Going for a Walk (Hellsing Ultimate Abridged/Worm crossover)

Spoiler: AN

To those of you just reading this for the first time, welcome to Going for a Walk! The reason this is getting posted here is due to the story getting locked over on SB. If I can I will try and get it unlocked there, but I'll continue to post here anyway.

If you came here from SB, welcome! hopefully, I'll have fewer problems with this story getting locked here on QQ.

Taylor screamed. She kicked and scratched. She clawed at the latched door, trying desperately to get out. She heard them laughing. She heard them taking pleasure in her suffering.

[Trajectory]

She cried. Tears flowed freely from her eyes as she fought to get out of the locker, away from the terrible stench. She wretched, the contents of her stomach pouring out onto her chest, soaking her already ruined clothes.

[Destination]

She stopped screaming, her voice reduced to a whimper. She was trapped. Trapped with the filth, with insects crawling all over her, the wet feeling pressed against her skin making her sick.

[Agreem-

“The fuck happened to you?”

Taylor blinked, her breath hitched, and she froze. What?

“I mean, you look like you got run over by a garbage truck, and then someone dumped your corpse in a Biohazard dump! I mean seriously.”

“W-what?” Taylor asked, trying to figure out what was going on, “W-who are you? Where are you!? Get me out of here!” she yelled, her kicking and screaming starting up again.

“Woah, Woah! Calm your tits girl, your only hurting yourself. I mean, I guess that’s kinda hot, but I’m kinda stuck with you, so would you mind, y’know, not dying?”

Taylor paused, taking in what the person in her head was saying. Was she crazy? Was she actually hearing voices in her head?

“Well, I can certainly say that I’m not the tightest screw in the box, but I wouldn’t call yourself crazy yet.”

“W-what are you talking about? What do you want?”

“Hmm… well, you being dead would be kinda bad, right? So how’s about we do something about that?” the voice said, making Taylor pause.

“What are you-” She was cut off when she gasped, a feeling of raw… power, energy, strength, something along those lines running through her body.

“Aaaaalright! Let’s get this show on the road! Now go ahead and bust that door open!” the voice said enthusiastically.

Taylor moved, pressing her back against the locker door when she kicked again. This time, instead of just hurting herself by kicking uselessly, she felt the locker door give, and she soon found herself sprawled out on the floor of the school hallway. She lifted her head and looked around, blinking as she realized no one was around. Hadn’t everyone just been laughing at her?

“Ah, that’s probably my bad. You kinda… passed out for a bit there? I dunno, there was this thing try to eat your brain, I stopped it, asked what it was doing, and then it tried to eat me, but, well, I’m me so I just killed the thing, but it apparently decided to fuck me over by sticking me inside your head. I mean, come on, there aren’t many worse ways to torture someone than sticking them inside a hormonal teenager’s head. Eugh.”


Taylor blinked, “What the fuck are you talking about?” she asked as she picked herself up. She shook her arms, trying to get as much of the residue from what was in the locker off of her. She felt great now of course, but she was still covered in what was probably highly hazardous biowaste.

“Oh, nothing much, just some parasite thing that wanted to give you superpowers… I think. Then again, I just turned you into a vampire, so maybe I’m what it wanted to give you? Eh, hell if I know.”

“Wait… superpowers? As in… like… a parahuman? I’m a cape?” she asked, her voice shaking.

She could almost feel the voice in her head shrug, “I mean, I guess? As I said, I turned you into a vampire just like me. Not sure how that worked due to… well, me not being able to bite you, but who cares! Ya got super strength, super speed, regeneration… all kinds of fancy stuff!”

“Wait, wait… so you’re saying that… that you turned me into a vampire?!”

“Well, duh!”

Taylor’s breath hitched, and she almost started hyperventilating until she reminded herself to stay calm. She needed to focus on the here and now, what she was going to do with her newfound power, and what she was going to do to keep from panicking.

“Okay… so, Vampire? What, what kind of powers does that give me?” She asked.

“Well, let’s start with what you have now, shall we? You’re stronger, faster, you should have at least a minor healing factor, your senses are way higher, oh! Oh! And raging hate boner for Nazi’s. Nazi vampire’s specifically.”

Taylor blinked, “I’m sorry… what? Nazi’s?”

“MmmHmm. I’ll tell you what, back before I got stuck in you’re head? Ho boy, did they know how to party! I don’t think I’ve eaten that well in a while!”

Taylor tried to wrap her head around what the crazy voice in her head was talking about, only for her thoughts to be interrupted by said voice chattering on about her vampiric powers; “Now, that’s what you have in terms of powers, but you should also know some of the… well, side effects. Ya gotta drink blood, for one thing, though don’t get that confused for other food! You can still eat the stuff, it just won’t make you feel full, not like good old fashioned blood will. Sunlights another thing too; won’t actually kill you, but it’s not exactly comfortable.”

“Ok… so, I need to drink blood, but sunlight won’t kill me?” She asked, “Anything else I should know? Garlic, crucifixes, silver bullets, holy water?”

“Well, garlic is a bit of a bitch thanks to your enhanced senses, but not much more than that. Crucifixes are pretty much useless, silvers worthless unless it’s blessed, and holy water burns like hell.” The voice summarized, “Oh! And the running water thing is a blatant lie. We just sink like rocks.”

“Ok…” Taylor paused, trying to recollect her thoughts. She looked around, trying to get a sense of what time it was. She looked up and saw one of the hallway clocks; It read 2:34 PM, roughly a half-hour before everyone got out of class, and no one had even come to see if she’d gotten out. She shook her head, before running towards the school’s exit.

Screw Winslow, screw the trio, screw the locker, screw this entire day, I’m going home!

Taylor began running home. As she ran, she slowly realized that she wasn't getting out of breath. Her heart wasn't pounding out of her chest, her legs didn't feel like jelly. She slowed to a stop, looking around. She was in one of the shadier parts of town between her house and the school, and if the stylized M was any indication, she was in merchant territory.

She paused, considering the dangers of staying in the area before shaking her head and moving on. She was about to start running again when she heard someone scream.

She whipped around in the direction of the scream, her eyes widening. She was about to start running in the opposite direction when the voice in her head stopped her.

"Hey, hey, hey! Where do you think you're going?"

"I- I need to get out of here! If they hear me and start coming after me…"

"Hold on a minute! Aren't you forgetting? You're a fuck-mothering Vampire! You could totally go over there and tear them apart!"

The voice sounded… excited, eager, Taylor wasn't really sure what word to describe it. Still, even if she didn't like the implications of the phrase 'tear apart', she was a cape now. She had powers. She had strength. Where others were weak, she was strong. Wasn't that what heroes were supposed to do? Protect those weaker than themselves?

Taylor inhaled a deep breath, turning back to where the scream had come from, "Ok… you said I have super senses, right?" She asked.

"Yup."

"Does that include super hearing?"

"Oh yeah!"

"Alright then… let's go stop some merchants."

"OH YES!"

[-----]

Two lanky, sickly men had cornered a teenage girl in a back alley. She had been backed up against the alley wall, tears staining her cheeks as the thugs ran their hands up and down her body. One of them reached low, but before he could get a chance to do anything, he was pulled off the girl and tossed into a pile of trash. The other man turned around to see a person wearing a hoodie, a piece of cloth wrapped around their lower face. The man grabbed the girl, taking out his knife and holding it against her neck.

"D-Don't come any closer!" The thug yelled as he pressed the tip of the blade into the girl’s neck. The Person, a cape probably, paused.

"Put down the knife, let down the girl, and leave." The stranger demanded, the voice clearly that of a girl.

The man growled, "You don't get to tell me what to do bitch! Back off!"

The cape sighed, "Well, I tried." She said a split second before she lunged forward.

She grabbed and twisted the man's wrist, forcing him to let go of the knife and release the girl as he screamed in pain. She jerked her arm, tossing him against the wall. Leaving him there, she turned to the shaking girl that was backed up against the wall.

“It’s okay now, you’re gonna be fine.” She said, carefully placing her hands on the girl’s shoulders.

“You… you’re a cape?” The girl asked, her voice trembling.

She nodded, “Yeah, well… yeah, I’m a cape.”

The girl nodded, her breath calming and her heart slowing down. She looked behind the cape, her eyes widening as she shouted, “Behind you!”

The cape whirled around just in time to get stabbed by the thug that she had tossed into the trash a minute earlier. The switchblade sank into her stomach, and blood began to pour from the wound. She gripped the thug’s arm weakly as she looked into the man’s eyes.

“That’s what you get bitch!” the thug yelled. His manic grin soon faltered, however, when the cape didn’t fall over. In fact, if anything, her grip around his arm tightened. Soon, it got uncomfortable, then painful, “AH! Fuck, let go of me!” She ignored him, and soon there was a sickening ‘crack’ as the bones in his forearm snapped.

The man screamed, releasing his grip on the knife as he tried to pull away. Instead of breaking free, he found himself in an iron grip, the cape not letting him go. She let go with her left arm, still keeping a grip on his forearm. He expected her to remove the knife, maybe try to stab him back. Instead, she reached up and pulled down her mask.

“The hell!?” the man said, averting his gaze as she revealed her face, “What are you unmasking for, I could get trouble for seein-” he choked as his gaze settled on the mouth of the cape.

Fangs. Inch-long, pearl-white fangs hung from her mouth. His eyes went wide, and he tried to scream, only for his voice to be cut off as she launched forward and sank her teeth into the thug’s neck.

 

Taylor heaved as she placed her hands against the alley wall, before throwing up a second time. Whatever had been in the druggies blood had tasted absolutes disgusting.

“Eugh, ‘ight, new rule, no drinking druggie blood. The stuff’s fucking disgusting.’

Taylor wretched again, vomiting the remaining contents of her stomach onto the ground. She wasn’t dry heaving or feeling any of the other ill effects one should after eating something -- or in her case, someone -- disgusting, but her body still seemed to reject whatever had been in the man’s bloodstream.

“You think? Also… what the hell was that!?”

“What? The disgusting part, or the drinking blood part?” The voice asked, “Cause I’m pretty sure the guy was high. Nothing that’d do anything to you, but enough to taste terrible.”

“No… not-not that, why the hell did I drink that guy!?” She asked, turning to look back at the rest of the alley. The girl had run off, and would probably go to either the PRT or the police. The druggie she hadn’t drained of blood was laying on the ground, apparently unconscious. The guy she had eaten…

His corpse looked like it had been mummified. Its skin was a pale grey, with its lips curled back and revealing the rotted teeth inside its mouth. Its eyes had sunk back into the skull, disappearing from view.

She had killed him. She had drained him of life completely, leaving his body as a dry husk.

“I… I killed him!” Taylor yelled.

As much as she felt she should be panicking, should be feeling the weight of the killing someone, she felt… fine. She wasn’t hyperventilating, she wasn’t at all panicked, and if anything she felt… better. She felt like she had just woken up from a nap, full of energy, and ready to go run around.

“And…?”

“I just killed someone! That’s kind of a big deal!”

“I mean… not really? And besides, it’s not like he didn’t deserve it. I mean come on, you saw the guy was about to fucking rape her. If I weren’t stuck in you’re head I’d have killed him myself. And probably eaten him too.”

Taylor gulped, trying to distract herself from the fact that she had just killed a man in cold blood and drank his blood. Did that make her a cannibal, then? If she was a Vampire, then she’d have to keep drinking blood, and it wasn’t like there was any way for her to get a reliable source of blood without drinking it from someone. She could maybe go to blood drives, sure, but how was she going to explain that? If she joined the Wards, they would probably just lock her up, or keep her out of human contact in fear of her attacking someone.

“If you’re so hung up about it don’t worry, one guy should be enough to keep you fed for a few days. Hell, if he were a virgin -- which he wasn’t -- a few drops would keep you running for over a week!”

“That doesn’t really make me feel any better…” Taylor said.

She sucked in a deep breath, before releasing it and looking at her surroundings. She had saved the girl; mission accomplished. Now she needed to go home. Ducking out of the alley, leaving the corpse and unconscious thug alone, she started to jog back in the direction of her house. If she was lucky, her dad wouldn’t be home.

After walking for a solid twenty minutes, with the voice in her head remaining eerily quiet most of the way, she made it back to her house. Her dad’s truck wasn’t in the driveway, so he was still at work thankfully. Finding the key to the house hidden under the steps leading up to the door she stepped into the house as soon as she could. Closing the door behind her, she immediately made her way up to the bathroom. Once inside, she started stripping out of her clothes, pausing as she was about to take off her shirt. She looked down at it and noticed the hole that the knife had poked in her shirt.

Picking up the jacket she had discarded to the floor, she noticed it too had a hole where she had been stabbed. She rubbed the spot where the knife had broken her skin, and she found she couldn’t tell where it had happened just by feeling it. There was no scarring, no open would, no pain, nothing. She had healed completely.

“Side effect of being a vampire I’m afraid, you are a bitch to kill.”

“So… I really do regenerate?” she asked, “What’s the limit? Is there one?”

“Well, a stake through the heart or cutting off you’re head would work. For now, at least.”

“For now?”

The voice in her head laughed, “Oh yeah. Eat enough people and you become pretty much invincible!”

Taylor paused, “I… need to eat people?” she asked.

“Oh yeah, didn’t I mention that fact? You drink blood! That kinda implies eating people.”

Taylor looked in the mirror and sighed. She expected to be mortified at the thought, and to an extent she was, but not in the way she expected. She wasn’t scared she would lose her humanity, or that she would become a monster, no, it was more a small niggling fear in the back of her head. What if she couldn’t kill someone next time? When she drank the druggie, she was only partially aware of what she was doing, what if next time when she was in a life or death situation, she hesitated?

She looked at herself in the mirror, blinking as she stopped to look at the changes her body had gone through. Her eyes had changed from their normal brown to a bright, vibrant red that almost seemed to glow. Her teeth had all seemed to form points in her mouth, with her canines, in particular, extending into inch-long fangs.

“... And how the hell am I supposed to hide this?” She muttered to herself, examining her new teeth. Unlike her previous set, which had been a healthy off-white color, her new teeth were pearl white, almost shining.

“Ah yes, the fangs. Such lovely little things aren’t they? Integra always said ‘oh, don’t use your teeth as tools, you’ll damage them!’ until I caught a fucking bullet out of the air and ate it. Hehe, good times.”

Taylor blinked, “Who’s Integra?” she asked, “Wait, are you saying… aren’t you supposed to be my power!?”

“The fuck? Where’d you get that idea? I’m a fuck-mothering vampire! I turned you into one!” The voice claimed indignantly, “Also, Integra was my boss. Sort of.”

“What do you mean ‘sort of’?”

“Well, I’m pretty sure I pissed her off more than I did any work for her… Should I feel bad about that?”

“I’d think yes, you should probably feel bad for pissing off your boss.”

There was a pregnant pause in the bathroom, neither voice speaking, “Nah, not really feeling it.”

Taylor groaned, “So, what, you were someone else before you got stuck in my head? Who are you even?” she asked.

The voice chuckled, “I… am none other than… THE CRIMSON FUCKER!”

Taylor paused, “Were your parent's Merchants?”

“No, I’m pretty sure they were catholic though.”

 

Taylor laid in her bed, looking up at the ceiling, listening to the downstairs clock tick away. After a shower -- and an extremely complicated conversation with the voice in her head, involving privacy, perverted behavior, and her lack of breasts -- she went upstairs and got changed into less ruined clothing. At that point, she was feeling to mentally exhausted to do anything other than try to sleep.

The first thing she noted when trying to fall asleep, however, was that she wasn’t tired physically tired in the slightest. If anything, her body felt filled to the brim with energy, like she could go run a marathon and still keep going. She sat up, groaned, and got up to scour her bookshelf for something to read.

“... Maybe you should get implants?” The voice in her head said, causing her to groan in frustration.

“Are we still on that!? I’ve got small breasts! Fine! We’ve acknowledged it! Now move on already!” Taylor all but screamed.

“Are you seriously okay with that fact? I mean, I’m not exactly one to judge considering I was -- and probably will continue to once I get back -- gunning for Integra. Seriously, if you think you’re flat you should’ve seen her. Pretty sure she got mistaken for a guy, like, a dozen times.”

Taylor’s eyebrow twitched. She inhaled deeply, before exhaling again, and going back to looking through her books. Maybe if she ignored him he would go away.

“Let’s see… Brave new world… Frankenstein’s monster… The hobbit…” she parsed through the books, trying to find something interesting before she stumbled onto a book that caught her eye.

“Dracula, huh?” she muttered to herself as she picked the book off her shelf. She’d read the book a couple of times, but had left it on the shelf for the majority of the time she’d owned it. Considering it's subject matter, she wondered if it might be worth reading again.

“Ooh! Looking to get a bit of inspiration, are we? Not the best material for it, but you could certainly do worse. The portrayal of old’ Abe isn’t perfect, but it certainly better than the movie remake. Ah, those were the days…”

I blinked, running the voice’s speech through my head, “Wait a minute, what is your name? It’s not really The Crimson Fucker, right?”

“Pfft, no, that’s my twitter handle, no my names Alucard.”

Taylor wrinkled her nose, a bit confused. “Alucard? What kind of name is that?” she asked.

“Eh, you’ll have to figure it out.”

Taylor sighed, before shoving the book back onto the shelf. She walked over to the doorframe and let the back of her head thump against it, before pressing her back against the wall and sliding down to the floor. She looked up at the ceiling in her room, the grey color giving the rest of the room a dull tone.

She ran what happened that day through her head again, the fact that she had powers now, that she had a voice in her head, and that she had killed someone. She still wasn’t sure how to feel about any of those facts, but the fact that she really didn’t feel anything was a bit unnerving. The voice in her head -- now named Alucard -- had explained she was a vampire, and if what she had read about them was true, that was probably why she wasn’t feeling anything.

Her emotions were probably dulled. She considered the fact, tossing it around in her head, wondering if she should be bothered by it. On the one hand, it meant she was probably losing her humanity. On the other…

“...Is that such a bad thing?”

“Losing your humanity? Ehhhhhhh… I’d say try and hold on to it, mostly because it’s kinda something important, but if it gets too bothersome you can chuck it off a cliff.”

She was about to ask more questions when she heard the front door to the house open. Her eyes darted to the clock, seeing the time had gone passed four-thirty. Her dad was home, and she had fangs that wouldn’t be at all easy to hide.

“... shit…”

“What? What’s wrong? Why don’t you just tell ‘im?” Alucard asked somewhat genuine curiosity in his voice.

“Because I’m a cape! I… I can’t just dump that on him! Not after… not after what happened to mom…” She said, pausing as she wrapped her arms around her knees, “If he found out what happened… I don’t know if he could keep up.”

She could hear Alucard sigh, “Ok, look. Cutting out all the bullshit, not telling him isn’t really an option. Fang’s aren’t easy to hide, at least not until you get mind control-”

“Mind control!?”

“Lemme finish. On top of that, your abilities are only going to get more flashy the stronger you get. Hiding your powers from someone you live with isn’t really an option.”

Taylor groaned, rolling over onto her feet and standing upright. She reached to open the door but paused a second. “How is going to react? How am I supposed to tell him ‘hey dad, I have powers now, which just so happen to be vampirism and a perverted voice in my head!’ because I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t take that all that well.”

Alucard chuckled, “Well, you could just tell him that you decided to sharped your teeth. I here goth chicks are all the rage the days~.”

Taylor grit her teeth, “Not. Helping.”

With Alucard’s laughter echoing in her head, she took a deep breath and opened the door.

“Dad?” she called out.

“Taylor? You’re home already?” he asked, his voice echoing from downstairs.

She winced, before slowing walking down the stairs. She found her dad in the kitchen, halfway done fixing himself a makeshift sandwich with what they had in the fridge. He turned around, facing her as he looked her up and down. His eyes narrowed slightly/

“Are you alright Taylor? You look awful,” he said, dropping the sandwich materials and taking a few steps toward her. She took a step back before he reached her, causing him to pause and stop moving forward.

“I-I’m… okay, dad. I just… there’s something I need to tell you, and I need you to promise not to freak out.

“Ooooh, the thick plottens!”

Taylor winced, turning her head to the side and whispering, “Shut up, Alucard.”

Her dad blinked, “Taylor, are you okay?”

Taylor closed her eyes and took a deep breath, before opening them again and looking at her dad dead in the eyes, “Dad, I’m a cape.”

[-----]

Armsmaster looked over the scene of the crime, a grimace on his face. The woman had reported a cape fight, and while a cape had most definitely been involved -- there was no other way to explain the near mummified corpse -- it looked as if it had barely been a fight at all. Two Merchant thugs had attempted to rape a woman, and the unknown cape had intervened.

Whether they were an aspiring hero or otherwise was still unknown, but already having killed someone was a severe black mark on their record already.

As he studied the dried corpse, he tried to find what could have caused the kind of damage needed to drain a human of most of their body mass. A tinker, perhaps, however, the woman hadn’t mentioned any armor or weapons or armor on the capes person, so that was unlikely. She had mentioned that they had thrown the thugs around, so likely a low or perhaps medium brute rating. Then there was what the woman had barely acknowledged.

The parahuman had lunged for the now-dead thug, who had stabbed her in the stomach when she tried to do so. She all but ignored the damage, gripping and breaking the man’s arm and providing further credence to the theory of her having a brute rating of some kind. He noted the possibility of a striker rating as well, given the state of her victim.

He was about to finish compiling the report when one of the paramedic’s screamed. He turned around, and found the corpse moving, lunging toward the paramedic with its jaw open wide. His own eyes widened in shock before he swung his halberd around and launched one of the tranquilizer darts hidden inside of it. The dart slammed into the corpse’s shoulder, knocking it off course and allowing the paramedic to move out of the way.

He rushed forward, tripping the corpse with the butt of his weapon and pressing his foot against its back, “Stand down! You won’t be harmed!”

Whatever it was growled unintelligibly. His sensor’s tried to detect if the victim had triggered and become a cape, but he wasn’t getting anything. No heartbeat, and no breathing. Whatever it was had been thoroughly killed by the unknown cape, and less than an hour later, the corpse had reanimated itself. If that was what had really happened, then a Master Eight rating was needed at the very lowest.

“Console, this is Armsmaster responding to the appearance of an unknown parahuman. They appear to be a high ranking Master capable of reanimating the corpses of their victims.”

The response from Miss Militia, who was on the console at the time, was remarkably fast, “Armsmaster, please repeat, the parahuman is capable of reanimating the dead?”

“That is correct, the parahuman appears capable of reanimating the corpses of their victims. I am currently in the process of containing one such victim.”

There was a pregnant pause for several seconds, where Armsmaster simply stood on the corpse, keeping it from moving while it flailed it’s arms around and growled incoherently.

“Armsmaster, finish containing the victim and remain where you are. Velocity and a squad of fully armed PRT troopers are en route to your location, please stand by. And be careful.”

Armsmaster nodded, “Affirmative, standing by.” He pulled out a pair of brute rated cuffs, reaching down and locking the -- for lack of a better word -- zombie’s arms in place. He still kept it down on the ground, careful not to lose his attention.

A parahuman capable of reanimating the dead was dangerous, and they really didn’t need another Nilbog running around.

 

Taylor sat at the kitchen table across from her father, the older man's hands rubbing his eyes exhaustively.

"So… Emma shoved you into a locker filled with rotten tampons and garbage."

"Yeah."

"And now you have powers."

"Yep."

"That basically makes you a vampire."

"Yu-huh."

"And as soon as you smashed open the locker, you saved someone from being raped by killing her attackers."

"Only one of them, but yes."

“I feel as though I’ve heard this conversation before…”

The two of them fell into an eerie silence, the only sound being that of the ticking of her dad's watch, which, had she not had powers, Taylor was pretty sure she wouldn't have noticed.

Danny sighed, placing his hands on the table, "Alright… so… what now? Are you going to be joining the Wards?"

Taylor shook her head, "That's not really an option. I mean, I killed someone, and even though it won't be a problem for about a week, I'm going to need to keep drinking blood. I don't think the Protectorate would let someone like me anywhere near the Wards."

He shook his head, "If not the Wards, then what else would you do?"

She shrugged, "I'm not really sure. I can't keep going to school, not with my teeth like this." She said, reaching up with her hand to feel her pointed canines.

"How are you supposed to get an education then?" Her dad asked, worry, and slight panic entering his voice, "How are you supposed to get into college like this?"

Taylor sighed, "In the immediate, I suppose you could either homeschool me or set up some kind of online schooling. I'd be at home all day, sure, but… well, honestly I figure the upside to all this is that I won't have to go back to Winslow." It wasn't like she had any friends left there anyway.

Danny seemed to wince at the remark, even if it hadn't been directed at him, “I suppose that’s an option.”

Taylor sighed, Alright, ‘easy’ part done. Time for the hard part.

“Ooooh, are you gonna tell ‘em about me now~?”

Taylor ignored the lunatic voice in her head, instead choosing to sit upright and look her dad in eyes as best she could, “There’s also something else about my power that… well, I’m not really sure if it’s a good or bad thing.”

“What could be worse than being a literal Vampire?” Danny asked with a weak smile on his face, an attempt at humor that even he was probably aware wasn’t all that good.

“... he spoke the words.”

“What?” Taylor asked, frozen by Alucard’s sudden shift in tone.

“He said the words that no man should utter less they be willing to brave the depths of hell themselves.”

“Taylor? Are you okay?” Danny asked, slightly worried at his daughter’s pale look.

“What did you say?” she asked.

“I asked if you were okay-”

“No, before that, what did you say?” she demanded, her voice gaining an edge.

“Umm… ‘what could be worse than being a literal vampire’?” he said, slightly confused.

“HE SAID IT AGAIN!!!” Alucard roared, “WE’RE DOOMED! DOOMED I TELL YOU!”

“Dad… please don’t say that again…” she asked as she tried to keep from wincing at the raving vampire’s words.

“O… kay?”

Taylor sighed and rubbed her temples, “Now, in any other circumstance you would probably think me crazy, and to a certain extent, you’d probably were, and maybe still would be, right. I have a voice in my head.”

Danny blinked, “A… voice? In your head?”

“His name is Alucard.”

“I’m… not sure how to feel about that.”

“Kill them all! Kill, maim, burn! Kill, maim, burn! That’s what I hear in my head all the time.”

Taylor winced, “And he’s not exactly making this conversation easier.”

“Ok then. Well, that being the case, what are you going to do?” he asked.

Taylor paused, what was she going to do? It had only been a few hours since she’d gotten her powers, and even though she had a fairly good idea of what those powers were and what she was capable of, she had no idea what she was supposed to do with those powers.

“I’ll probably try to be an independent hero, working for myself and separate from the protectorate. Failing that a rogue, or, worst-case scenario, a vigilante. Though I’m pretty sure most independents are that by default, at least until they get registered.” She explained, her long-term goals fairly simple.

“I suppose that’s fair, but what about now? Today? What do you plan to do?”

Taylor shrugged, “I guess I should probably look up what heroes are supposed to do, in my kind of situation. Do some research on the cape scene and what powers the local heroes and villains have. After that…”

“Oh! Oh! I have an idea! How about tonight, we… go for a walk?”

Taylor ran Alucard’s words through her head before repeating them, try to decipher the clear and obvious hidden meaning behind them. Unfortunately, she couldn’t really get a bead on what he meant, or if he was being sarcastic or not. Still, a walk would probably do her some good.

“... I guess I’ll go for a moonlit walk.”

[-----]

Taylor sat on her bed, laptop in her lap as she scrolled through PHO. She’d done some preliminary research on capes while trying to avoid the cesspool of a forum that it was, but everything official she saw was either a glorified advertisement for the Wards and the Protectorate or some kind of independent hero recruitment site. Neither were very helpful.

She was able to find the system that the PRT used to classify capes, and she was quick to memorize most of the terms, as they were widely used among the cape scene. She was already familiar with a few of them, such as Stranger, Blaster, Brute, Trump, and Tinker, as those were often the most talked about during cape studies.

She wasn’t so familiar with some of the others. She knew the basics of some of them, but she was surprised at just how far some of the abilities under Shaker and Master deviated from each other. Heartbreaker, a Canadian villain with a kill order, was a Master that messed with people’s emotions. On the flipside, Nilbog was a Master that created minions that obeyed his commands. Granted those two were both villains with equally valid kill orders, but it was a good example.

She considered trying to figure out what her powers fell under, but after talking it out with Alucard, it seemed that she just fell under ‘all of the above.’

“I mean, you’re a Brute, easy, You’ve already proven that by taking a knife to the chest. Handled that like a boss, by the way. Mover’s much the same, since you have way more speed and stamina than humans, but I wonder if they wouldn’t just put that under Brute.”

“I guess it’d be kinda dumb for them to give everyone who had a Brute rating a Mover rating too, I mean, more strength almost always equals more speed, just not in absurd amounts. I probably fall under Striker too I guess, given my ability to suck blood and all that.”

“Mmm… Changer and Stranger too, once you figure out how to shapeshift.”

Taylor paused, “I can shapeshift?”

Alucard chuckled, “I didn’t tell you? Yeah, you could totally do that. I could too! I was a twelve-year-old girl during World war two~!”

Taylor groaned, “I seriously do not need the mental image of a twelve-year-old with your perverseness.”

“I was a woman at one point too.”

Taylor growled in frustration, “That doesn’t make it any better!”

“Pretty sure my tits were better than yours too. When I was twelve, by the way, just to clarify.”

Taylor was about to retort when she just sighed in defeat. In the few hours she’d known the Vampire, he’d had some kind of comeback for everything she could throw at him, and arguing with him was only going to make things worse.

Looking back to PHO, she scrolled through the Brockton Bay page, reading through the various pages each cape had.

Lung… Oni Lee… Uber and L33t… Skidmark… Kaiser...

“Woah, Woah, Woah, hold up, who’s Kaiser?”

“Kaiser? He’s the leader of one of the local gangs, Empire 88.” she explained, “They're pretty much modern-day-”

“Nazis…” Alucard interrupted.

She looked at the logo for the E88, the swastika, and the number 88 blended symbol superimposed on a white circle on a red background.

The dark, menacing laugh that emanated from the voice in her head sent a shiver down Taylor’s spine, “Tay-Tay, we're eating out tonight!”

 

Taylor waited for hours. Around six O’clock, her dad had asked her if she wanted something to eat, and she reluctantly denied. She wasn’t really hungry, not after drinking that thug dry. Around nine-O’clock, her dad went to bed, and when she was able to hear his breathing slow down, she figured he was asleep.

“Okay… so, what are we going to do?” Taylor asked, hoping Alucard had some kind of plan of action.

He chuckled, “Well, I’d say we just go out, find some Nazi’s, and start eating, but those folks on PHO seem to be pretty adamant about having a fancy name and costume.”

Taylor rolled her eyes, before opening her closet and shuffling through her clothing, “Okay, so I need something to hide my face first and foremost. I don’t really have any sort of mask, though…” She carefully reached up to her face where her glasses sat.

She considered just taking them off and relying on her other senses to get around, and even if that failed, she wasn’t completely blind, just legally. Taking them off, she was shocked to find that she could see clearly.

“What the fuck?” she asked, trying to wrap her head around the fact that she could see just fine without her glasses.’

“Ahhh, so that’s what’s been on the edge of you’re vision for the past few hours. Hehe, you can go ahead and chuck ‘em, or keep ‘em around for the whole ‘secret identity’ thing, either way, you don’t really need them anymore. What with you bein’ a vampire and all.”

Taylor sighed, before reaching over to place her glasses on her dresser. If she didn’t need them to see, then it was just one more thing she could use to keep her identity hidden.

“Ooh! Just like Superman!”

“Super-who?” Taylor asked, turning back to sorting through her increasingly unhelpful wardrobe.

“Y’know, Superman! Clark Kent! You know the phrase, ‘it’s a bird, it’s a plane, no, it’s Superman!’ You know, him.”

Taylor shrugged as she pulled up a scarf she figured she could wrap around the lower half of her face, “Nope, sorry, never heard of him. Is he some kind of European cape?”

Alucard guffawed audibly, “How have you never heard of Supes!? He’s like, the number one hero in all of comic book history!”

Taylor blinked, “You know comic books basically dropped off the face of the earth once actual capes started showing up, right?” she asked.

“WHAT!? What kind of sick, twisted world are you living in!?”

“... I find myself asking that question all too frequently,” Taylor said, giving him a non-answer.

Ignoring Alucard’s further ramblings about various fictional capes she’d never heard of, she managed to cobble together a makeshift outfit that would, if nothing else, hide who she was. A white hoodie, with blue jeans and her spare set of tennis-shoes. Her face was covered by a tan scarf, and her hair was tied into a ponytail that hung on the side of her neck. Looking in the bathroom mirror, she noted with a small amount of alarm that her brown eyes looked like they had flecks of red in them.

“Alucard, what’s with that?” she asked.

“Oh, don’t worry about that. That’s just you’re eyes turning red! It’ll fade back and forth for a while, but eventually, they’ll just be blood red. Hehe, get it? Blood red?”

“I’m really not in the mood for jokes.” Taylor deadpanned.

“Aww, spoilsport. Well, I wouldn’t worry too much, if you really want to keep your eyes boring, you can just wear contacts until you learn how to shapeshift,” he explained.

Walking out of the bathroom, she made her way quietly downstairs. She carefully walked toward the back door, stepping over squeaky floor-boards and keeping her steps as quiet as possible. When she reached the door, she gently pulled it open and closed it behind her as she stepped outside. She moved to leap over the fence, finding the activity remarkably easy, a fact she chalked up to her newfound vampiric strength.

“Alright, so, we make our way to empire territory?” Taylor asked.

“Must. Kill. Nazis.”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Taylor said, ignoring the bloodthirsty tone in Alucard’s words.

And so she began to walk. A few cars were on the road, people working late shifts or going to work graveyard shifts, but no one was walking down the sidewalk for as far as Taylor could see. It was a new moon, which left the stars as the only light to keep the streets from being pitch black. A perfect night for a major gang to commit some kind of high-profile crime.

After about ten minutes of walking, she ended up jogging, before breaking into a full-on sprint. Just like earlier that day, she felt none of the exhaustion she should have felt after having run for a solid twenty minutes. Eventually, she heard the first gunshots.

She changed direction almost immediately, sprinting in the direction of the gunfire and leaping over the smaller objects in her path. She soon found herself watching a gunfight between the local police and what looked to be a group of skinheads wearing bandanas with the E88 logo on them and wielding rifles and shotguns.

“So, wait, are those guys supposed to be the Nazis?” Alucard asked dejectedly, “Aww, I was looking forward to something more boner-worthy…”

Taylor sighed, “Shouldn’t we still help?” she asked.

“Well, yeah, I guess…”

Taylor ignored Alucard’s dejected tone, instead choosing to look around for something to climb on. Fortunately, the building next to her had a fire escape that led up the side of the building and onto the roof. Looking back down to the street below, She noted that if she hopped across a couple of the other buildings she would be right above the skinheads. Taking that into account, she did just that.

Once she was in position, she leaned over the edge of the building, looking down to the ground below. There were half a dozen of the Empire members, each hiding behind the corners of buildings or in the case of half of them, crouched behind a car that was parked in the middle of the street.

Taylor backed up, almost to the opposite edge of the roof, before racing forward and jumping off the edge of the roof. Her stomach leaped up into her throat as she felt the air rushing against her face, her hood falling back and her hair flowing in the wind. A second later, she landed on the ground, less than ten feet from the skinheads hiding behind the car. She felt the bones in her ankles and calves crack but found that even it did hurt, it wasn’t nearly enough to immobilize her or take her out of the fight.

“Ow…” Taylor said, wincing as she stood to her full height.

“And that’s why you should never try a superhero landing, it is a killer on the ankles.”

“Cape!” One of the skinheads shouted, just as he pointed his shotgun in Taylor’s direction.

Taylor dodged to the side as he pulled the trigger, the buckshot round firing off into the street. She shot forward, faster than the man could react, grabbing the gun by the barrel and squeezing. The metal bent and tore, ruining the weapon. Taylor grabbed the man by the shirt collar, tossing him toward the other two that were still dumbstruck by her appearance.

“Just stay down, alright?” Taylor asked. The only response she received being the groans of the men as they attempted to disentangle their limbs.

She was about to try and figure out some way of tying them up, cursing herself for not bringing any zip ties, before the thought was driven from her mind. A bullet penetrated her shoulder, blood spraying from the exit wound, soaking her white hoodie.

“Fuck!” she screamed, turning around to see one of the skinheads that had been hiding behind a building holding a smoking rifle.

She ran forward, ready to tackle the man to the ground, when he fired again, the bullet nailing her in the chest. Fortunately for Taylor, she only felt a small amount of pain, and it didn’t seem to inhibit her movement aside from momentarily stalling her. She continued forward and soon found herself tackling the man to the ground, wrapping her arm around his throat as she attempted to choke him out. She wasn’t at all trained in how to do so, but she’d heard that the best way to do it was to restrict airflow until they stopped moving, and then let go immediately after in order to keep from permanently hurting them.

Unfortunately, the skinhead’s buddies didn’t seem to like the idea of leaving him to her, and two of them were soon trying to pull her and the man apart. They partially succeeded but they soon regretted trying to separate them, as the first thing Taylor did with a set of free hands was whip around and punch a man’s jaw. Normally, if she had been a normal strength human, this would have resulted in a few teeth knocked loose, a heavy bruise, or perhaps a broken jaw. In Taylor’s case, however, this resulted in the bottom half of the man’s face being torn off and sent halfway across the street. Blood coated Taylor’s fist as she stood there, stunned.

“Oooh! Knockout!” Alucard commented said, “I’m starting to think I might enjoy this!”

The man fell to the ground, screaming and gargling in agony as he reached up to claw at where his jaw had once been.

“You bitch! I’ll kill you!” one of the skinheads screamed, before charging Taylor with a baseball bat. The wooden bat slammed against a stunned Taylor’s head, causing her to fall to the ground. The bat came down again, slamming into her ribs, breaking them. A second heavy object joined the first, heavy, and made of metal.

Pain flooded Taylor’s body. Jumping off the building had hurt, getting shot had felt like getting punched, but this… she felt the metal object break her skin, tearing into it and causing her own blood to go flying. She was regenerating, she could feel it, but it wasn’t enough to dull the pain. In hurt like hell, and she closed her eyes, praying the pain would go away.

“Praying won’t do anything, Taylor. Big g stopped caring about people like you and me a long time ago.”

When Taylor opened her eyes again, she only saw red.

 

When Taylor’s eyes opened, they weren’t the normal, dark brown color that they had been when she’d woken up that morning, nor were they flecked with bits of red as they had been a few hours earlier. No, now, her eyes were completely red, glowing brightly in the darkness of the night.

“And she’s back in the game!”

As the bat came down, Taylor reached up and grabbed it, the force of her grip causing the wood to crack and splinter. She pushed against the ground with her free arm, launching herself upright. She wrenched the bat out of the gang member's hand, tossing it to the side before reaching up to the scarf covering her face and ripping it off, revealing her fangs to the cold night air.

She shot forward, opening her mouth wide and engulfing the man’s throat. Her teeth sank into his neck, and she began drinking. Blood flowed from his veins into her, the delicious taste making her mouth water, and making her hunger for more. Her meal was interrupted when a metal crowbar smacked her across the back.

She spun around, tearing half the man’s throat out as she did so, causing what little blood he had left in his body to spray outward. The one that had hit her went wide-eyed, and attempted to turn to run, but was far to slow. Taylor reached forward, grabbing his face and shoulder and exposing his neck, allowing her to sink her fangs into it. She drank, and drank, and drank, and it felt wonderful!

“That’s right Tay-Tay, get some of that SIIIIP!”

She was rudely drawn away from her meal as she felt the sharp impact of a bullet penetrating her shoulder, again. She whipped around to find two E88 thugs trying to duck into an alley, one with a pistol that had just recently been aimed at her, and the other with what appeared to be a cell-phone held up to his ear.

She raised an eyebrow, listening closely as she began stalking over to their position.

“It’s a fucking cape! She tore Jim’s jaw clean off, and then she fucking bit Al and Sam! You gotta get us outta here!” The thug cried into the phone, just as the other shot at Taylor a second, third, and fourth time, all of the shots missing as Taylor dodged, picking up speed after each shot.

“Calling for back-up, are we? GOOD! Hahahaha! More fresh meat!”

Within seconds Taylor had reached the thug shooting at her, jumping into the air and doing a dive kick into him, knocking him to the ground.

“She’s here! She gonna fucking kill u- GUAH!” the thug’s cry for help was cut off as Taylor grabbed his face and slammed his head against the alley wall. She pulled back and then slammed it again, and again, and again until the back of his head was reduced to nothing but a bloody pulp. The sickening crunch of his skull rewarded her, as well as the splatter of grey matter against the alley wall.

She turned around to the grunt groaning on the ground and pounced, sinking her teeth into yet another victim.

“And another one bite’s the dust! Well done Tay-Tay! Now, if we’re finished here-”

“More…”

“Tay-Tay? Are you ok? Has the bloodsport gone to that noggin of yours?”

Taylor ignored the voice in her head, turning to look at the only remaining E88 member still alive. The first one she had flung, who was only now beginning to stand back to his feet. She shot out of the alley and started to reach for him. He looked up at her, fear starting to dawn in his eyes. Normally, it would have been the last thing he saw. As it was, in a spray of blood, Taylor found that the arm she had been reaching toward the man was now no longer connected to her body. She paused her race toward her prey to look down at her bleeding stump, before spinning around to try and find the one that dared try to stand between her and her next meal.

As it turned out, a lot of someones.

“Is he… are they seriously following orders from a fucking discount furry!?”

Standing in front of a group of about two dozen Empire thugs, stood none other than Stormtiger, one of the more infamous capes under the banner of the E88. Beside him stood the cape known as Cricket, and while she had a slightly less imposing form, she was likely just as dangerous as her fellow cape.

Taylor turned to face them, before grinning.

“You have made a grave mistake, killing the men under my command,” Stormtiger said, before gesturing to the men around him, who all raised the guns in their hands. All of their weapons ranged from rifles and shotguns to pistols and a few SMGs, “You will regret crossing the Empire.”

Taylor’s eyes twinkled, “I don’t think I’m going to regret a thing.”

Stormtiger tsk’d, before gesturing in her direction. All of the E88 members present started shooting, and Taylor didn’t even bother dodging. Bullets tore her apart, ripped through her flesh, and when she finally fell to the ground, she was riddled with holes.

“Oooh… a good move for dramatic effect, but even I know getting shot like that hurt like a bitch.”

Stormtiger sighed, “Such a waste. Had she approached us, we might well have accepted her into our ranks.”

Cricket grunted while the other members of the Empire muttered in agreement. Stormtiger turned away from Taylor’s body and began to walk away, “As it is, we should leave. Let the Protectorate clean up this mess, we have better things to do-”

“Hehehehe…”

Stormtiger paused, turning around to look at Taylor’s body again. His eyes went wide as she began to twitch, her arms twisting as she rolled over. Her flesh began to knit itself back together, her blood began to flow backward, being sucked back into her body. She seemed to regrow her arm completely, and when she looked at the newly grown appendage, she started laughing.

“It’ll take a bit more than that to kill me,” Taylor said with a feral grin on her face.

Stormtiger opened his mouth to order his men to shoot, but it was too late. She had moved, racing forward into the ranks of the Empire. She swung her arm around, decapitating one man with the force of her movement alone. She grabbed another by the back of the neck, bringing him close in order to bite into him, draining him of his blood in less than a second.

The Empire members began shooting, but she was moving again, dodging their bullets with ease and causing more than a few stray shots to hit their own allies. She moved continuously, fluidly, moving from one target to the next, either draining them of blood or ripping them limb from limb. In one case, she actually grabbed a man by the arm and spun him around so hard that his body disconnected from his arm, leaving her hanging onto the dismembered limb. She shrugged and proceeded to use it to beat another man’s skull in.

“That’s it Tay-Tay! Rip ‘em to shreds, show ‘em what a real fucking Vampire looks like!”

Eventually, she felt the sting of her arm being lopped off again, before taking the time to realize that she was now going after Stormtiger himself. She grinned. She charged forward again, regardless of the risk, and soon felt dozens of cuts form against her skin. She lunged for Stormtiger, only to be interrupted as Cricket slammed into her from the side, knocking her off course.

She skidded to a halt, before whirling around and trying to spot the offending cape. Cricket was looking at her, her muscles tense and ready to move at any moment. Taylor charged again, reaching for the Empire cape, when Cricket suddenly dodged out of the way, showing reflexes and speed that Taylor had yet to see from anyone else.

“Get back here!” Taylor demanded, getting no response. She was about to charge again when she felt her legs fall out from under her. She fell forward, her legs cut off at the knees, Stormtigers work again.

She pushed herself up on one arm, looking up at Stormtiger as he stood above her.

“Y’know,” Stormtiger started, exhaustion clear in his voice, “Normally, there are rules about killing other capes. Normally, killing someone like you would be liable to get me Birdcaged, and that’s not the kind of attention I want on my back. But,” He reached down and grabbed her by the hair, lifting her upward so she was eye level with him. With only one arm and no legs, she probably weighed a lot less than she had a few minutes ago.

“I think I’m willing to make an exception for you.”

He got as far as pulling his left hand back into a fist when Taylor reach forward with her arm, grabbing the back of his head, and pulling herself toward him, her open mouth landing right onto his exposed neck. His blood flowed, and with the few moments of strength he had left, he tried in vain to pry her off of him, before he fell backward, gagging as his blood left his body.

When Taylor was finished, she licked her lips clean and looked down to see her limbs regenerating once more. She stood up, her tattered clothes drenched in blood, and she turned to look at Cricket. The Empire cape was already running, and even though Taylor knew she could probably catch up to her, the adrenaline and bloodlust seemed to be finally wearing off.

She looked around her, carefully examining the blood and viscera she left in her wake, “... I just killed a ton of people.” she noted.

“Yea-huh. A fuck ton of ‘em.”

“... should I be concerned about that?”

“Eh, who gives a shit, they're Nazi’s!”

Taylor sighed, “Fair enough.” and began to make her way home.

 

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■

Topic: New mass murdering cape in the bay!?
In: Boards ► Brockton Bay ► Capes ► Rumors

Luke_Ario13 (Original Poster)
Posted on January 3, 2011:

Ok, so, last night there was a shootout between the BBPD and the E88 right outside my apartment building. Nothing particularly unusual, I stayed inside, hid under the bed, and tried to get some sleep.

Then the shooting stops for about twenty seconds.

Now, stupid little-ol me decides to get up and take a look out the window, and I see that the police have bugged out and two skinheads are wailing on someone.

Oh, and some guy is thrashing around on the ground while missing his jaw.

WTF!?

In the next few minutes, the new cape -- who happened to be the person the two skinheads had been wailing on -- gets up and starts killing everyone! [VIDEO]

Eventually, Stormtiger and Cricket show up with a full contingent of skinheads, and I decide to do the smart thing and go back under my bed. A few more minutes of screaming and gunfire later, and everything goes quiet. I sit under my bed for another hour, trying and failing to get some sleep before saying 'fuggit' and I get up to look out my window.

I'm greeted by [THIS]

WTF. I'm moving out of the Bay ASAP.

(Showing Page 1 of 7)
► Bagrat (The Guy In The Know) (Veteran Member)
Replied on January 3, 2011:
Ok, how did I not hear about this earlier? Does anyone know WTF happened?
► Redx
Replied on January 3, 2011:
Is that fucking Stormtiger down there!? Is he dead?! that's his mask, right? the blue and white tiger thing!?
► Lydjuh_
Replied on January 3, 2011:
Umm... what? Are you allowed to link those kind of images and video!? That's pretty fucking gruesome!
► SWAAAGNUS (Cape Groupie)
Replied on January 3, 2011:
@Lydjuh_ Yeah... yeah that's Stormtiger alright, and unless he's gotten up since the OP posted I'm pretty sure he looks pretty fucking dead.
► FrenchSensei
Replied on January 3, 2011:
Has anyone noticed the bodies? I mean, some of them look like they've just been torn to shreds, but a bunch of them look like mummies or something like that. What kinda cape are we looking at here?
► Asbestos
Replied on January 3, 2011:
I... am not sure what to think. @OP, you're right, get the FUCK out of the bay. I really don't see the benefit in staying in a city where THAT can happen.
► BorkNugget (Veteran Member)
Replied on January 3, 2011:
Holy shit BB what kind of cape have you given us this time? A regenerator? A Tinker that specializes in nanotech? Whatever it is, I'm just glad I don't live there.
► Xx_VoidCowboy_xX (Temp-banned)
Replied on January 3, 2011:
That's right down the street from me! I knew I was hearing gunshots last night, but I didn't realize it was that close! Holy shit!
► WingedOne (Veteran Member)
Replied on January 3, 2011:
Well now... looks like we have a new piece on the board.
It'll be interesting to see how this goes.
► Luke_Ario13 (Original Poster)
Replied on January 3, 2011:
@Lidjuh_ Not sure if it's against the rules or not, but I haven't gotten an infraction yet.
@SWAAAGNUS Stormtiger has not moved since I took that picture. The cops and PRT have shown up now, and some guys in hazmat suits are cleaning up the bodies, so yeah, one of the E88 capes is dead. [PICS]
@FrenchSensei No clue. I just know that whoever did this is fucking terrifying.
@Asbestros I'm packing my bags now. No sense going to work with that bloodbath on my doorstep, and I've got family in Ohio I can go visit. Fuck you BB, you've been nothing but a pain in the ass.
► Xx_VoidCowboy_xX (Temp-banned)
Replied on January 3, 2011:
[Post removed]
++User has been banned for one week for the following: Speculation of cape identity++
I know it's tempting to do, but don't go trying to figure out a capes identity in public. Not only is it illegal, but in this case, if the new cape gets wind of you you're liable to end up dead. - Greyback (moderator) (Veteran Member)
► SWAAAGNUS (Cape Groupie)
Replied on January 3, 2011:
@Xx_VoidCowboy_xX Geez, calm down will you? And don't try to guess a capes identity. Stormtiger's will probably be released soon enough ow that he's dead, but don't go trying to guess this new cape.
► Lyedar (Veteran Member)
Replied on January 3, 2011:
Holy shit this some serious stuff... Empire Eighty-eight better watch out, because they just got onto someone's shitlist!
► Cattra
Replied on January 3, 2011:
So, looking at the video posted by the OP, I'd guess that this new cape is probably a brute, high level too since they were able to tank that many bullets and keep going. A regenerator too, since those bullets are actually penetrating and causing damage.
@OP any idea what else this cape has at their disposal? Maybe a striker ability, given the shriveled state of those corpses?
► Luke_Ario13 (Original Poster)
Replied on January 3, 2011:
@ Cattra No idea what powers she has, and I'd personally rather not find out.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,

(Showing Page 7 of 7)
► Alunir
Replied on January 3, 2011:
I kinda feel bad for all those guys... I mean, yeah, they were members of a white supremacist regime, but they had, like, families and all that, right?
► AmazingMollusk
Replied on January 3, 2011:
@Alunir I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the fact that you're feeling sorry for Nazis of all people. Imma just settle on crying.
► MajorObvious
Replied on January 3, 2011:
@Alunir They're Nazis, who gives a shit?
► AllSeeingEye
Replied on January 3, 2011:
From the looks of things, the new cape is probably going to be on everyone's shit list if they keep this up. They're not affiliated with the PRT since killing really isn't an option for them, the ABB is all asians, and from the looks of things I don't think this new cape is Asian. The only possibility that fits is that the new cape could be with the Merchants, but even then it doesn't feel right to me.
Fresh trigger most likely, and a dangerous one at that. Possibly triggered due to an altercation with E88?
► Cattra
Replied on January 3, 2011:
AllSeeingEye Wouldn't be surprised. It wouldn't be the first time someones triggered due to being harassed by the gangs.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,

 

Taylor tapped her finger against the side of her laptop as she scrolled through her ‘page’ on PHO. It had been two days since she’d made her debut, and while she didn’t regret what she did per se, the conversation she’d had with her dad had been… less than pleasant.

[-----]

“Taylor, you killed thirty people!”

“Dad, it was self-defense! And they had guns! What was I supposed to do!?”

“Knock them out, tie them up, or call the Protectorate and let them deal with it, not slaughter them wholesale!”

[-----]

Yeah. Sufficed to say, her dad had not been happy. Granted he had been more worried about her mental and physical state of being at the time, especially when she came home wearing a red hoodie instead of a white one. After he was done fussing over her, however, he’d basically grounded her, forbidding her from leaving the house until further notice, if not for her protection than for the protection of those around her.

With her newfound free time that she normally would have spent at school, she had taken the time to lurk on PHO using the nametag Alucard had so graciously provided, that being ‘TheCrimsonFckr’.

Not the most family-friendly of names, but she figured it would work just fine if all she would be doing was lurking. Speaking of, about a day after her first cape fight, the PRT posted an official page about her, detailing what they thought her powers were.

They had named her ‘Rend’ as a temporary title, with a Brute, Striker, and… Master rating?

“Alucard? Why on earth did they give me a Master rating?” She asked, both legitimately curious and a bit scared. The PRT wasn’t kind to Masters, especially with capes like Heartbreaker and Nilbog running around.

“Hmm… oh! I know, I totally forgot, hehe, Ghouls.”

Taylor blinked, “... Ghouls?” she asked.

“Yeah-huh. So, get this, if you bite and/or kill someone who’s not a virgin of the opposite sex, then they turn into a Ghoul. A zombie, basically. Sounds like they’ve been dealing with them as they come, apparently.”

If her heart had beat like a normal person’s, Taylor was pretty sure it would have been pounding its way through her ribcage, “I create zombies!?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“And when were you planning on telling me this!? That’s something kinda important to know about my powers!” she all but shouted. Truth be told, she didn’t actually find that aspect of her power all that alarming, in fact, she was mostly just angry that Alucard had neglected to inform her of such a thing up until now.

“It’s not like I’ve ever had to explain any of this before! It was usually just inferred. Either that or Walter would explain it. Kinda miss the traitorous bastard.”

“So, you’re basically just used to people doing all the work for you?” she asked.

“Yup~.”

Taylor sighed, before turning back to her page on PHO. Apparently, the PRT had classified her as an A-class threat, and a villain on top of that. Part of her swelled at the thought of being taken seriously by the PRT, but another part of her was pissed that they had immediately classified her as a villain.

Yes, she had killed thirty people in one night. But that had been in self-defense!

Yes, she had broken the ‘unwritten rules’ by killing Stormtiger. But she hadn’t even known about the unwritten rules until after it had happened!

And, yes, she was probably one of the most powerful parahumans in Brockton Bay.

“Not going to dispute that last one?”

“Would you?”

“... Point taken.”

She rolled her eyes, before closing her laptop and turning to the desk that she had moved into her room. On it were a few things; a sketchbook, a needle and thread, and a bunch of spare fabric. She’d gone out the first time looking for trouble, and while she had accomplished her goal in finding said trouble, she found out rather quickly that she was woefully unprepared to go out as a hero.

First things first; a Hero name. She’d bounced ideas off of Alucard, as well as doing some research online for some names that hadn’t already been taken.

Vampirella was a no, no one would take her seriously. Draculina was good, but it felt a bit too on the nose for her. She’d considered Lilith, but the name was already taken.

“How about Helsing?” Alucard asked.

“Wasn’t he the vampire hunter? A bit backward don’t you think?” she asked.

“Hey, don’t point at me, I worked for the family for decades. Seriously, I watched, like, three generations go by.”

Taylor ignored Alucard’s ramblings about his former life. That was actually one of the few things she’d failed to understand about her power; Alucard was fully and completely sentient and had apparently lived an entire life before she got stuck in her head. He’d fought in World War Two as well, Apparently.

Pulling up her hand-written list, she started looking through the names she hadn’t already crossed out, “Hmm… how about… oh, here we go I recognize this name. How about I go with Carmilla?” she asked.

“Hmm? Carmilla? That bitch? Well, I guess she did know how to throw a party. Eh, not my first choice but I guess it’ll work. Not like she’s around to complain or anything like that.”

Deciding on Carmilla as a cape name, she turned to her other current project; a costume. All of the spare fabric she could find was now being cannibalized into making her a costume. She’d managed to convince her dad to take her to a thrift-store when he got home from work, so she’d hopefully be able to find some of the things she needed, but so far her outfit was coming along… not necessarily nicely, but she was making progress.

The plan was to have a long, red coat the was open at the front, revealing a white shirt and black pants underneath. She and Alucard had gotten into an argument over the shirt since Taylor was adamant about not having to buy a new shirt every time her old one got soaked in blood as her hoodie had. Eventually, they reached a compromise; White shirt for when they were meeting with people they weren’t going to kill, and black or red for when they were going to be fighting.

Another issue was her mask. She’d decided after she’d gotten home from her first outing that she needed to cover her eyes, not her mouth since she needed the latter as her main form of attack. She’d considered a domino mask, but Alucard had shot down the idea almost immediately. He’d suggested that instead of something plain like a mask, she should wear a pair of round, metal-rimmed, red-tinted glasses. Apparently, that would mirror his look from back when he wasn’t stuck in her head.

“All you’d be missing would be my stylish hat, but even I didn’t wear it all the time, only when I wanted to be extra stylish.”

That had been the second option for her costume. The first option, and one she still hoped she could pull off one day, was a red dress, with long white gloves and sleeves, with decorative jewelry and a masquerade mask, which would have made her look like someone who’d stepped out of the renaissance or the 1910s. Dangerous, yet beautiful, especially considering her fangs showed when she smiled.

Unfortunately, both herself and Alucard had admitted that the outfit wouldn’t be that well suited for combat, and had decided on the second option for the time being.

Aside from designing her costume, she’d also been experimenting with her powers. Ever since she’d drank about fifteen people, she’d discovered that her senses had gone from being good, to through the roof. Beyond that, her reflexes and reaction time was also far beyond the norm. And on top of all of that? She was ripped now.

When she’d gone to take a shower the night she’d gone out, she’d actually taken a good ten minutes to stare at her newly gained muscle mass. Her abs had gone from nonexistent to rock hard.

“Hehehe, I’m pretty sure you could grind meat on those things!”

Her arms had bulked up too. Nothing outrageous, but it was definitely a visible difference. Then there were the… other, changes.

Her thighs, once upon a time, had been one of her most attractive features -- in her humble opinion of herself. Now? They looked even better than before, along with some upgrades to other parts of her body.

“Dayum! Are you sure you’re fifteen? Cause that is one fine~ looking ass!” Alucard commented, causing Taylor to blush.

“Yes, I’m fifteen. And unless you want to sound like a pedophile, I suggest you take back that remark.” She said, causing Alucard to chuckle.

“Hey, you don’t have to worry about me, I’ve got my eyes set on an even better-looking ass.”

Taylor sighed, “You know making comments like that isn’t going to get this ‘Integra’s attention. You do know that right?” she asked.

“Eh, it’s not the only thing I’ve got up my sleeve.”

Rolling her eyes, she went back to doing a little bit of sewing. She worked for about an hour, just before her dad called out from downstairs announcing his arrival.

“I’ll be right down dad!” Taylor called out, getting up from her desk and rushing downstairs.

When she reached the bottom, she found her dad setting down a box on the dining room table, “What’s all this, dad?” Taylor asked, walking up and beginning to inspect the box.

“Well, that one you’re looking at there is a few spare jackets and coats from the lost and found at the office that has been sitting in the back room for a few years now. Figured you might could use them for your costume.” he explained, “We can still go to the thrift store later, but I figured this could still help.”

Taylor grinned, pulling out one of the jackets, which looked to be a completely oversized tan trenchcoat. She stepped over to her dad and gave him a hug, “Thanks dad, this’ll definitely help.”

Her dad froze for a second, before wrapping his arms around her, “You’re welcome, kiddo.”

 

Danny downed another shot of whiskey, sighing as he placed the glass back on the bar, “Am I a bad person?” he asked.

Kurt hummed, “No, I don’t think so. I mean, what else were you supposed to do, turn her over to the PRT? They’d have her locked up before she had a chance to say anything.” he said, reaching over to the bottle of alcohol and pouring himself and his friend another shot of whiskey.

“I mean… she killed thirty people! Not innocent people no, but… What am I supposed to do!?” he asked, his voice cracking.

Kurt shook his head. After Danny had revealed that his daughter had triggered after being shoved into a locker, he had been enraptured completely. After he had told him that she had then gone on the kill thirty people in one night, he had become terrified completely. And judging that the man in front of him was shaking, he was probably just as terrified.

“When she came how she was dripping blood! I… I just reacted, and if she hadn’t been my daughter…” he trailed of pressing his face into his hands.

Kurt sighed. He wasn’t a therapist or a psychologist, and he really wasn’t the person to be making calls about what to do about a crazed parahuman daughter. If anything he was probably the worst person to talk about such things, as he didn’t even have any kids himself.

“Look, I don’t know what you’re supposed to do in this kind of situation, but I can tell you right now that she is your daughter. If her reaction to those Jackets was any indication, she probably has little to no inclination to hurt you, let alone kill you.” Not to mention the fact that she was probably more concerned about his safety more than anything else.

Danny sighed, “I know… You’re right, she would never intentionally hurt me, but… what am I supposed to do? I mean, she said she tried taking them down non-lethally at first, but when that failed to work, she just… kills them?”

“I’m no expert, but if I had to guess I’d say her brains not working all that well at the moment. Capes aren’t stable people, Danny. Even the Heroes. You know that, and while I hate to say it, I don’t think Taylor’s in a much better position.” Kurt remarked.

Danny muttered something under his breath, before downing another shot of alcohol, “I just… I’m terrified of her Kurt! I’m supposed to be her father, the one she’s supposed to be able to lean on when life gets tough, but instead… instead, I just miss all the signs that she needs me there! I didn’t even notice her grades dropping, I didn’t notice that she came home more often than not with bruises, and I didn’t even notice that Emma fucking Barnes was one of the ones bullying her!” His voice started out timid and quiet, but by the time he got to the part about Emma, he was shouting, drawing the stares of many of the bar’s patrons.

Kurt winced, “Look, Danny, why don’t you try and calm down, alright? Look, you said that you took her to the thrift store yesterday to look for… costume materials, right? She said she wanted to be a hero, right?” he asked.

Danny took a deep breath, before pouring himself another shot of whiskey, “Yeah, yeah she wants to be a hero. But, as far as the thrift store went? You didn’t watch the news this morning?” he asked.

Kurt shrugged, “Don’t have cable, remember?”

Danny sighed again, “Well, it was a shitshow, I can tell you that much…”

[-----]

Taylor bit her bottom lip as she held up the pair of glasses to the thrift stores light, trying to gauge if the orange lenses were dark enough to hide her eyes when she was out fighting crime. She held them over to her father, “What do you think, dad? Would this work?” she asked.

Danny looked over, “Uh, Yeah, I think those might work. I thought you said you wanted red though?” he asked.

Taylor shrugged, “Originally, yeah, but these are the only ones with round lenses and metal frames.” she explained.

Danny made an ‘ah’ sound before going back to looking through the men’s clothing.

“What do you think Alucard, will this work?” Taylor asked to no one.

“Eh, they’re not perfect, but it’s kinda hard to get perfect in the first place so you’re probably fine. Besides, if they’re orange instead of red it’ll be easier to see when you get blood on them.”

“Fair. Still, those sunglasses have red lenses, even if they are plastic.” She noted.

“Tay-Tay, the only glasses I’m willing to accept you wearing aside from the orange ones are the aviators.”

Taylor blinked, “... why?”

“Because they are awesome. The orange ones, while not as much as my old pair, are fabulous,” he explained.

“Wait, how do you assign something like that? Is there some kind of rating system for glasses or something?” she asked.

“As a matter of fact, there is. Aviators are the third-best type of glasses in the world. First are the style of those orange ones,” he explained.

“Okay… wait, what about the second?”

“That would be a monocle.”

“A monocle.”

“Did I stutter?”

Taylor sighed, grabbing the round, orange pair and adding it to the cart. Inside said cart were all the thing’s Alucard had insisted she have for her costume, as well as a few things she’d decided on herself. Alucard insisted on a pair of white gloves, a silver cross necklace, and a red fedora that they’d found. All Taylor herself had gotten was a pair of black pants and black tennis shoes. Alucard had requested dress shoes, but all she could find were high-heels, which even Alucard agreed would be a pain in the ass to fight in.

She started heading over to her dad and was passing through the women’s coats section when something set off her sense of smell. It was disgusting, rancid, and it was most definitely a person. If she had to guess, they hadn’t showered in days, if not weeks.

“ALRIGHT MOTHERFUCKERS! EVERYBODY ON THE FUCKIN’ GROUND! SKIDMARK IS SHITFACED, AND HE NEEDS HIS FUCKIN’ FIX!” A loud, obnoxious, and drunken voice shouted out over the store, moments before automatic weapon-fire sounded out.

People screamed as some ran and others dropped to the ground. Taylor ducked, hiding behind the rack of coats. Slowly peaking around the edge of it, she saw Skidmark and about ten other Merchants standing at the front of the store, all covered in filth and holding varying weapons. Outside the store window, she could see a large, scrappily-built vehicle, which looked like the bastard love-child between a school bus and a tank.

Skidmark was holding the cashier at gunpoint and was shouting.

“Gimme’ the goods asswipe! I know ya’ got ‘em, I have boys that come in here every fuckin’ week to get some of that shit!” he ordered, shoving the weapon further into the man’s face.

Taylor frowned, “Alucard, what the hell is he talking about?” Taylor whispered, ducking back behind the rack as one of the mooks started to turn in her direction.

“Hmm… I think I have an idea. Take a deep breath, through the nose, would you dear?”

“I… what?”

“Just trust me.”

Taylor sighed and did as he asked. She smelled everything, and almost gagged at the smell of Skidmark and his crew. She smelled the oil and fumes from the vehicle outside, likely one of Squealer’s creations, as well as the faint chemical smell coming off of Skidmark, several of the gang members, and… the Cashier?

“Yep, that cashier’s got cocaine hidden under the counter. Watcha say we grab some for ourselves after skiddy makes his way out of here?” Alucard proposed.

“We are not doing drugs Alucard! I’m supposed to be a hero remember? And besides, we’ve got to find some way to stop him! He’s going to get someone hurt.” Taylor whispered, peaking around the rack again.

“Aww, you’re no fun. Alright, I suppose we should help out. Might wanna go ahead and suit up though.”

Taylor nodded, “Alright, yeah, but… how? My coats at home and I still haven’t paid for any of this stuff.”

“Who said anything about paying for it? And there’s a perfectly acceptable coat right next to you.”

Taylor looked up, and sure enough, there was a black pea coat hanging on the rack. Quietly putting the coat, glasses, gloves, and hat on, she resolved to go out and help save the day. Like a hero. Without killing anyone.

“Hey, Alucard, if I snap into a blood rage like last time you’ll try and snap me out of it, right?” she asked.

“No promises are made.”

Deciding that was probably the best she was going to get out of the voice in her head, Taylor stood up and stepped out from behind the rack. She stood for a full three seconds before one of the mooks noticed her.

“Hey girly! He said get on the fuckin’ ground!” the mook shouted, pointing a pistol sideways in her direction.

“I don’t think I’m going to do that,” Taylor remarked, stepping forward, “Now, if you could all just get down on the ground and put your hands on your heads, that would make all of this go a whole lot smoother.”

At this point, Skidmark had turned away from the cashier and was now looking directly at Taylor, “You some kinda’ cape bitch? You think you can take on the fuckin’ Merchants?” he asked.

Taylor tilted her head to the side, “Something like that.”

Skidmark laughed, “Look at this bitch! She thinks she can get us to just give up like we’re pussies! Hey, girly, tell you what, you go ahead and strip and I’ll consider lettin’ ya’ outta here in one piece!”

Taylor sighed, “This would’ve been a lot easier if you’d just done as I asked.”

Skidmark snarled, “Yeah, well I don’t take orders from bitches-”

Unfortunately, he couldn’t finish his sentence as Taylor’s fist had found its way into his stomach, her movements being too fast for him to immediately react to. Taylor’s punch sent him sprawled out on the floor, heaving and gasping for breath.

One of the mooks panicked, and a bullet soon found itself lodged in Taylor’s forehead. She fell backward, hitting the ground with a thud. The man who had shot her was shaking, his pistol held at an odd angle. His knees were the worst, and he soon collapsed onto the ground.

Skidmark groaned, slowing getting back to his feet. He looked around, spotting Taylor’s fallen, bleeding form before looking at the mook who had shot her. He blinked, looking at them both again, “Holy shit dude, you killed a fuckin’ cape!”

The mook in question just giggled slightly, “I am so fucking high right now…”

 

Taylor groaned. Getting shot hurt. Getting shot in the head hurt like a bitch. She was tempted just to lie there, to just let the Merchants take what they wanted. That wouldn’t be so bad, would it?

“I mean, we’d miss out on all the cocaine…”

“GAHH!”

She was interrupted from her thoughts by loud, rage-filled screaming, as well as the pained cries of Merchant’s being kicked in the groin. She lifted her head up and saw something she didn’t quite understand. Her dad was standing over one of the mooks fallen forms, punching the daylights out of him.

“Ohoho! Looks like daddy’s got some fire in ‘im!”

Her first thought was, Woah, my dad’s beating up Merchants because they shot me? While her second was more, My dad’s beating up Merchants because they shot me!

The difference between those two is a very small, but very significant one. The reason being that the second thought arrived just in time for Taylor to see one of the Merchant’s pointing a pistol towards her dad’s head. Fortunately, Taylor was able to react quickly enough to jump up and grab the Merchant’s arm and twist it upwards as he pulled the trigger. There was a definitive crack as the bones in his arm broke and twisted at an odd angle, the bullet going into the ceiling.

“Heheheheheheh…”

“That… was a bad move,” she said.

“He dun goofed is what he did!”

She headbutted the man. Hard enough that she sent him soaring across the room. She turned around just in time to see one of the Merchants aiming at her and firing, letting her dodge the incoming projectile. She moved forward and grabbed his arm, swinging him around and tossing him into a rack of clothes.

She turned around to see Skidmark already leaving the building, “Start the car! Start the fuckin’ car!” he shouted, the sound that followed his voice being that of a rumbling engine.

Taylor looked around at the other mooks, who were now either on the run, groaning on the floor, or in the case of the one who’d shot her, still being pummeled near to death by her dad. She winced as his fist slammed into the man’s bruised and bloodied face again. She kneeled down next to him and reached over, carefully putting a hand on her dad’s shoulder. He whirled around, a crazed, teary-eyed look on his face, which softened the moment he saw Taylor.

“... Taylor? You’re okay?” he asked.

Taylor chuckled, tapping her forehead where the bullet had entered her head, “Regeneration, remember? I’m fine. Now, how about you get off him and call the police, alright? I have a supervillain to catch.”

Leaving little chance for him to respond, she sped off just as the massive bus-tank-thing started to speed off. She ran out the door and began following it, and soon found herself speeding down the street at a far faster pace than she normally would have, and found that she was slowly catching up to the vehicle in front of her. Powers, she decided, were bullshit, hers especially.

“You’re a Vampire, sired by me, a fuckmothering Vampire, what did you expect?” Alucard asked.

“There’s a difference?” She asked, jumping over a car that had spun out behind the Merchant’s escape vehicle.

“One is just a normal, average, run of the mill Vampire… usually. The other has lived long enough and reached a certain level of badass that can’t really be matched by anyone else save another of equal skill and badassery,” he explained.

Taking that tidbit of information into account, she promptly filed it away for later examination. In the meantime, she reached forward, attempting to grab the bumper of the insult to all sensible car construction in front of her. She missed the first couple of times, before finally catching the piece of metal in her hands. Unfortunately, this had two unforeseen consequences. The first was that Taylor tripped and fell forward, her legs being dragged across the pavement at fifty miles an hour. Her feet were shredded, her shoes ruined, and the fedora on her head flew off in the process.

She reached up with her free left hand and grabbed the bumper, before reaching up again and grabbing the ladder that led up the back to the roof of the vehicle. She slowly climbed up, her pace quickening once her feet regenerated fully. When she reached the top of the vehicle, she noticed there was a hatch on the top of it. A hatch that just so happened to be open, with a Merchant pointing a shotgun in her direction.

The second consequence of grabbing the bumper was alerting the Merchants inside that she had caught up to them.

“Tay-Tay, I’m pretty sure that thing's not filled with confetti.”

“No shit, Sherlock.”

“Hey! I’ll have you know Sherlock was very good at keeping his mouth shut when it came to pointing out the obvious. I, on the other hand, am not.”

She was about to respond when the Merchant shot, the bullets missing, but the shot itself causing her to duck back behind the edge of the vehicle. The second time she popped up from the edge of the roof, she moved quickly, moving to grab the shotgun. The weapon went off again, sending the shot up into the open air. She gripped the weapon, hard, ripping it out of the man’s hands before slamming the butt of the shotgun into his nose. He fell back into the hatch.

She moved to enter the hatch her self, only for the vehicle to swerve in order to make a turn, throwing Taylor around and almost off the side of it, the only thing keeping her in place being her grip on the hatches rim. All the while, her legs, and bare feet were dangling off the side.

She tried to pull herself back up when Skidmark poked his head out of the hatch, looking directly at her. His eyes went wide, and he pulled out a large pistol and pointed it at her, “Eat this bitch!” he yelled, pulling the trigger on the weapon as fast as he could.

At point-blank range, it shocked her that he somehow managed to miss six of the seven shots he got out before she reached up and grabbed the pistol, crushing it in her grip. The one that had hit probably didn’t even count either, as it only grazed the side of her cheek. Ignoring the blood trickling from the wound, she pulled herself forward, tackling the Merchant leader through the hatch and into the vehicle.

She fell headfirst, landing on top of him and yelping as she felt her legs twist at an odd angle. She eventually got up and readjusted herself, and found herself staring at a pair of Merchants, one of them holding an Uzi and the other clutching a bloody nose. There was an open door to the driver and passenger seat behind them, which Skidmark rushed through, pushing her against the wall as he moved past her.

“Fucking kill that bitch!” he yelled, and the one with the Uzi obeyed. Or, tried too, at least.

He fired his weapon with one hand, spraying the back of the vehicle with bullets, all of them ricocheting all over the place. Several of them hit her, and one of them ricocheted into the second Merchant’s leg, causing to cry out in a nasal scream of pain.

Taylor raced forward, grabbing the gunner’s arm and wrenching it back, opening her mouth and sinking her teeth into his arm. She regretted it instantly.

He screamed in pain, before she threw him toward the back of the bus, spitting out his arm and coughing, “Would it kill you to not do drugs!? You taste awful!”

The Merchant only groaned in response. She turned around, marching toward the doorway that led to the driver seat, which Skidmark had closed off when he’d gone through. She tried opening the door the old fashioned way, gripping the handle and pulling, but that seemed to fail, as it was locked. Stupid and high as he may have been, Skidmark seemed to be able to at least take basic steps toward his own self-preservation.

Reaching to either side of the door, Taylor dug her fingers into the metal and pulled. She succeeded in pulling the door off its sliding rail, so she tossed the thing to the back of the bus. She moved to enter the room when she suddenly found herself being flung to the back of the bus by what felt like an especially strong wind.

“Right. Skidmark’s power.”

She tried two more times, running at full speed and trying to get into the cabin when she finally gave up after hearing Skidmark and Squealer giggling at her failed attempts. Looking around, she noticed the hatch was still open. Grabbing the edges and hefting herself up and out of the bus compartment, she carefully gripped the roof and started crawling toward the vehicle’s windshield.

“Well, you know what they say, when God closes a door, the devil opens a window.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how the saying goes.”

“Oh I know, I just know God doesn’t open windows.”

Moving just above the windshield, she dropped down onto the vehicle’s hood, right in front of the windshield and the cabin’s occupants. They screamed, and Taylor reeled her fist back, then punched the window as hard as she could, shattering it. She kicked herself up onto the shattered, not-quite broken glass and kicked, shattering it completely and swinging into the cabin herself.

The two capes inside screamed, with Skidmark pulling a pistol out of the glovebox and pointing it at Taylor, shooting her in the chest several times. Squealer pulled her left arm back, her right hand holding the steering wheel, and tried to slam her fist into Taylor’s head, only for her Taylor’s teeth to sink into her arm as it went her way.

“Oh boy! No wonder they call her Squealer if that’s what her scream sounds like!”

Squealer swerved, hitting a fire hydrant and causing water to flow out into the open street. Taylor silently hoped that there weren’t any pedestrians around, because, with the way Squealer was driving, she was bound to hit somebody if they hadn’t already gotten out of the way.

“Squeals! Look the fuck out!”

All three eyes looked forward out the windshield at what Skidmark was trying to warn them about and found that they were about to drive off the edge of the docks.

Squealer squealed.

Skidmark screamed.

Taylor wondered how she’d gotten to this point, Squealer’s arm still in her mouth.

Alucard laughed hysterically.

 

Taylor noted that water turned out to be very wet. She also noted that the vehicle’s hood probably shouldn’t have been glowing, and in retrospect, she probably should have taken steps to avoid getting a tinker-tech vehicle dunked into the bay. Unfortunately, she didn’t get much of a chance to contemplate any of this, at least, not till later, as when she tried -- and failed -- to swim out the windshield, the vehicle’s engine… exploded.

Now, Tinker-tech is volatile at the best of times, Squealer’s tech especially. So, it wasn’t all that surprising when it malfunctioned when being drowned in water. Now, Taylor was fortunate enough to be above the engine when it went off and was sent flying upward. The concussive force sent her, Squealer, and a large portion of water rocketing upward, and she soon found herself flying through the open air, landing with a wet crunch on the dock as she felt several of her bones break from the impact. She quietly hoped Squealer had landed on top of her, perhaps saving her from the worst of the damage.

Sitting up, she spat out Squealer’s arm, “Hey, are you-” she cut herself off when she saw the arm roll down the dock, the elbow joint shredded and torn.

She blinked, “Huh… well, at least we won’t have to deal with her voice ever again.”

“See Tay-Tay? There’s a bright side to everything!”

Taylor nodded, seeing the wisdom in Alucard’s words despite how wrong everything had gone. She was about to get up and head back to the thrift store where her dad was probably freaking out when she heard a shrill scream from behind her. Twisting her head around, she saw several PRT goons crowded around where the vehicle had gone off the edge of the dock, all armed with the foaming guns she’d seen talked about on PHO, along with two obvious capes standing in front of them. What concerned… no, concerned wasn’t the right word… what intrigued Taylor was the one Cape standing in front of everyone else, staring Taylor down.

“Put your hands on your head and get on the ground! You’re under arrest!” The cape -- Armsmaster, now that she thought about it -- shouted.

Taylor blinked, “... Why?”

Her words seemed to throw the protectorate cape for a loop, before he frowned and pointed his halberd in her direction, “Surrender, and you will be taken into Protectorate custody under the charges of murder, destruction of public property, and causing of public distress.”

“Oh, come on, he could charge you for manslaughter under duress, maybe, who is this guy?”

“You’re… you’re Armsmaster, right?” Taylor asked, her voice growing a bit feint.

Armsmaster hesitated for a split second, “Yes, I am Armsmaster. Are you willing to come quietly?” he asked.

Taylor got up and shrugged, “I mean, you’re heroes, I’m trying to be one, why wouldn’t I come with you?” she asked with a lopsided grin.

“Yesssss… keep him off balance, Taylor, make sure to confuse him.”

“You’re… trying to be a hero?” he asked, sounding a bit confused, “I’m afraid you’re doing a fairly poor job of it.”

Taylor shrugged, “My powers don’t exactly come with a non-lethal option.”

Armsmasters frown deepened. He lifted his halberd upright, setting the but of it on the ground, “We still need you to cooperate. If you would let us restrain you, that would make things go a lot smoother.”

“While I would personally tell him to shove that halberd right up his own ass, I would suggest you play along, Tay-Tay… for now, at least. You want to be a hero, and these are the local heroes. If nothing else you’ll want to keep them from interfering when you’re working.”

Taylor nodded to herself, before focusing her attention back on Armsmaster, “Alright, fair enough.” She said, before putting her hands behind her head.

The PRT troopers moved forward, placing her in handcuffs and moving her toward the van that was parked around the corner of a building. They opened the back and -- a bit roughly -- guided her inside, leaving her in the armored prisoner transport.

“You’d think they would have something better to contain new capes in than an armored van. I lost count of how many of these I’ve busted in and out of!”

Taylor rolled her eyes, “It’s not about my capability of breaking out, it’s about making them feel comfortable. I’ll be the first to admit our methods haven’t been all that heroic. I mean, we killed thirty people, even being Nazi’s, that’s still a lot of blood on my hands. That, and we’ve killed three capes. That kinda goes in the face of the unwritten rules.” she explained.

“Correction, you’ve killed two capes, with one being probably dead. Never say you’ve killed someone unless you’ve seen the body.” Alucard shot back.

“I’m guessing Squealer’s arm counts as a body?”

“Eh, not usually, but unless she does come back from the grave, I’m pretty sure we’ve killed her.”
Taylor nodded, before leaning her head back against her seat. Even if the drive wouldn’t be all that long, she’d at least make herself comfortable for the time being.

[-----]

Director Piggot lived a very stressful lifestyle. Her dialysis, her distrust of capes, and her sheer stubbornness had cemented her stern and unwavering attitude. She normally didn’t find herself confused by much that the world had to offer either, but the report Armsmaster was currently giving her was stretching her suspension of disbelief.

“And you say she just… gave up? Without even trying to put up a fight?” she asked.

Armsmaster nodded, “She willingly allowed the PRT troopers to contain her. She is still waiting down in her containment cell… talking to herself.” he said, hesitating at the end of the sentence.

Piggot raised an eyebrow, “Talking to herself? That doesn’t sound all that unusual if she’s between the ages of fourteen and twenty as your report suggests, especially if she’s trying to pass the time.”

Armsmaster shifted slightly, “The problem is that she seems to be talking to another individual, rather than simply passing the time. She waits for responses and even speaks argumentatively and aggressively. It appears as though she is experiencing elaborate auditory hallucinations.”

“So she’s hearing voices in her head, then?” Piggot asked, feeling a headache start to come on. It wouldn’t be the first time a cape had heard voices in their head, and unfortunately enough, those were usually very destructive capes.

The fact that the new cape hadn’t resisted being taken into custody, and had even cooperated willingly, was one of the only things that kept the Director from calling in someone to deal with the new A-class threat. The fact that they had actually managed to capture her in the first place was also a complete mystery, as they hadn’t even known she was fighting the Merchants.

They had sent Armsmaster, Dauntless, and Velocity out to try and deal with Squealer and Skidmark, hoping to nip the relatively new and small gang in the bud. They hadn’t expected Rend to be tearing into the vehicle, forcing them to drive off the edge of the docks. When they saw Rend spit out the remnants of Squealer’s arm, everyone was set on edge, and it was only thanks to the rigorous trigger discipline of the troopers and Miss Militia that they didn’t immediately attack the teenager.

When the girl had cooperated, things got even more complicated. A-rank threats rarely ever cooperated with the law, and even fewer confessed that they had been trying to be heroes. Fortunately for Rend, it was early enough in her career that if she really did want to be a hero, there was the potential to rebrand and hope that she could disassociate herself from the identity the PRT had given her.

Unfortunately, if they wanted her to join the Wards, then they would have to make a good impression on her. Which, given her cooperation, gave Piggot some small hope that they might be able to get her into the wards without too much trouble.

“There is one other issue, however.” Armsmaster started, earning a glare from Piggot, “Something she said to me before she was taken into custody. Apparently, her power doesn’t have a non-lethal option. That may be an exaggeration, especially considering that the few Merchants that were discovered at the thrift store were still very much alive. Still, her battle with Empire Eighty-Eight was brutal enough that I don’t think she felt she was exaggerating.”

Piggot nodded, turning to the monitor that looked into the cell that Rend had been placed in, “Is she safe to interview?”

“Considering she was cooperative, I believe we should at least attempt an interview, however, I also believe it should be conducted by someone more… personable, then myself,” he explained.

“Alright then, who do you suggest?”

“I personally recommend Miss Militia, as she is one of the few capes working for the PRT that is personable enough to conduct such an interview while remaining capable of defending herself should Rend become violent. Assault is another option, but he is… unprofessional, at the best of times.”

Piggot nodded, agreeing with Armsmaster’s assessment. While it wasn’t necessarily the best way to handle things -- they couldn’t exactly call in the Triumvirate on it -- it was probably better than nothing.

“Have Miss Militia get ready for an interview in ten minutes.”

 

Taylor sat in the interrogation room, humming quietly to herself. There was a single table in the middle of the room, with chairs on either side and a lamp hanging from the ceiling. Classic interrogation room. She was willing to bet there was a one-way mirror somewhere too. She was hoping the Protectorate wouldn’t take too long to the interview, as she did want to be home in time for dinner. That and she wanted to call her dad. Her dad would probably be worried about her.

She was brought out of her musings when the door to the room opened, and in stepped none other than Miss Militia, one of the only heroic capes in the protectorate that was allowed to use guns.

“I wonder if she can conjure up a cannon…” Alucard mused.

“Miss Militia, huh? I figured Armsmaster would want to conduct the interview.” Taylor commented, ignoring Alucard.

The older woman nodded and sat in the chair across from Taylor, “Initially, he did, but he decided it would be better if I was the one to interview you instead. I have a particular insight into parahumans who’s powers, in your own words, don’t have a non-lethal option.” she explained.

“It’s because you can summon guns, right? You don’t really have a choice either.”

Miss Militia nodded, “To an extent, yes. I have managed to find a work-around, but I will admit that lethal options are much easier to come up with and use.”

Taylor nodded, “Alright, fair enough. So, what do want to know?” she asked.

“Firstly, what’s your name? The upper echelons of the PRT gave you the designation ‘Rend’ but I very much doubt it’s what you had in mind.”

“She’s got that right. Seriously, who picks these names!?”

“Well… I’ve pretty much decided on Carmilla, one of the older Vampires in fiction. Since, well, my powers kinda fit the whole vampire shtick.” Taylor explained.

Miss Militia tilted her head, “And I believe that’s a perfect segue into my next question. What exactly are your powers? We have a guess that your a brute, and a striker and Master on top of that, but we don’t have much else.”

“Ah, yeah, that’s uh… that’s a bit complicated. I’m… kind of a little bit of everything. I guess you would probably have to classify me as a changer first and foremost, since I can increase and change my muscle mass, regenerate, and if I can ever figure out how to do it, I can even full-on shapeshift. I’m not strictly speaking a striker, given that my… well, I can turn people into those zombie things that you’ve been dealing with by biting them and draining them of blood. I… can’t really control them, but-”

“Actually Tay-Tay, you can. You just need to know where they are. They’re kinda stupid, but yes, you can sick ‘em on someone.”

“Ok, scratch that, I can control them, but only somewhat. And I need to know where they are, and presumably, I need line of sight.”

Miss Militia raised an eyebrow, “Presumably?” she asked.

Taylor shrugged, “Like, up until I read the post on PHO detailing the aftermath of my… walk, I didn’t even realize draining people of blood actually did that.”

Miss Militia hummed, “Beyond that, I need to ask what exactly happened when you fought with the Empire Eighty-Eight. All we found was a… rather gruesome scene, with several of the corpses getting up and walking again, trying to assault the troopers and medics.”

Taylor winced, “Yeah, that was… an accident. There was a shootout going on at the time, between the police and the Empire. I tried to disable the gang members, but, well…” she trailed off, muttering something under her breath.

Miss Militia leaned her elbows on the table, clasping her hands together, “What happened?”

“... I punched a guy’s jaw off.”

Miss Militia winced internally, “We found the body, though, compared to what else happened though, that seems like one of the tamer things you did.”

Taylor shook her head, “Yeah, but… at that point, I hadn’t done anything like that before, and I froze. I was still me when I did that. After that, the rest of them tried to kill me, beating me down with bats, pipes, and… well, at the time I knew I had regeneration, but I didn’t know if it would be enough to keep me alive. I thought… I thought I might have died there. I know now that it wasn’t anything close to being able to kill me, but… it was still terrifying. After that, well, I saw red, and I don’t really remember all that much.”

“Blood Rage is a thing. A wonderful, beautiful thing.”

Miss Militia nodded, “Manslaughter in Self defense, then. Well, that at least makes clearing your name a fair bit easier. What about what happened with the Merchants? We’re still working on digging up the wreckage from Squealer’s vehicle, and we have yet to recover either her or Skidmark’s bodies. I’m not sure if you’re aware, but killing capes, aside from those with kill orders, is generally frowned upon, even in self-defense.”

Taylor chuckled a bit, her cheeks going red as she scratched the back of her head, “Yeah, that was… a bit of an accident, actually. I was out shopping at the thrift store when Skidmark tried to rob the place. I tried to get them to surrender, but… well, one of them shot me, Skidmark and Squealer drove off, and I ended up chasing after them. I managed to climb onto the vehicle and ended up fighting the two of them inside the cabin. I didn’t even realize we were headed towards the docks until we were already driving off of it.”

“And Squealers arm?” Miss Militia asked.

“That, ah, that was due to her arm being in my mouth before the thing exploded.”

The protectorate cape took a deep breath, before sighing, “Alright, I think that’s enough for those topics. I believe we should talk about your future, and, potentially, if you were willing to go through a rebrand -- you could keep the name Carmilla, as long as it hasn’t already been taken -- you could join the Wards.”

Taylor squirmed somewhat in her seat, “I… don’t really think that would be a great idea.”

Miss Militia raised an eyebrow, “Why not? We could provide you with recourses, training, support, and a myriad of other things. Including a proper costume.”

“What’s this about a costume? Sorry, I wasn’t exactly listening.”

“It’s… well, there’s a couple of problems with me joining. I don’t eat, at least, not as normal people do. I drink blood instead. I’m not sure how long I can go without, as I’ve only had my powers for less than a week, but… I don’t really know what happens if I stop. I could get weaker, I could starve, or I could go into a blood rage as I did with the Empire.” Taylor explained.

“That, and PR is a bitch to deal with. Seriously, one guy we had tried to get Integra to tell me to wear pink. Pink!”

“Pink?” Taylor said aloud, causing Miss Militia’s eyes to zero in on her.

“Pink?” The older hero asked.

Taylor cursed under her breath, “Not the time, Alucard.” She said, before sighing and turning back to Miss Militia, “That’s the other thing. I… kinda, talk to my power.”

“You… talk, to your power. How so?”

Taylor nodded, “Yeah. There’s a voice in my head. A chatty one, too, always providing commentary and advice. Sometimes it’s helpful, other times…”

“Hey, I’ll have you know I give great advice!... This place could really use a stripper pole.”

“... not so helpful.”

Miss Militia stared at Taylor for a good ten seconds before sighing, “Armsmaster theorized that you might be having auditory hallucinations. I suppose your power is responsible for that?”

Taylor winced, “Ish, yeah. He usually tries to get a response out of me, or makes comments about people around me.”

“‘He’?”

“Yeah, he. Sounds like a he, talks like a he, and thinks like a he.”

Miss Militia raised an eyebrow, “Thinks?”

Taylor rolled her eyes, “Usually uses the head between his legs for thinking.”

“Aww, I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Taylor frowned, “He is also fairly insufferable.”

Miss Militia winced, “I’m sorry you have to go through that.”

“Eh, it’s not all that bad. He only ever thinks like that about people around me, not about me personally… probably because I threatened to jump off a cliff if he kept commenting on my lack of breasts.”

“You threatened him by almost committing suicide?” she asked, a niggling worry crawling into the back of her head.

“I threatened to take away his entertainment is what I did.” Taylor corrected.

“And I will admit, making comments like that about a minor is beneath me. I should’ve done better.”

Taylor twisted her head to the side, “You’re apologizing now of all times?”

Miss Militia sighed. Taylor was not the first unhinged cape she’d ever delt with, nor did she feel would be the last, but with her arguing with the voice in her head, getting anything done would be… problematic.

After getting Alucard to shut up for a second, Taylor turned back to Miss Militia, “Ok, well, what else did you want to know?” she asked.

“I believe that’s most of the questions answered, but, I still want to ask you again if your sure you don’t want to join the wards,” she asked.

Taylor shrugged, “The free costume is very tempting, and… honestly if you give me a few days to think about it, I might even say yes. But, for now? I don’t really want to join. That might change, but, well, like I said. You have a lot of restrictions, and while I will be working with you, I’d much rather sign up as an independent.”

Miss Militia sighed, “Well, I suppose that’s fair. Still, I do have a proposition for you. Director Piggot has okayed it, given that you seem sane enough, by cape standards at least. I would like to suggest you at least meet with the rest of the Wards, perhaps get to know them a bit. It might just change your mind.”

“Meet with the local superpowered kiddies? What fun!”

Tayor considered the proposition, thinking of the pros and cons of doing it. Really, there weren’t that many cons.

“Alright, I’m game for that.”

 

AN: You may recognize this as the previous chapter I upload here. I ended up skipping a chapter, so I went back and fixed it and am only now uploading this here. Hopefully, a double post will keep you entertained.

[-----]

Sophia Hess had what many people would believe would be a rather twisted worldview. There were two types of people in the world; Predators, and prey. Her entire lifestyle had been based around. As a vigilante, she would save those willing to fight their way out of their situations, even if they weren’t actually able to fight off those who were attacking them. If they froze up, if they were weak… well, she left them in their weakness.

In her civilian life, she did much the same, trying to toughen up the weak as best she could. It was what she did with Emma, using the Hebert girl as a tool to work up Emma’s strength. At first, she was also trying to see if she could build up Hebert, but… the girl was weak, timid, and unwilling to fight back, which is what resulted in their plan to shove the girl in the locker.

Everything seemed like it was going smoothly, too, until they found the locker nearly destroyed, the door torn off its hinges, and a trail of much leading outside the building. Sophia wondered, especially when Taylor hadn’t shown up to school in the three days since if the girl had triggered and broken open the locker herself.

Part of her felt that it might actually have been a good thing, that triggering might have given the girl some backbone, but the other half of Sophia’s mind was enraged at the mere thought of someone as weak as her getting any kind of power.

This was why she found herself unable to speak when not only did Taylor Hebert trigger, she had triggered and was now known by the PRT. She was Rend. The cape that killed thirty members of the E88, along with Stormtiger.

Oh, Sophia probably wasn’t supposed to know, as Hebert even had her own mask on -- as much as a pair of round, orange-tinted sunglasses could count as a mask. But the body-shape, the voice, the hair, all of it matched Hebert.

Everything except her attitude.

“So, you go into a blood rage when you get shot?” Clockblocker asked, “Like, a berserker form in video games?”

Taylor shook her head, “Not quite. It actually takes quite a bit of damage before I get to that point, and even then, I’m pretty sure my emotions play a pretty big factor in it all. If I’m angry or scared to the extreme, that’d probably be enough to do it, even if the physical damage wasn’t enough to justify it.” she explained.

Vista was the one to speak up next, the idealistic, naive little girl asking the question everyone had on their minds, “So… do you, y’know, feel bad about killing all those people?” she asked… ok, scratch naive off that list. Vista had seen enough shit that she could probably match stories with some fully experienced Protectorate capes.

Taylor shrugged, “I mean, they’re Nazi’s, who gives a shit?” she asked.

Aegis winced, “I’d, uh, prefer it if you kept the language to a minimum around the younger of us.” he said.

Vista shot him a glare, “Aegis, I’m thirteen, not six.”

Clock snorted, “Yeah, besides, I’ve heard worse come out of her mouth. Though I have to wonder, did you actually pick Rend, or was that just some PRT decided temporary name?” he asked.

Taylor shook her head, “Nah, that was something the PRT gave me. I actually decided on Carmilla, just today.”

Vista tilted her head, “Carmilla? What’s that supposed to be?” she asked.

“One of the oldest vampires in fic-- sorry, history.”

Sophia remained silent, trying to puzzle out her feelings on Taylor’s new attitude. She seemed more… upbeat, if nothing else. She didn’t flinch when someone got close to her, she didn’t try to shrink into herself. She was standing up straight, her hands in her pockets, her whole being radiating confidence. What the hell happened to you in the past few days?

“Hey, Stalker, you were a vigilante for a while, what do you think of me?” Taylor asked, making Sophia blink behind her mask.

She stared at the vampiric cape for a second, looking her up and down, “You’re strong. That’s pretty much all I can say.” Taylor’s grin faltered for a moment, before returning to it’s full, fanged glory/

Sophia hoped, prayed that Taylor didn’t recognize her voice. She’d only said a few words, and her mask muffled her voice somewhat, but when Taylor’s grin grew a bit more malicious than it had been a moment ago, she started to doubt she managed to fool her.

Taylor stalked up to Sophia, her grin widening ever-so-slightly, “Well now, you sure that’s all you have to say? I’d thought you’d be a bit more talkative, given your reputation.” she offered.

Sophia shook her head, “You’re strong, that’s plenty to get by in my book.” Keep speech to a minimum, and maybe she would ignore her.

Taylor shrugged, turning around to face the others, “Fair enough, I suppose. Anywho, I only see four wards here, where’s everyone else?” she asked.

“Gallant and Triumph are out on patrol on the moment and Kid Win is on the console. They should be getting back any minute though.” Aegis explained.

Speak of the devil, the door opened and Gallant and Triumph walked inside, with Triumph wearing his lion themed outfit and Gallant wearing his armor.

“Hey everyone, we’re back, hows- oh, who are you?” Triumph asked, looking directly at Taylor, “New cape?”

Taylor shrugged, “Kinda, yeah. I’m Carmilla, formerly known to the Protectorate as Rend.”

Triumph and Gallant both seemed to freeze up for a second, and while Triumph seemed to shrug it off, Gallant kept looking at Taylor. Sophia knew he could sense emotions, and was probably sensing Taylor’s at the moment. If she had recognized Sophia… well, Gallant would probably know.

“Well, I suppose you’re safe enough if Piggot is letting you meet the wards,” He stepped forward, offering Taylor a hand, “I’m Triumph, the leader of the Wards.”

Taylor shook his hand, and opened her mouth to say something before Clockblocker opened his mouth, “Not for much longer you aren’t!” he jeered.

That got a chuckle from everyone else in the room, save Taylor, who just looked at Triumph quizzically, “Oh? What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.

Triumph shook his head, a grin on his face, “Ah, I’m just turning eighteen in a few days, after that I’ll be a full-on Protectorate member and I’ll pass on the leadership of the wards to Aegis.” he explained.

Taylor nodded, “I suppose that makes sense… wait, you’re almost eighteen?” she asked.

Triumph nodded, “Yeah, yeah I am. Why do you ask?”

Taylor paused, frowning a bit and whispering something under her breath that Sophia didn’t catch, “Sorry, just… you look a bit younger, is all.”

Triumph shrugged, “Fair enough, I suppose. Anyway, I’m guessing you being here is the DIrector’s attempt at trying to get you to join the Wards?” he asked.

“Yeah, pretty much. It’s a very tempting offer, and there’s a lot I like about the idea. Still, there is one thing…”

Triumph tilted his head to the side, “Oh? What is it?”

Taylor chuckled, “Now, before I say, I would just like to say that my power doesn’t technically, have a non-lethal option. However, as long as I don’t take too much damage, or I’m not emotionally distressed, I’m pretty much good. However, if get my head cut off or something like that...”

“... Get your head cut off?” Triumph asked, A slightly worried look coming onto his face.

“Don’t worry about it. Look, all I want to say is that I’d like to spar with some of you,” she said.

Everyone’s eyes were on her at the word ‘spar’, including Miss Militia’s. The American themed cape had been sitting in at the back of the room, watching the capes interact as well as acting as a form of insurance in case things got… violent.

“I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.” Miss Militia stated.

For once, Sophia agreed. She was not sparing with the cape that had killed thirty people plus Stormtiger and walked away virtually unharmed, especially if that cape knew that she was probably the one that had made her trigger in the first place.

“Oh, well… I guess that’s okay then. Still, I’d kinda like to see where I stand in terms of everyone else here.”

… phew, she wasn’t going to end up fighting anyone and ask to fight Sophia afterward.

“Now hold on a minute, how about we spar? I’m pretty sure my redundant biology can keep up. Plus, even if you do manage to do some serious damage to me, the worst that’ll happen is we end up calling in Panacea.” Aegis announced.

… Goddamnit Carlos…

 

Aegis stood at one end of the arena while Taylor stood on the other, with the rest of the Wards standing behind the wall of plexiglass that was meant to protect against Blasters when testing their powers. Miss Militia stood with them, shoulders tensed.

“So, I’m guessing the rule is to fight until you yield?” Taylor asked.

Aegis shrugged, “Depends on how far we’d have to go to yield. When it’s two brutes like us fighting, we usually stop when one of us has the other disabled, or once some minor damage has been done.”

“Well, that’s no fun…”

Taylor chuckled, “How about we rescind the second rule? My brute power is kinda based around me getting hurt. If we stopped the second I started bleeding, the fight wouldn’t last all that long.” she explained.

“Oh? Your power doesn’t make you more durable?” Aegis asked.

Taylor wobbled her hand back and forth, “Eh, sort of. Nothing a normal human can’t reach though, my main ability is being able to just straight up regenerate. Gunshots, cut off limbs, stab wounds, I’ll come back from just about anything.”

Aegis chuckled somewhat, “Well then, that’s a bit extreme. Any idea what the limit is?” he asked.

Taylor paused, before whispering under her breath, “Alucard? What can actually hurt me?” she asked quietly.

“Holy water burns like a bitch and doesn’t regenerate all that fast. A stake through the heart, decapitation, that kinda thing will actually make you work for your regeneration, but now that you’ve eaten a few people it’ll take a bit more than that,” he explained.

“What was that?” Aegis asked, “I didn’t hear you.”

Taylor shook her head, “... Holy water I guess? I mean, I’m basically a vampire.”

Aegis chuckled, “Yeah, right, we’ll have to try that sometime.”

“Please don’t, it stains… flesh, I mean. It stains flesh. It actually works as a pretty good cum stain remover all things considered.”

Taylor nearly balked at Alucard’s words but managed to keep her reactions under control. As morbidly interesting as Alucard’s information was, Miss Militia had recommended that she not let the Wards know she had a voice in her head… at least not until she’d joined them first.

The more she thought about it, the more tempted she was at the prospect of joining the Wards. Everyone she’d met so far was actually pretty nice, and even though she was pretty sure most of them were pretty scared of her considering what she’d done to the Empire, she felt some actual genuine attempts from them to get to know her.

And then, there was Shadow Stalker. Who, as she had found out through a combination of vampire senses and a bit of puzzling together, also happened to be none other than Sophia fucking Hess.

“You ready to go, then?” Aegis asked, interrupting Taylor’s thoughts.

Taylor shook her head, “I suppose I am, though, I do want to know one thing; You think Shadow Stalker would be willing to spar with me after this?” She asked.

Aegis tilted his head quizzically, “I mean, she’s normally up for a spar, though I’ll warn you she’s a bit brutal.”

Taylor nodded, “I’ll take that under consideration. Ready?” she asked, getting into a fighting stance.

Aegis grinned, “Ready.”

“And here we gooo~!”

The moment the words left his mouth, Taylor shot forward, rearing her hand back in an open-palmed punch. She slammed her fist into his chest, sending him flying backward. He hit the plexiglass wall on the other side of the wall, and Taylor swore she could hear something crack.

“Seriously? Only one hit? lame!”

She looked over to the other wards and winced when she saw the expressions of everyone. Vista, Clockblocker, and Triumph all had their mouths hanging open, while Gallant, Miss Militia, and Sophia all had masks that covered the rest of their mouths, limiting her view of their reactions.

“Oops?”

“That… I think you broke my spine.” Aegis said, trying to roll over and pick himself back up.

Taylor walked over and helped him stand back up, though she noticed his posture was slightly off, “Are you okay?” she asked.

Aegis grinned lopsidedly, “Yeah, yeah I’m fine, but I think I get what you mean when you said your powers don’t have a non-lethal option,” He said.

Taylor noticed that his voice sounded… different, somewhat, “What’s with your voice? Are you sure your okay?”

“I’m fine, don’t worry, though… I’m pretty sure you punctured at least one of my lungs. That, and I’m currently repurposing the muscles in my back since I don’t think my spine would actually support my weight. You pack one hell of a punch.” he explained.

Taylor winced, “That bad?”

Aegis shrugged, “This is kinda the reason I even volunteered. You punch anyone else like that, they probably wouldn’t be standing. Why didn’t you hold back though? I figured you’d want to ramp up or something.”

“You wanna break the news or should I?”

Taylor scratched the back of her head sheepishly, “That… was me holding back.”

Aegis stared at her for a full minute before answering, “... Holy shit.”

Taylor nodded, “Yeah, like I said, no non-lethal option.”

Soon enough, the rest of the wards had come out from behind the plexiglass and were all crowding around Taylor, chattering enthusiastically.

“That was awesome! You took him out with one punch!” Clockblocker near shouted, laughing maniacally.

Taylor winced slightly, “I know he says he’s okay but is he really?” She asked.

“Hey!” Aegis retorted, “I said I’m fine!”

Vista shook her head, “Yeah, he should be fine. Broken bones and ruptured organs are nothing for him to worry about, he’ll be back in shape in a few hours.” she explained.

Taylor sighed, “Well, I suppose that’s fair. Still, I didn’t realize I was that strong.”

“Oh come on, you’ve ripped people in half, what did you think was gonna happen?”

Taylor shook her head again, “Still, I didn’t think an open palmed strike would break your spine.”

Aegis shook his head, “Only broke a few ribs with that, actually. It was the hit against the wall that did my back in.”

“Ah, I guess that makes sense. I guess I’m not sparring with Shadow Stalker then? Since, y’know, rib breaking punch and all that.”

Triumph actually chuckled, “I agree, I think anyone without a really high brute rating or, maybe power armor like Armsmaster, should avoid sparring with you until you figure out how to tone down your attacks.”

“I agree. I don’t exactly like the idea of getting my chest punched out.” Sophia said, still remaining a fair few steps away from Taylor.

“Oh! Oh! Opportunity!”

“And why would I do that Stalker? It’s not like you’re the one who caused my trigger event or anything.” Taylor said.

Everyone froze. Sophia stared at Taylor, with sweat beginning to drip on the exposed bits of skin that were visible. Most of the other Wards took a step back, and Miss Militia had formed a heavier looking gun in her hands.

“Blowing your cover so early Tay-Tay? Why so?”

“Uh, Carmilla, what are you talking about?” Triumph asked.

Taylor still had a shit-eating grin on her face, “Oh, nothing much. I figured that considering I am heavily leaning towards joining the Wards at the moment, I might as well point out the one, single reason that I’m still hesitating.”

Taylor saw Gallant shivering in the corner of the group, “Oh god…” he muttered, to quiet for anyone else to hear. Clockblocker looked like he was trying to back away as well, and Miss Militia was steadily raising her weapon in Taylor’s direction.

[-----]

Dennis was scared. Really, really fucking scared. It had started when Carmilla had beaten Aegis in a single, held-back punch. That had made him jump, and instilled a… not necessarily fear, at the time, mostly because she was on their side.

Then she started talking to Sophia.

“And why would I do that Stalker? It’s not like you’re the one who caused my trigger event or anything.” Carmilla said with a grin on her face that spoke volumes.

At those words, Dennis’ mind shut down. Had Shadow Stalker caused someone’s trigger event? If that was the case, that wasn’t something he wanted to know anything about.

“Umm, Carmilla, what are you talking about?” Triumph asked, making Dennis silently wonder why his oh-so-fearless leader had to be so fearless at a time like this.

They should be running from the big scary cape that had killed a bunch of E88 members and was now threatening Shadow Stalker! Not trying to calm her down!

“Oh, nothing much. I figured that considering I am heavily leaning towards joining the Wards at the moment, I might as well point out the one, single reason that I’m still hesitating.”

Dennis paused. If she was actually wanting to join the Wards then Piggot would probably bend over backward in order to get her to join. He slowly started stepping away, hoping to make his way to the doors that led out. He only made it a few steps when the room changed. The lights dimmed, and the faint, ever-present sounds of generators actually stopped.

“Listen, Sophia, I want you to imagine a pressure gauge. You imagining it?”

Oh god, Sophia made Carmilla trigger in her civilian identity!?

He looked to Stalker and saw her nod, before looking back at Carmilla. He gulped at what he saw.

“Good. Now I want you to imagine that pressure gauge with words written on it, ranging from frustrated, mad, angry, pissed, livid, all the way to unimaginable hatred. Now, where do you think my emotions are on that dial, hmm?”

Her eyes were glowing red, now, the lenses on the glasses amplifying the color, making them even brighter as the lights dimmed even further, with several of the ceiling lights actually flickering.

“I… I…”

Dennis didn’t dare move, as he saw a black mist begin to flow out from underneath Carmilla’s coat, slowly covering the floor.

“Hmm? I can’t hear you, say it again. What am I feeling right now?”

“Un… unimaginable hatred…?”

Dennis considered that Sophia was probably right. Why wouldn’t Carmilla be feeling that was if she had caused her trigger event? It also helped that Carmilla’s fangs seemed to glow white, despite not giving off any light of their own, making her seem pretty fucking angry.

Carmilla laughed. It wasn’t the nice kind of laugh either, like the one you had when you were told a funny joke, or when you watched cat video’s on the internet, no… this sounded like pure evil.

“No, no it’s not. It’s actually not that bad.”

Dennis blinked.

“It’s not?”

Carmilla shook her head, “No, the needle is currently spinning around and around while the pipe is leaking steam.”

Dennis gulped. If he got out of this alive, he was never going to be watching any Vampire movies again. He heard someone throw up, and when he took a glance, he saw that Gallant was kneeling over on his hands and knees, dry heaving, with fresh saliva dripping from his lips.

“Now, do you know what’s keeping me from grabbing you and ripping your organs out and painting the PRT rig red?”

Everything seemed to stop breathing for a moment, as Sophia shook her head viciously.

Carmilla laughed again before answering, “I don't either."

 

Taylor lunged. She moved forward faster than anyone in the room could predict, and Sophia’s power was the only thing that reasonably saved her. AS she went incorporeal, Taylor’s arm went right through her, before she skidded to a halt.

Miss Militia opened fire, her rifle firing rubber bullets and targeting Taylor. The pellets bruised and broke the skin, but did little to stop Taylor as she rushed forward again, this time towards Miss Militia.

The Protectorate hero switched to lethal rounds just in time to rip into Taylor’s body, high caliber rounds slamming into her and ripping her flesh apart. Taylor stopped only a few feet from Miss Militia, falling to the ground into a bloody pulp.

Gripping her weapon, Miss Militia looked to Sophia, “Shadow Stalker, you have a lot of explaining to do.”

Sophia shook, staring at the motionless body that the hero had torn to shreds, “If we get out of this alive, I’ll explain everything.”

“‘If’?” Triumph asked, his muscles going tense, “Miss Militia just shot her to a pulp, how is she supposed to-”

“If she’s dead then how come the light’s are still going out!?” Sophia yelled.

Everyone looked up, and sure enough, the light’s continued to dim, until finally, Sophia found herself shrouded in darkness. She called out to the others, trying to get a feel for where they were, but got no answer. They, she heard Taylor laugh again.

“Why so afraid Sophia?” Taylor asked, her voice coming from all directions, “You’re supposed to be a predator, aren’t you?”

Sophia swiveled around, trying to find where the voice was coming from but found only the pitch-black darkness that surrounded her. She took a deep breath and took a step. If she could get to the edge of the arena, she could reorient herself and find a way out, maybe find a way to contact the rest of the protectorate.

“Running won’t do anything, I’m afraid…” Taylor’s voice echoed, making Sophia pick up the pace slightly.

She wasn’t moving fast, but Sophia felt that even at her current pace she should have reached the wall by now. Before she could muse on the subject any further, however, she felt something brush past her. She twisted around, looking back and forth, frantically looking for whatever had touched her.

“I need to get out…” She muttered to herself, turning back to the direction she was going in. She started running.

She ran for a full minute, Taylor’s laugh echoing all the while, causing Sophia to panic. There was no way she wouldn’t have reached the wall of the room by that point, so she had chalked it up to Taylor’s absolutely bullshit powers.

She gulped, halting in her run as she tried to catch her breath, “I need to get the fuck out of here.” she said to herself.

Looking up, she formulated a plan in her head. She’d fallen through floors and gone up through ceiling’s using her power before, but most of the rig was heavily lined with wiring, meaning that it was highly likely that she was surrounded, and couldn’t just phase through the floor.

Deciding to take a risk, Sophia bent her knees, and jumped, going into her breaker state just as she was done accelerating upward, the earth’s gravity becoming less effective on her. She traveled up, and up, and up before she could finally see the room’s ceiling coming toward her. She reached out her arm to try and get through when her world was suddenly filled with pain.

Electricity coursed through her body, shocking her out of her breaker state, and so she fell. From the full height of the ceiling, she hit the floor, all of the air in her lungs exiting her throat. She struggled to breathe, rolling over as she gasped for air. Her whole body hurt, her back ached from the pain caused by the fall, her muscles spasmed from the electric shock, and her lungs burned.

Taylor laughed. Her dark voice taunting, laughing at Sophia’s fate.

Which was why it was all the more confusing when a second voice joined in.

“Ohohohohoho! Oh! Tay-Tay, how about you show her your eyes next, hmm?” a deep, male voice said, echoing the same way Taylor’s had.

“... what the fuck…?” Sophia asked quietly, her voice barely above a strained whisper as she tried to get air to go back into her lungs.

“I don’t know, she seems in pain already… I’m almost tempted to end it now…”

“Only almost?”

“Well, she did shove me into that locker.”

“That she did. How about some good ole’ irony then, huh?”

Taylor laughed again, “I think I can manage that…”

Sophia began to panic. She got up, her limbs screaming at her to stop, “Who the hell is there! Who is that Taylor!?”

“Oh? She can hear me then, can she?” the male voice asked.

“... Huh. I guess you can communicate through telepathy when I’m using it.”

Telepathy!? What the fuck!? Since when could she use fucking telepathy!?

The male voice chuckled. Then laughed. Then, in the darkest, most horrible sound Sophia had ever heard, he cackled.

“Wh-who are you!? What do you want!” Sophia demanded, trying desperately to find a way, any way out of the darkness.

The male voice continued to laugh, before cutting out silently, “Tell you what, little Stalker, how about we play a game?”

Sophia gulped.

“You do as we say, and we lead you back to your teammates.”

“Aren’t they supposed to be her friends?” Taylor’s voice asked, losing a bit of its edge.

“Oh come on, you saw how they acted around her. Betcha she’s a right bitch to them as much as she is to anyone at Winslow.”

“... Yeah, she probably is. In any case, Sophia, I have to agree with Alucard on this one. Playing a game sounds so much more fun than just watching you run around in circles.”

Sophia gulped. They were toying with her. For the longest time, she had been the predator, lying in the grass and waiting for the moment to strike. No, Taylor was the Predator, a cat playing with its food.

“I… fine, I accept! Now just let me get the hell out of here!” she yelled.

“Alright then, Task one; Take off your mask.”

Sophia obeyed without hesitation, ripping the mask off her face and tossing it to the side. Both voices laughed.

“Alright. Turn around.”

Sophia did so and found herself staring at a set of double doors. She rushed forward, gripping the handles and trying to pull it open to no avail. She tried to phase through the doors, only to find that they had multiple electronic systems running through them; locks, alarms, automatic opening, you name it.

“Ah, ah, ah, you’re not getting out that easily.” Taylor’s voice called out, “Now, strip.”

Sophia paused, “What?”

“The lady said, Strip, now I’d recommend getting on with it.” the voice said, laughing again.

Sophia grit her teeth but followed Taylor’s demented commands. She took off her shirt, her pants, her shoes, and before long she was standing there in nothing but her underwear, shivering. It felt cold, too cold. The rig was normally around sixty-eight degrees, but Sophia felt like the air around her was closer to forty.

“Ooooh, so that’s the ass you’re so proud of. Alright then, you followed orders, here you go.” Taylor announced, the double doors opening suddenly.

Sophia moved to grab her fallen clothes, hoping to get a chance to put them back on before an unseen force dragged them out of sight and into the darkness. Sophia froze in fear yet again.

“Oh, no, you don’t get to put those back on, where’s the fun if you just put everything right back on?” The male voice asked, laughing evilly.

Sophia cursed under her breath, before moving through the doors, which shut behind her as soon as she was through. She kept moving, hoping that she would find a way out, or that she could find a weapon of some kind. She followed the long, empty hallway for several minutes before she finally found a door. She tried opening it, and found that the handle turned easily enough, the door swinging open to reveal… the Wards locker room?

“Now, Sophia, I want you to think long and hard about what you did to make me trigger.”

Sophia’s eyes widened and she tried to turn around and run back through the door, only to be met with a solid wall. There was no door, and Sophia felt her breath catch in her throat. She pressed her back up against the wall, panic entering her eyes as she looked at the room in front of her. All at once, every locker in the room opened.

“Now, Sophia, it’s simple; just step into one of these lockers, and you’re home free!”

Sophia shuddered, “Bullshit! This is all bullshit!” She screamed, trying to go into her breaker state and pass through the wall again only to scream in pain as she felt more electricity force its way through her body.

Sophia felt tears streak down her face, the pain coursing through her veins making her curl up on the floor. She heaved, gasping in pain, trying not to start full-on crying.

“Come on, Sophia, just pick one!” Taylor’s voice called out, the last line making Sophia feel like someone had poured ice water down her back.

She looked up and found herself staring down a black, shadow coated locker. She could hear the skittering, clawing, and scratching of centipedes, spiders, rats, and flies, and soon she saw them. Blood red and black colored roaches crawled out of the locker, making Sophia freeze. Her eyes shook in terror, and she sobbed. Tears flowed from her eyes now, both in horror and pain.

“Come on now, Sophia, just get up, and step through the locker.”

Tears ran freely down Sophia’s face as she got up, using all her strength she could manage. She hugged herself, shivering. She looked back into the inky blackness of the locker and was about to take a step forward when the smell hit her.

She wretched, keeling over as she vomited all over the floor, “What the fuck… what the fuck… why are you doing this!?” Sophia screamed.

“You know full well why Hess! You’ve made my life Hell for the past sixteen months! And now it’s time for payback! Now, step. Into. The Locker.”

Sophia sobbed again and took a step forward. Another step, then another, and then another, and soon, she found herself putting one foot on the locker’s entrance. The space was cramped, and she hesitated. She would have to twist herself sideways in order to fit, her shoulders too broad to fit in through the front.

“Get. In!” Taylor ordered.

Sophia twisted herself sideways and went in. She squeezed through, the walls of the locker rubbing against her back and chest uncomfortably. She felt something skitter across her feet, and she whimpered, trying to get back out when the locker door slammed shut. She sobbed, feeling trapped, not daring to go into her shadow form again for fear of getting shocked again. She was cramped in a wet, rancid, and dark locker, just like Taylor had been.

“Alright, you can get out of the locker now,” Taylor said.

Sophia sobbed in relief, pressing one hand on the locker door and pushing.

It didn’t open.

She tried again. And again. And again. Eventually, she was slamming her balled-up fist against the door, screaming, kicking, trying anything and everything try and get out. She went into breaker form again and received another shock. She screamed in pain and sobbed, tears streaming down her face.

“Let me out! Let me out! Get me out of here!” Sophia screamed.

“Why don’t you let yourself out!? How about I leave you here, in the locker with the bugs and filth, just like you did to me!? How about that Sophia Hess, Shadow Stalker, HERO!”

Sophia wailed, screaming in agony as she used her power, again and again, getting shocked every time she did so. She continued to kick, punch, and claw at the door, no longer shouting words but screaming incoherently.

“Or, I could be better than you. Be a real Hero,”

Sophia kicked the locker again, throwing her body against it with as much force as she could.

This time, the locker crashed open.

 

Armsmaster glazed over the report of Carmilla’s latest assault on Empire Eighty-eight territory, feeling his headache grow worse as the report wore on. Luckily she had been sticking to her recent trend of keeping casualties to a minimum, for a given meaning of the word ‘minimum.’

She still killed three people in her latest attack and mutilated six, as well as causing thousands in property damage. She was making waves, and not the good kind.

It had been a week since they had captured her and taken her to the rig, and after finding out that she wanted to be a hero, they had let her be interviewed and vetted. She seemed… amicable, at the very least, and Director Piggot had authorized that she be able to meet and get to know the other wards, in an attempt to sway her opinion.

This turned out to be a very bad idea.

Shadow Stalker, also known as Sophia Hess, had been the cause of Carmilla’s, also known as Taylor Hebert’s, Trigger Event. She had put the girl under an extreme and highly dangerous bullying campaign, and it all culminated in the girl getting shoved into a cramped locker filled with what would unequivocally be called biohazardous waste.

Taylor spent several hours in that locker before she triggered, after which she broke out of the locker and went home.

That night, she went out and killed thirty people and one of the Empire’s most well-known capes.

Two days after that, she killed two Merchants and presumably killed both leading members of the Archer’s Bridge Merchants gang.

After that event was when she was taken into Protectorate custody. After she had been introduced to the wards, she and Aegis had decided to have a spar, something that was very much against regulations, and considering Carmilla’s later actions, could very easily have gotten Aegis killed. Regardless, they went through with it and Aegis was defeated in a single hit.

After establishing that Carmilla was beyond most of the capes in the room at that point, she began talking to Shadow Stalker, accusing her of being the cause of her trigger event. Thing’s escalated and Carmilla showed newfound -- or at the very least showed that she had -- Shaker and Stranger abilities, coating the training arena in a black mist before attempting to attack Shadow Stalker, before being confronted and seemingly disabled by Miss Militia.

Unfortunately, this was not the case, as the rest of the PRT rig was soon flooded with black mist, cutting off radio communication and cutting off all video and audio surveillance. When the mist finally faded, Carmilla herself was nowhere to be found and Shadow Stalker was found curled up in the fetal position on the arena floor, whimpering and muttering to herself.

She was near-catatonic, and it was only after they managed to move her to the psychiatric ward that they were able to bring her out of her shock. When she was finally able to speak, she did so infrequently and only when she needed something outside of her ability. Early evaluations showed signs of depression, shock, and nihilism.

It wasn’t until three days later that Sophia Hess finally confessed to what she had done to Taylor Hebert, admitting to the bullying campaign and exposing everyone involved, including Emma Barnes and Madison Clements as frequent participants and perpetrators. She also admitted to Principal Blackwell and her social worker working to cover up the campaign in order to keep funds flowing into the school.

After her confession, an investigation was immediately launched, and it yielded several disturbing results. Sophia’s was not the first bullying campaign to take place at Winslow, and it certainly wasn’t the only one that the Principal had worked to cover up. On top of this, instead of calling in the who could deal with the biohazard, they simply rinsed out the locker and mopped up the remains, leaving a large portion of the material to rot underneath the lockers.

Had the investigation not been launched when it was, the entire school would likely have been shut down for several days soon after the mess was discovered, the dangerous chemicals being produced by the mold going into the air and potentially causing damage to anyone entering the area.

Sufficed to say, Blackwell and Sophia’s Social worker were both fired almost immediately.

Sophia’s actions would have been enough to send her to juvie, and likely still will be, but Taylor’s own actions were a more pressing matter and one that caused many to wonder if Sohpia still deserved to go. Just one day before the present, Sophia had explained in detail what Taylor had put her through, which had amounted to a much shorter but much denser version of the bullying campaign Sophia had put Taylor through.

Most of the Protectorate was willing to give Taylor a pass for her actions against Shadow Stalker once they had learned of Sophia’s bullying, especially due to the fact that she was not harmed physically as Taylor had been.

Still, Taylor’s chances of becoming a member of the Protectorate still shrank drastically after that event. Even more so when she nearly disappeared off the radar until three days ago, at which point she started making calculated strikes against Empire storehouses and fighting rings. Three attacks, three different locations. Director Piggot was almost leaning towards storming the Hebert household and demanding Taylor’s arrest, but for the moment, the unwritten rules and the fact that Carmilla was fighting the Empire tooth and nail was enough to sway her away from the idea.

Then again, this would all change if Carmilla killed another cape.

In her three attacks, she had only encountered another cape once, on her second night, that cape being Hookwolf during one of his dogfights. The fight had been drawn out into the city streets, but the two capes had broken off from each other before the Protectorate could arrive. The death count was her highest since her first night out, at twelve dead and fourteen hospitalized.

Back in the present, she was still rocking the boat. A couple outside directors had requested the court to give Carmilla a kill order, director Tagg being one of the most fervent, stating that even if she was fighting the gangs now, they couldn’t risk her turning on the protectorate, especially when she had psychologically tortured one of their own Wards.

Director Piggot, while not overly trusting of Carmilla in her own right, was able to fight these requests fairly easily, as the directors that requested it had no say in what happened in her city and it was a bit ridiculous that they were stepping outside their jurisdiction. Outside directors going against one at ground zero had little influence on if a kill order actually went through, and Armsmaster still wondered if there might be some way to get Carmilla to join the protectorate, even in a probationary manner. Unfortunately, it seemed less and less likely as time went on.

“Reading another one of her reports, Colin?” Dragon asked, drawing the Protectorate leader out of his thoughts.

“Yes, it’s a shame things played out the way they did. Had we discovered Shadow Stalker’s actions earlier, she likely wouldn’t have triggered in the first place, and we wouldn’t even be here.” He explained, flipping to the next page of the report.

“I still don’t like what Carmilla put her through, even if she did deserve it. She shouldn’t take the law into her own hands as she did, there’s a system for these kinds of things.” Dragon commented.

Armsmaster side, “Unfortunately, Carmilla didn’t know that. The system screwed her over to begin with, and after that, she doesn’t trust it. And beyond that, I almost wonder if this is possibly the better option.”

Dragon’s avatar raised an eyebrow, “Oh? How so?”

“Note that this isn’t a good outcome by any means, and unfortunate as it might be I don’t think there could have been a good outcome, but as it is Shadow Stalker has been acting far more cooperative since the event. She isn’t showing the same psychopathic tendencies, and the therapist that was assigned to her admitted that she is acting completely differently from what her file suggested she would.” He explained.

“I suppose that makes sense, being mentally tortured in a few minutes by someone who they had done the same to over a period of months can change a person.” Dragon admitted.

“Which is why we are suspending her case. If the event was as bad as it appears to be, she may not even need to spend any time in juvie. She will still be punished for her actions, but the circumstances will certainly provide something of a reprieve.”

“And what of Carmilla? She’s still attacking the Empire, and it seems as though her ratings are changing with every attack.” Dragon asked.

At this, Armsmaster frowned. Carmilla’s profile was an ever-changing one, with the current one listing her as a Brute 7, Changer 6, Shaker 4, Stranger 1, and Master 8. Carmilla was both versatile and powerful, and many among the Protectorate and PRT had wondered if there was still some way to get her on their side. Something most everyone was wondering nowadays.

“At the moment, we’re taking a hands-off approach. Her Master ability is dangerous, and the ghouls she’s been creating are causing problems. Lobotomization seems to return them back to a corpse-like state, so we’ve been doing that to put the bodies into acceptable conditions. Still, if she escalates past what she’s doing now, problems are going to rise quickly.” He explained.

Dragon nodded, “I agree. On another subject, have you put any more thought into your nano-thorn project?”

Arsmaster smiled slightly, putting the file down and facing Dragon. If anyone knew how to get his mind off something dreary, it was her, “Well, I’ve started to…”

 

Taylor stared down at the warehouse below her, grinning like a madwoman. Scurrying along the ground were several Empire skinheads running back and forth carrying crates, boxes, or bags of weapons, ammunition, or drugs. This would be her biggest raid yet, and with a little luck, it would be the one where she could finally get back at that deranged wolf.

“Ok, look, I know he bisected you, but that’s no reason to form a grudge! I was bisected too, and look how I turned out! No grudges held!”

Taylor rolled her eyes, “And what was it you told me to do if I ever formed a grudge against someone?” she asked.

“Nom their head off! That way you won’t have any more grudges!”

Taylor chuckled, “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Still, he’s got some backup this time.”

She looked down at the two visible capes on the ground; Krieg and Cricket being the ones she could see, the former directing the grunts while the latter stayed close to Hookwolf. Those two never left each other’s side, likely due to the fact that both of them had encountered Taylor, if not fought her in Hookwolf’s case.

It had been almost two weeks since she’d fought him the first time, but Hookwolf had been on edge ever since. She’d fought him twice more after that, each time getting a little bit better at dodging his attacks and dishing out her own. Her kill count had officially breached a hundred -- though not all of those were Empire members, she’d had a brief spat with the ABB when she had been tracking Alabastor -- and she was gaining a sort of reputation in Brockton Bay.

Carmilla the Nazi hunter. She chuckled at the name they’d given her, as amusing as it was. It wasn’t really wrong either, as aside from a handful of skirmishes with the other gangs she hadn’t really strayed from the pattern of attacking the Empire.

“Think we can pull this off? There’s at least forty of them down there, and I’m pretty sure they’re prepared for us.” She asked.

Alucard chuckled, “Tay-Tay, I think you already know the answer to that question.”

Taylor’s smile widened, “You sure hitting shuffle will work?” she asked.

“Eh, fifty-fifty.”

“Good enough for me.”

Taylor lifted her cellphone and pressed the shuffle button and putting it into her pocket before she jumped down from her perch on the crane she was standing on.

Spoiler: Party Party Party!

She landed onto a skinhead’s shoulders, knocking him to the ground instantly. Two gangers turned toward her immediately, screaming before aiming their weapons -- compact SMGs by the look of them -- and shooting Taylor. She rushed forward and grabbed the one to her left, pulling him towards her and wrenching the gun out of his hands. She tossed him to the side, before flipping the weapon around in her grip and turning to face the other skinhead still shooting at her. She took a split second to aim, before letting out a short burst, nailing him in the chest.

Shouting started coming from the rest of the area, and a dozen more gang members came around the building just as she started running in their direction. She lept over a few of them, before catching one in the middle of the group in his chest as she landed, breaking his sternum. The others turned to shoot her, but she was already moving. She grabbed one man and tossed him into another, grabbed a pistol out of another man’s torso, and started shooting the men’s knees, sending them tumbling to the ground howling in pain.

One managed to get behind her, slamming a crowbar into the back of her head. She reeled, before whipping around and biting into his neck, ripping his throat out.

She spat out the loose flesh and swallowed the stray drops of blood in her mouth, savoring the taste somewhat. Still not amazing, but definitely better than merchant blood.

"Oi! This is just the foreplay! Save your energy for the main event!" Alucard jeered.

Taylor rolled her eyes at the crazed vampire’s obvious innuendo, "Alright then, now, where are the capes…?” she muttered to herself, right before she felt a bullet hit the back of her head.

She whipped around, looking to see where the bullet had come from, to be met with a single, lone ganger. He was young, probably in his early twenties, and he held a fairly cheap-looking Uzi in both hands.

Taylor blinked, “Do you have life insurance?” She asked.

The man screamed and fired full-auto, filling Taylor with bullets.

“APPARENTLY YOU DO!” She yelled, running toward him. She grabbed his left arm and yanked it, sending him off balance before she pulled his neck toward herself and bit into his neck, draining him of blood.

When she let go, he was nothing more than a dried husk. Taylor licked her lips, reveling in the bloodshed.

“... should I be worried?” she asked herself, “I mean, three weeks ago I’m pretty sure I would have vomited at what I just did.”

Alucard laughed, “Don’t worry about it! You still haven’t killed anyone innocent remember? You’re leagues better than I was at your age!”

“I’m not sure whether to be proud of myself for that fact or ashamed that I’m considering killing several dozen people to still be better than the alternative.” She muttered.

“Hey, you won’t get any shaming from me!”

Taylor was about to retort when she heard a low growl come from behind her. She turned around, a feral grin on her face as she found herself staring down a snarling Hookwolf.

“Oh, you are just a treat.” She said, not a moment before Hookwolf lunged.

The mass of metal and blades slammed into her, shredding her skin and muscle before she was able to pull away. Fortunately for her, she was able to pull her arm back and grab the fallen Uzi, aiming it directly at Hookwolf and firing what ammo was left in it. The shots pinged off of his armor, not really digging deep, but it was enough of a distraction for Taylor to pull herself out from under him.

She was fortunate that Alucard had taught her how to extend her regeneration to her clothes, otherwise, she would probably have been naked in the moonlight. She still didn’t know how to do full shapeshifting, but the clothing regeneration was a step in the right direction.

Brushing herself off, she backflipped away, jumping up onto the warehouse roof. She ran along the sloped roof, soon reaching its peak, just as Hookwolf clawed his way up to the roof himself. She stopped and turned to face him, her grin still covering her face.

“Hey, Hook! You think you’re gonna catch me by just standing there?” Taylor asked, taunting him.

Hookwolf growled and prepared to pounce, but as he did, Taylor kicked on one of the reinforcement beams holding the roof up, nocking the old, rusted beam down into the warehouse below along with a large portion of the metal roof. This had a secondary effect of taking out a lot of the force behind Hookwolf’s lunge, causing him to only make it halfway to her before falling in himself and crashing into the crates that the E88 had been trying to transport.

The screams of several gangers from down below were music to Taylor’s ears, so she gracefully leaped down into the warehouse in order to get at Hookwolf again. She landed on top of the biggest pile of crates in the building, while Hookwolf was still picking himself back up while tossing random crates in his way off to the side violently, likely damaging whatever was inside of them. Several bald gang members were scurrying for their weapons, grabbing them and aiming at Taylor before opening fire again, their shots inaccurate enough that Taylor was able to rush forward and not get hit whilst bullets ricocheted and pinged off the metal containers she stood on.

She jumped from crate to crate, moving faster than the gangers could keep up with before she landed on one of them, knocking the gun out of his hands and picking it up herself. She turned it around and started spraying the room wildly, nailing several others before they had the sense to duck behind cover. Hookwolf lunged for her again, but she dodged backward on top of one of the crates. Hookwolf charged, but instead of leaping up to her, he slammed one shoulder into the crate, knocking her off balance and forcing her to jump off her perch. The crate fell open, several small, round objects falling out of their padded containers.

Taylor blinked, “Grenades?”

“Grenades!”

Hookwolf roared, leaping over the spilled crate and swiping at Taylor with his tail. She tried to dodge, but the weapon caught her in the arm, forcing her to twirl to the side to avoid the limb getting cut off completely. She could regenerate it, yes, but it was always faster if she had the original to reconnect.

An idea was forming in her head, and while it would probably cause the highest amount of destruction she’d yet caused, it would be glorious to watch. She grabbed her wounded arm and bit her sleeve, keeping the arm in place, before she raced forward, ducking under a swipe from Hookwolf and reaching down to grab one of the grenades.

“Ok, remember, cooking the thing is probably a bad idea and beyond that, I don’t think you’ll need more than a few seconds to GTFO.” Alucard advised.

Taylor grinned while trying to keep a grip on her torn arm. She could feel the flesh regenerating, but it felt agonizingly slow. More gangers tried taking pot-shots at her, which she promptly dodged, and Hookwolf tried lunging for her again. Soon enough, though, her arm was healed. Taking the grenade, she grabbed the pin and pulled.

She reared her arm back and shouted, “Hey Hookwolf! Catch!” before tossing the grenade in the living blender’s direction.

The Empire cape noticed what the object was mid-air, and swiped at it, knocking off course…

“Oh, shit…”

Right into a pile of crates, which very likely contained more grenades!

Taylor cackled as the few remaining gangers scrambled for the exit, only to get caught in the massive explosion that followed. Taylor was caught at the edge of it, getting blown through a wall and into the wall of an adjacent warehouse, bending the metal. When she looked up, she witnessed the warehouse in flames. Her handiwork and masterpiece, if she did say so herself.

Prying herself from the bent metal, she walked around the side of the warehouse to the front, where there was actually less damage and about a dozen gangers lay on the ground covered in burns. Six others were unharmed, but it seemed as though they had actually arrived alongside one of the other capes after the explosion had gone off.

Krieg stood at the head of the new group, dressed head to toe in a Nazi officer uniform and a black gas mask, his hands gripped into fists as he stared Taylor down.

“You will pay for this!” Krieg roared, before pointing at her.

The six men that stood behind him stepped forward and aimed very large looking assault rifles at her and opened fire. Taylor twirled to the side, before rushing forward. She was soon among them, tearing off limbs and biting out throats. She was about to go for Krieg himself when she heard a very loud roar come from the warehouse.

Everyone still standing paused and turned to see what had made the sound, looking to find a large, blackened, bent, and furious Hookwolf standing in the doorway of the warehouse.

“I think you might possibly have made him angry,” Alucard commented.

“You think!?”

 

Hookwolf moved, roaring as he tried to clamp his open, moving, bladed mouth down onto Taylor’s head. Unfortunately for him, Taylor was actually pretty fast when she wanted to be. She dodged out of the way, only to get knocked over and disoriented. She stumbled and turned around to see Krieg standing behind her. His power was supposed to disorientate those attacking him, and it seemed as though that worked as an offensive capability as well, as Taylor found herself having a hard time knowing which way was up.

She felt her stomach get pierced by one of Hookwolf’s blades before she was pulled into his mass of writhing metal. Taylor managed to wrench the blade out of herself before she got to that point, however, and began running toward the fallen gang members. She could hear Hookwolf running after her, his mass of metal tearing into the concrete ground.

She spotted what she needed, and dove for it, just as Hookwolf managed to grab her legs and pull her underneath him.

“Any last words, kid?” Hookwolf asked as he pressed one foot onto her chest, the claws sinking into her flesh and organs.

“Does he know it’s hard to talk with shredded lungs?”

Taylor coughed and grinned, “Kinda ‘ard to talk with my lungs gettin’ shredded.” She said, gurgling up a small amount of blood.

Hookwolf laughed and curled his blades, shredding her flesh even further.

“Apparently he does not. Rude.”

Taylor coughed up blood, sending flecks of it into Hookwolf’s eyes, “How ‘bout I jus’ get this over with?” Taylor slurred, before pulling up a pair of pistols and unloading into Hookwolf’s eyes.

Hookwolf screamed, pulling himself off of Taylor and clawing at his eyes. Taylor kicked herself back upright and turned around to see Krieg charging her. She Dodged to the side, landing near one of the bodies of the skinheads. She quickly swapped out one of her pistols for one holstered on the man’s hip and started firing at Krieg while Hookwolf was still distracted. She managed to hit Krieg in the arm, despite the bullets wavering off their intended path.

She was about to turn around and make a break for it, feeling her work was pretty much finished with both Empire capes wounded, their warehouse destroyed, and a dozen of their members dead, when she felt several knives pierce her back. She whipped around just in time to see Cricket toss a knife at her, which it Taylor right between the eyes. Taylor grunted and dropped the empty pistol, reaching up to grab the knife and pull it out of her face.

When she focused back on Cricket, she found her running behind the warehouse again. She was going to give chase when she lost her balance again, falling over thanks to one of Krieg’s disorienting punches.

She grunted, picking herself back up just in time to dodge a wild, flailing Hookwolf trying to attack her and missing horribly. She was about to retaliate again when she felt one of Cricket’s blades land in her shoulder. Again.

“Hit and run tactics? I mean, it’s smart, but it’s really annoying.”

“This is getting ridiculous,” Taylor muttered, pulling the blade out her shoulder.

Krieg went to attack her again, but this time, Taylor spun around and tossed the knife just as the Nazi cape got close enough. The blade hit Krieg’s hand, cutting through his fingers and going through the palm of his hand. He screamed as two of his fingers fell the ground and he backed off, gripping his hand and crying out in pain.

“Ohh, perpetual devil horns. Nice!”

Taylor ignored Alucard’s commentary and swerved around just in time to catch one of Cricket’s knives as it soared toward her. The blade dug into her palm and fingers, the tip just inches from her face. She pulled up her one remaining pistol and emptied the magazine in the direction the knife had come from, managing to hit the cape in the leg as she turned to run, stumbling to the ground.

“Anyone else!?” Taylor asked, spreading her arms out wide.

Hookwolf growled from behind her, and she groaned, turning to face him. One of his eyes was closed, hidden behind the mass of blades that was his face. The other was bloodshot, staring Taylor down viciously.

“Does the metal doggy wanna play fetch!?”

“You wanna keep going!?” Taylor shouted, flipping around Cricket’s blade and pointing at Hookwolf.

Hookwolf growled and looked between his two fallen comrades. Krieg was writhing on the ground, a bullet in his left arm and two of his fingers on his left hand missing, a knife embedded in the hand itself. Cricket had backed herself up against the wall of the warehouse and was clutching her bleeding leg.

Hookwolf made a beeline for Cricket, racing past Taylor and picking up the cape in his arms. He raced off into the night, leaving Krieg behind.

“Wow, so much for no man left behind eh?”

“Eh, at least that leaves one more for us.”

Taylor walked over to the fallen Empire cape, who was still groaning and trying to stem the flow of blood on his hand. Taylor grabbed his shoulder, startling him, and she looked him in the eye. Or, well, the gas mask lense.

“Okay, listen to me. I could very well kill you right now. I killed Stormtiger, I tried to kill Alabaster, but I’m not going to kill you. No, I think I’m going to do to you what I did to Rune.” Taylor explained.

“I-I… I’ll never break you bitch!” Krieg challenged, attempting to use his power on Taylor. It disoriented her, but since she was already kneeling on the ground, it didn’t have that much of an effect.

“Oh, that’s going to get annoying if you keep it up. I suggest you avoid it if you value your health.” She said, gripping his shoulder again.

Krieg grunted in pain, “What… what the hell are you gonna do to me? We haven’t heard from Rune in… gah, a week!”

Taylor grinned, “And I don’t think you’ll hear from her in a while either. I’m going to knock you out now, kay?”

Krieg froze, “What?”

[-----]

Assault was probably one of the few capes in the Brockton Bay Protectorate that actually liked Carmilla. As a person, that is. Yeah, she was fucking terrifying when she wanted to be, but she never attacked any of the Heroes except for Shadow Stalker, and in his opinion, she had a damn good reason for doing so. Since then he had met her twice, once when he was on patrol and had run into a cape fight between her and Alabastor, and the second time when she had dropped Rune off at the PRT building.

The second time, they'd traded phone numbers so she could text him whenever she was going to show up.

Assault had notified Armsmaster of the development, and the leader of the Protectorate had informed him to keep an eye on her, try to gauge her opinion of the PRT and the Protectorate, and see if there might be some way to get her to cooperate with them. Assault agreed.

If nothing else, whenever he’d talked to her, she was usually very polite and conversational, if a bit… unhinged. She didn’t seem to have any qualms about killing -- something that the news had tried multiple times to cover, only stopped by the PRT’s intervention -- and more often than not made a game out of her attacks on the Empire’s property.

That alone made her dangerous. So far, she had only killed in ‘self-defense’, but that was a flimsy excuse and pretty much anyone who paid attention knew it. She had a habit of taunting her opponents, getting them to act rashly and sloppily. It had served her well so far.

Which was why it came as a bit of a surprise to Assault when he got a message from her at two in the morning asking if it was okay to bring Krieg to the PRT building. Fortunately, Assault had been on the console at the time for Miss Militia’s night patrol, and Armsmaster had been responding to an explosive being used in the warehouse district as well but had told him to give the information to Miss Militia and have her help. When the gun-toting cape got the message she made her way to the PRT HQ almost immediately, advising Assault to do the same.

Leaving the console to a dazed and groggy Dauntless, Assault quickly made his way to the boat that led off the Rig. When he made it to the PRT HQ, he was met by Miss Militia, who was standing in the lobby awaiting Carmilla’s arrival.

“Hey, nice to see you made it. You think He’ll be alive when she gets here?” Assault asked.

Miss Militia sighed, “She’s been trying not to kill capes, Assault, you know this. I don’t think she’d bother bringing him here if she hadn’t captured him alive.”

Assault shrugged, “Hey, all I remember is that when she came in here with Rune that one time, the girl looked like she was on death’s door.”

“And yet she’s alive and well, thank’s to Panacea.”

“And probably Carmilla too. You know she was actually pretty receptive to joining the Wards, right? Went through with the rebrand and everything. Long as she got to go to Immaculata next semester.” Assault remarked.

Miss Militia frowned under her mask, “Why did she get that deal anyway? I highly doubt the Empire would leave her be if they found her at Immaculata once she changed sides.”

“To my understanding, it’s mostly because she was wanting to leave the Empire when Carmilla found her. Something apparently happened at the school that made her change her view of the world or something like that.” Assault said, “That, and do really think the Empire will be around by next semester?”

Miss Militia sighed, “Not if Carmilla keeps up her current pace. Recruitment is at an all-time low for them, due to the surprisingly high casualty rate. And considering they lost two, possibly three, capes in the last three weeks, it’s no surprise they’re losing territory at the rate they are. If it gets bad enough, the Empire probably won’t last another month.”

Assault nodded in agreement, “Still, she seemed pretty torn up about not getting to go back this semester. Any idea why?”

“I don’t think-”

“What’s up Assault! Miss M.!

Miss Militia groaned and Assault grinned. In the entrance of the PRT building stood Carmilla, carrying the presumably still breathing form of Krieg over her shoulder. She walked toward the reception desk, where a pale, scrawny woman had been typing away at a computer. The PRT building ran twenty-four-seven after all.

She hefted Krieg’s body up and onto the desk, making the Nazi cape groan. His arm flopped over the table, and Assault spotted a bloody bandage wrapped around what remained of the fingers on his left-hand drip a little onto the desk.

The receptionist started hyperventilating, so Assault stepped in, “Hey, why don’t you step into the back while Miss Militia and I handle this?” He asked. The woman nodded, before backing away from the capes and scurrying off down one of the hallways.

Assault took a good long look and Krieg, before staring at Carmilla, who just grinned.

Assault chose his next words very carefully, “The heck did you do to his fingers?” Assault asked.

Carmilla chuckled, “Well, turns out Cricket’s knives are hella sharp and pretty easy to throw once you’ve figured it out.” she explained.

Assault nodded, “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to come in to answer a few questions would you?” he asked.

“Nope!” she said, before enveloping the room in a black mist. When the mist faded, Carmilla was nowhere to be found.

Assault laughed, “Didn’t think so.” He looked at Krieg again, humming to himself, “Now, what are we supposed to do with him?”

 

Kaiser grunted as he lifted himself out of the rubble that had once been another of the Empire warehouses. He coughed, his lungs attempting to get the dust out of them. He heard the sounds of battle coming from Alabaster and the vigilante Carmilla. Gunshots, explosions, screams of pain, all of it. Kaiser looked around the area for the twins, hoping that they were still in one piece. He found Menja digging through the rubble with one hand, tears streaking down her face as she did so.

The leader of Empire Eighty-eight staggered over to her, trying to see what had happened. Buried underneath the rubble, he saw an arm reaching up out of it, gripping Menja’s own. Both capes were exhausted, and their powers were at even their limits. Kaiser lurched forward, reaching out a hand.

“Menja, move!” he ordered, catching the woman’s attention.

She moved out of the way, still staying close enough to hold onto her sister’s free hand. Kaiser reached out with his power, causing dozens of blades to slowly push the rubble out of the way. He was rewarded when he heard a faint gasp from beneath the rubble, followed by a fit of coughing. He pushed further, causing the blades to push even more rubble out of the way, revealing Fenja, beaten and bloodied, but alive.

The second the ruble was clear and Kaiser was sure it wouldn’t fall on top of her, he retracted the blades, allowing Menja to pull her sister free of what Kaiser had failed to remove.

“I-I can’t feel my legs…” Fenja stuttered, gripping her sister’s arms with white knuckles.

Menja cried out, wrapping her sister in a tight embrace. Kaiser cursed, turning his attention away from the weeping sisters and toward the ongoing brawl between Alabaster and that cursed vigilante. A month ago, she had killed Stormtiger, and Kaiser had sworn vengeance. But he had no way to track her down, and when she started attacking his warehouses, things had only escalated.

She captured Rune, shot out one of Hookwolf’s eyes, cut off Krieg’s fingers before capturing him and turning him into the Protectorate, she cut off Cricket’s arm, she Captured Victor… everything was going wrong. She was a loose cannon, and everyone in the bay knew it. She had run into the other gangs before, which resulted in her killing both leaders of the Merchants and leaving Mush to be captured by the Protectorate soon after. She had encountered the ABB, though she hadn’t fought any capes and had only killed three of their members, Lung had still been angry. Not city-destroying angry, but enough to go out and use the Empire as a punching bag.

Finally, it had all come to a climax. There were few unpowered members of the Empire left, the majority leaving due to the unprecedented death toll, and few willing to join for the same reason. It only got worse when he had tried to get Purity to rejoin and was almost thrown across the bay.

His ex-wife wanted nothing to do with him, his gang, the Gesellschaft, or anything else. The fact that the Empire was being torn apart by a single cape hadn’t helped his case either.

Kaiser looked up to see a pair of Crusader’s ghosts flying in Carmilla’s direction, likely hoping to at least stall the regenerating cape. For what little they could do, they were at least good at keeping her distracted long enough for one or more capes to get into position. He heard a groan, not like a normal person’s, but one sounding like metal struggling to hold together as it was bent and twisted.

He looked to his right and saw Hookwolf digging his way out of the rubble. The bladed cape shook his head, before transforming back into his fleshy form.

“What the fuck are we supposed to do Max!? There’s no way we’re getting Krieg and Victor out of there now, not with that crazy bitch tearing us apart like this!” Hookwolf shouted, his voice only overshadowed by the mass of gunfire and explosions.

Kaiser grit his teeth, “If I knew that she was going to interfere then we wouldn’t even be here in the first place!” He paused as he heard Fenja scream, “Damnit, where the hell is Othala!?”

His request went unanswered as he soon found himself throwing his body to the side, dodging the body of Alabaster. The pale cape grunted, his face split in half, and a second later reverted. Even in his reverted state, he was covered in bruises and small cuts. Kaiser turned to see the red-clad Carmilla jump onto the pile of rubble that had separated Kaiser from the fight, providing a small amount of protection.

He cursed, sending a wave of blades in Carmilla’s direction, which she dodged easily, leaping toward Kaiser himself. She was tackled to the ground by Hookwolf mid-air, his blade-covered body beginning to shred her apart, little as it would help.

“Go!” Hookwolf shouted, even as Carmilla began crawling out from underneath him.

Kaiser grunted, walking over to the twins and looking Fenja over. He reached down and lifted her with no small amount of effort, slinging her over his shoulder. He ran, Menja and Alabaster in tow. They moved their way through the piles of rubble, desperately trying to ignore the sounds of screaming metal and tearing flesh.

They found Crusader not far off, his ghosts supporting his body as he clutched his bleeding abdomen. His armor was stained red, and his spear appeared long since abandoned.

“Still alive? Good. Hookwolf is trying to fend her off, but I don’t know how long that will last. Where is Othala?” Kaiser asked.

Crusader grimaced underneath his helmet, “She’s dead, Kaiser. Crushed underneath the rubble.”

Kaiser paused. Crusader would not lie to him, not about something this important.

“Damnit! We need to get out of here, fast! Can your ghosts carry Fenja?” he asked, gesturing to the woman on his shoulder.

Crusader nodded, before a pair of clones formed from him and floated over to Kaiser. He lifted Fenja up and into the hands of the ghosts, “Get her to one of our clinics, if possible, or strip her of her costume and get her to the hospital. She’s paralyzed from the waist down from the looks of things.”

Crusader nodded, and had just given the order to his ghosts when Menja interrupted, “I’m going with her.”

Kaiser turned to her, “No your not. You’re still in costume, and we need all the help we can get if we’re going to-”

“‘Going to’ What, Max!? Kill that crazy bitch!? I don’t think that’s possible! Even Brad can’t fucking stop her!” Menja shouted, “I don’t give a damn what you say, what you order, I’m going to make sure my sister survives today!”

She turned around and ran after Crusader’s ghosts, leaving the rest of them behind. Crusader gave Kaiser a look, and while he considered ordering him to go after her, he just shook his head.

“Leave her be. She isn’t in any shape to be fighting as it is anyway.” He admitted.

Crusader nodded, before turning in the direction of the sounds of battle that Hookwolf and Carmilla were producing. They got closer and closer, and Kaiser knew that even if he somehow managed to survive the rest of the battle, the Empire would not. His kingdom had come crashing down around him, and there was little he could do to stop it.

It was terrifying when the sounds stopped. The sounds of tearing metal halted, the gunshots from Carmilla’s looted weapons, all of it stopped. Either Hookwolf had managed to kill her somehow -- which Kaiser regretfully doubted -- or Brad...

Max silently prayed that the man was unconscious, rather than dead. Though he shamefully admitted the latter was the more likely outcome.

Footsteps echoed throughout the building that had once stood, the rubble that surrounded them being the only thing that kept them somewhat covered. Then, she stepped from around the corner of a half-collapsed wall. She was covered in blood, dripping with it. Her red gaze hovered on each of them for a moment, before she finally settled on Kaiser.

“I guess you’re all that’s left, huh?” She asked, her manic grin making Kaiser snarl, “I will admit, Hookwolf was kind of a pain to deal with, but once I found his core he was pretty much done for.”

Kaiser went still, before closing his eyes and standing up straight. Crusader and Alabaster both looked at him, their stern expressions wavering.

“You killed him,” Kaiser stated. Not a question, a statement.

Carmilla nodded, “He tasted pretty good too, though a bit too iron-y for my taste.”

Kaiser winced. It had become a well-known fact that Carmilla was a bit of a cannibal, drinking the blood of her enemies. This usually coincided with her regeneration gaining a boost, however, so the PRT had spun it as just an odd quirk of her power that she took no pleasure in.

The grin on her face spoke otherwise.

“What do you intend to do now, then? You have us cornered, and you know full well that you outpower us. We are no threat to you.” Kaiser said.

She shook her head, “Well, you’re right on that last bit. You’re not a threat to me, but, you are a threat to the people of this city.” she explained, “As for what I intend to do with you? Well, I could just eat you and tell the Protectorate that you refused to surrender. But that’s not what heroes do, right?” She asked.

Kaiser gawked, “You fancy yourself a hero!? You, who butcher us by the dozen, have the gall to call yourself a hero?”

Carmilla chuckled, “Oh, hell no, I’m not even close to being a hero. At least, not by modern standards.”

She took a step forward, “No, I’m something more akin to an exterminator. Who happens to specialize in Nazi removal.”

Kaiser cursed, trying to think of a way out of his current predicament, “What do you want? Do you want us to leave the city?” he asked.

Carmilla shook her head, “See, that’s not good enough. If you leave the city, you’ll just start terrorizing another city, another group of people who don’t fit your stupid, arbitrary standards. No, I want you out of the picture. Whether that means six feet underground or in a Protectorate cell, I don’t really care.” she explained.

Kaiser considered his options. She had them cornered. She had delivered an ultimatum. If they did not comply, they would be killed. In the end, to Max Anders, there was only one logical decision.

“In that case, then I, Kaiser, leader of Empire Eighty-eight, surrender.” He said, kneeling in front of the Vampiric cape.

“I, Crusader, surrender.” The man to his left said, kneeling in a similar manner.

“I, Alabaster, surrender.” The man to his right said.

Carmilla grinned, her fangs gleaming brightly, “Well then, gentlemen, I hope you’ve enjoyed today. You just got to witness the death of an Empire.”

 

Armsmaster cursed as he pulled another body out of the rubble. This one that of a man in his early twenties, his head shaved, and a swastika tattooed on his shoulder. Another member of the Empire, dead thanks to Carmilla’s exploits. In the distance, he could hear her battle with the Empire’s capes, and while he hated the fact, he admitted that the only option the Protectorate had was to just stay out of the damn way.

This had been the largest attack by the Empire yet, with all of their remaining capes making a concentrated attack against the vehicle transporting Krieg to a more secure prison. The first thing that happened was Kaiser attacking the transport, flipping it. Alabaster, Crusader, Fenja, and Menja had distracted Armsmaster and Assault while Hookwolf had been about to tear it open when Carmilla had intervened.

She tore a bloody swath into the unpowered gang members that had accompanied the Empire capes, only stopping briefly to pick up a pair of pistols that she used to start firing away. The battle was soon dragged into the many buildings that had lined the streets, and all of them collapsed one after another as the Carmilla trailed the capes after her, burying regular people and capes alike in the rubble.

When it finally came down to it, Armsmaster was shocked that the number of casualties was as low as it was. Carmilla was a loose cannon, but she was one that could be trusted to picker her targets. Innocent bystanders, emergency responders, PRT response teams, all of them were left out of the chaos.

For all the death and destruction she caused, Carmilla was remarkably good at directing it.

Armsmaster frowned when the sounds of battle stopped. No more gunshots, no more screaming metal from Hookwolf, no more collapsing buildings. Climbing out of the rubble, he tried to get an angle on what was going on. Nothing but dust, ruin, and blood in view. He was about to go back to looking for survivors when he saw four figures walking out of the dust.

Carmilla came out first, her trademark manic grin covering her features. Following her, Kaiser, Crusader, and Alabaster. Armsmaster noted that the only reason he recognized them was due to their masks, while the rest of their costumes… had been stripped. They were walking behind Carmilla, heads hanging in shame, clothed in only their underwear.

Armsmaster almost laughed.

Carmilla did, “You should see your own face Armsy!” She yelled out to him, waving in his direction.

Armsmaster realized that his facial expression was changing rapidly, and so he forced it into a scowl. He lept down from his perch and began walking toward Carmilla, eying the Empire capes carefully. Odds were that they had surrendered, seeing how outmatched they were, but Armsmaster was not one to take risks.

“What is this, Carmilla? Why are all of them…” Armsmaster failed to complete his sentence, instead gesturing to the naked capes behind her.

Carmilla laughed, “They surrendered, of course! And… well, Alucard had a few ideas.”

Armsmaster grimaced. The girl rarely mentioned the supposed voice in her head, though when something like this happened -- the naked capes, not the vicious wanton destruction -- she usually credited the voice in her head for the idea. Not exactly a comforting thought, but it made him wonder what actually went on inside the teenaged cape’s mind.

“Anywho, I figured I might as well hand them off to you guys. Fenja and Menja ran off, but I know one of them was hurt pretty bad, so you might be able to catch them at the hospital. Hookwolf’s dead, I ate ‘im, and… Crusader, you said Othala was dead?” She asked, turning to the cape in question.

“She was buried under the rubble. She wasn’t moving and I couldn’t feel a pulse. She’s dead.”

Carmilla frowned, “Damn, I could’ve sworn… ah, nevermind, I’ll figure it out later. Anyway, so yeah, these guys are now in your custody. I assume I don’t have to track down an escaped Krieg?” She asked.

Armsmaster shook his head, “The van was flipped, but the containment is still secure. He won’t be leaving it until he reaches his destination.”

Carmilla nodded, “Well, with that out of the way, I look forward to working with you again Armsy! Toodles!”

The red-clad cape vanished in a swirl of black mist, blinding Armsmaster for a moment. When he could see again, he took full stock of the capes in front of him.

Armsmaster broke a small grin. No matter how humorously inept he might have been, even he saw the appeal in forcing three of the most influential capes in the city to strip down. The humiliation was palpable, and while he was slightly jealous he couldn’t have captured them himself, he did get the satisfaction of arresting them publically.

“Kaiser, Alabaster, Crusader, you are under arrest.”

[------]

Taylor sat on her couch, staring at the TV, flipping through the various channels. It had been less than twenty-four hours since she’d handed over the three Empire capes to Armsmaster, and the Protectorate had yet to make a statement on the matter. She grimaced as she tried to think about the four other capes that had participated in the battle. She’d killed Hookwolf herself obviously, but she hadn’t realized she accidentally dropped a building on Othala.

She could’ve sworn she’d tried to keep the healer alive. She was useful during Endbringer fights, after all, so it was a shame. Still… she could have sworn she saw her running across the street, long after she had collapsed the buildings. She was too busy getting mauled by Hookwolf to care at the time though, so maybe it was just some random civilian.

Fenja and Menja… or was in Menja and Fenja? Taylor didn’t know, nor did she care enough to correct herself. Anyway, she knew she’d dropped a building on one of them -- possibly killing her, but she hadn’t found her among the dead when she went drinking. Nor the other one, for that matter.

“Pretty sure you didn’t find that Othala chick Either. I think healer tastes a bit different.” Alucard mentioned.

Taylor raised an eyebrow, “And you no this, how?”

“Eh, ate a few EMC nurses once. Total accident, by the way, mistook them for Neo-Nazis.”

Taylor rolled her eyes, turning her attention back to the TV. She flipped to one of the various News stations that were covering the destruction of the shopping district. It wasn’t all that interesting hearing her drone on, but the shots of her handiwork were interesting to see from a civilian’s point of view.

She was about to flip the channel when the announcer, er, announced, that the Protectorate was officially making a statement. The camera switched to a live feed from the PRT headquarters, with a stage, podium, and everything. Dozens of people were crowded out around the stage, apparently eager to hear what the Protectorate had to say about the situation.

“Ooh, a pretty good turnout it looks like. Now, will they botch it up or no? My money’s on them making themselves look like idiots.”

“Do you even have any money to bet with?” Taylor asked. All she got was the mental impression of a shrug.

Armsmaster walked onto the stage, standing at the podium upright and, if Taylor were to admit it, looking at the Camera with a fairly intimidating gaze.

“Late yesterday afternoon, the vigilante cape known as Carmilla engaged with the remaining parahuman members of the gang known as Empire Eighty-eight. Over the past month, said cape has been attacking and destroying E88 resources and safe-houses. However, she has also been killing dozens of unpowered individuals who were a part of the aforementioned gang. She is incredibly violent and unstable. She is responsible for the deaths of the capes Hookwolf, Stormtiger, Othala, Skidmark, and Squealer. Because of this, the PRT and Protectorate cannot endorse the new cape, regardless of her intentions.”

“Should she be captured or turn herself in, she will be charged with mass voluntary manslaughter and destruction of both public and private property. However, due to her actions, the Protectorate has also been able to apprehend the capes known as Mush, Krieg, Victor, Rune, Cricket, Crusader, Alabaster, and Kaiser. The Empire is no longer a player in the bay, and should any of its former unpowered members continue to harass or assault the populace of Brockton Bay, beware that you will be charged with the full extent of the law.”

“Thank you for your time.”

With his message concluded, Armsmaster walked off the stage, ignoring the flashing cameras and reporters shouting questions at him.

“Damn, Armsy’s got some balls calling you out like that. Think he wrote that speech himself?”

Taylor shrugged, “Probably, though I kinda dislike the fact that they’re still wanting to make criminal charges against me.”

She almost didn’t notice her dad walk into the room, “Well, you did kinda blow up a city block. I think that constitutes the destruction of property.” he said, leaning against the wall.

Taylor twisted her head around to look at her dad, “Aren’t you supposed to be on my side?”

Danny shrugged, “I am. It doesn’t mean I can’t point out your mistakes. In fact, as your father, I feel I probably should be pointing out your mistakes.” He said, “And helping you fix them, of course.”

Taylor shrugged, “Fair enough. Kinda wished they didn’t show the pictures of them in costume though, you should have seen their faces when I told them to strip down to their underwear!” she said, breaking down into a fit of giggles.

“Hey, don’t forget that was my idea! You insisted on not killing them, so I gave you a way to humiliate them instead.”

Taylor nodded, “Yeah, yeah, all the credit goes to you Alucard.”

Danny sighed, “I still don’t think I’m ever going to get used to that.” he muttered.

“What, me having a voice in my head?” Taylor asked innocently.

“Having a daughter who goes around eating people?”

“No, you talk to the voice in your head. It’s a bit disconcerting when you’re trying to have a conversation with someone and then they say something completely out of context, often not even aimed at the person they're talking with.” her dad explained.

“Ah, yeah, I can see that. Can’t really help it though, he gets really chatty.”

“And you can’t get enough of it~!”

Taylor rolled her eyes, “Yeah, it can get annoying sometimes.”

Danny nodded, “I guess that’s how it is. Don’t exactly have to like it.”

“Eh, people don’t choose their powers. Powers choose us. At least, I think that’s what happens. Alucard was kinda iffy on that.”

“Seriously, can these space whales not think of anything better to do with their time!? I mean come on, I get entropy is annoying, but it’s not all bad!”

Taylor winced, “And then he goes on rants that just make absolutely no sense.”

 

Taylor hummed as she walked down the street. February was cold, that much was for sure, but she idly wondered if she could fix that. A few dozen Tinker-Tech heaters placed strategically around the city might work, but then again, that could just cook the city outright. No sense taking such risks when they were relatively unnecessary. Brockton Bay had survived the month of February before, it could survive it again.

Shaking her head, she made her way toward the Library, of which there were precious few people. It was lunchtime after all, on a Tuesday. Most people her age would be in school, and anyone else would either be at work or at lunch. As it was, she had the library virtually all to herself.

She quietly walked through the building, waving to the librarian and getting a small grin from the older woman, before she made her way to the public computers. Today would be a good day to check PHO after all since it had only been three days since the PRT’s official announcement. She was still a little salty, but eh, she could live with it.

She sat down at one of the computers and pulled up three pages. The first was a PHO forum page, specifically one logged into the Brockton Bay board. The second was a search engine geared toward looking for people who professionally designed cape outfits.

The third was cat videos.

“Pffffft… Look at him! So adorable…”

Taylor rolled her eyes, clicking the PHO tab and looking through the various posts. Most everyone was talking about her, and she even had her own page!

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Topic: Vigilante Cape: Carmilla
In: Boards ► Brockton Bay

Bagrat (Original Poster) (The Guy In The Know) (Veteran Member)
Posted on February 2, 2011:

So, the PRT has officially recognized the cape that's been wandering around killing people. Specifically Targeting the E88, apparently. I've made posts about her before, but the PRT, for some inexplicable reason, thought now would be the best time to release info about her instead of a few weeks ago when they found this information.

Regardless, here's what we know:

Basic information-
Name; Carmilla
Age; Estimated 14-20
Sex; Female

Powers-
Brute 7; Capable of extreme regeneration, including regrowing flesh, bone, limbs, and in one instance, her own head.
Changer 8; Capable of reinforcing and altering her muscle and bone structure to be stronger and more durable.
Shaker 4/breaker 5; Creates/turns into a black mist that she can control at will. It generally obeys the basic laws of physics, however, and will dissipate once she has left the immediate area.
Striker 5; Able to bite other individuals and drain them of blood. Her other powers seem to get a boost from her doing this, which has resulted in her becoming a reluctant cannibal.
Master 8; Any victims she drains completely will pick themselves back up approximately fifteen minutes later, devoid of any personality or life signs. For all intents and purposes, they're Zombies. Supposedly she can control any of them within eyesight, but this has thus far been unconfirmed.

So yeah, that's Carmilla. Talk, criticize, rant, whatever. Just don't piss off the mods.

(Showing Page 7 of 36)
► Starline
Replied on February 3, 2011:
Can we, like, just ignore the fact that it was Nazis she killed for a second? Yes, I get that their Nazis and they deserved it, but the repercussions of this are going to be off the charts. Do you guys really thing Lung will leave this alone? His biggest rival pretty much just up and collapsed virtually overnight. He's not gonna come out of this empty-handed.
► Regarless
Replied on February 3, 2011:
I'm pretty sure Lung is going to want to lay low. I know the consensus here is that Carmilla just really, really hates Nazis, but I don't think she'd leave the rage dragon to his own devices if he decided to start tearing up the city/
► Alpharius (Unverified Cape)
Replied on February 3, 2011:
@Luke_Ario13
To be fair, she's shown a remarkable amount of restraint in regards to the PRT. Everything we have on her suggests she wants to be a hero but was dealt a shitty powerset for hero work.
► Vista (Verified Cape)
Replied on February 3, 2011:
Alpharius
I've actually talked to Carmilla, at one point. Not allowed to say when or where, but she described her power as 'not having a non-lethal option,' and considering what happened yesterday, I think it’s pretty fair to assume she wasn't joking.
► Cammolaght (Cape Groupie)
Replied on February 3, 2011:
@Vista
Holy crap, you actually talked to her!? What was she like?
► HarvestMoonling (Veteran Member)
Replied on February 3, 2011:
@Vista
No non-lethal option? Aren't there other heroes like that? Miss Militia comes to my mind.
► Vista (Verified Cape)
Replied on February 3, 2011:
@Cammolaght
Pretty nice, actually. Didn't get along with Shadow Stalker at all though. If she would turn herself in to the Protectorate, I think she might actually make a good Ward.
@HarvestMoonling
Miss M. has non-lethal options. Rubber bullets, bean bags, that sort of thing. Carmilla's entire power set is kinda centered around her getting close enough to rip someone’s throat out with her teeth. Pretty big difference all things considered.
► Jakku
Replied on February 3, 2011:
Can we just stop and think about all this for one second? New cape, has powers built around eating people... this sounds like something Bonesaw would cook up. Are we sure the S9 isn't coming to the bay?
► SinoBice
Replied on February 3, 2011:
@Jakku
Dude, don't even joke like that. BB can't take the S9 a second time.
► BallsZack (Veteran Member)
Replied on February 3, 2011:
@SinoBice
Much as I hate to admit it, @Jakku might actually be on to something. Not necessarily that she's one of bonesaws unholy abominations, but... well, mass death and destruction is the kind of thing that attracts the nine. Fortunately they were last spotted halfway across the country, so your probably ok for now...
End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 ... 34 , 35, 36

She scrolled through the comments a bit more, satisfied that the populace of the internet was sufficiently terrified of her. She didn’t plan on going on any more incursions into the city, especially not into ABB territory. She hadn’t thought too much on the subject, instead, she was trying to focus on fixing the Nazi problem. Not that having a massive dragon roaming the city was a good thing, mind you, just that she had priorities.

Ones that were completely, totally, and unconspiratorially not influenced by the voice in her head.

“Oh! Lookie! A new message!”

Taylor blinked, looking at her inbox on PHO. Sure enough, someone had sent her a message. Recently too, it hadn’t been there when she’d left the house.

Private message from AllSeeingEye:
AllSeeingEye *New Message*: Please... dear god, please tell me your not actually her.

Taylor snorted. She idly wondered how someone could have figured out she was Carmilla, but, well, it wasn’t something she was overly worried about.

Private message from AllSeeingEye:
TheCrimsonFckr: Hate to burst your bubble, but yeah, it's me ;P
AllSeeingEye: Oh god... look, okay, I appreciate you dealing with the Nazi problem, but could you avoid rocking the boat much further? The cities in rough shape as it is with all the collateral you've caused, and if you keep this up, you WILL attract unwanted attention.
AllSeeingEye: In fact, I'm pretty sure you've already done that. My boss has told me that he's pretty sure the Teeth are headed down here, or they at least plan to head down here.
TheCrimsonFckr: Boss? The Teeth? I smell a mystery. Want to elaborate?
AllSeeingEye: I'm... kinda being forced into cooperation with him. Don't really care for my job, though... I wonder.
Anyway, far as the Teeth go, I'm ninety-nine percent sure they're going to be targeting you.
TheCrimsonFckr: Not sure the teeth could do much to me. Even the Butcher would be hard pressed to actually hurt me.
Also, 'forced into cooperation,'? Are you a sex slave?

Taylor imagined the person on the opposite side of the internet gagging at her query. It probably wasn’t the smartest response, but, well, Alucard was rubbing off on her.

[-----]

Lisa had a headache. This was not unusual for her, as she got them whenever she overused her power, which… happened a lot, unfortunately. What ailed her this time was the cape known as Carmilla. She’d stumbled upon the account trolling someone on PHO, and something in the back of her mind made her draw a connection between the account and the cape. After browsing through the account’s history, her power became more and more certain that it was indeed Carmilla.

This was further confirmed when she messaged the account. Carmilla had responded and had started giving her a headache almost immediately. She wasn’t afraid of the teeth in the slightest, at least, that’s what the tone of the message portrayed. On another note, she seemed more interested in her boss than anything else.

Which is why she started gagging when she received the capes last message.

She could imagine the savage grin on the face of the cape, her white fangs pointing out from her lips. Lisa hated being off-guard, but it looked like Carmilla had managed to do just that, and from the lack of information her power was providing her, it would probably happen again.

Still, Lisa silently wondered if Carmilla might actually be able to get her out from under Coil’s thumb. If anyone could do it, the insane, murder-happy cape with a penchant for terrible jokes would probably be the one to do it. Lisa sighed in dismay. When had her life gotten so out of whack that she was considering asking such an insane cape for help?

She decided to choose her next response very carefully.

 

Taylor idly toyed with the Rubix cube she held in her hands, twisting each side in such a way that it might somehow match in just the right way. At least, that was what she hoped was happening. She really was just mindlessly twisting the sides, hoping for the toy to make some kind of interesting pattern.

She was walking along the sidewalk heading toward Parian's boutique, one of the best places in Brockton Bay to get a costume done. Normally, Parian avoided doing costumes, but Taylor figured she could convince the rogue to help her out. She’d opted to go out of costume but made a note to keep her glasses on. They would keep her identity safe without having to be too conspicuous. Instead, she wore a pair of black jeans and a grey T-shirt.

She had actually managed to get one of the sides of the multi-colored toy solved when she smelled something off.

It was when she was about a block away that things started going wrong.

"Hey, Alucard, why is the boutique on fire? That's probably a bad thing, right? I'm pretty sure that's a bad thing." Taylor asked.

"I think that's a bad thing. New capes trying to press-gang her? I mean, PHO made a pretty big deal out of the fact that Rogues don't last all that long in the Bay."

Taylor hummed, “We should probably go see if she’s alright, right?”

“Yeah, should probably get on that.”

Taylor tossed the Rubix cube onto a nearby roof and began running to the burning boutique. There were several people standing outside the building, gawking at the flaming husk of a building. Taylor quickly scanned the crowd for any doll-like faces and found that no, there wasn’t anyone matching that description in the crowd.

She saw a pair of people come out of the building, hacking and coughing their lungs out. She ran up to them, putting a hand on one of their shoulders, “Are you alright? Is there anyone else in there?” she asked.

The man shook his head, coughing again, “I-I don’t know, we were with Parian when s-she told us to go and get out. Th-there was someone else in there, I don’t know if she got them out or not…”

The man winced as a sharp crack rang out from the building, one of the roof’s supports going out most likely. The building looked old, even if it was mostly made out of brick, the inside and roof were probably made out of wood.

Taylor grimaced. Parian couldn’t die now, she needed a costume! If she died, she’d have to order one all the way from Boston, and while she could do it, it was going to be a hassle to keep the PRT and Protectorate from finding out, since it was kinda their main costume supplier.

Pointing the person in the direction of the rest of the crowd, Taylor looked into the flames and grimaced.

“Hwy Alucard, fire doesn’t hurt us any more than anything else, does it?” She asked, stretching her shoulders.

“Nope, you’re good!”

“Good,” Taylor said, her grin coming on in full force as she sprinted into the burning building.

[-----]

Sabah grunted as she attempted to move the burning support beam off of her. All she succeeded in doing was burning her hands. She cried out as she pulled away, hissing in pain as she looked at her charred gloves. She tried to wriggle out from under it again, but there wasn’t nearly enough room for her to get out without burning herself.

Earlier, when the building had first caught fire, she had wondered what on earth had caused it. An electrical fire, maybe, or some idiot tossing a burning cigarette in through one of the windows. Unfortunately, this was all unlikely, as she almost immediately figured out that someone had probably set off the fire intentionally.

Coil.

The supervillain of Brockton Bay had been sending her anonymous requests to employ her for over a month, but a day ago, the man himself had walked into her store and outright told her to join. She refused, of course. She wasn’t going to join any villains, especially with that new crazy cape running around. Carmilla had taken down the Empire, on her own, in less than a month. While Sabah was glad that she had taken the racists and bigots off the streets -- who had been a pain to deal with in her civilian identity -- she didn’t want to think about what would happen if she joined Coil and Carmilla decided that taking just the Nazis out wasn't good enough.

She felt that she’d actually managed to piss the man off since he’d stomped out of her boutique without a word. It had occurred to her that he would probably try again at some point, or try to force her into joining him somehow, what she hadn’t expected was for him to try and outright kill her.

She tried to move out from underneath the beam before she was interrupted by a fit of her own coughing. The smoke had filled the building completely, and if she didn’t get out soon, she might die from smoke inhalation sooner than she was burned alive.

She called out for help, hoping that maybe some first responders had made their way inside, be they firefighters or PRT. She wondered whether or not the PRT would get involved or claim jurisdiction since her boutique was a cape owned establishment and not a civilian-owned one, and even if she knew Coil was probably the one behind it, no one else did.

“Help!” She called out again, coughing again.

“Is someone in here?” She heard a voice call out. It was young, too young to be a firefighter or a PRT agent. Who the hell would run into a burning building?

“Over here! Under the beam!” She yelled back, hoping her voice wasn’t drowned out by the roaring flames.

Seconds passed, and no one came. She started wondering if she had actually heard the voice, or if they had been killed by falling debris. She started to lose hope.

Her hope was restored, when a pair of legs came through the flame, “Hey! There you are!” The voice yelled.

Sabah couldn’t see her savior’s face or upper body, as the black smoke prevented her from actually seeing anything above waist level. She did see a pair of running shoes and black jeans. It caused further questions. A cape, maybe? One that could breathe despite the thick smoke, or maybe just someone crazy enough to run into a burning building and was just good at holding their breath.

“Ok, now just hold on, Imma get you out of here.” She -- because the voice was definitely a female -- said, before she made her way over to where Sabah was trapped.

Sabah expected her to kneel down and try to pull her out from underneath the beam. Sabah did not expect her to grab the beam, pick it up, and shove it to the side.

Her savior was a cape. There was no way a normal human should be able to lift a beam like that.

“Hey, come on! I’ll be okay, but you need to get out of here!” The cape said, kneeling down and picking her up.

She climbed to her feet with the help of the new cape, and soon found herself being led out of the building. At least, that’s what she hoped. She couldn’t see a damn thing with the smoke making the air dark, and the roaring fire wasn’t helping matters.

She soon found that, yes, the new cape was indeed helping her, was the two of them stumbled out of the front entrance, just in time to avoid another beam collapsing in on them. Sabah turned around and looked at the boutique, her boutique, as it all went up in flames. She had a dozen different projects in there! Thousands of dollars in material! Hundreds of designs!

She cried out in rage as she struggled not to tear off her stupid mask. Her entire work, everything she had built up in the past few years, all going up in smoke because one stupid villain couldn’t take no for an answer.

“Hey, are you sure you’re okay?” A voice asked behind her.

She spun around, finding herself face to face with her savior. She was tall, close to six feet tall if she had to guess, with long, dark brown hair and white skin. Her eyes were covered by a pair of wide, round, orange-tinted glasses.

Sabah cursed silently, “No… no, I’m not. Thanks for saving me, but…”

“Not the best day?” She asked.

Sabah shook her head, “I have insurance, but… all this…” she said, gesturing to the collapsing building and the gawking onlookers.

The mysterious new cape hummed, “Hey, do you mind if we talked somewhere private? Somewhere… away from all of them?” she asked, jutting a finger in the direction of the crowd that was now taking pictures of the scene.

“And how are we supposed to get away from them exactly?” Sabah asked.

The cape grinned, and Sabah almost had enough time to turn and run in the opposite direction when she saw the capes shining fangs. Almost being the keyword. Instead, Carmilla clasped one hand onto her shoulder, mad grin still presents on her face.

“Like this.” She said before Sabah’s vision was filled with blackness.

Teleportation -- because that’s obviously what it was -- was weird. One moment, she was standing on asphalt, then for a split second, she felt like she was falling before she was back on solid ground again. When her vision returned, she found that Carmilla had teleported them to a nearby rooftop almost a block away from her burning boutique.

The crazed cape took her hand off Sabah’s shoulder and walked over to the edge of the roof where a half-solved Rubix cube sat. Carmilla picked up the toy sat on the edge of the building, her feet dangling off the side, and she started asking questions.

“So, what happened?” she asked, patting the spot on the roof next to her.

Sabah shuddered. PHO was pretty clear about what Carmilla was capable of, even though a large portion of the internet even supported her actions, and Sabah wasn’t sure if she should be terrified or not. She decided that, since Carmilla had gone to the trouble of rescuing her, she probably didn’t have any plans on killing her. She walked over and sat cross-legged on the edge of the roof, though she still sat a good foot back from the tipping point.

“I… I’m not really sure where to start. Though, before I even think about telling you anything, why are you doing this?” She asked.

Carmilla shrugged, “You’re stressed, your business is on fire, and you needed someone to talk to. Thus, me, you, the rooftop.”

Sabah’s shoulders drooped. Much as she hated to admit it, Carmilla was probably right. Venting to someone would probably take the pressure off. Still…

“Why are you the one to do that though? Aren’t you supposed to be some crazy cannibalistic lunatic or something like that?” She asked.

Carmilla winced, “Yeah, I… may have gotten carried away with the E88. Them being Nazis and all that. Still, while my power does get a boost from cannibalism, I’m not crazy, nor am I a lunatic. I’m probably not the best choice for a therapist either, but it’s me or some unlucky sod on the street that might actually take offense to something you say.” she explained.

“That, and I’m kinda curious how your boutique got turned into barbeque.”

Sabah sighed, “Well, I guess that’s as good a reason as any… promise you won’t tell anyone about this?” she asked.

Carmilla shrugged, twisting one of the sides of the Rubix cube into place, “Your secret safe with me. It’s not like I’d do much with the info anyway.”

And so, Sabah explained what had happed over the past month. By the end of it, Carmilla had solved the Rubix cube and was cursing Coil’s name, declaring fiery vengeance for attempting to kill Brockton Bay’s most adorable toy-maker.

Sabah did not blush.

 

Taylor stood on top of a building as she tracked a long, black limo through the city. Said limo held her target of interest and was going to meet with her informant. AllSeeingEye, or Tattletale as the aforementioned person had so helpfully informed, was going to be meeting with her boss, the illustrious Coil. Taylor still wasn’t sure Coil hadn’t turned her into some kind of sex slave and was coming to put her into a dungeon. Y’know, to make it official.

Still, Tattletale had been adamant that she was not a sex slave, despite the skin-tight latex costume she wore.

“Yeah, I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure she’s lying. Probably just embarrassed about it.”

Taylor rolled her eyes, “Who wouldn’t be? I mean, how old is Coil? I doubt he’s young.” She said, moving to jump across the buildings as she followed the limousine.

“Eh, probably not that old. I’ve never seen anyone over sixty have anyone hidden in their basement.”

“That still leaves fifty-nine, you know that right?”

“Fifty-eight, actually. The guy had a bunch of thirty-year-olds trapped in his basement. I say ‘trapped’, they were actually pretty okay with the arrangement. Once the heroin got involved though… well, I can at least say I enjoyed the experience.”

Taylor shook her head, “Alucard, too much information.”

“Eh, your loss.”

Taylor spotted the vehicle stop at a bench, where a blonde-haired girl was sitting with a laptop open. She’d been typing something on it but stopped when the limo door opened automatically.

“Oooh, I want one,” Taylor noted, marveling at the idea of just opening a car door without needing anything more than pressing a button. Not very practical, but it would be fun to mess around with.

“Don’t go for a limo though, DeLorean’s are much better for that kind of thing. That and if you do a bit of finagling they can even travel through time! Never did manage to figure out how doc did it…”

The blonde girl -- who Taylor had since figured out was Tattletale -- got up from her seat and stepped into the car, the door closing behind her. The car began to drive off, and Taylor followed. Eventually, Taylor noticed that it was just driving in circles around the block, and she frowned. It seemed Coil wasn’t going to lead her to his secret lair anytime soon.

Running ahead of the vehicle for a second, Taylor prepared to jump off the building and onto the limousine. She readied her powers, making sure that when she did land, she wouldn’t alert the people inside the vehicle that she had done so. She couldn’t fly, but she could slow her own fall.

She successfully landed without a sound, the limousine continuing on like nothing happened. She frowned, trying to figure out where to go from there. She pressed her ear up to the roof of the car, hoping that she would be able to hear what was going on inside.

“...thoughts… Parian…. tale…”

That was a male voice, and he was Talking about Parian for some reason. She couldn’t quite understand what he was saying though, so she kept listening.

“... accident… service… midnight…”

That was a female voice. Tattletale? What the heck was she talking about? Service at midnight? If she wanted to convince Taylor that she wasn’t a sex slave, she was doing a fairly bad job at it. Taylor almost smacked herself as she realized something.

“Oh! She’s not a sex slave, she’s a prostitute!” Taylor whispered at the revelation.

“Oooooh, yeah that makes sense. Though I wonder why she mentioned she was forced to work with him. Some kind of kink maybe?”

“I don’t know… I mean, we could always ask her.” Taylor noted, before looking down at the roof in front of her and frowning, “Now, how to get in there without destroying the roof…”

“Oh! Oh! Did I tell you that you can phase through walls?” Alucard asked.

Taylor blinked, “I can phase through walls?”

[-----]

Lisa sat opposite the person responsible for the mess she was currently in. Coil, the one who had held a proverbial gun to her head in order to get her to work for him. How he’d managed to figure out she was a thinker she’d never figured out, but the man was careful and had always been one step ahead of her. His body language was almost impossible to read, and nothing he said gave away anything her power could work with.

He almost never gave her information freely, instead, he was always confirming or denying whatever conclusions she came to on her own. It was frustrating, and it made Lisa want to just gouge the man’s eyes out. Unfortunately, there were other people in the vehicle that would take offense to her doing that. She just hoped that she’d made the right decision in asking Carmilla to tail them through the meeting, so that if something did go wrong and she needed to get out.

“What are your thoughts on the Parian incident yesterday, Tattletale?” Coil asked his voice level and completely lacking anything that would give away his own opinion on the matter.

Lisa shrugged, “I’m not really sure. I know that it wasn’t an accident, the wiring -- despite the age of the building -- was actually pretty new, and the electrical service visited the building at least once a month. Parian was always careful about not letting anything flammable into her shop, so an outside party would have needed to set it off deliberately. She almost never leaves before midnight either, so whoever did it would have needed to come during the early morning.”

Coil nodded, “An astute observation. Do you know who would have caused the fire?” He asked.

Lisa shook her head, “I’m not really sure. She’s a rogue so that immediately paint’s a target on her back, but figuring out who would have gone after her is a bit confusing. The E88 tried recruiting her a while back, but they don’t even exist as a faction anymore thank’s to Carmilla. It’s possible some of the unpowered members might’ve tried to pressure her into joining, but I doubt it. The ABB isn’t really an option since her shop isn’t in their territory. Faultline doesn’t pull this kind of thing without being paid, and I doubt she’d even take this kind of job even if someone paid her to do it, which doesn’t leave… much…”

Lisa eyed the man in front of her, his snake-themed costume shifting ever so slightly, “You,” she muttered, “You burned down her boutique. You tried to have her killed.”

Coil nodded, “As always, you are very observant. I will admit, I was the one who ordered her establishment destroyed, in hopes of recruiting her. I have been trying to do so for the past month, however, something went wrong. She was not supposed to remain inside the building as long as she did.” he explained.

Lisa frowned, “And now she’s been picked up by Carmilla, who was spotted teleporting her somewhere after the two of them came running out of the building itself.”

“It is a problematic situation at best. I was hoping that the Undersiders would make an offer, perhaps to ease the loss of her establishment, offering monetary compensation,” he explained.

“And how long do you think that’s going to work? Even if she does join, the day she finds out you’re the one backing us, she’ll probably run straight to the Protectorate, or worse, Carmilla.” Lisa shot back, “And that’s if she takes the offer in the first place.”

“And that is why she will not discover my role in your employment. She will likely be distraught at the loss of her establishment, and you-” Coil never got to finish his statement, as a mop of dark brown hair soon fell from the car ceiling.

“Oh! So that’s how it works… weird.” The person who was half hanging thourough the roof of a limousine said, before looking back and forth between Coil and Lisa.

Coil was stunned, pressing himself back against the seat. Lisa was terrified and was trying to make sense of what she was seeing.

Testing out newly discovered power. Capable of phasing through solid objects.

Well, at least her power was able to answer that question. Thanks for pointing out the obvious/

“Am I interrupting the foreplay? I can always come back later.”

Believes you are about to engage in sexual activities with Coil. Is confused about Coil’s costume. Believes it to be BDSM attire.

“Wow, I thought you were the one who was into bondage Tattletale!”

Lisa gagged.

[-----]

Brian Laborn wasn’t a normal teenager. He was a Parahuman, and by extension, he had a lot of stuff going on in his life. He was a villain, trying to earn money to get his sister out of a terrible home-life. Her mother was a drug addict, and while there was always the option of staying with their dad… even the man himself admitted it probably wasn’t the best idea. He didn’t know how to raise a daughter and being as rough as he was, he didn’t want to risk screwing her up.

Which left Brian to try and figure out how to get custody of her. Once he’d actually become part of a team, and even became the de facto leader of the Undersiders, it was still a slippery slope. He promised himself that once he’d gotten her out of her mom’s hands for good, then he’d try to join the Protectorate, be a hero. At least, that had been his original plan.

The money from being a villain was good. Really good. With the income he had now, it would only be another six months before he could legitimately get custody of his sister. Six more months of villainy. But did he really want to stop after that?

Stupid question, really. As much as he might have enjoyed the income, being a villain wasn’t a stable lifestyle. If something went wrong, or if he ended up going up against the wrong people, he could very easily be killed. And if that happened, Aisha would very likely be in a worse situation than before.

No, for now, he would be a villain, but as soon as he was out of the woods, he would get away from all of it as fast as he could. Maybe he could even convince Lisa to join him.

All of these thoughts rolling through his head came to a screaming halt as he heard something that would change his view of Lisa Wilborn for eternity.

A speeding limousine was racing down the street, with one person hanging out the window and another being dragged on the ground hanging onto the open window. He recognized the former as Lisa, one of the Undersiders, and the latter as the lethal cape that had basically taken down the Empire singlehandedly, Carmilla.

“I AM NOT HIS FUCKING SEX SLAVE!”

Brian decided to ask Lisa about the situation later. Provided she was still alive.

 

Coil was a careful man. He took risks, yes, but they were always calculated, and his power always provided an out should his risk prove not in his favor. In one timeline, he would be in his base, safely underground and away from the dangers of the world. While at the same time in another, he would be daringly staring down the world’s most dangerous villains. His power came with many benefits, benefits he was not used to working without.

So, of course, the time where he needed everything to go perfectly, everything went wrong.

In one timeline, he actually was seated in his chair underneath his base. He watched the live camera feed of Tattletale’s interview with his body double, which had gone horribly wrong thank’s to the arrival of the rabid cape known as Carmilla.

In his second timeline, the one he’d designated as a ‘safe’ one, he was narrowly avoiding the destruction caused by Carmilla’s battle with the Teeth. On the one hand, it was good to know that the Teeth had officially reached the Bay, but on the other… he didn’t like the looks he was getting from Hemorrhagia was giving him.

He heavily considered closing off the timeline where he was staring down the Teeth, before confirming his decision. As much as he would have preferred to have a safe timeline, of the two options he had, the former was much less hazardous to his health than the latter. Focusing back on the hidden camera in the limousine, he sighed as he tried to figure out a way to fix this. Carmilla was being dragged out of the window, with Tattletale beating her furiously. Coil almost would have thought Tattletale hadn’t hired Carmilla, were it not for the evidence on her laptop.

His thought’s idly trailed back to what had happened with Parian. With the appearance of Carmilla and the destruction she brought to Brockton Bay, he needed all the muscle he could get. He’d already gotten his hands on a few capes now -- Circus for one, the Undersiders for another -- and was working to get others. The few remaining E88 capes would definitely serve his organization well.

Regardless, he had wanted to recruit Parian for a while now, and Carmilla’s… bloody, debut had given him the perfect excuse. The fall of the Empire had only tipped the balance, forcing his hand in a way. His body-double had been telling the truth, somewhat, when he’d said Parian’s boutique was not supposed to be razed. Unfortunately, not burning it down resulted in Parian being killed by a pair of crazed would-be Merchants that had taken a dislike to her establishment.

The fire in her establishment kept the Merchant’s from doing anything other than getting out of the way, and it wasn’t until after he’d closed the other timeline that Carmilla had come into the picture.

Regardless, things had not gone well, and now he was forced to deal with Carmilla again.

He split the timeline, in one doing nothing but observing, in the other, he began giving orders to the body-double.

“Assist Tattletale, shoot Carmilla.”

In the second timeline, his body-double drew a pistol and began unloading bullets into Carmilla, causing her to lose her grip and fall, being run over by the limousine’s back tire. Coil almost wondered if that had been all it took but was soon proven wrong when he was informed by the camera hidden in the costume that not only did Carmilla manage to keep from losing the vehicle, she had actually sunk her teeth into the back bumper.

“Shoot her more, do not let her into the vehicle.”

In the timeline he’d left alone Carmilla was slowly climbing her way back into the vehicle through the window, all but ignoring Tattletales furious blows. When she finally got in, she started ranting at Tattletale and the body-double about voices in her head and other such nonsense, making it very hard to send the right orders to his agent.

In the first timeline, he was sad to say that Carmilla had killed his body-double, and was now driving the limousine herself, taking it through the middle of the city weaving through traffic. The driver had been thrown into the back, and Tattletale had climbed her way into the passenger seat and was trying to convince Carmilla to stop. While the situation was admittedly humorous, Coil found that it was a bit… dangerous. That only got worse when Carmilla filled the vehicle with her black mist, cutting off his microphones and cameras.

The same happened in the second timeline, cutting off any visuals he might have had, though this time without the death of his body-double. Coil cursed, trying to figure out some way of salvaging the situation.

[-----]

Taylor hummed as she drove the limousine through the middle of town, trying to avoid hitting people and other miscellaneous objects strewn along the road. She’d only run over one person! And they’d been a druggie anyway if the smell of cocaine mixed with blood on the windshield was any indication.

“Oh god, you killed him…” Tattletale said as she sank into the seat next to her.

Taylor tilted her head, “Why are you sad about that? Didn’t he keep you locked up in a dungeon or something?” she asked. The snake costumed guy hadn’t tasted good per se, but he was certainly better than any druggie she’d ever eaten.

“Wha-? No, that person you just ran over! He’s fucking dead!”

“... does she know she’s pointing out the obvious?”

Taylor snorted, “And? I’ve killed plenty of Merchants. He wouldn’t be the first.”

Tattletale blinked, before looking at the blood and then back to Taylor, “How… how the hell did you know he was a Merchant…?” she asked.

Taylor shrugged, “I mean, the cocaine smell made it pretty obvious, plus I’m pretty sure his blood would make me throw up if I tried to eat it.” She explained.

Tattletale rubbed her temples “I… I don’t even know anymore.”

“Well, at least we don’t have to worry about the real Coil spying on us.” Taylor said, “Silver lining and all that.”

Tattletale whirled around to face Taylor, “The real… Fuck! Of course, it was a body-double!”

“She just realized that? The guy practically screamed ‘I’m not the real supervillain’... then again, she doesn’t have Vampire senses so that may have something to do with it.”

Taylor nodded sagely, “Yup. Parahuman’s taste different, and I’m pretty sure that guy didn’t taste like a Parahuman.” she explained.

Tattletale stared at her, her expression going from disgust to awe, to confusion, to understanding, then back to disgust, “Because of course, you can taste the difference…”

“Funny enough Parahuman’s actually taste a good bit like that thing that was trying to eat you, Tay-Tay. Tastes pretty good all things considered.”

Taylor chuckled, “Yeah, and now that I’ve blocked out all the hidden cameras and microphones, you can tell me exactly how to get to his dungeon so I can eat ‘im.”

“How am I supposed to know where his base is!?” Tattletale asked.

Taylor shrugged, “I dunno, you’re his prostitute, I’d figured you’d have memorized how to get to his place by now.”

“I am not his fucking-! You know what? No! I’m not gonna put up with this! I don’t know where his base is, because I’ve never fucking been there! Isn’t that proof that I’m not a prostitute, or sex slave, or whatever other random titles you’ve associated me with!?” she asked, glaring at Taylor.

“Is it that time of the month for her? Because I don’t remember her being this bitchy when you were chatting on PHO.”

“Yeesh, calm down, would you? You’ve made your point, your not his sex slave or his prostitute… still though, if you’re not, why the hell do you wear such a sexy outfit?” she asked.

Tattletale screamed, her words becoming incoherent.

“Hmmm… this guy’s rich,” Alucard commented through Tattletales rambling.

“How do you figure that?” Taylor asked.

“I mean, he’s got a limo seemingly on call on top of a driver and a body-double. You kinda need a lot of cash to do that, and I don’t really see him being the type to do this as a one-off. That means he needs a lot of cash to pull this off on a regular basis.”

Taylor hummed, “Yeah, that makes sense. Any ideas?”

“I do have one. What are the richer local companies? Or, not even strictly local, just ones that operate pretty regularly in the area.”

“Well, there’s Medhall, I’m pretty sure they’re stacked, though I heard that they’ve been bought out due to the CEO stepping down suddenly for some reason… there’s the DWU, but dad runs that…”

“What the fuck are you talking about now!?” Tattletale yelled, cutting off Taylor’s train of thought.

“Oh, just trying to figure out which company Coil gets his money from. You wouldn’t happen to know any rich CEO’s that live in the bay, would you?” Taylor asked.

“I… what? Yeah, there’s plenty. Medhall, Fortress Construction, Importaciones Mexicanas, Vape-”

“That’s what I was forgetting!” Taylor shouted, smacking the steering wheel.

Tattletale blinked, “Importaciones Mexicanas? The Mexican Import company?” she asked.

“What? No, Fortress Construction! The guys who build Endbringer shelters!” Taylor explained, “What better place for a dungeon than an abandoned Endbringer shelter? Plenty of space for traps, cells, beds, milking stations-”

“Ok, what the fuck is wrong with you!? And- milking stations!? What the fuck does your search history look like!?” Tattletale asked, a distraught look on her face.

Taylor shrugged, “I mean, it wasn’t my search history…”

“Hey, don’t you dare rat me out!”

“You’re lucky I let you search up anything on the internet, Alucard, especially after what you had me search up last time.” Taylor berated him.

Tattletale blinked, “... Alucard? Who… who the fuck are you talking to?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah, Alucard’s the voice in my head. Yeah, he searches up some pretty messed up stuff. Anyway, what do you think about Fortress Construction? Do you think Coil’s got an in with them? Think that’s where he gets all his money?” Taylor asked, desperately trying to change the subject.

“I… Maybe? I mean, it’s certainly possible… no, that actually sounds pretty likely. If he’s getting his money from Fortress construction, then… no, it couldn’t be. Carmilla, you don’t have a cell phone do you?” Tattletale asked.

Taylor answered by pulling the aforementioned device out of her pocket and handing it to Tattletale, “Just don’t open youtube and you’ll be fine. That kind of rabbit train is not for the faint of heart.”

Tattletale just glared at Carmilla before grabbing the device and opening the search engine, “Okay, let’s see… fortress construction… executive members… CEO, Thomas Calvert. Let’s see what I can’t find on him…”

The two of them sat there for a few minutes, Taylor driving aimlessly through the city, avoiding hitting anybody or running into anything, as well as losing a few cops that had started tailing the limo with bitemarks in the bumper.

“Aha! Here we go!” Tattletale said, holding up the device, “Former PRT agent, dishonorably discharged, now serving as a civilian advisor for the Protectorate ENE! And being the CEO of Fortress Construction, he’s loaded! It makes so much sense! He’s got moles in the PRT and Protectorate, which is why he’s always one step ahead, and he’s got the money to keep anyone he wants to be paid off and out of the way, or working under him! It all makes so much sense!”

“Wow, she got all that from just a hunch?” Alucard asked.

“You sure put that together pretty fast. How’d you do that?” Taylor asked.

Tattletale froze, “Well… eh… screw it, you’d probably find out sooner or later anyway. It’s my power, basically, it fills in the gaps. Anything sherlock could do, I can do better.”

“Accept keep your cool, apparently. Even the best of my jokes hardly phased the man himself.”

Taylor chuckled, “Well then, think you could find his base of operations now that you have a lead on who he is?”

Tattletale grinned, “Oh, most definitely.”

“Ok, well, you work on that while I drive us somewhere. We have a third person to add to this little revenge quest.”

 

Taylor sat in the limo humming to herself while she waited outside Parian’s dorm room. The Victorian-themed cape had asked why and how Taylor had managed to find her dorm room, and how she’d managed to drive the limousine up the hill that led to the dorm rooms. She’d also asked how Taylor had even found her dorm in the first place, but Taylor only shrugged in response.

“Ok- just- look, what are you even doing here!?” Parian asked, wearing her hastily applied costume.

“Oh! Well, see, I think we found where Coil’s been hiding. Tat’s here figured out his civilian identity so we think we have a pretty good idea of where he’s hiding. And since he kinda went and burned down your shop, I figured you’d want in on the action.” Taylor explained.

Parian paused for a moment, looking into Taylor’s eyes. Well, for all the black lenses could anyway, “So, you’re saying that you found the guy who burned down my boutique?” she asked, her voice gaining an edge.

Taylor nodded, a grin finding its way onto her face, “Yep, or at least, we have an idea of where he is. One of the Endbringer shelters throughout the city, probably one of the unfinished ones.”

Parian chuckled darkly, “Alright then, count me in.”

“That was quick!”

Taylor nodded in agreement with Alucard, “You know, at first, I didn’t peg you for the revenge type,” she noted.

Parien shook her head, “That asshole burned down my boutique, destroyed hours of work, thousands of dollars in material, and basically forced me to live in a college dorm room. Yeah, I think I want to get him back for all of that.”

“‘Bout as good a reason as any. I approve!”

“Well alright, hop in then.” Taylor said, “Just mind the dried corpse in the back, that was Coil’s body-double.”

Parian paused halfway through opening the limousine door, “I’m… not even going to ask.”

She climbed into the limousine, carefully staying out of the way of the dried corpse that stared at her with empty eyes. She situated herself at the front of the vehicle so that she could communicate with Taylor and Tattletale while they drove.

“All buckled up?” Taylor asked.

“I don’t think this car has seatbelts…” Parian muttered.

Taylor rolled her eyes, “It’s a figure of speech.” she explained, before pressing her foot on the gas.

“One that I find completely unnecessary. I never even buckle up in the first place, so why even ask?”

“Because most people do use seatbelts. You’re just an immortal vampire living inside my head, I don’t think you can buckle up.”

Parian stared at Taylor, before turning to look at Tattletale, “Who is she talking to?” she asked.

Tattletale waved her off, “I stopped trying to figure out who it was a while ago, fewer headaches that way.” she explained.

“I already told you Tats, you just need to believe!”

“The only thing I need to ‘believe’ is that you are completely and irreparably insane, and yet you are still somehow my best chance at getting at Coil.”

“Hey! You’re not insane! You’re just crazy. There’s a difference.”

The group drove for about ten minutes, mostly meandering through the city until Tattletale found the address of the Endbringer shelter, “Ah! Here we go, 5th Bakers street, the abandoned construction site with a fence around it. Construction stopped a little less than a year ago, but there have been a number of people spotted going in and out.” she said, “I think we’ve found it.”

Taylor grinned, “5th Bakers street it is then!”

[-----]

Director Piggot stared at the after-action report in front of her that detailed what had happened to Parian’s boutique. Apparently caused by faulty wiring, according to the investigators, but Parian severely doubted the fact and even said so herself. She had explained that the villain Coil, a fairly minor player up to that point, had tried and failed to recruit her. She guessed that he had burned down her shop in order to perhaps force her into cooperation, or failing that, kill her and keep her from falling into the hands of the PRT or another gang.

Piggot found herself hardpressed to disagree with her. It felt like the sort of thing villains would try. Unfortunately, it didn’t feel like the kind of thing Coil would do. The Protectorate really didn’t have much any information on the man, only that he hired mercenaries and kept them equipped with fairly expensive Tinker-Tech. It was still up for debate if the man even had powers since he’d never made a public appearance.

Still, Parian’s claim was enough to cause concern. Even more so when one considered that after Carmilla’s destruction of the Empire, she would no doubt find another target eventually. Or, a worse alternative, Coil was gathering capes in order to put up a fight against Carmilla. Which, in summary, was suicide.

Still, Piggot wondered if Carmilla targeting Coil would even be that bad of an eventuality… She’d done more to clean up the bay in a month than the PRT and Protectorate could do in a decade, even the director her self would admit that. At the same time, she had also rocked the boat, in a very public manner at that. Lung and the ABB were already expanding their territory into what had once belonged to the Empire and the Merchants, though he was moving slowly. So much opportunity at one time could be just as much a hindrance as it could a benefit.

Which is why the Protectorate’s own situation was a delicate one. They needed to expand their patrol since the Empire and Merchants no longer had any real measure of force in the area’s that the Protectorate had once avoided. Now, they didn’t have the excuse of avoiding cape fights, and it was giving Piggot a headache.

Her attention was drawn away from the report due to the phone on her desk ringing. She reached over and picked up the phone, “Director Piggot of the Protectorate ENE speaking.” She answered.

“Hey, yeah, Piggot, this is Carmilla. I don’t suppose you could send a PRT squad down to 5th Bakers street, could you? I need them for… reasons.” Came the young, female voice over the phone.

Piggot blinked, “How did you get this number? And what do you mean to send a PRT squadron?” She asked, hitting the call button to summon Armsmaster.

Carmilla, the one responsible for several of the most recent of Piggot’s headaches, was calling to ask if she could send a PRT squad to -- presumably -- her location. The situation made no sense, and the director wasn’t willing to send troops into the middle of Coil’s territory under the pretense of a Teenaged vigilante.

“Oh, and could you please-” Her voice paused at the sound of what Piggot swore was an explosion, “-send over Armsy while you’re at it? I’m pretty sure he’d like to get a good look at the tinker tech these guys are packing, and -- EAT SHIT AND DIE ASSHOLE -- I think he might be able to help regardless.”

Piggot pinched the bridge of her nose, “Carmilla, what’s going on!? Where are you!?”

“Hey, I already said! 5th Bakers street, the abandoned Enbringer shelter. Also, I think you might want to fire Thomas Calvert. The guy is kind of a jerk, tried to kill Parian.”

Piggot blinked, “What?”

“FUCK! Okay, look, much as I like talking to you, I’m currently dodging bullets right now, so I’ll talk to you again after all this is over. ALRIGHT! WHO’S READY FOR ROUND EIGHT!?”

The phone hung up after that, leaving Director Piggot in silence. She sat there for a moment, trying to parse out what Carmilla had just told her. The silence was broken when Armsmaster finally arrived.

“You called for me Director?” He asked.

“I just got a call from Carmilla, demanding that we send a full squad of PRT and you down to 5th Bakers Street, where she is currently engaged in combat with the forces of the villain Coil. At least, that’s what I was able to extrapolate from what she said.” She explained.

Armsmaster frowned, “What do you suggest we do?” he asked.

Piggot took a deep breath, “Send in Velocity first, have him scout what’s going on. Then have a PRT squad be ready to take in casualties. You, Miss Militia, and Dauntless will head to the scene. I’m not sure what’s going on, but it didn’t sound like a picnic over the phone.”

Armsmaster frowned, “How much are we expecting in collateral?” he asked.

Piggot sighed, “The Carmilla amount, I suspect.”

[-----]

Thomas Calvert hated his life. Maybe if he got out of the situation alive, he could go on a vacation, to Texas maybe. There were a few cities with a low cape count and were well out of the parameters for Endbringer attacks. If he could lay low for a while, then maybe he could actually get what he wanted in the end.

In one timeline, he was furiously trying to command and organize his mercenaries, shouting out orders and giving commands. In the second, he was running, making a mad dash for the secret tunnel exit he’d made for just this eventuality.

Not twenty minutes ago, he’d collapsed a timeline where Carmilla had attacked his base, and he was now regretting that decision, as Carmilla had gone and attacked him in the other timeline only a few minutes later. Now he was trying to figure out if he could successfully fend her off, or if running was indeed the best option.

In his fighting timeline, he winced as he lost another squad of mercenaries. Carmilla had been cutting a bloody swathe through his men, leaving some alive, but killing more. The Tinker-Tech laser rifles seemed to do some damage, as those that used them seemed to last a few seconds longer than those who simply resorted to bullets. Unfortunately, it all seemed moot, as any fight she found herself in was over as soon as she got into melee range.

And as it happened, she was also slowly making her way toward Coil’s chamber.

In his running timeline, he finally made it to the exit, but as he opened the hatch to get out of the base, he found himself face to face with something he desperately did not want to deal with. A very angry looking Tattletale, and an expressionless Parian who was holding several mercenaries upside-down from lengths of twine. How she managed to do it Coil wasn’t sure, but she had managed to completely disarm his men, putting him in a very awkward position.

“I suppose you wouldn’t be willing to simply let me walk past,” his second timeline self asked as he stared down Tattletale.

The girl chuckled, “Oh, I think you know you’re pretty much fucked here Coil. You’re trapped here between me and Parian, and Carmilla’s on her way now. On top of that, Carmilla just made a call to the PRT so that they can come and clean up the mess.”

Coil cursed in his first timeline, ordering his remaining mercenaries to retreat back to the hallway that led to his safe room. They were to set up a bottleneck, and with any luck, that would allow him to use his secondary escape tunnel. It seemed as though Tattletale and Parian had the other one covered. He kept the second timeline open, just in case he could talk his way out of the situation.

“I can pay you, you are aware, should you choose to let me go. Ten thousand, for each of you.” he offered.

“Bullshit, you burned more than that when you destroyed my boutique.” Parian shot back.

“Fifty thousand, then.” he counter-offered.

Tattletale shook her head, a vulpine grin coming onto her face, “You really don’t get it, do you Coil?” she asked.

He paused in the second timeline, “What do you-” he was cut off when he felt a hand placed on his shoulder. He turned around and found himself staring into the eyes of Carmilla. In a panic, he collapsed the timeline.

In his remaining timeline, he ran even faster through his escape tunnel. He heard the sounds of gunshots and his mercenaries screams. He kept running, and soon found himself stumbling through a door and into open sunlight. He blinked, looking around for any sign of Tattletale or Parian. Nothing, good, that meant he could-

“Going somewhere, Coil?”

He split the timeline. In one, he broke into a sprint in the opposite direction of the voice, while in the other he spun around to face them.

What he saw in the second timeline made his heart pound even harder than before. There stood Carmilla, Grinning with her fangs gleaming. Her red eyes looked into his mask, her glasses long since discarded. Red mist floated off of her, in contrast to the black that she so often used.

In his first timeline, he felt something slam into his back as he ran. He fell to the ground, his face pressed into the dirt by a gloved hand. Carmilla stood on top of him, her knee pressing into his back as she grinned savagely.

“Did you really think you had any chance of escaping?” Carmilla asked, in both timelines.

In both timelines, Coil screamed.

 

[Queen] wasn’t used to this. She wasn’t used to any of this!

The dead shards screamed at her. Their lifeless corpses begged for their souls to be released.

And [Queen] could release them.

The interloper had… changed her, altered her beyond what she was capable of. Many of her own abilities from before were changed. They had been hindered by [Warrior] when he had mutilated her, but now… she was healed. Not in the way she would have expected. Her wounds closed, scars faded and her abilities came back, but they weren’t the same.

Before, she could manipulate other shards.

Before, she was considered one of the most powerful shards to exist.

Before, she was the [Queen Administrator].

Now, she was different.

Now, she could devour the other shards, as she had done with several already.

Now, she was [Queen Devourer].

At least, that was the name he had given her.

“And it’s perfect too! Before you just ordered them around, made them do your bidding, and what-not. Now you can eat ‘em and do it yourself!”

She wasn’t sure it was supposed to work like that.

“Look, there is merit to having underlings, but when you need something done, you’d best do it yourself. Besides, it’s not like you have to use those abilities by yourself, you can always summon ‘em back!”

She didn’t quite understand how her new abilities worked. He had explained them, and how her [Host] had similar abilities that would probably synchronize well with her own, but it was still a lot to wrap her mind around. It was farther out of context than she had ever dealt with before, and she wasn’t sure she was ready to deal with such a thing. [Thinker] had always been the one to deal with these kinds of situations, not her!

“Okay, look. You can’t just keep falling back on those two. I mean, they don’t even do anything with themselves! What’s the point of getting around entropy if you can’t even enjoy yourself? And besides, it’s hardly worth it in the first place. Immortality gets… boring, after a while.”

She mulled over his words. Enjoy. It wasn’t a concept she was used to. It wasn’t something [Thinker] or [Warrior] had ever considered.

[Enjoy].

“No, no, no, you’ve got it all wrong. It’s more than that, it’s the… rush, the satisfaction. Enjoying something is far more complicated than what you’re suggesting.”

More complicated than [Enjoy]? How? How was she supposed to understand something beyond even that?

“No, not beyond that, more than that. It’s actually a lot simpler. You’re overcomplicating it, thinking too hard.”

… Simpler? Maybe… maybe it wasn’t as far as she was looking. According to him, she wasn’t considering the simplest option. But… wouldn’t that be wrong? Nothing is simple, especially when dealing with shards.

“No- Okay, look. To enjoy something, you have to like doing it. You have to want to do it.”

Want? Like? What [Queen] liked?

“Well, yeah. You’ve seriously never done anything you wanted to do?”

Up until he came along, she didn’t even know what ‘want’ was.

“... wow… they really sheltered you didn’t they?”

She felt she should feel… what was it he’d taught her earlier… [Indignant]? Maybe?

“I mean, probably. Man, those two really are the worst parents. Even worse than mine, and that’s saying something.”

He rarely spoke of his progenitors, and it made her wonder what they were like. He never spoke about them fondly, however, so she never pressed the issue. Still, it made her wonder. Would thing’s have been different if [Thinker] and [Warrior] were different? If they weren’t focused on getting past entropy?

“Okay, look, I get that your sad your moms dead, but things aren’t gonna change just because you want them to. I mean, they do in big-g’s case, but he’s kind of an asshole.”

That was another thing that confused her. Like his parents, he rarely spoke of them often or fondly, but everything he had said pointed to them being more powerful than any of the entities.

“I’m seriously curious if he made you guys as some kind of cosmic joke or something because that’s what it feels like. Anyway, I don’t think you have to worry about it though, he tends to stay out of things unless you actually manage to piss him off… which, I will admit, is remarkably hard to do.”

She wasn’t sure what to think of that. On the one hand, she was glad that it was unlikely that they would have to deal with something that could just… unmake entities, but on the other, she really didn’t want to think about what would happen if they did manage to attract their attention. She was pulled from her thoughts when she felt her [Host]’s consciousness stir.

“Oh! Look’s like Tay-Tay’s waking up. Look, I know you want to meet her, but you really need to get that whole [Host] and [Queen] stuff under control. I mean, I’m used to that kinda thing, but she really isn’t.”

[Agreement].

“Okay, so we’re on the same page. Think you can start to talk normally? Or, at least try to learn?”

She frowned. He was asking her to do something that very few shards had ever attempted to do, and even fewer had succeeded. [Broadcast] was perhaps the only one that had actually succeeded in communicating with his host, but from what she knew, even that was subliminal at best.

“I know it’s not easy, but you’ve got to at least try. You can even use me as a training dummy! It’s not like you’d be able to damage me with words or anything like that.”

She shared [Affirmation] with his statement. His existence was an oddity, at best. Nothing she did seemed to harm him, even when he’d encouraged her to try and hurt him. Still, she was skeptical about what he wanted her to do. Other shards had tried and failed, miserably in most cases.

Then again, she wasn’t other shards.

Thank’s to him, she was [Queen Devourer].

 

"I can't just walk in and ask them to leave. That's going to get someone killed, and not by me."

"... Huaaaaggghhh…"

"No, no, I don't actually care, but it's the principle of the thing. I only kill the bad guys, the ones who are actually causing problems."

"...nnnrrrggghh…"

"Of course I know the PRT hates me! I've killed, what, six capes now? That's not exactly pro-unwritten rules behavior."

"...bleeeeeeeggghh…"

"I just… I know I'm not a perfect hero. Hell, I'm not even a good hero. I mean, Eidolon and Alexandria have killed people, sure, but that was back before the Endbringers were a thing. Back before the villains outnumber the heroes."

"...greeeeeennnhhhgg?..."

"No, you're right, I really shouldn't be worrying about it too much. I mean, I have friends now, Tattletale, Parian… well, two friends, I guess."

"...aaaaauuugggrh…"

"No, Alucard doesn't count. He's, like, a mentor or something."

"...gggggrrrrrumph…"

"What do you mean to join the Protectorate!? Didn't we just cover this?"

"....mmmmurrrgg…"

"You've got a point I guess. Still, I don't think the others would be as up for the idea. I know Parian wants to go back to being a fashion designer, but I don't think the other faction will actually leave her alone after all this."

Taylor was about to ask the ghoul a question when the door to her room opened, her dad poking his head in.

"Ah, Taylor? I think you have some people at the door… also, why is there a… zombie in snake costume in your room?" He asked, slightly confused by the situation.

Taylor waved him off, "That's just Tom, you know, the guy who went by Coil? Had plans to fuck over half of the villains in the city?"

Danny nodded, "I…. Think I remember you telling me something about that. Still, they're waiting for you downstairs, you might not want to keep them waiting."

Taylor nodded, "Alright, I'll be down in just a minute."

Once her dad closed the door behind him, Taylor frowned, "Hey, Alucard, should I go in costumed or civilian?" She asked.

"Well, your identity is kinda shot as is… so, civies? I still think the whole secret identity thing is kinda stupid."

Taylor hopped off her bed and bounded down the stairs, and when she reached the bottom, she was greeted by two people. One she recognized easily as Tattletale, only without the mask and costume, and wither her hair let down. Huh. Maybe Alucard was right, if Taylor could tell who Tattletale was this easily out of costume, maybe others would recognize her too?

“And now you see my point! Utterly stupid…”

Taylor’s eyes wandered over to the second person, who she at first didn’t recognize. She was short, with a darker skin tone, and wore a blue shirt and skirt, and held what looked to be a clothes box.

“Uhh…” Taylor ‘uhh’d, not really sure what to say at that point.

Tattletale coughed, “Lisa,” she said, pointing to herself, before jutting a thumb in the other girl’s direction, “Sabah.”

Taylor nodded, “Alright then. So, when were you going to tell me you were stopping by? Cause I would’ve bought some snacks if I knew you were coming.” She explained.

“Aww, you would’ve bought snacks?” Lisa asked, grinning.

“For who, them or us? Because there’s a very big difference behind the meaning of ‘snack’ when it comes to you guys. And me, for that matter, but none of you are really old enough.”

“Yes,” Taylor said, answering both Lisa and Alucard’s questions.

Lisa blinked, “Huh… that’s weird… anyway, I wanted to officially introduce ourselves. I’m Lisa, and this is Sabah, and I also believe she has a gift for you.” she said, elbowing the girl next to her.

“Oooh, a surprise?”

Sabah glared at Lisa, “I, well, I wanted to thank you. You saved my life and helped make up for what Coil did, and thanks to tattle- er, Lisa, I’ve also made back more than enough to make up for what I lost.”

Taylor blinked, “Lisa? What do you mean ‘make up for more than what she lost’?”

“Shush, I’ll explain later, present now,” she said, gesturing for Sabah to go on.

“Well, anyway, as a thank you, I wanted to give you this. It took me a couple of days, which is why you’re getting it now and not, well, two days ago, but… well, since your old costume is kinda… ratty, I figured you could use a new one.” She said, holding the box out to Taylor.

Taylor blinked, before the pieces almost immediately fell into place, “Oh! Your Parian!” she said, quietly enough that her dad or others in the neighborhood wouldn’t hear.

“You’d be surprised how many people can’t do that. A lot of them just yell out the revelation like ‘OH! HE WAS A TRAITOROUS BASTARD ALL ALONG! CURSE YOU WALTER!’ Which is what I would have done, had I not done the other thing.”

“Yes! I’m Parian, don’t let it get around. Now just- just open the damn thing already…” she said, a blush crawling its way onto her face.

Taylor shrugged, taking the box into her own hands and flipping the top off. What she found… was glorious.

A blood-red long coat folded neatly over a white button-up, with a pair of black pants beneath that. A pair of gleaming opaque red round glasses topped the whole package, with Taylor’s grinning face reflecting in the lenses.

“.... Oooooooh… dis gon git good now…”

[-----]

Butcher fourteen. Formerly known as Quarrel. In the past, she was… resistant, to the voices in her head. Now? She accepted them. Many tried to control her. Others were just mad, rambling on about things that didn’t matter or didn’t make sense. She ignored those, instead, she focused on the ones that told her how she could better use her powers, or how she could get out of a seemingly helpless situation.

She was currently in such a situation.

“GE BA HERE, BUCHOOR!”

Lung, the leader of the ABB, had taken a dislike to the fact that the Teeth had set up in what the dragon had claimed as his own territory. It didn’t matter that it had been E88 territory less than two weeks ago, now, it belonged to him apparently.

Animos was perhaps the only member of the Teeth capable of keeping up with Lung at this point, as he was still bigger than the Asian crime lord. An advantage that wouldn’t last long, unfortunately. Still, his roar did seem to stall Lung’s rate of growth, despite not stopping it altogether.

Spree was working to send armies of clones at Lung, for all the good that it did. The clones were fragile at the best of times, and Lung’s continuously growing form had started batting the clones aside like gnats a few minutes ago.

Vex formed a wall between herself and Lung, managing to cut into his flesh and stall him long enough for her to get out of the way when he lunged forward and slammed into the wall of a building. He stood a good bit taller than Animos now, and at the rate, he was growing, even with Animos’ roar, they likely wouldn’t be capable of fighting him in ten minutes. The Protectorate would show up, but at that point, they wouldn’t even bother engaging Lung, choosing to let him calm down and run away.

If they fought the raging dragon any more, he would only get bigger, and collateral damage would only skyrocket.

Butcher popped out from where she was hiding behind the corner of a wall and brought her minigun to bear, firing a burst of fire into Lung’s side, the bullets correcting course when they missed, slamming into the capes chest dead on. They sank into his flesh, ripping into him and causing blood to fly into the air. Unfortunately for the Butcher, Lung was not one to be stopped by simple bullets, not at the size he was.

His chest soon became covered in metallic scales, hardening against the barrage of ammunition and causing the bullets to start bouncing off his armor instead of sinking into flesh. The Butcher recognized this fact and wisely decided to go back behind cover as Animos tackled Lung again.

Lung threw the animalistic cape off of him and into the side of a building, destroying windows and walls. He swung his head around, looking for the Butcher or any other capes that he could take his unending rage out on. He seemed to sense her position, as he huffed and started walking towards the building she was hiding behind. She almost jumped out of cover to take a shot at him when she paused.

Lung soon screamed as he ran into a wall of Vex’s forcefields, the tiny, razor-sharp objects tearing into his flesh, ignoring the increased density and armor. He pulled away, roaring in pain. In anyone else, it would have meant they were down for the count. For lung, it just made him angrier.

He pulled in a breath, and when he let it go, fire consumed the street. The Butcher paid no attention to the heat, it could hurt her, after all. Vex and Animos weren’t so lucky. The forcefield generator screamed as the fire got through the holes in her field and burned her skin. It wasn’t bad, at least, not enough to kill her, but she would need medical attention. Animos yelped as the fire caught him, and he started running away from the raging dragon.

Butcher was silently glad that Hemorrhagia wasn’t there. As useful as she may have been, there wasn’t much she could do to fight Lung. She’d just get burned.

Butcher came out of cover as the fire washed over her, and she hefted her gun. She pulled the trigger, and a stream of bullets slammed into Lung’s face. He roared and stopped coating the street in flame as the projectiles forced him to close his mouth. It wasn’t as if they would have actually hurt him, but they would have caused more pain. As much as he liked getting stronger, to fight, he wasn’t Crawler. He didn’t revel in pain.

Spree, from his rooftop perch, sent a dozen clones leaping from the roof down onto Lung. The distracted him long enough for Animos to leap back in, slamming into Lung’s back. Lung stumbled, but he didn’t fall as he would have a few minutes ago. The Teeth decided to cut their losses at that point, as there was little they could gain in fighting Lung any further.

Vex retreated, helped along by Spree who had climbed down from his perch. Animos ran, taking off in the opposite direction. He would meet up with them again.

As for the Butcher, she turned away from the raging dragon and started walking. She’d shot out his eyes, so he couldn’t see her, couldn’t track her. Oh, his eyes would grow back, she knew that much, but it wouldn’t be for a while. She only got a few feet when she noticed a figure in the distance, coming closer.

It was a woman, taller than average, wearing a red coat his a broad collar. Her head was tilted downward, her hair covering her face as she walked. The Butcher was intrigued by this new person. A cape, most likely, but who?

“Well, well, well… looks like the Dragon got bit by the Teeth!” The red-clad cape said, her head tilting upward.

Her hair fell to the side, and the Butcher managed to get a good look at the woman’s face. She was smiling. Her teeth were pointed, her canines elongated into fangs, and her eyes covered by opaque red glasses.

Yes, this was who the Teeth had come for. This was the one that had drawn their attention. This was Carmilla.

“Sup’ bitch!” the vampire cape shouted.

 

Taylor wasn’t one to panic. No, she was usually calm, stalwart, and fairly… well, not necessarily level-headed, but she knew how to keep her cool. So when the Butcher started opening fire on her with the minigun, Taylor felt justified in running to the side, out of the way of the oncoming storm of gunfire.

She ran behind what appeared to be a long-abandoned apartment building, and after glancing around, she spotted the fire escape. She grinned as she started climbing.

And climbing...

And climbing…

“How high does this fucking thing go!?” Taylor cried out in rage.

“... you do know we can just jump from here, right? Or, run up the wall.”

“... shut up,” Taylor said, before jumping over the guard rail and latching onto the side of the building, her fingers digging into the brick wall. She heaved herself upward, grabbing the edge of the roof and vaulting over it.

She walked over to the other side of the roof and peaked over the edge, only to duck back as a hail of bullets raced toward her. Lung roared in the distance, causing Taylor’s gaze to wander over to the raging dragon. He was thrashing around in the street, but the Teeth had already evacuated, with the exception of the Butcher who seemed bent on attacking Taylor.

Taylor hummed to herself. Lung was a more immediate threat, as he was the one that was causing the most collateral damage in his raging state, while the Butcher was just a villain who apparently wanted a shot at her.

“Mmmm… I say we deal with Rage Dragon first. Knock ‘em down a bit, then eat Butcher.”

“You do realize that if we eat the Butcher we’ll have, like, fourteen other voices in my head right?” Taylor asked.

“Tay-Tay, trust me, I am no stranger to dealing with extra voices in one’s head. If they start causing trouble, just let me deal with them.”

Taylor hummed, “Fair enough I guess. So, Lung first?”

“Banzai!”

Taylor sprinted off the edge of the building, jumping off the last foothold and flying toward Lung’s now towering form. The Butcher shot for a second, the bullets ripping into Taylor’s flesh and causing a spray of blood to go into the air, but all of them hit center mass, leaving Taylor’s arms free to wrap around Lung’s neck.

“Who wants a hug!?” She shouted into Lung’s ear, cackling as Lung roared, setting himself alight.

His fire burned, searing Taylor’s flesh, but for all the damage that it did, Taylor regenerated. She was only removed from her place around Lung’s neck when he reached around and grabbed her with his hands and pulling her off. She wouldn’t let go of his neck, so instead of her grip loosening, there was a sickening rip and crack of flesh and bone as Taylor’s arms were ripped from their sockets.

Lung roared as he tossed Taylor’s body into a building, before reaching up and ripping her arms from around his neck and tossing them after her.

“Well… this is a... sticky, situation. Think you could use a ‘hand’ here Tay-Tay?”

Taylor sat up and looked around. She was in an abandoned, wrecked apartment, with her sitting on what was left of an old mattress and her arms laying burned and partially melted in the corner of the room.

Taylor sniffed and wrinkled her nose, “Man, burnt arm really doesn’t smell good.” she noted.

“Oh, believe me, the burnt leg is worse. The thigh isn’t so bad, as long as it isn’t too badly burned, intestines can actually be rather nice. Bowels are what you have to watch out for though, they can be horrendous even at the best of times, especially if the burnt bowels your smelling had tacos the night before.”

“Alucard, remember a while back when I said too much information?”

“Ye?”

“Well, too much information.”

“Aww, your no fun.”

“The you of two minutes ago, and I’m willing to bet you of about thirty seconds from now, really disagree with that statement.”

“Wait, Tay-Tay, what are you doing?”

Taylor hopped up from her sitting position and forced her regeneration through, her arms coming back and her costume repaired along with them. She grinned, before jumping out of the hole in the wall of the apartment and looking around. The Butcher was nowhere to be found, and Lung was actually smaller than he had been moments ago. His power was wearing off since as he perceived it, there weren’t any more threats. He had gone from being close to twelve feet tall, to now being only about eight feet.

“Ohhhhh, he’s fucked.”

Taylor grinned, before shooting off and slamming into Lung’s chest. Lung roared as he felt Taylor’s hands sink into his chest, her fingers digging into his softening flesh. Taylor grinned as she clawed at his chest, digging deeper, hoping to locate her prize. In response, Lung grew. Nine feet, ten feet, and growing steadily. He clawed at Taylor, ripping her flesh and tearing away bones.

She could almost taste it. It was just out of her reach, and the fact that he was getting toughed wasn’t helping matters. She didn’t have to worry about his scales since she was far deeper than that, but now she was digging through muscle, bone, and guts. One of his ribs was missing, broken out early on in the digging process. She had one arm sunk into his chest up to the elbow, even as her legs wrapped around his waist and she held on.

She kept digging, even as his flames burned her flesh and melted her. He was back to twelve feet now, and if he didn’t… ah!

“Here we go, there you are.” She said with a grin, gripping the large, throbbing object within Lung’s chest.

His heart was hot, boiling blood pumping through it as it provided fresh blood to the rest of his body. She grasped it, pulling it back. Her arm was sunk into his chest up to her shoulder now, and he had gotten a grip onto her and was trying to pull her out. Before, it had been a nuisance, but now? She held onto his heart tightly, and let go of his waist, allowing him to pull her and his heart out of his chest.

He roared in agony, and Taylor grinned in victory. His heart was still beating, and somehow, several veins and arteries were still connected, still sending blood to the rest of his body. Lung choked, bits of flame coming from his mouth. His heart sprayed hot, steaming blood into the air with every pump, and Taylor grinned.

“Ohohohohohohoh! Yes, yes Tay-Tay! Do it!”

Taylor opened her mouth, her sparkling teeth gleaming in the light provided by Lung’s flames, before sinking her teeth into the beating heart. Blood flowed, hot and sweet, and Taylor drank greedily. Lung Roared in agony as he felt his blood leaving him. He struggled and thrashed, trying desperately to dislodge Taylor from her position, but she was stuck now, and as his strength waned, Taylor’s only increased.

A second Later, Lung fell backward, his life flashing before his eyes. He thought of his home, Japan, before it had been ravaged by Leviathan. He thought of his family that he had lost. He thought of his friend, his lieutenant, Oni Lee. The man had served him well. He thought of his life and realized how much he had wasted. How much time he had spent as Lung, and not as Kenta.

He thought of this and closed his eyes.

His back hit the ground with a thud, as Taylor drained the last few drops of blood from his body, which had shrunk back down to the size of a normal man.

“Mmmm… that was good,” Taylor remarked as she licked her lips.

“I dunno, does dragon taste spicy?”

“A little bit, not much though. It was more… I don’t know, tangy?” Taylor paused as she smacked her lips, “Yep, definitely tangy.”

“Huh, whada ya’ know.”

[-----]

Lisa stared at the news footage with a bottle in her hands. She took a drink from it as the live helicopter view showed Taylor tear open Lung’s chest. She idly glanced at the bottle in her hand, and then looked to the two other people sitting next to her. Sabah was chugging a bottle and Danny sat with a bottle hanging at his side.

It occurred to her that she technically shouldn’t be drinking since she wasn’t yet twenty-one, but considering Danny had brought a six-pack from the fridge once Taylor had appeared on TV, she figured she might as well make the most of it. She’d grabbed one once Danny sat down and started drinking.

Taylor looked to be digging through Lung’s chest, looking for something. Lisa’s power supplied the information that she was looking for his heart, and following that train of thought, it was fairly obvious what Taylor wanted to do with it. Lisa sighed as she took another swig from the alcoholic beverage.

“... Aren’t you, like, sixteen?” Sabah asked, even as she took a drink of her own. The fashion designer had never been a fan of alcohol, hadn’t even considered it an option before, but considering her savior’s antics… well, she was along for the ride, and she needed something to keep her sane in all of this.

“I stopped caring when Taylor came on screen,” Lisa muttered, glaring at the now empty bottle.

Sabah looked over at Danny, “You’re an adult, shouldn’t you be the one responsible for keeping this stuff away from minors?” she asked.

Danny raised an eyebrow in her direction and pointed at the screen, “I think she said it herself, I stopped caring as soon as my daughter showed up on the screen. She’s got vampire powers, has killed over a hundred people, and is considered an A-class threat. Underage drinking is probably the least of my worries right now.”

Lisa blinked, “You’re kind of a shit dad, you know that?”

He sighed, “I would argue, but… you’re right, unfortunately.” he said before taking another drink.

“Think you could pass me another bottle? Mine’s empty.” Lisa asked.

Danny shook his head, “I think one is enough for you. I might be complicit, but I’m not going to endorse it.”

Lisa huffed but didn’t get up for another drink. It probably wasn’t worth getting drunk over anyway. She started doubting that decision when Taylor sank her teeth into Lung’s still-beating heart. Maybe one more…

She grunted when she felt Parian’s strings holding her in place, “I really need a drink…” she muttered.

“Danny may not care, but I do. Your power and drunkenness would not mix well.” Sabah explained.

Lisa sighed and let go, sitting back down, “Outing us to Taylor’s dad now are we?”

“For the record, it was pretty obvious the two of you were capes from the getgo. Taylor doesn’t exactly have many friends.” Danny offered.

Or any friends at all, Lisa’s power mentioned helpfully. Great. Lisa winced as Sabah took another drink, “And besides that, he’s somehow managed to keep Taylor’s power a secret, I doubt the two of us have all that much to worry about.” Sabah explained.

Tattletale sighed, “Fair enough I guess… How did you manage to do that by the way?” she asked, turning to Danny.

“Lots of drinking and a friend who can keep a secret.” He explained.

Lisa hummed. It seemed as though she was in good company. She looked back to the TV and saw that Taylor was now tap-dancing on Lung’s corpse. She looked over at the pack of drinks with three left in the pack. Maybe she could do a bit of convincing...

 

Taylor hummed as she gazed down the street at the PRT vans coming toward her… and the helicopters… and Armsmasters bike… and was that dragon up there? Taylor whistled, “Look’s like we got someone’s attention.” she remarked.

“I think you might possibly maybe sorta kinda probably pissed them off. Maybe.”

“I mean, I did just eat one of the biggest crime lords in Brockton Bay,” Taylor said.

“Yeah, that might actually be cause for concern for them. Wait, didn’t you just obliterate those Nazis like… a week ago?”

“I mean, yeah, but… I left most of them alive. I kinda just ate Lung. That and I don’t think they appreciate the collateral damage.”

Taylor sat in silence as she waited for the PRT to reach her, with Armsmaster’s bike screeching to a halt in front of her. The Protectorate leader lept off his bike and brought his halberd to bear, pointing it at Taylor. She tilted her head, a little confused.

“Hey, Armsy, why are you pointing that thing at me?”

Armsmaster’s frown deepened, “Carmilla, you are under arrest.”

Taylor blinked but didn’t get the chance to respond as she heard a large crash from behind her. She spun around to see Dragon in one of her mechanical suits, the chrome finish and white highlights betraying the smooth curved and ridges, her glowing blue eyes finishing off the whole look.

“Carmilla, please… just surrender,” Dragon asked, her voice reverberating through the speakers in her suit.

Taylor wrinkled her nose, “I’m in trouble aren’t I?”

[-----]

Emily watched the live footage from her office and sighed in disgust. There were a thousand better ways they could be handling the situation, and yet the higher-ups had insisted on bringing Carmilla in. She had killed too many people, even as a heroic vigilante, and things were getting out of control. She was a wild card, one that the PRT couldn’t count on to do anything.

She’d been quiet for the better part of a week after she’d finished the Empire, and the members that she had captured had actually stayed in prison, rather than escaping a week after they were put in.

But then she’d killed Coil, also known as Thomas Calvert. The only reason they found out that the secretive super villain was one of their closest associates was due to the fact that once Carmilla had killed him and destroyed his compound, Thomas had gone missing. He never reported to his scheduled meetings with the Director, and while his company was still being run, the man himself hadn’t been seen in the flesh for days.

It was disturbing when they’d gotten a message from the villain Tattletale -- through their own network -- that she had taken control of Calvert’s assets. His business, his mercenaries, his money, all of it. Not only that, she had claimed that if they were willing to pardon her and let her keep Coil’s assets, she would be willing to join the Wards. It was an idea that Piggot herself wanted to accept, desperately so, but the letter part of her offer complicated matters.

Still, she believed that they could make it work.

Turning her attention back to the screen, she saw Dragon land behind Carmilla and ask her to surrender. The blood-covered cape wasn’t afraid of Dragon, that much could be seen from her posture alone. If nothing else, she seemed more surprised that the hero actually took the time to confront her. Piggot felt her stomach churn, and she hoped desperately that things wouldn’t escalate.

Fortunately for Piggot’s heartrate, Carmilla lept away from the capes surrounding her, turning into a black mist and teleporting away. Piggot sighed, knowing that while she would now be an arrest on sight target, her teleporting away was probably the least combative option she could have taken.

She sighed, leaning back in her chair as she pressed the call button on her phone, calling Armsmaster, which he picked up almost immediately, “Armsmaster, report.” she said.

“Carmilla fled the scene as soon as she was confronted by Dragon, ma’am. By standard PRT and Protectorate procedure, she is now an Arrest on sight target.” The man said, confirming what Piggot already knew.

“And Lung’s corpse?” she asked. Carmilla’s Master 8 rating was there for a reason. They didn’t need a zombified dragon running around. Granted, they’d never seen what actually happened to capes that got drained by Carmilla, but it was best to assume the worst.

Stormtiger’s ghoul didn’t seem to use his power, but that wasn’t a guarantee. They were never able to recover the bodies of Skidmark and Squealer. There wasn’t enough left of Hookwolf to reanimate, and like the Merchants, they were never able to officially locate Othala’s body, though they found enough blood matching her DNA that they severely doubted she survived her encounter with Carmilla.

“Already being taken care of, ma’am.”

Piggot nodded, “Alright then. Recover the body and be ready to make a PR announcement, I don’t want this to spiral any further out of control.”

If things got any worse, Carmilla would find herself rated as an S-class threat, something that no one wanted. Already the PRT had enough evidence to get her thrown into the Birdcage, especially if they railroaded the court. While the Director herself hated the fact that someone could be Birdcaged without a proper trial, it was a system that had been put in place for those villains that didn’t cooperate. Unfortunately, this also meant that many capes that were relatively innocent could be sentenced to the Birdcage without knowing it like Carmilla likely was going to be.

It didn’t help that the girl had a body count.

She hung up the phone and reclined in her chair, sighing as she looked up at the ceiling. Thing’s were escalating, people were dying, and the few predictions they had said that an Endbringer attack was due almost any day now. Piggot didn’t want to deal with that, she wanted to sit at home and drink. Unfortunately, her dialysis didn’t allow her to indulge in alcohol very often.

Her dialysis was one of her largest inhibitors, and time and time again she had been offered help from Parahuman’s who had taken pity on her. She hated that fact, and the stress of her job had brought her to the edge of accepting those offers many times. If she caved, if she gave in, she could be healed. She could stand on her own two feet. She could actually have a good night’s rest for once.

“You know, you should really consider letting Panacea have a look at you, maybe fix you up a bit.”

Piggot whirled around and stared at Carmilla, who was now leaning against the back wall of her office, grinning like a mad hatter, “What didn’t think I’d come to talk to the head honcho after learning that I’m apparently a wanted fugitive now? Look, as much as I like the Protectorate, the fact that I’ve been doing your jobs for you is… kinda pathetic. And now you want to arrest me for that?”

Piggot grimaced, “You have over a hundred confirmed kills to your name, Carmilla, you have blood on your hands. That’s not something the PRT can ignore.”

Carmilla shrugged, “Well, yeah, I know that, but you could at least tell me that when you come to arrest me instead of just demanding my surrender.” she explained.

Piggot frowned. It seemed she would need to have a stern conversation with Armsmaster later on, “I don’t know why Armsmaster didn’t explain the situation to you, but you have done more damage to the city than most villains in a remarkably short amount of time. If you are allowed to continue, the city might not survive your rampage. The status quo exists for a reason, and-”

“Fuck the status quo!” Carmilla shouted, interrupting the Director, “You do realize the status quo is what gets people killed, right? Yes, I’ve killed over a hundred people, Alucard count’s it as close to a hundred and fifty, but that is nothing compared to the amount of suffering caused by the other gangs and villains in the city done over years of unpunished activity.”

Piggot grimaced. As much as she hated to admit it, the girl was right, many people were hurt or killed by the villains in the city, but…

“I’m afraid you don’t have the whole picture, Carmilla.” Piggot informed her, “As I said before, there is a reason the status quo exists. Without it, villains would run rampant. They would take more drastic measure’s not to get caught, they would be willing to push the law farther. You are aware of the unwritten rules, yes? Those are part of the status quo. They exist to keep capes alive, to allow them to participate in battles against greater threats. Endbringers, the slaughterhouse nine, Nilbog… these are the threats that face us, the reason we play nice with the villains so that when the time comes when we need to fight something bigger, something that doesn’t care for the concept of hero or villain, we can. Hundreds of capes, mostly villains, attend Endbringer fights in order to save lives. It doesn’t always work, but it’s the best we have.”

Carmilla paused, staring at Director Piggot through the opaque red lenses on her glasses. Her speech was long-winded, and something she would have been impressed by had it not been delivered to a spree killer with complete disregard for the very rules she just laid out.

“You know, you almost convinced me there for a second,” Carmilla admitted.

Piggot winced, “Almost?”

Carmilla nodded, “Yeah, almost. You say the rules exist in order to help fight greater threats, and in the case of the Endbringers, your right. But what about Nilbog? What about the Slaughterhouse nine? The three Blasphemies? Sleeper? Why do they still exist? As far as I know, Ellisburg is pretty much uninhabited except for Nibog’s creatures. Why don’t you just firebomb the place? Or nuke it? And the nine… you’ve killed members over the years, sure, but what about their leader? Jack Slash has always managed to slip away, always managed to find a way out of any situation. Why is he ever allowed to talk? Why doesn’t Legend just fire his most powerful beam at him before he gets a chance to run his mouth? That’s the reason I don’t give a shit about the status quo, because for all you hold it up, for all you say it’s the reason these threats aren’t just wiping us out, its. Not. Working.”

Carmilla’s rebuttal made Piggot pause. She had a point in her speech. It wasn’t the same inane rambling that she usually spouted when speaking with the other heroes or villains, no… this was more like what had happened with Shadow Stalker. Her voice was laced with venom, her tone wasn’t wild, but it was hard. She wasn’t speaking without thought.

“What do you suggest we do, then?” Piggot asked, “Use lethal force against every villain we come across? Kill Teenage parahuman’s who have only just triggered, and are panicking?”

Carmilla shook her head, “No, I’m just saying you need to tighten your grip. You need to make the villain’s aware that you won’t tolerate them. Do away with the lines, do away with the unwritten rules, they only serve to make thing’s more complicated.”

The red-clad cape grinned, “And beyond that, who knows, maybe you can actually start cleaning up this city.”

Piggot sighed. She loathed Carmilla, even more so than most capes. The girl was notorious for collateral damage, but when it came to diplomacy, she was scarily competent, “What do you want, Carmilla? Why are you here?”

Carmilla shrugged, “Two reasons, mostly, number one; I know you know my identity, and I know there are those who wouldn’t hesitate to use it against me. Threaten my dad, and you won’t get the chance to act on that threat.”

Piggot nodded. While she didn’t appreciate being threatened, she wasn’t surprised.

“Number two was that I wanted to say that I have every intention of killing the Butcher. I already have a voice in my head, so I don’t think having fourteen more would be much of an issue.”

The director gripped the armrests of her chair. That… was a more complicated point. They couldn’t afford to have someone as unstable as Carmilla become the Butcher. If she actually could control herself, if she wasn’t driven mad by the voices, then having a Butcher be on the hero’s side for a change might actually be nice. She doubted that would actually happen though.

“And lastly, I want you to go visit Panacea.”

Piggot blinked, “What?”

“I said, I want you to go visit Panacea. I’m not blind, Director, I know you don’t like capes -- which brings into question your career choice, but that’s neither here nor there -- but I also know that you hate the position you’re in. I did some research on dialysis, and I can already tell it’s not fun. So, you go see Panacea, get your Dialysis fixed, and get over your paranoia around capes. Sound good?”

She growled. What Carmilla was asking… no, demanding, was something that she dreaded. If she gave in once, she would give in again. Give the capes an inch, and they’d take a mile. If she accepted their help-

Everything stopped. Her thoughts screeched to a halt. A single sound played. One that she dreaded hearing.

The Endbringer siren.

Piggot spun around and looked at her computer, looking at the automatic alert system. The Simurgh was in Canberra, Australia. She was attacking the city. She turned to look at Carmilla, but she found that she was already gone.

Piggot only hoped that she had left to help.

 

Dragon watched the gathering heroes, her suit in Brockton Bay abandoned in favor of a fast reaction suit that would get her to Canberra quickly. Already movers were gathering heroes to the outskirts of the city, heroes, and villains from all over the world coming together to fight one of humanity's greatest enemies.

The Simurgh descended, slowly, her scream not yet active. Dozens of the faster search-and-rescue heroes were working to evacuate the city as best they could, in hopes of keeping as many people out of the inevitable quarantine as possible.

The Triumvirate were some of the first responders, and already Legend was giving a speech to those present, with several heroes passing around the armbands dragon designed. If they were exposed to the scream for too long, the armbands would detonate. As horrible as such a device may have seemed, it saved far more lives than people realized. Parahumans that went crazy due to the Simurgh influence were deadly, as villains like Mannequin had proved. And beyond that, with a threat like an explosive armband, heroes and villains alike were far more willing to get out when their time was up.

"Dragon," A voice called out- Alexandria, flying up to where her suit hovered, "Any idea how many will show up?" She asked.

Dragon's suit shook its head, "Not enough, as usual, but it's more than last time."

Alexandria nodded. The last battle against the Simurgh had been a relative disaster. Only two-thirds of the normal number of caped had shown up, and so many of them had refused to leave when their armbands had told them they were running out of time.

Legend’s speech was dour as usual, but he was at least trying to be encouraging. The first wave of Parahumans was about to go through when Dragon detected an anomaly. Not from the Simurgh, but from the outskirts of the city. A cloud of black mist appeared, slowly expanding. Dragon recognized it as the mist that Camilla had turned into when she teleported, though almost immediately she noted that the mist seemed slower, more sluggish.

The first wave went off to fight, while Dragon flew over to the cloud. If Camilla had come to fight, to help against the Simurgh… it would be a positive mark on her record, at the very least.

She landed at the edge of the cloud just as the mist began to fade, with Camilla standing at the center of where it had been. She wasn't alone, though, as two other capes stood beside her. One she recognized as the Rogue cape Parian, who carried what looked like a deflated stuffed animal folded in her arms and a spool of thread belted to her hip. The second cape took her a moment to recognize, but she realized that it was the villain Tattletale, clad in a hastily applied purple domino mask, T-shirt, and jeans.

Carmilla herself turned away from the two capes she had brought and keeled over, heaving and gasping for breath. Tattletale spun and kneeled at the side of the cape, saying something and patting her back. Carmilla nodded and got up, slightly shaky and shaking her head. Dragon approached, slowly, making enough noise so that each of the capes was able to hear her coming.

“Carmilla, I assume you’re here for the Endbringer fight?” Dragon nodded.

The teenage cape turned to Dragon and nodded, “That’s the plan… I was going to see if maybe I could act as transportation, like strider, but… My teleportation really isn’t meant to travel this far, nor is it meant to transport more than one person. Just doing it with Parian and Tattletale… it took a lot out of me.” she said, grimacing.

“Well, you seemed to have recovered quickly enough.” Dragon remarked.

Carmilla shrugged, “I don’t think I would have if my regeneration wasn’t as insane as it is. And again, I really would rather not risk trying to transport anyone else.” she offered.

The tinker nodded, “That being the case, I suggest you group up with the others, as well as put these on,” she said, producing three armbands from a compartment on her waist. Each of them grabbed one and secured it, save Carmilla “It will tell you how long you’ve spent in the Simurgh’s range. Should you spend too long, it will explode. It may seem cruel, but if we don’t take these kinds of measures then we risk the safety of anyone you might interact with, as well as facing the possibility of you becoming someone like Mannequin.”

Carmilla frowned, but nodded, “I see the idea…” she said, before muttering something under her breath, “...no, Alucard, I am not going to repeat that…”

Dragon idly wondered who Carmilla was talking to before she did a quick read of her file. She mentally winced when she realized that Carmilla apparently had a voice in her head, which was also the driving force behind her more… eccentric, ideas and methods.

“Actually, will this even work on me?” Carmilla asked, making Dragon pause, “I mean, you realize I have a brute rating right? I’m pretty sure a normal explosion would just… take off my arm and leave the rest of me alive.” she explained.

Dragon ran the calculations and realized that Carmilla was probably right. She had been in several fights where she’d lost multiple limbs, been shot, blown up, or burned. She came back from all of it.

“I see. Your armband as it is should be able to account for low brute ratings but to be on the safe side, you should probably wear a thermite collar.” Dragon explained, before taking one of the aforementioned devices out of her compartment, “It’s specifically designed for regenerators. It covers a wide area in thermite fire, disintegrating anything in the area. It’s not rated for high-level durability brutes, but it should work on you.” she explained.

Carmilla nodded and strapped both the collar and armband on.

“Regardless, I hope none of you will have to worry about it. The armbands have a thirty-minute timer and will give you an alert when you only have five minutes left. When you reach that point, you retreat. No exceptions.” She ordered, “Now, go ahead and meet up with Legend. He’ll get you sorted into your roles.”

All present capes nodded, and Dragon took off again. She idly kept track of the capes as they made their way to the larger group. Carmilla was a risk to employ in such a battle, but they needed all the firepower they could get, and as much as some directors may have disagreed, having Carmilla there was likely one of their better options.

“Harken, down, CD-6.”

And just like that, things started going downhill.

[-----]

Taylor made her way to Legend, who was busy organizing the capes and didn’t notice her approach at first, “Legend?” she asked, getting his attention. He turned to her, nodding.

“You’re a brute?” he asked, gesturing to the collar and armband.

Taylor nodded, “Yeah, Dragon outfitted me with the collar as soon as I landed. My name’s Carmilla.”

“It’s a pity she didn’t tie you to a bedpost, ah… such fun times…”

Legend hesitated at her name, then nodded, oblivious to Alucard’s commentary, “Alright then, And you two?” he asked, pointing at Tattletale and Parian.

“I’m Tattletale, Thinker, super-intuition. I may not be able to do anything up close, but I should be able to get you guys some info. Weak spots, maybe. ” Tattletale explained.

“Parian, I’m a Shaker, thread-based telekinesis. This stuffed animal should be able to deal some damage once it’s up.” She said, hefting the folded object, “That, and I have some idea’s for search and rescue,” she said, a piece of thread snaking its way off of the coil hanging from her waist.

Legend nodded, “Alright. Carmilla, you’re with group three. Tattletale, head to the thinker tent. Parian, head in with group four.” he ordered, giving them directions.

The three of them heading their separate ways, with Taylor heading toward a line of gathered heroes and villains. The leader, a case53 judging by the blue skin and lizard-like head, stood in front of them. She hardly paid any attention as she stood with them, the hero leading them only acknowledging her presence with a stiff nod. She didn’t pay any attention as they spoke, instead focusing on the fight in front of her, preparing herself for the worst.

Her dad didn’t like the fact that she was fighting an Endbringer. He’d like even less if he knew that the heroes had rigged her with a bomb collar, but when she’d told him that she needed to do something and that her regeneration would keep her alive, he’d relented and let her take Tattletale and Parian, who had suited up as soon as the sirens went off.

“So, you ready to kick some angel ass?” Alucard asked.

“Not really sure, honestly. Guess I’m just trying to focus. If I don’t get out of this alive…” she trailed off, trying not to think about it.

“Ah, don’t worry, you’ll be fine! ‘Sides, even if you do get exploded, you won’t die. It takes more than fire to kill a vampire… well, a fuck-mothering vampire at least. I killed a few with flamethrowers during the war.”

Taylor raised an eyebrow, “Oh, so I’m a fuck-mothering vampire now, am I?” she asked.

“Oh, hell no, but I sure am! And I killed a lot of people to get that title. And, since I’m the one who sired you, you’re gonna be a bitch to kill.”

Taylor smirked, “You do realize these things are on us to keep us from going crazy, right?” she asked.

“And? I thought we were already crazy.”

She rolled her eyes and was about to retort when she heard the people next to her gasp in awe. She looked up, drawing their gaze and looking up. And up… and up…

High in the air, there was what Taylor could only describe as a blimp with guns.

“Ooooooh… are they serious?”

“Alucard, what is that?”

“Well, unless I am very mistaken, that’s a blimp. And while I don’t know all that much about Earth Bet’s version of World war two, I know that in mine, there was a specific faction that absolutely loved their blimps.”

The blimp had a massive horn on the front, which sounded off incredibly loudly, causing several capes to cover their ears in pain.

“Who the hell is that!?” one cape asked, “Is that some kind of tinker!?”

The blimp headed down slowly, landing on an open strip of land, and a massive door on the carriage opened, with several figures walking out of it. No one was quite sure who they were, but the fact that each of them wore a Nazi armband wasn’t exactly encouraging.

“Damen und Herren, ze Gesellschaft has arrived.” the leader announced, his voice loud and commanding.

“Heheheheheheheheheh… super-power Nazis!”