Taylor Hebert Just Wants A Quiet Life (Worm Altpower)

Well, this came quickly.

Wonk.


3.1



The band on my left arm continued announcing names, downed or dead as I advanced towards Leviathan’s position, Elizabeth- or rather, Starkregen- having “ferried” me along with me atop a thrown piece of concrete to an approximate position near the reptilian beast. I was fairly confident that I could end Leviathan, but first I needed to get close enough. Skitter would be entirely useless- her explosions were heat based and Leviathan gave off little to none that was visible through her eyes.


The rain buffeted me as I rushed closer, pushing every last bit of my physiology to the fullest as I came within sight of Leviathan. I could barely see past my own mask, such was the density of the rain, yet I locked onto the beast with no trouble. My palms itched furiously and my heart raced, filling my ears with the pounding of blood. As I ran, my hands clenched into claws, with a distorted screech whining in my ears as I flexed my power and reached behind me, into the hidden pouches along the back of my skirt and pulled out a fistful of coins.


I didn’t head for Leviathan, but rather I ran past it, legs blurring from the speed as I circled around and around, flinging coins and detonating them immediately after, disintegrating everything in their radius as I slowly pockmarked its skin with pits of oozing ichor. I froze and skidded to a halt as it turned and faced me. At that moment, I felt fear.


My blood turned to ice, feet to lead, mind to mush as I tried and failed to think of any situation where this would not turn out horribly. I almost missed Leviathan’s tail swinging at me, whip-cracking through the sound barrier and just barely missing me as I threw myself into the six inch deep swamp of water flooding the streets, only to be buffeted into a wall by the accompanying water shadow. Something on my arm cracked almost as loudly as my head, and my vision swam as the water around me tinted red.


I saw Leviathan approach, dashing along with a speed I could barely hope to match along a collision course for… for- me! My mind snapped back into focus with a surge of adrenaline. I couldn’t dodge to the sides, and to my back was a wall. What could I do, what could I do?


Up!


I leapt, kicking off of the wall behind me as I surged up and over and-


Slammed straight into the open palm of Leviathan as it caught me and squeezed. The pressure burned, my lungs even more as its water shadow surrounded me and the pressure drove the air from my lungs. My body was tough, I knew, but it wouldn’t last long. Not at this rate.


Wait!


There! Embedded in one of the holes! The last charged quarter I threw!


I desperately pressed the button over and over to no avail, nothing was happening why was nothing happening air I needed air! I kicked and thrashed, not even moving an inch as my bones popped and cracked and- air! Falling, falling out of the beast’s grip as it was thrown away by a blur of green and I hit the ground with another crack, only this time, everything went black.


~~~~~~


As soon as my eyes opened in the triage tent, Panacea standing over me with a haggard look on her face, I sprung out of the cot I had been dumped on and rushed out, disregarding my half shattered mask, disregarding the rips and tears in my outfit, disregarding my own exhaustion as I unleashed Skitter and grabbed her as she flew past, carrying me off to where my (new) armband told me Leviathan was. Around me, capes fought and fell, got back up or ran. Far away, the bay wall was holding but not for long. The tidal waves slamming into it saw to that. I breathed, clearing my mind of the icy fear that gripped my soul and looked out with nothing but calm, intense focus.


I had a plan, but it would require precise timing.


As I let go of Skitter, I had her loop around, just barely skimming off of the attacks of various blasters as she built up her heat reservoir. I stood on a rooftop, watching Leviathan, waiting for the perfect moment. I picked up a broken chunk of concrete, flung around by the action below, and squeezed it, shattering it into a more aerodynamic form as I filled it with the most massive charge I could. I felt exhausted. My breathing came heavy, my shoulders felt like lead, and my eyes could barely see more than blurs and flashes of light. But that didn’t matter.


I could not fail.


I would not fail.


If I failed, Elizabeth would surely die. My father would die. The city would die.


I.


Would.


Not.


Fail.


“Now!” I cried to myself as I felt Skitter’s reservoir top out, her entire shell glowing white hot from the heat bleeding off. With a mental command, I engaged the thrusters in her back shell to full power, filling the sky with a streak of blue light as Skitter slammed straight through Leviathan’s water shadow, embedding an inch into its flesh and-


I covered my eyes, but the flash still blinded me. Even through the rain, the blast still deafened me. But I threw. I threw the chunk of concrete- I threw my bomb with deadly accuracy, taking advantage of the momentary hole blown into the water shadow to strike Leviathan with the bomb and detonate, transferring the charge to the beast and letting it cascade through with lethal power.


I opened my eyes and watched, watched as Leviathan rippled and flashed, flesh sloughing off and disintegrating into ash, washing off into the rain in layers upon layers upon layers. At a certain point, the charge’s progress became uneven, slipping deeper in some areas and causing Leviathan to bulge unnaturally, flesh bubbling and boiling away as it thrashed and flailed. The rain poured down like the fist of an angry god, but it was weaker. The sky was clearing. I heard my armband announce that the waves were no longer coming.


I saw the last of Leviathan vanish and Skitter fade back away into my left hand.


And only then did I let myself fall into that deep, dark blackness that called to me.

 

Man, fuck this chapter. It just didn't wanna write.



3.2


Quiet conversation stirred me from my rest. I kept my eyes closed, though, as I could not recognize any of the voices as either Lisa nor Elizabeth. I listened intently, drawing information as the three- no, four voices continued.


“Just because she killed Leviathan doesn’t excuse the fact that she’s potentially the cape we’ve been looking for this whole time.” The first voice was somewhat nasal, with a quiet authority behind it that spoke of far too much experience. A woman, by the sound of it.


“That’s just the thing, though. If she really is as murderous as we previously thought, why step in at all? Why not just skip town and let Leviathan destroy Brockton Bay?” The second voice was male, deep, and accompanied by a quiet whirring as he shifted around.


“We can’t bank on her having any sort of good will. You’ve seen the footage of her in action. She doesn’t seem to have any kind of mercy. Even if we can’t do anything to her because of the Truce, who’s to say that she’ll even adhere to it?” The third voice was another woman, with a voice that almost reminded me of the first, but with some quality I couldn’t quite place in it.


“Enough. She killed Leviathan, and she explicitly only targeted criminals from what we’ve seen of her. While her methods are disagreeable, I doubt that she’s truly as psychotic as the evidence seems to suggest. In fact, why don’t we ask her now? I know you’ve been listening in, Queen. Or should I say, Taylor Hebert.”


My eyes immediately snapped open as I jolted upright and backwards, driving myself back on the cot until my motion was halted by the tug of cuffs on my wrists. I looked around and gulped. Armsmaster, Miss Militia, some woman in a PRT uniform- the Director based in Brockton, perhaps- and Alexandria herself. My throat felt dry. I shuddered as my breathing grew harsh. I clenched my fist and gripped the chain of my right hand cuff between my fingers.


“I... I just want to be left alone,” I muttered, gently tugging at the chain, only to stop when I saw Alexandria frown.


“There’s more to it than that, I assume,” she stated, arms crossed and towering over me like an obsidian monolith. I absentmindedly wondered just why the cot was so low, then turned back to more pressing matters.


“How do you know my name, anyway?” I asked, very brazenly ignoring Alexandria’s question in favor of finding out just why the hell my identity seemed to find its way into everyone’s ears these days. At least I knew that there was no one else in the medical tent besides the five of us.


“Facial recognition,” Armsmaster spoke up from the side, “your mask shattered when you fell, and we were able to match your face to the photo ID of one Taylor Hebert, enrolled in Winslow High School.”


What?


I blinked and realized that, yes, I couldn’t feel that weight on my face nor pressure on my skull that denoted the presence of my mask. Elizabeth was going to be devastated. Belatedly, I looked down and realized that my costume was gone as well, which was a whole different set of implications that I didn’t even want to think about. Though, strangely enough, I could still feel some sort of fabric around my eyes- a temporary mask?


I sighed and grumbled, “So what happens now? You throw me into the Birdcage for murder?”


“As much as the law and I would love to,” the woman who was presumably the PRT Director spoke up, sounding immensely bitter about everything in general but quite a bit more was directed at me, “public opinion would more dictate that you go free with the promise to do that to all the other Endbringers as well.” She paused and stared- more of a glare, really- at me.


Alexandria stepped between her and I and spoke once more, “As it is, we’d much prefer you on the side of the angels.” Without a second’s worth of hesitation, she extended her hand towards me and continued.


“In exchange for a full pardon for all the murders you may have committed, we ask in return your agreement to participate in any future Endbringer battles and to stop committing murders.”


What.


I took a moment to process this statement, eyes tracking over what little I could see of anyone’s faces- except for the Director, her face was completely exposed as she was not a cape- and deciding that, maybe, just maybe this wasn’t an attempt to royally screw me over.


Maybe.


“Before I make a decision,” I began as I used what little free range of motion I had in the cuffs to wave at the empty rest of the tent, “I’d like to confirm that my friends are, at the very least, safe. You may know them as Tattletale and Starkregen?”


Alexandria nodded and motioned at Miss Militia, “Miss Militia, would you go find them?”


“Yes ma’am,” Miss Militia nodded and left.


In the ensuing silence that followed, I couldn’t help but let my mind wander. Seeing the slightly disheveled states of Alexandria and Armsmaster, my mind was thrown back to my childhood, when I’d owned a collectible metal Alexandria lunchbox and an Armsmaster logo t-shirt. Both items were long gone, of course, lost to time and forgetfulness, but the thought of them distracted me from the present and kept me from thinking of just what might lie outside of the tent.


I had killed Leviathan.


An Endbringer.


A small part of me wept- my dream of a quiet, normal life was gone forever. I would be forever known as the girl who killed something that was thought to be unkillable. The amount of attention I had drawn to myself- or rather, my cape identity, perhaps- was astronomical. If I ever wanted to escape the fame that came with what I had done, I would need to move, maybe even never use my abilities again.


I knew that was all but impossible with how my own powers themselves forced me into murderous sprees of activity every so often. And with the internet existing, sooner or later my presence would be found.


I needed to consult-


“Queen! You’re awake!”


“She did call for us, remember?”


“Shut up, I’m excited.”


“Yeah yeah, now what’s up, boss?”


-Lisa and Elizabeth. Right on time.

 

Haha here we go.



3.3


“I refuse.”


Ignoring the shocked expressions on all of the assembled heroes’ faces (and the Director, whose name I learned was Emily Piggot), I continued on.


“I will continue killing Endbringers. That much is guaranteed. But for the rest of it, as Lisa or Elizabeth would say, go fuck yourselves.”


Alexandria stared, face hardened and impassive and I took a moment to realize that I had told the strongest Brute outside of Behemoth to go fuck herself. Then I realized that I didn’t much care.


“Excuse me?” she asked, retracting her hand and clenching it into a fist at her side.


Lisa spoke up, “You heard her. You and your strong-arming bullshit can go take a hike. You’ve got no leverage here.” She grinned in that wonderfully infuriating way and leaned on my shoulder as Elizabeth took up a guarded stance beside me.


“Indeed. I just killed Leviathan. Do you honestly think that anyone would act against me for fear of me not showing up to kill the next Endbringer?” I stood up, crossing my arms to mirror Alexandria as I stared her in the face. “But I am willing to compromise. In return for you all leaving me alone on a daily basis, I will graciously continue to participate in Endbringer battles. Additionally, I am willing to provide my services against any and all capes with kill orders against them.”


“And all you want is to be left alone?” Armsmaster asked incredulously. From his tone, I recognized that he clearly thought that not taking the spotlight and receiving the accolades was a fool’s choice.


“You heard her,” Lisa grinned, “just leave her alone and you can kiss every S class threat and the Endbringers all goodbye.”


Alexandria stared at me for a good long moment, and for a second I almost believed that she would try to attack me right then and there, but instead all she did was nod and turn away. “Very well, Queen. Expect a phone call within the next month about your assistance. I’ll contact the president for a suitable reward for your actions today.”


Without any further ado, she left, leaving the rest of them- Armsmaster, Director Piggot, and Miss Militia, to awkwardly slink out with muttered platitudes.


“Honestly, the thing I’m most surprised about is that they didn’t even notice when you blew up your cuffs when Elizabeth hugged you,” Lisa admitted, finally letting go of my shoulder and flopping down on my cot.


“Get off of that. It’s my bed. Get your own,” I mock glared at Lisa until she snickered and stood up, allowing me to lay back down. “Thank you.”


“Taylor?” Elizabeth asked hesitantly.


“Yes, Elizabeth?”


“... What happened to your costume?”


….


I sat up and looked around- the tent didn’t have much in it, just my cot, a folding chair in the corner, and a little black plastic tub with a lid on top.


“... I assume that they took it off of me for medical treatment. I believe that it might be in the tub over there, though I wouldn’t know for sure. Speaking of which, Elizabeth, are you alright?” I stared at her, looking her over and checking in vain for any sign of injury beneath her flowing robes.


“No no, I’m alright. Panacea healed me… she didn’t look very happy about it, but she healed me,” she said. I fought down the brief, involuntary urge to track down Panacea and give her a few scars for the perceived insult. It wouldn’t do to demolish the goodwill generated by killing Leviathan with hurting Panacea.


“Good. And you, Lisa?”


“I’m fine, didn’t even get hurt. Just stayed in a command tent the whole time,” she smirked and stretched, “Worst I got was cold and wet.”


I raised an eyebrow- she certainly didn’t look either of those things, but then again, I had no real sense of how long I had been unconscious.


“Speaking of which, how long was I unconscious? With the tents, it can’t have been more than a few days,” I mused, staring through the crack between the tent flaps and seeing nothing outside but grimy grays and browns of flooded road, mud, and more tents.


“It’s only been a few hours,” Elizabeth spoke up from where she’d gathered a bundle of fabric and leather- my costume- from the tub in the corner. “Everyone’s still riding the high of Leviathan’s death, so you’ve been mostly forgotten if you want to take this time to try and go home.”


“I can’t imagine how anyone could forget me with what I did,” I muttered bitterly as I stood once more, ignoring for the second time the feeling of mud squishing through my toes as I crossed the distance between Elizabeth and I, gathered my costume into my own arms, and gave Elizabeth a grateful peck on the cheek.


“What?” I asked as I turned around and saw Lisa staring. “Is something on my face?”


A strangled gasp from behind had me turn around and see…


“Elizabeth, you’re blushing. Is me kissing you on the cheek really that embarrassing?”


“Elizabeth?”


“... Hello?”


I waved my hand in front of her face and received no response. Troubling. If the one girl I actually have feelings for (and if this is any indication, has feelings for me as well) is stunned into complete shutdown just from that, then there’s going to be quite a few problems.


“Come now, this is just pathetic, Elizabeth. Are you really going to pull the blushing schoolgirl act on someone half a year younger than you?” I snapped my fingers until she finally shook her head and looked away, hiding her face in her hands. “Honestly, Elizabeth. That was just sad.”


“S-shut up! Y-you’ve just never done anything like that before is all!” Elizabeth huffed and sat down on my cot instead of the perfectly serviceable chair right next to it. Is there something about that cot that’s more comfortable than an actual folding chair? It’s not even anything more than a thin layer of padding stretched over a metal frame.


“As interesting as this all is,” Lisa cut in, “are we really going to ignore the elephant in the room of the so called heroes breaking the unwritten rules?”


I raised an eyebrow, “What unwritten rules?”


Lisa blinked and then ran her hand down her face, “Right, I forgot that the only real interaction you’ve had with capes so far outside of me is that useless lesbian right there.”


“Hey!”


“It’s true and you know it. Now hush, I have education to deliver,” Lisa crossed her arms and blatantly ignored Elizabeth as she walked around the bed and over to me, “Now the first thing that you have to know is that the unwritten rules are pretty much just don’t kill, don’t unmask capes, don’t rape anyone. Obviously you’ve broken the first one very much, but then again no one gives a shit half the time so whatever. The second one is what can get the entire villain community to wage open war on the Protectorate if you use it right since they did unmask you under the Endbringer truce.”


“I hardly think it was much of an unmasking since my mask was shattered when I fell,” I spoke, then turned to Elizabeth as I began donning what was left of my costume, “I apologize for that, Elizabeth. You put so much work into it and I regret that the mask broke.”


“No no, it’s fine!” she protested, “I’ll just make you a new one!”


“Uh huh, yeah, whatever. Point is, you basically have the Protectorate and PRT by the balls,” Lisa continued, “and since you killed Leviathan, you can potentially leverage out public goodwill by a long way.”


“So I can,” I muttered, tearing off a strip of fabric from the thin sheet on the cot and wrapping it around to hide the lower half of my face. “Let’s go. I’d like to go home as fast as possible. Hopefully nothing will have been destroyed.”

 

Well, here we go.

Oh yeah, along with monsters, men, walls, and dead Coils, it also has a bit more Taylor x Elizabeth!

Hooray for shipping!



3.4


“Coil is dead,” I spontaneously spoke up. The van’s interior immediately silenced itself but for the sounds of the road.


“A-are you sure?” Lisa spoke up, not quite hiding the note of relief in her voice even as she kept her eyes forward like a responsible driver.


“Yes. None of my rewinds had ever shown a period past three weeks since that first point where the memories collapsed in on me, and it’s been four weeks since then,” I looked out the window- as was to be expected, there wasn’t really much to see on the road to Ellisburg.


Ellisburg.


Home to Nilbog, also known as Jamie Rinke. What monsters would I face inside that walled off city?


What monsters would I kill?


I was broken out of my reverie as Lisa halted the van some half a mile outside of the quarantine zone. As the dirt settled and the tac tac tac of the engine cooling became apparent, Lisa slid out of the driver’s seat and out of the van as Elizabeth finally woke up from her nap on my shoulder and pulled up the hood of her new outfit.


Where the hell she had managed to find the time and materials to pull together a black and pink cat themed robe and mask was beyond me, but what was even stranger was the fact that apparently the name Cheshire was untaken- the last one was a villain who’d died fighting Behemoth some three years ago, apparently.


Personally, I didn’t really get why she chose the name Cheshire, but considering that my new costume (assembled by Parian upon request) had more red than actual pink…


Wait.


Oh. She didn’t.


She fucking did call herself Cheshire to match my-ugh- Red Queen.


“Are we there yet?” she asked sleepily, and for a moment, I couldn’t help but want to kiss those rosy lips hidden behind the collar of her robe and never come up for air, but business came first.


“Unfortunately, yes,” I answered, lightly brushing a few strands of hair from where they’d falling over her eyes and handed her mask over. “We’re half a mile outside of the end of the quarantine zone. We’re to meet up with the heroes stationed there for backup.”


“Mmkay…” she yawned and took a sip of water from one of the many bottles strewn around the van interior, placed on her mask, and slid out of the driver side door while I affixed my own mask and slid out the passenger side.


“If you two lovebirds are done, wanna help me set up these stupid camera drones?” Lisa called from inside the back of the van, where she was indeed hard at work running through the boot up and synchronization processes of the myriad of camera drones that we had managed to convince Dragon to let us have.


I wish we could have left them all behind, but Lisa was adamant that securing my position as top dog in the food chain (ironic due to our team’s cat motif…) was far more important than fading into obscurity, which by this point was far, far impossible. Apparently killing Nilbog and clearing out the entirety of Ellisburg from its monsters was a step in making sure that I would be appropriately feared and respected, with, in her words, a heaping dose of admiration from the general public.


“One moment,” I called back after a moment’s hesitation. I took a brief moment to sigh at how ridiculous I felt in my outfit still, then aided Lisa in finishing up the boot process. All six drones came to life- baseball sized orbs with no real visible means of propulsion, but all of which were transmitting smoothly as they took to the air.


Preparations finished, the three of us began walking towards the quarantine zone.


Rather uncharacteristically, I had a good feeling about this.


~~~~~~


I regretted my earlier good feelings. So much.


“What do you mean you will not let us in without an escort?” I hissed, narrowing my eyes at the man- appropriately named “The Wall”- who was just so idiotically obstinate so as to try and disrupt a carefully planned out operation with a truly unnecessary amount of people.


“Look kid,” he grumbled, arms crossed over his massive chest, “rules are rules. No one goes in or out without someone we can trust keeping watch. You may have killed Leviathan with those freaky bombs of yours-”


“Your next line is, ‘but an army of monsters is different from one big one’, isn’t it?” Lisa spoke up from behind me, in her much more muted lavender and pink outfit (she’d taken on the name Persian as a reference to the shade of pink on her outfit of all things).


“-but an army of monsters is different from one big one- wait what?”


I sighed at Lisa’s immaturity and pushed past the massive man blocking our path with a well aimed application of surprise Skitter rushing past his face to throw him off balance. “Persian, stay here and run mission control, like we discussed. Cheshire, with me. We’re going goblin killing.”


As Lisa took a seat at a nearby table and popped open the laptop connected to the camera drones, Elizabeth pulled over a slab of rubble that hadn’t been moved in what must have been years and carried the two of us above the wall for aerial reconnaissance.


Oh. Oh dear.


“This looks bad,” I muttered almost unnecessarily as I took in the sight of what was more or less a twisted, warped version of some sort of disgusting fantasy realm populated with twisted creatures that somewhat evoked any number of odd designs.


“No kidding,” Elizabeth sat down on the rubble piece, scooting over enough so that I could do the same. Without any prompting, she pulled a bottle of lighter fluid from the folds of her robe and handed it over so that I could completely douse Skitter and light her on fire.


The warmth was a bit of a welcome from the chill that persisted even now, and as Skitter charged up, Lisa’s voice crackled through the communicators we had also managed to procure.


”Right, well, he’s most likely in that weird palace looking thing in the middle of the town. Be aware that there might be booby traps- scratch that, there’s probably most definitely booby traps. Oh yeah, try not to die. We got a lot riding on this, y’know?”


“Not helpful in the slightest,” I muttered, shifting my mask just enough so that I could pinch the bridge of my nose.


Silently, as Skitter reached full charge, I palmed a large washer from my belt pouch and gave it the biggest charge I could manage without unduly weakening myself, then handed it to Elizabeth.


“Persian, give us the countdown,” I ordered.


”Going live in three…


Two…


One!”


“Cheshire, shall we?”


“We shall, Queen.”


And the world became fire and dust.

 

Oh my god fucking FINALLY I worked up the motivation to actually write this holy shit.



3.5


Immediately, I could see problems- some of the creatures were fire resistant, fire proof, or actually replicated with fire.


Fortunately, that washer that Elizabeth was using to follow Skitter was disintegrating everything in its wake while the fires created by the initial explosions recharged Skitter over and over and allowed me to continue the destruction.


For a brief moment, I wondered if anyone would really care about the property damage. Then I realized that it was Ellisburg and solely populated by self replicating monsters. I swiftly stopped caring.


Elizabeth and I followed our procedure- she swept low and tagged some intact rubble for air support, then the two of us began sweeping around the town in an inward spiral. We left nothing but ash and scorch marks in our path, the fire growing and spreading rapidly only to be snuffed out in seconds by the wave of death emanating from my primary bomb.


In a way, it was almost poetic.


It took less than half an hour to reduce most of Ellisburg to ash and dust on the wind, and the amount of monstrous corpses that I had seen blown up was nicely suppressing my urge to kill.


The only thing left was the palace in the center and perhaps below it.


“Take us down, Cheshire,” I spoke, keeping my eyes scanning for movement. Not that I found any, but it was good to be cautious. I didn’t know if all of Nilbog’s monstrosities were dead yet even though I had a good feeling that they were.


“Yes ma’am.”


We descended into the loose ash that, just half an hour before, had been a monster infested city and looked around. Piles of dust and charred body parts lay strewn everywhere, choking the air with the smell of cooked flesh and bile. I wanted to gag from the sheer nausea inducing odor, but swallowed my rising discomfort.


“No sign of life, I murmured, tapping the side of my mask. An overlay popped down over my left lens, rendering the world in shades of pale green up to a vivid red. I would have preferred to not tie myself to Dragon like this, but Lisa had insisted and, since she had proven her intuitions to be more useful than not, I opted to trust her. The thermal vision was a bit redundant, but it let me do a local area scan while I commanded Skitter around for a more wide area observation.


Ah.


There.


“Cheshire, Persian, I’m reading heat signatures inside the… palace,” I spoke into the mic, hesitantly staring up at the ramshackle construction that evoked a poor man’s rendition of the palaces so prominently featured in fairy tales.


“Roger that, Queen. Any hostiles left outside?”


“None that I can read. Thermal vision isn’t picking anything up. Cheshire, do you see anything?”


“Nope. Motion detector’s completely quiet.”


“Good.”


“Alright then, feel free to light that fat bastard up and bring home the bacon, bosslady.”


“Don’t call me that,” I muttered irritably as I swept Skitter around and had her land on the shoddy palace’s front door. “Three, two, one. Breaching now.”


The door imploded in a cloud of fire, flying off of its rusty hinges and shattering into a million splinters that impaled the front line of the monsters just inside the door. They survivors turned as one, and my heart sank a little.


“.... This is substantially more heat signatures than I had thought. Perhaps they were just too clumped together to get a good read,” I sighed and cracked my knuckles. “Cheshire?”


“Gotcha, boss,” she grinned from beside me and flung the piece of rubble we had flown in on through the door, crushing the vast majority of the creatures before us as I raced in between those smart enough to dodge and tagged it where it fell, flipping away immediately after and detonating it, disintegrating all the corpses and near corpses beneath.


As I landed, I was beset upon by a truly horrendous amount of monsters, drawing the attention of every last one and, as was the plan, letting Cheshire in mostly unnoticed while I lashed out again and again, slapping aside roving claws and tendrils with near contemptuous ease. Fast though they may have been, I was still fast enough to keep track of their movements, and in periods where there was just a small hole in the attack pattern, I took that time to charge the appendages that I slapped aside and immediately detonated, slowly whittling away the crowd one disintegrating smoke cloud at a time.


The area around me rung with the constant screech of my explosions as charge after charge rippled through the grotesque figures of my assailants. I worked my way forward, slowly following along Cheshire’s trail even as the hordes of generic creatures slowly gave way to more specialized attack monsters that launched gouts of acid and fire at me.


These too I dodged, but the smoke clogged the air and the splashback of the acid burnt holes into my outfit that I found highly regrettable. Just the thought of all the work Elizabeth would have to put in to repair those holes… a quiet rage flooded my mind and the frequency of the explosions increased with my movement speed, death at my fingertips and ash at my feet.


On and on I ran, following Cheshire’s floating platform through the winding, ramshackle halls of this crappy, disgusting palace. Skitter continuously detonated behind me, balls of fire consuming the area and lighting portions of it ablaze before snuffing them out from the sheer force of the next explosion.


I knew as much as the Protectorate did about Nilbog, and the sheer number of monsters in these halls, combined with the previous population of this once living town made me swear an oath to myself.


Wherever he hid in this disgusting affront to architecture, however he tried to protect himself, no matter what he did, how he ran…


I swore to myself that James Rinke, Nilbog, was going to die today and there was no force on heaven or earth that would stop me from taking his putrid face and turning it into a pile of blasted, dessicated ash.

 

Double post after... bleh eight days after my last one. Should be fine, right? 'S been a little over two weeks since the last chapter, sorry. Yare yare, this time it really is all about that peaceful life.


3.6


“Jamie Rinke, also known as Nilbog, also soon to be known as blasted pile of ash,” I announced as I used Skitter to blast down the door to the makeshift throne room, “I am here to collect the Kill Order on your head. You have the right to beg for mercy.”


Silence, then uproarious laughter.


I stared at the putrid pile of flesh through both my eyes and Skitter’s, seeing the minute heat differences that revealed the nature of this false body for what it was. Cheshire followed in behind me, barricading the door with spare rubble. It wasn’t the only door- there were two more at the other side of the room, but it would prevent the monsters here from getting out.


“You think you can kill the Goblin King!?” the pile of flesh in the form of a hunchbacked think asked, a wide smile dividing its gout-ish face nearly in two. “Ha! Dohahahaha hohooo hahaha!”


The monsters there joined in with the laughter, a cacophony of screeching and screaming, and in the midst of it, some surprisingly human sounds. I supposed that he kept the prettiest and best for himself, as most shut ins with his kind of power most likely would.


Still, it would not do for any of these creatures to survive, and thus with a nod to Cheshire, I leapt into the air, propelled even faster with timely application of a push from a chunk of controlled rubble, and slammed bodily into the closest creature in my path. It fell, disintegrating on the way down, and I rushed through the gap it left into the next, and the next and the next.


Nilbog’s fake body realized that I was crushing through its protective crowd and stood, wobbling away on unsteady legs, but I was there and I was already too fast for it in the first place.


“Skitter, burn!” I commanded, slapping down my hand atop the hunchback of Nilbog’s fake body and planting Skitter there, then flipped away as the explosion consumed the putrid, almost Jabba the Hutt shaped mass of flesh.


The room quickly devolved into stunned silence, punctuated only by the crackle of flames. And then, finally, choked screaming as the burning figure of a bloated, smaller, yet still hunchbacked man scrambled out of the flames and collapsed at my feet.


“Pathetic,” I sneered as I knelt down and disintegrated the near corpse. The creatures around began scrambling towards me, vicious and enraged at the loss of their king, but were quickly crushed under a tide of bloodstained rubble.


“We’re done here, Persian,” I spoke calmly as Skitter buzzed around and disintegrated the twitching corpses. “Cheshire, shall we?”


“Yes ma’am!”


~~~~~~


“Funny how it took us a few hours to do what the entire US government failed to do for years,” I murmured idly as I stared out the window. Lisa shrugged and kept her eyes on the road.


“PR and fear of what would happen if the monsters were bomb proof, probably,” she responded.


“Hm.”


The radio quietly blurred out whatever other conversation we might have had with a smooth jazz song, filling the van with a peaceful air.



The funds from Nilbog’s death were already transferred to the family account once we reported it to Dragon, and the cameras had already uploaded the footage to PHO after a bit of careful editing to make it look as heroic as possible.


I breathed deeply and shifted carefully- Elizabeth was napping against my side and I didn’t want to wake her. Moving carefully, I moved her over so that instead of leaning on my shoulder, she was more supported in my arms. This, of course, meant that the top of her head was right below my nose. I took a small sniff- strawberry. Of course.


She knew I loved strawberries, so of course she’d choose the specific brand of shampoo that smelled like strawberries. If it wasn’t so endearing I think I would have rolled my eyes. As it was, I took solace in Elizabeth’s warmth. Her robe was thick and in the way, but the day’s exertion had bled the heat through our outfits and with the van’s heater on to combat the chill that the late afternoon brought, having Elizabeth resting on me was a pleasant experience in and of itself.


I wrapped my arms around her waist, drawing her close as I unbuckled her seatbelt and pulled her into my lap. It, perhaps, wasn’t the safest way to be sitting in a car, but she was my girlfriend (And wasn’t that a strange phrase I never thought I could imagine?) and I wanted to hold her.


Lisa looked over for a brief moment and smiled oddly, then turned away. I couldn’t really imagine what she was thinking at the moment, but I knew that the weight and warmth of Elizabeth in my lap was lulling me into a quiet state of drowsiness. Shifting slightly once more, I undid my seat buckle and wound the belt around Elizabeth, effectively keeping us both together and more or less safe for the moment. In the distance, thunder rumbled and a light cloud cover obscured the first stars of evening.


For all the action that had gone on less than a half hour ago, it seemed almost criminally peaceful. But, as much as I felt like it would, nothing happened. The skies opened and a light drizzle came down, darkening the world into a sleepy, misty haze as flecks and drops of water clouded the windshield.


Lisa activated the wipers and turned on the headlights, not that there were any other vehicles on this lonesome road of ours. The repeating whirrs of the wipers added to the quiet ambiance, and the radio’s smooth jazz left me feeling lethargic. Silently, I brushed away some of the hair covering Elizabeth’s face and planted a chaste kiss atop her head. I almost wished I could do more, but that would necessitate a change in position and waking her up, so I refrained.


Gentle snoring filled the cabin as Elizabeth shifted into a deeper sleep and my eyelids began drooping from the sound. The combination of the rain, the repetitive wipers, the warmth and weight of Elizabeth, the sound of her breathing, her scent, and the jazz currently winding through the lowest part of my mind dragged me from the waking world. I was no match at all, and I went gladly, drifting off with the one person I loved romantically in my arms.


Perhaps, indeed, this was all the peaceful life I needed?

 

This kind of marks a bit of a turning point in the story. Yes, the fights are still going to be there, but the focus is going to shift slightly to show more of that quiet life that Taylor so desperately wants.

I think it's a welcome shift, yeah?


4.1


“You know, Taylor, when you said you’d be super rich and famous when you grew up as a kid, I didn’t really think this would happen,” Dad muttered as he stared at our latest bank statement. “I just kind of wish that all this money didn’t come from, you know, murder.”


I sighed and rolled my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose, “Sorry dad, but, well… I mean, if it’s any consolation, at least it was mostly just people that really really deserved it?”


He deadpanned at me and I fought the urge to cringe and blush like a child.


“You literally murdered not only the capes of every gang, but also the unpowered members.”


“Y-yeah, but… t-that is… um… I didn’t kill… all of them…?” I lost the battle and blushed, dropping my face into my hands.


“Taylor, you’re my daughter and I love you but why in the name of all things good and not related to politicians did you murder all of those people? They had lives and families and I’m willing to bet that most of them were only there because they were either forced or needed the money.”


I groaned and leaned back. I didn’t regret killing them in the slightest, not even now, but my father had a peculiar way of making me feel absurdly awkward and guilty for things that I had completely convinced myself were justified and fine at the time.


“I knoooowww, dad… I’m not gonna kill anyone now except the Endbringers and the people who actually super really deserve it,” I whined pathetically, wishing to high heavens above that something or someone would come save me from this torment.


Unfortunately, if God exists, he’s a dick and won’t even save a teenage psychopathic serial killing (partially) world saving cape from a scolding from her father.


I’m going to blow him up for this insult. Maybe.


If he’s real.


Which I doubt.


“Uh huh,” Dad remarks with an idle sarcasm that hits ten times harder than even falling off a building and nearly drowning in a puddle (Whoever had the guts to tell that to Lisa is getting their crotch punched. With a brick) before going back to reading through the bank statements.


I sighed and groaned again, standing up from the kitchen table as I pulled on my costume’s mask. “I’m going to go down to the base, Dad.”


“Stay safe and be careful,” he responded, “and no murdering.”


“I know, dad! We’ve had this talk before,” I call back and leave, muttering irritably to myself the whole way to the Undersiders’ former loft, now commandeered for my own use.


~~~~~~


“So now what do we do?” Lisa asked idly as she leaned back in her chair. Behind her, Alec was playing some shooter or another and apparently failing quite badly to find and kill the quote unquote ‘fucking camper’ that kept killing him. Brian was out for the day, still deep in the throes of a custody battle for his… sister?


Yes.


Sister. Aisha. The girl. The one who was altogether entirely forgettable. That one.


Rachel, on the other hand, was simply out for a walk with her dogs.


I didn’t like Rachel all that much. Probably because I wasn’t a dog person. Maybe it was because I found out that she tried to maul Elizabeth when they first met.


Either or.


Back in reality, I tapped my pencil against the kitchen table and considered the geometry swimming before me. While technically I didn’t actually need to even do schooling anymore due to my status, I still went to Arcadia occasionally to consider topics of study.


Currently, I was thinking of getting a GED. Elizabeth was… considering one as well, since she never finished high school.


Beside me, Elizabeth pouted as she struggled through history.


“Perhaps a break,” I spoke, more focused on math than what Lisa was really saying.


She nodded, “Yeah, we could probably afford that, what with how fucking rich you- and by extension, us- are.”


I raised an eyebrow at her, “How exactly are you rich when most of the money is mine?”


She quailed and waved her hands in surrender, “Ah, no I mean, as your team, right? I mean, I managed to snag a good chunk of Coil’s assets too, so not all of it is your reward money.”


I considered that.


“Fair. Speaking of money, why is it that, even though I only should have received some thirty million dollars for Nilbog, I have almost a hundred times more than that in my family’s account?” I raised an eyebrow at Lisa, expecting her to know since I, honestly, did not.


She instead looked at me like I was an idiot before answering with an eyeroll and a flippant, “Personalized ‘donations’, duh. You did kill Leviathan. Hell, I bet a good chunk of that is from people celebrating over you avenging some place that Leviathan hit or something.”


I frowned thoughtfully- I really should have expected something like this, but at the moment, the only thing I actually considered that I would receive for Leviathan’s death was the sheer political and social weight that my actions would grant me.


“I see,” I finally muttered before turning away to help Elizabeth. Poor girl was fine with everything but history.


~~~~~~


With just barely less than three billion dollars and growing in the family account and some several hundred million more in Lisa’s own account, I finally had a surplus of spending money for once in my life. And with the business currently flowing into Brockton Bay due to it being the site of Leviathan’s death, there was a surplus of things to buy.


Currently, I was hauling a large cart full of building supplies and products behind me as I made my way through the busy downtown streets. The house, while far from the waves and flooding, had still taken quite a bit of water damage from Leviathan, and was still even worse off from age and neglect.


My current thought project outside of earning a GED was to fix said house and modernize it a bit. No more clunky home computer from the early 90s. No more dial up connection. No more sputtering printer prone to jamming.


No more half rotten front step.


Elizabeth was beside me with her own shopping- a few bags of clothing that I had bought under her insistence that I perhaps dress a bit better than my preferred comfortable style of old, broken in bagginess and sneakers. She hummed a quiet tune as she strolled along, swaying her hips just enough to be noticeable.


I had commandeered the former Undersiders and forced them to help me with this project, but unfortunately I had neglected to remember to tell them to help me in supply acquisition. An unfortunate oversight that I would have to rectify in the future.


As we passed from downtown to docks, the streets quieted down and emptied slowly, leaving the two of us to navigate through half flooded streets and still clearing wreckage. In the weeks following Leviathan’s demise, most of it had been removed, but the very fringes of the damage still surrounded the docks like a briny barrier. It made for an irksome journey compounded by the fact that the nearest Home Depot was about half a mile past said barrier into downtown, three miles from my house. With no car, it was an awfully tedious walk only mitigated by the lovely presence of my sundress clad beautiful girlfriend.


For all that I was throwing myself into potential death every few weeks when I went to kill S-class threats, it was these times when I truly felt alive.


When life was quiet and calm, when I had peace and time to pursue normal things.


When I had time to just be together with Elizabeth.