BANG*

Holy shit, we're being shot at! My head snaps to the perpetrator as Tattletale retreats back into the smoke. I wade into the wreckage to clean up the, apparently obligatory, mercenaries. Looks like only three of them are still alive, and outfitted with some sort of electricity guns. Fancy asshats aren't they? That first one probably used a real gun to shoot at Tattletale. When the last of them are dead we sift through the wreckage, only to find some horribly crispified electronics. Nobody even got caught in the crossfire except for lots of crushed mercenaries.

Tattletale had to call the boss for transportation. Bitch refused to leave Angelica, the dog, alone even if it turned out she was just unconscious. He sent a cabby that wouldn't ask any questions, and Bitch directed them to her shelter.

Also apparently Bitch has an entire shelter of rescue dogs. This is wild to me.

---

"Well that went terribly." Says Brian, as all of us except Bitch enter our hideout.

"Gee, you think?" Retorts Alec. "If this was a Saturday morning cartoon all that would be missing would be the villain taunting us after the fact on a massive screen he somehow set up before hand."

"Aren't we villains?" I ask.

"Well I guess technically we are."

"Guys! Focus!" Snaps Brian. "What the fuck happened there!"

"We went in too fast into a prepared trap." Supplies Tattletale. "I should have seen it." She twitches. "If we didn't have Taylor here we would have absolutely blundered right into it."

"Right. Awesome." Brian snarks at us. "Taylor I'm gonna need you to scout this shit beforehand next time it comes up, okay? You call us in after you confirm this shit won't happen again."

"Absolutely, yes."

"Good." And he storms out the door.

"...So Taylor." Says Alec. "Can we talk about how hot that was how you demolished that brute?"


AN: Sorry about the delay guys, been busy with family and holiday stuff.

Also apparently electricity kills through muscle spasms stopping the heart, and electrical burns. Both things Taylor doesn't care about. It can still hurt though.

 

[Optimal Robotics]

The search for The Instigator, as the PRT is calling him, is progressing. Lisa managed to pull some records, and that motel was legitimately bought out for the night. The funds came from another number man account though, so that's a dead end. Though that once again brings up the fact that our opponents are incredibly rich. Rich enough to totally book a motel. So I have turned my attention to hotels and motels in the area. Upscale first. I managed to search one before school today. The vents-

"Taylor what the fuck!" I'm stage whispered to as Amy all but slams her lunch tray down next to me. "Why did you get my sister expelled!" I blink at her.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"My sister is being expelled for what happened yesterday!" I blink again.

"You mean when New Wave tried to collect on an illegal bounty on the sly?" Amy starts sputtering at that, and the three other people at the table quietly leave. I guess rich kids do have a survival instinct.

"We didn't know it was illegal at the time." She weakly defends. I stare at her, judgingly.

"You know, I wasn't trying to get your sister in trouble, right?"

"Well what did you expect the school would do in the face of a parahuman assault?" I take a deep breath, and ignore the fact that even she thinks it was a big deal.

"Amy, do you know what Winslow High did to Shadow Stalker and her friends when they almost killed me on school grounds? Don't answer that, because the answer's nothing. Fuck and all. In fact, if the latest news on her trial is accurate, Principal Blackwell was actively covering it up." I know she was covering it up, but that's neither her nor there. "I was not expecting the staff here to do anything about this so I didn't even try. I only moved to preserve the footage."

"And used it for blackmail." I raise my eyebrow.

"Your mom told you?"

"Carol did, yes. She couldn't shut up about it once she got home. You know you probably could've gotten him fired just by telling her about it, right?"

"You know I would love to believe that." I give her a rueful smile as I spear a tater tot, and eat it. "I just don't." She had nothing to say to that.

---

Thankfully nobody else bothered me the rest of the school day. Back to the search for the tinker though, the hotels I'm searching for have air vents. Though contrary to popular belief, air vents are not large enough for humans to fit through. This does not matter to me. I squeezed through a closed door in a camera's blindspot, then up into the ventilation. Sidenote, vents are fucking disgusting. Bugs and dust for days. Nothing I can't dissolve though. No longer exists, no longer bothering me.

The thing about searching through air vents is that it may be stealthy, but it's very slow. For starters I can't go any kind of super sonic due to how unfamiliar I am with this mode of locomotion. And I'm going far slower than my maximum speed to remain stealthy. Apparently vents are also very noisy if you go too fast in them. I spent about an hour or two fumbling around in the vents at the first location as I got a handle on my movement. I got lucky the housekeeping staff didn't call animal control on me or something.

Right now I'm at the seventh location I'm searching after school, each location taking at least an hour to search. It's, uh, quite late at night right now. Probably shouldn't be up so late, but I haven't felt tired since I decided to go hunting tonight. I gotta test how far that goes in the future. I'm looking down at room 307 right now to a room laden with all sorts of tinkertech. Not people having sex like the last forty rooms either, thank God. Seriously, is that all hotel rooms are used for?

"So, has your headache subsided?" Asks a plain, suited man to another plain, suited man

"Yes. Ask your questions." He says, almost resigned. Ooh? I was going to retreat and scout the floor a bit more thoroughly, but this sounds relevant.

"What are the chances of the Elite being able to kill Taylor Hebert?"

"..."

"Well?"

"I'm not getting anything. Only other time this happened is when a priest asked about fending off a vampire. It's like my power thinks she doesn't exist!"

"Oh for fuck's sake, is that why the ambush failed? Well at least Horrorshock wasn't on site. We can set up another location with some suitable bait-"

It's about then that a horrible screeching alarm cut through the walls. Like an air raid siren but far worse. My blood goes cold as I recognize it. The Endbringer alarm. Thankfully it cuts out just as fast. If memory serves the Simmurgh is the next one up, and I don't know what I'd do if she targeted Brockton Bay.

"Well Son of a Bitch! Apollo! Pack your shit, we're leaving. That bitch has the worst timing in the world, I swear." I slowly creep out of the ventilation system and out of the building. Took about ten minutes, then one more to get back to the loft. Normally everybody would be asleep right about now, but the alarm woke them up. Unfortunately I had to get my phone and call Tattletale due to her not being here.

"Mnngrrl. What."

"I found them. They're at a fancy hotel next to the airport."

"Taylor it's..." I hear some muffled thunking in the background. "It's fucking two A.M.!"

"Didn't the siren wake you up?"

"Yeah, and when it shut off I went back to bed!"

"Okay, but listen. They're going to leave in a little bit. We have to move."

"Taylor." She snaps, suddenly sounding much more awake. "Taylor no."

"What? Why not?! We won't catch them if we wait much longer."

"Taylor, are you familiar with the concept of the Truce?"

"...No?"

"Well shit, I guess I gotta explain this now. If they're retreating in response to the Endbringer, that means we have to let them. If we don't, that signals to everybody who hears of it that we will not cooperate in the face of Endbringers, or other S-class threats. This is not a reputation I will tolerate in a city that's such Leviathan bait." Oh God damnit!

"Taylor? Talk to me Taylor. If you don't tell me that you're letting this go, I'm going to have to start sabotaging this little outing. Starting with telling Grue how little you've likely scouted or prepared." I can't even say she's wrong, no matter how much it infuriates.

"I'm letting this go. For now."

"Good. I don't like this any more than you Taylor, but some things just aren't worth it." I hang up. This shit leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I hate it. I stalk down to the kitchen. Alec started making a midnight snack to help him fall back asleep. Gonna need some help 'working' out my frustrations.

---

The next morning news broke that The Instigator is putting my bounty on hold for a week because of the attack on Canberra. Anybody who tries collecting during that time period will be shot dead instead of getting rich. Wasn't expecting that level of honor from a villainous cape to be honest.

The morning after, I was very tired in school. Apparently any sleep borrowed against myself will count against me within a twenty four hour period. Neat. During lunch Amy surprised me by sitting down next to me.

"You look like shit."

"I feel like shit."

"Wanna talk about it?" I look over at her. Eh, why not.

"I had the fucker in my sights last night. Four feet away before that stupid winged bitch invoked the Truce."

"Huh."




AN: Rolls are saving up for a few big ones guys!