Panic boiled in her chest, seemingly mixing with blood into a thick and choking acid that burned in her throat and clogging in her lungs, suffocating and choking her. Taylor knew panic, knew terror, but then she felt The Emperor, ever present, vast and powerful and his presence pushed back her panic just long enough for an ember of defiance to flare in her chest, and Taylor seized it with all her will and fed it into a raging inferno. That defiance, that grim determination that had seen her through all the years of bullying, that would drive her to face death unbowed, spitting bloody hatred and unending fury at her foe kindled, burst into life and Taylor pushed aside her pain, seeing Hookwolf below and swearing that if her death would be at his jaws she would give him the worst indigestion he had ever felt. Still falling freely, Taylor gathered her power, waiting for a physical strike but something slammed into her from the side, carrying her up and away from the waiting, gnashing form and onto a nearby building. Something white, and fast enough to break several of her ribs on impact. The pain blossomed, and Taylor fought against a fresh tide of fear and choking helplessness as her apparent saviour lifted into the air, Taylor held in a rough bridal carry.
'Glory.'
Glory Girl. Evidently, she had disobeyed Taylor's instructions, but Taylor couldn't help but be glad that she had. Even if she would regenerate, being torn to scraps of meat and bone was far from something she wanted to experience.
"Circ! Oh my God-"
Taylor briefly tuned Glory Girl out, turning to look behind the still flying heroine as some danger sense blared. There, on the roof, a man in black and demon mask and knives and grenades.
'Lee!'
Glory couldn't see him, Glory had no idea he was there and Lee was unslinging a grenade from his bandoleer with almost insolent slowness and Taylor could sense a faint trace of satisfaction in the empty wasteland that was his mind and there was no time and she simply reached out with her powers. She smashed into his mind with a psychic attack, not strong enough to kill or even permanently harm him, she didn't have the focus, but Lee was suddenly blind and his limbs were no longer properly connected to his brain and he staggered and collapsed, dropping the grenade off the roof. Taylor vaguely registered Hookwolf barely leap away from the explosion, steel suddenly brittle glass, but Glory Girl was moving much faster and the pain came flooding back and Taylor fought a whimper, sinking into an awful fog of pain and fear, a state barely held back by her will.
"Amy!"
Taylor was roused by Glory Girl shouting, and muzzily noted that it wasn't very professional. The New Wave members should really call each other by hero names when in costume. Although Glory Girl had a white costume, didn't she? Not red.
"Vicky? What is- oh my God!"
Oh. No, right, she'd been stabbed. And she'd bled all over Glory Girl. And Taylor was fairly certain that a normal person would have died by now, because her heart was slowly beating in an erratic, painful thumping and Panacea was rushing towards the two of them even as Glory Girl lowered Taylor hastily yet gently onto a nearby hospital bed. Taylor choked, feeling her heart stop and restart again and blood flooded from her mouth, soaking her scarf once again. It was a good thing that her scarf was black. It would hide the blood. Suddenly she appreciated one of the drawbacks of being a Perpetual: knowing death, your soul remaining even as your body failed. No wonder Vulkan had gone insane.
"Hold her!" Panaceas barked, pulling up a sleeve and flinching as she laid a hand on Taylor's skin.
"Hold her- she isn't struggling!"
"I don't care, she's dying and I don't know how she'll react when I pull the knife. Hold her down!"
There was a ferocious command in Panacea's voice, and Glory Girl did as commanded, placing her hands on Taylor's shoulders and carefully pressing down. Panacea took hold of the knife hilt, and hauled. Taylor screamed, a noise that almost immediately subsided into a rasping, choking noise as blood replaced steel. Her heart beat again, hammering painfully, and Taylor felt her mind waver even as the pain in her chest altered slightly, shifting until it had gone entirely. Healed, though there was a new pain in her arms from her reflexive jolt against Glory Girl. Taylor rolled over the instant she was released, pulling her scarf away from her mouth and vomiting blood onto the floor, hacking and retching before taking a deep, dragging breath. Air. Fresh air, sweet air, she didn't think she would ever take it for granted again.
"Circaetus!"
Glory Girl bent down towards her, but Taylor held up a hand.
"I'm alright." She rasped, gritting her teeth as she pulled her blood-fouled scarf back up. Even if not having it on would only expose the lower portion of her face, she preferred to stay utterly anonymous. Glory Girl hovered, and even Panacea had a pulse of worry in her mind.
"Are you sure? You were a long time without oxygen." Panacea interrupted. Taylor blinked, carefully sitting upright.
"YOUR HEALING PRIORITISED YOUR MIND. EVEN IF IT DID NOT, YOUR SOUL IS MORE IMPORTANT TO YOUR THINKING THAN YOUR MIND." The Emperor supplied. Taylor sent a mental nod.
"I don't think so. I remember my name and everything, at least." She said. Panacea approached, her hand moving towards Taylor again.
"I…do you mind if I look?" she asked. Taylor shook her head.
"Feel free." She said quietly. Panacea briefly pressed her fingers to Taylor's wrist and then stepped back.
"You seem to be fine." She said, returning to a slightly curter manner. Taylor inclined her head.
"Thank you." She said, genuinely grateful. She would have healed eventually on her own, but she had no idea how long she would have had to endure that nightmare as her healing fought against her injuries. Panacea nodded, and sighed.
"You're lucky that I was on a break. What happened?"
Taylor brought her hand up, feeling the rip in her pullover and the slight exposed skin.
"Oni Lee and Hookwolf were fighting it out. I caught their attention to help a civilian family get away from the fighting, but Lee was better than I expected."
'Or I was worse.'
Glory Girl was shaking her head, Taylor noticed.
"Why, though? Why rush in like that, you could have died!"
There was genuine concern in her voice, so Taylor didn't give a glib answer. Instead she sighed, moving her fingers up from her chest to rub gently at her throat.
"Because…because I couldn't bear to stand there and watch as some poor family ended up dead."
Taylor looked up, meeting Glory Girl's eyes.
"And even if I can't save everybody, I can try. I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if I had let those people die." She said. That wasn't entirely true, but that way lay the logic of sacrificing one for many, and the slippery slope thereon. She sighed, scrubbing a hand roughly across her face.
"I'm sorry about, y'know, the blood." She said quietly, gesturing. Panacea shrugged.
"I don't think anyone will begrudge you being stabbed." She responded dryly. A quick check of her watch, and she shook her head.
"I have to go. You're in good health, but try not to get injured again tonight. I don't recommend going out at all."
Taylor watched Panacea turn her back and sighed.
"Thank you." She said, quietly. Panacea paused for a moment, but didn't give a verbal reply as she walked away. Glory Girl looked down at Taylor.
"She was worried about you." She said quietly. Taylor nodded slowly, looking at her feet as she swung herself sideways, her feet just touching the ground.
"I was worried about me."
She tried to respond flippantly, but her voice cracked a little half-way through and she closed her eyes as the remembered sensation of suffocation flooded over her. Taylor silently counted to ten, then forced herself to open her eyes and look up at Glory Girl. The New Wave heroine looked worried, to the point that she was hovering an inch or so off the ground.
"Sorry. I'll be alright." She said. Glory Girl looked unconvinced, but she landed, no longer hovering.
"Are you sure?"
"I-yeah. Yeah, I'm sure. I just need to think. I got cocky, got hurt."
Taylor shrugged.
"It happens."
Glory Girl still looked a little sceptical, but after a few moments of consideration she nodded and turned to the door.
"Alright. If that's what you think. Circaetus…don't forget, I'm here if you need to talk." She said quietly, walking to the door. Taylor cleared her throat a moment before Glory Girl left.
"Glory? Thanks. For the save."
A small smile showed on Glory Girl's face.
"Hey, what else are friends for?" she asked, before walking away. Taylor rubbed her bloody scarf briefly, before sighing and standing. She needed to get out of here. She paced quickly through the hospital, hurrying and stopping only briefly when she saw a bathroom. A quick duck inside, and Taylor paused just long enough to pull her scarf down and scoop some water into her mouth. A swish, and she spat now metallic tasting water into the basin. It came out red, but at least her mouth didn't taste as thickly of blood anymore and running the tap quickly removed the evidence. She pulled her scarf back up and walked again, out into the rainy night.
'What happened to me?' Taylor wondered, perched on a rooftop in the rain. A faint sheen of power enclosed her, warding away the falling water, but she could feel the blood in her scarf, cold and sticky against her skin. She ignored it, too busy thinking.
'The very first night I went out I showed more versatility and imagination than that fight. How did that happen?'
"YOU WERE OVERCONFIDENT. TOO RELIANT ON BRUTE FORCE. AND YET…AND YET, SOMETHING ABOUT IT TROUBLES ME." The Emperor rumbled. Taylor hummed in response, her fingers drifting across the tear in her clothes again, just below her throat.
'And I did the same thing against the Undersiders. Even trying to keep my powers quiet, I have more options than I used. This isn't right.'
Taylor shifted, bringing her hand up to rub two fingers at her forehead.
'It's like I just don't think, like I don't consider any other options. It nearly got me killed, and I lost my staff.'
" IT IS CONCERNING."
'Could there be some sort of psychic influence on me? No…it can't be. Even if I missed it, any psychic would have to be more practiced than you are. Not possible.'
"NOT LIKELY, NO. NOT WITHOUT US AT LEAST SENSING IT."
'Damn. And…I've been sloppy. Even a basic flak jacket would have stopped that knife.' Taylor realised. A piece of equipment that was more than basic in the Imperium, and she had utterly neglected it. Even if she hadn't thought about it, she should have realised just by looking at the costumes of the Wards. Almost all of them were armoured in some way. Vista's breastplate. Clockblocker's armour plates, the power armour that Gallant and Kid Win wore…she had been unbelievably sloppy. Unimaginably sloppy. Being stabbed, especially, and being carried to hospital and bleeding all over the-
'The blood. DNA.'
Taylor boosted herself off the building, sudden fear lending her speed and strength, and ran for the hospital again. She had to stop anyone from getting their hands on her blood, anybody being able to know her identity could be disastrous. Taylor hastily pinpointed the room she had been in from memory, dragged her power in a shroud around her to push people to ignore her, though she slowed down as she entered the hospital. Running was far too obvious, but a swift walk could manage. She moved quickly through the hospital: it was thankfully quiet, and she made good time. She cast her senses out as she approached the room, and felt a smugness from within. Taylor gritted her teeth and clenched her fist, making her way quickly to the door. She slipped into the room, silently closing the door behind her and levelling a cold glare on the back of the kneeling man. She could see that he was crouched over the pool of blood that she had left, and though a mop and bucket was nearby she could also see a slender tube in his hand.
"What do you think you're doing?" Taylor asked, and she almost didn't recognise her voice, low and terrible with wrath. The man stiffened, and she felt fear coil through his mind, followed by a sudden determination. He came to his feet in a swift, jerking motion, and Taylor extended a hand and focused. Her power settled over him, almost like hands pressing on each shoulder, and he was forced back to his knees, muscles straining futilely. The panic came back, stronger than ever, but it wasn't all directed at her. At least some of it was towards his employer. Coil. How interesting, even if the man was acting of his own accord.
"I'll ask once more, and only once. What do you think you're doing?"
The man made an incoherent noise, but his thoughts flickered to Coil. Taylor smiled mirthlessly behind her mask. An agent who wanted to gain favour with the supervillain. How very cliché. Taylor considered, and then moved her fingers slightly. Her power altered, moving to wrap around him. It wasn't easy, not something she could do in a combat situation, but soon he was cocooned in telekinetic force, and Taylor was able to move him like a puppet, forcing him to stand and face her. His fear was thick in his mind as she reached out, gripping his chin in her hand and forcing him to look at her.
"Oh, don't worry. This won't hurt a bit. Just look into my eyes."
A short while later Taylor walked briskly through the rainy night, her expression returned to neutrality. She had found it easy enough to change the memory of Coil's agent: as far as the man was now aware she had never been injured, and he was simply clearing up the blood of some anonymous criminal. She had considered twisting his mind until he served her, until he acted as her agent in Coil's organisation, but determined against it. He was low level and would be outed long before he became useful to her. She steadfastly ignored the small, cold, cruelly pragmatic part of her that suggested that she should have ransacked the man's mind for information and then killed him. It would have served no real purpose, but it was becoming harder and harder to ignore that part of herself.
"THIS CITY IS A POISON." The Emperor commented. Taylor slowed her stride for a moment, frowning. Brockton wasn't that bad, really, especially compared to many of the cities of the Imperium. Although, she had to admit that it wasn't the most pleasant place to live, filled with powerful gangs that out-muscled the Protectorate in the area. And the greater Protectorate did nothing…
'Why is that? How long would it take for the Triumvirate to travel to the city and ambush Lung, or Kaiser? How much would that help?' she reflected sourly. The Emperor hummed in the back of her mind.
"DO THEY NOT AGREE TO LEAVE THEM IN EXCHANGE FOR AID? THIS…ENDBRINGER ACCORD?"
'Endbringer Truce, I think it is. But still, Lung has never fought an Endbringer since he made his name for facing Leviathan. Years and years, and all he does now is lounge in the city, growing fat and rich from his murdering and robbing and slaving and drug trading!'
Anger sparked into life in her chest, a spite directed at the villains who were so happy to hide behind the Endbringer truce even as they sapped away at the life of the city, of the country, and even some anger towards the Protectorate and the PRT, the heroes and the government organisations who let them do it. The Emperor, more jaded, said nothing, and Taylor knew, intellectually, that sometimes sacrifices had to be made. But she had gone through this with him before: even if she knew it in her mind, her soul rebelled against it, disgusted.
'How hard would it be for the Triumvirate to take a day off and hit the big gangs here? How hard would it be for Legend and Alexandria to take Lung out before he gets a chance to ramp up, how hard to decimate the Empire so that the Protectorate in the city can handle them? Why haven't they done it? Why is Brockton being neglected so much, with so much criminal muscle in the city?'
Somewhere along the line of her thought she had stopped being quite so angry, and started to analyse. It didn't really make sense. For all that Brockton was a relatively small city, the gangs were large and powerful, which made the sorry state of the Protectorate all the more suspicious. And why was Emily Piggot in charge of the city PRT? The woman was a bigot and in poor health to boot, which made Taylor suspect that she wasn't as effective a leader as she could be. Of course, the Protectorate had Armsmaster, but he hadn't exactly struck Taylor as a charismatic leader. Maybe she was overthinking things, but some suspicion nagged at her. She was, in fact, so busy thinking that she didn't notice the man approaching from an alleyway until a hand dropped heavily on her shoulder. Unfortunately for the man her reflexes were still fully functional, and he only managed to reignite her wrath. A gun hit her back, she shoved it away with a flicker of power. The gun went off, missing, Taylor twisted free and spun, ramming a fist into her assailant's sternum. A choking gasp followed and the man crumpled, almost falling before Taylor locked her hands onto his jaw and rammed him into the wall, her thumbs pressed just below his eyes. The man frantically rammed his gun back into her side, but it just made her angrier.
"Stop! Stop or I'll shoot!" he cried. Taylor bared her teeth below her scarf, raw anger fuelling her.
"Do it. Pull the trigger. Do it, and I'll drive my thumbs so far into your skull that I can tear your brain out through your eye sockets before I drop you in the Bay. Come on, give me an excuse. I'm sure your family won't miss a criminal like you too much."
The man whimpered, and terror bloomed so thick in him that Taylor would have been able to sense it even without her powers. The gun barrel pressed against her side wavered and then fell away, and Taylor heard it clatter against the ground. The man raised his hands helplessly.
"I…I, please, don't…"
Taylor felt a fresh surge of fury, a sudden, awful temptation to do as she had threatened, to deal a horrid death in retribution for his insolence, but a flash of cold seemed to pierce her spine and she came back to her senses with a jolt of horror and shock. She had released the man and he had slid to the ground, weeping and incoherent, and a flash of guilt and shame blazed through her as she felt his thoughts, and sensed something dire. A family. A family that he had to protect, and a woman in a gas mask.
'What am I doing?' she questioned, her stomach suddenly roiling. A press of her powers identified something in his skull, something small and ominous.
"A BOMB?" The Emperor questioned, concern in the near monotone. Taylor felt her expression twist again, and sympathy pulsed through her. But there was nothing she could do, not at the moment.
"Go. Run. Hope I never see you again." She said harshly, and the sobbing man scrambled to his feet and fled. Taylor watched him run, fists clenching so tightly that her nails would have cut into her palms if it weren't for the gloves that she wore.
'This fucking city. Every time I think I have the depravity and the lunacy understood, one of the bastard criminals pulls out something new. And I can't even go and tell the Protectorate, because who would believe that I magically saw a bomb in some poor bastard's head?'
The Emperor listened to her rant in silence, and said nothing. Taylor closed her eyes in frustration, ignoring the spike of pain that passed through her skull. She had suffocated to death several times tonight, after all. Head pains were probably normal after an experience like that. Well, maybe not normal, but more or less expected. A hand came up and rubbed briefly at her brow.
'First Dinah Alcott, then this bomb thing, and I've still got the Empire to deal with. I may have bitten off more than I can chew.'
A brief, hard smile curved her lips under the mask as her natural defiance and determination reignited.
'Guess I'd better train myself to eat better.' She mentally finished, adding to the analogy. It might not make sense, but hey. She could hardly be accused of being completely sane.
The Boat Graveyard. The Boat Graveyard was, perhaps, not the most secure place to practice. It was, perhaps, a little cliché. But, most importantly, it was big and empty, and Taylor could do whatever she damn well pleased while there. Presently, though, she was sitting on a chair she had dragged from a slightly rusting cabin, thinking. Her problem, Taylor concluded, was that she had no mid-range. Her abilities went from taking down normal humans to popping brains and scrambling minds, with very little in-between. That meant that she needed to work on it, otherwise reasonably tough opponents- like Hookwolf- would take everything she could reasonably dish out without flinching. And illusions were unsuitable for her claimed power set. Well, she supposed that she could blind someone and argue that she had damaged the optic nerves -which was what she fully intended to claim for Oni Lee if anyone asked, given that he's been picked up by a Protectorate response team and was currently being held by the PRT- but that was probably a permanent thing. Which would probably be bad. Being blind was one of the things that people got quite squeamish about.
'I really have come a long way. From a simple bullied schoolgirl to someone who thinks nothing of blinding people in a few months.' She mentally remarked. Carefully, she did not reflect upon the ethical implications of that change. As had become his way, The Emperor said nothing to her consideration. In some ways, Taylor appreciated it. Any reassurances would have seemed empty. But what did it matter? She was here to train and plot. Brooding and angst could wait for a few hundred years.
'Doesn't matter. First things first.' She told herself. The Emperor stirred in her mind.
"HAVE YOU CONSIDERED ARMOURING YOURSELF?" He questioned. Taylor thought back to her brief ponderings on the flak armour of the Imperium, and shook her head.
'I can't make any armour without better facilities to produce the ceramite or armaplas. But I'm thinking that I can protect myself by taking a trick from a villain's book. More precisely, a villain we met on our first expedition…'
Bringing the image of the Empire Cape Rune to mind and closing her eyes, Taylor rose from her seat and held out a hand, focusing. Rune was quite limited, having to touch the items that she wanted to control. Taylor had no such limits, and the ship shuddered slightly around her as her power worked upon it. She kept her power limited, not wanting to damage the ship, but she could feel parts of the interior ripping free, dragged towards her. Taylor smiled, opening her eyes to find herself in the middle of a swirling maelstrom of metal fragments.
'Let's see that bastard Lee get through this.'
"NOT BAD. BUT NOT EXACTLY AN EASY THING TO DO…OR PRACTICAL. HOW MUCH POWER AND SCRAP ARE YOU EXPENDING FOR THIS?" The Emperor questioned. Taylor clenched her fist, a snarled curse escaping her mouth as her bubble burst and she let the shrapnel fall. The Emperor sent a feeling of apology, but she knew that he was right. It was simply impractical. That didn't mean it was useless, but maybe she should practice something else. Something more direct, maybe.
'I can throw lightning, that isn't too hard and I can pretend that I'm telekinetically creating friction or something. What about fire?'
The Emperor hummed thoughtfully.
"WARPFIRE MAY BE USEFUL TO YOU, I SUPPOSE. YES. IT MIGHT NOT EVEN BE TOO SUSPICIOUS, PROVIDING YOU CAN BLUFF IT WITH THE SAME EXPLANATION AS LIGHTNING. HOWEVER, IT WILL NOT DO A GREAT DEAL TO SOLVE YOUR ISSUE WITH LETHAL FORCE."
Taylor shook her head.
'Doesn't matter. Fire is a great distraction, and would let me block people from escaping. Plus, it gives me a way to escape a dangerous situation. Somebody who is stop, drop and rolling because they're on fire is someone who can't be running after me.'
She sensed The Emperor agree with her, a tinge of amusement at her reasoning flickering through, before he began talking again.
"WARPFIRE IS, BY ITS NATURE, VERY SIMILAR TO NORMAL FIRE. HOWEVER…WARPFIRE TENDS TO REPLACE PART OF THE…FIRE TRIANGLE, I BELIEVE IT IS CALLED, USING WARP ENERGY IN PLACE OF FUEL AND, IN PART, OXYGEN. THAT DOES STILL MEAN THAT YOU REQUIRE A SOURCE OF IGNITION, WHICH IS USUALLY PROVIDED IN THE SAME MANNER AS LIGHTNING. THE FIRE ACTS LIKE NORMAL FLAME STILL, THOUGH, ANY OTHER PROPERTIES TEND TO BE INHERENT TO THE WARP ENERGY USED AND FALL UNDER FULL SORCERY."
'Like the warpfire a Chaos sorcerer could wield melting through armour.'
"YES, THAT WOULD BE AN EXAMPLE OF A SORCERER ALIGNED TO TZEENCH. I WOULD NOT EXPECT YOU TO BE ABLE TO MANIPULATE THE ENERGY OF THE WARP TO ALLOW SUCH ALTERATIONS FOR YEARS YET, PERHAPS CENTURIES. EVEN GENERATING A FIREBALL WITHOUT WEEKS OR MONTHS OF PRACTICE WOULD BE IMPRESSIVE."
Taylor focused. She knew that her powers could, at the crudest, be compared to a watermill. A normal person was not a watermill, and was merely at the edge of the river- the river, in this case, being the Warp. She had the mill, and a small amount of water constantly flowed through, providing power, the fuel for her abilities. More powerful abilities required more water, meaning that she had to 'open' the gate, thus allowing more warp energy to flow through her. Of course, in the home universe of The Emperor that analogy would require the addition of piranhas or crocodiles to cover the possibility of allowing a daemon access to your mind and soul when drawing power, but that was taking the analogy too far and wasn't really relevant. The point was, she hadn't been using a great deal of warp energy in her escapades, preferring to manage on a lower, passively flowing amount, so this would be a relatively new experience. Somehow, she already knew it would be frustrating.
"AS I SAID, IT WILL TAKE TIME BEFORE YOU ARE ABLE TO USE FIRE." The Emperor rumbled the next morning, as Taylor passed through the gates to her school.
'Yes, I'm aware of that. Still, I had hoped for at least a slight progress. I don't have time to waste.'
Taylor looked up, eyes narrowing as she looked at the stream of teenagers making their way into the school. As her powers developed and grew- and she spent more and more time running around the city fighting crime- she had become less and less dependent on sleep, but she had not yet reached the point where the four hours she had managed last night would suffice and she was tired. It made her irritable, and the thought of having to deal with her schoolmates made the irritation worse.
'I don't have time to hang around here. I'm going to go with the plan we came up with, and get myself time until the Bay has calmed down and I'm more sure that the ABB or the Empire aren't going to start a war in the streets.' She said, coming to a conclusion.
"AS YOU WISH."
Taylor reinforced her mental barrier of slight seclusion and picked up her pace, moving more quickly towards the school and hurrying through, her destination clear in her mind: the office of the Headmistress. As always, a secretary sat at a desk just outside the office, but the woman was merely a straw fence offering token resistance before the flood of personality and mind-altering psyker power that Taylor brought. Mostly psyker power, personality was something that Taylor reserved for people that she cared about. Nevertheless, she was able to pass into the Headmistress' office easily enough, and came face to face with the short, unpleasant form of Principal Blackwell. The degree to which the Principal reminded Taylor of the Director of the PRT was remarkable, and not in a good way. Taylor couldn't say she liked either of them. Bitter, miserable bureaucrats who delighted in making others miserable. Though Piggot at least had a reason, her experiences with the S-Class criminal cape Nilbog were something Taylor had come across in her research. Blackwell was just a bitch.
"Did you want something, Miss Hebert?" Blackwell asked. Taylor schooled her face in neutrality, hiding the sneer that wanted to flow so naturally across her features.
"I did, Principal. I wanted to talk about the Locker incident, actually." She said, politely. A tendril of psychic power snaked out at her command, sinking invisibly into Blackwell's mind. Just some minor manipulation would do, nothing too blatant. A slight nudge, just enough to push Blackwell into not dismissing her. It wasn't hard, the woman's mind had no strength to it.
"What about it?" Blackwell asked curtly. Taylor gritted her teeth and kept her expression in place. The Principal damn well knew about what Sophia Hess was doing, what she had done. So much for the inherent goodness of humanity.
"Well, my grades have been slipping since then, I'm still a little shaken about it. So, I was hoping that I could take some time off, to be tutored away from school."
Taylor gently moulded her power, swaying Blackwell. Normally, the woman would dismiss her request without a second thought, and normally Taylor would consider leaving a retreat and unacceptable. But Coil was up to something and Bakuda was up to something and Taylor simply didn't have time to be in school. Blackwell looked up, faking interest. Taylor fought the urge to turn her into a vegetable or, even better, to implant little suggestions, little foolishnesses and stupidities in the psyche that would end in Blackwell having an 'accident'. Oh, it would be so easy, the elegance of the plan so delicious, but Taylor pushed the urge away. She wasn't a murderer. Not yet.
"Mm…it is not normally our policy, Miss Hebert, to allow such liberties. Especially not to those who have, as you say, slipping grades. Education is important, after all."
Taylor pressed her power a little harder, in preparation for her next statement.
"Yes, Principal. It's just that, well, I was talking to a friend who knows a solicitor and she thinks that, given what happened, I may not have been treated quite correctly…"
Taylor pushed part of Blackwell's mind, increasing her fear of being found out while dulling her logic. Blackwell might accuse her of blackmail if Taylor wasn't careful. Taylor spoke on, before Blackwell had a chance to.
"And I've been looking at some psychology and it says that it might be better for me if I can take a break, come back more stable. And if I improve after I come back, you can hold it up as a wonderful idea…my improvement would all be down to you, of course."
A little flattery and promises of reward never hurt, and it made Taylor's job easier as she carefully altered tiny emotions and thoughts to steer Blackwell in the direction of her thinking and tweaked the Principals memories, just a little. Blackwell would remember this 'study break' as her idea. It would definitely make her a lot less likely to bring it to the attention of anyone important.
"I…see. You have a tutor, you say?" Blackwell asked. Taylor let a small, polite smile replace her neutral expression, rather than the distinctly feral grin that was her first thought. Hook, line and sinker. And if the tutor she was speaking of was The Emperor, what of it? He was certainly closer to her than any other teacher could be.
'There is something wonderful about success.' Taylor mused as she walked away from the school, a piece of paper recording her eventual agreement with Blackwell- a month long break, with no repercussions provided she passed a class test at the end of it with a good mark. An excellent agreement, and one that would give her plenty of time to deal with the tensions that were quickly rising in Brockton Bay.
'Hmm…what's the best way to deal with it, do you think?'
"I WOULD FIND INFORMATION BEFORE YOU ATTEMPT TO MAKE ANY SOLID PLANS."
'Well, I suppose that you're right. Lucky that we have all this free time from now on, yes?'
"YOU STILL NEED TO RECREATE A STAFF. AND GOING OUT IN THE DAYLIGHT IS INADVISABLE, WHEN YOU HAVE ONLY JUST CEASED GOING TO SCHOOL. IT WILL MAKE YOU EASIER TO IDENTIFY."
Taylor tutted as she walked.
'Take away all fun, why don't you? But you are right. I suppose it's to a park for some wood then. Ah, it's a glamourous life I lead.'
That night Taylor left her house again, sneaking out of the bedroom window after her father had gone to bed. Her new staff hung loosely in her hand, still rough to the touch but passable, and she moved through the shadows with confidence. She knew the location of at least one Empire safehouse, and she fully intended to hit it- after all, she wanted information on Coil, and who would know better than his enemies? Apart from his friends and himself, naturally, but Coil's operations were a little bit more discreet, a little bit harder to find for her. And so, Empire it was. She actually hoped that she didn't run into any Empire capes: for all that she would like a re-match with Hookwolf, it was something that she wanted to be ready for. Something she could go in and open with a sucker punch. She kept a good pace, and soon came to the Empire safehouse: very much a non-descript building, a terraced house in a poorer part of town. Taylor hid herself in a shadow on the opposite side of the street and considered.
'Six men in the building. Both neighbours are occupied, three people in the right side house and two in the left. They're all asleep, but I don't know if they'll ring the police or PRT if they get woken up. We'll have to do this nice and quiet then…'
That was a pity. Taylor had been toying with the idea of faking an assault by Coil's men, using her ability to change memories to alter the remembrance of the attack, but it wouldn't work here. Too many witnesses. She'd have to put it off for a different safehouse. A real shame, it would have been very convenient for her if she could persuade the Empire to draw Coil out for her.
"IT WOULD APPEAR THAT YOU WILL BE FORCED TO BE STEALTHY." The Emperor commented. Taylor sighed.
'It certainly appears so. This takes all the fun out of breaking, entering and assault. I can't even be too scary, if they start screaming it might be an issue.'
Ah well, she couldn't always get her way she supposed. Taylor looked carefully at the safe house, trying to decide on a way in. A window on the uppermost floor, with a drainpipe close by offered a possibility. She sneaked across to the bottom of the drainpipe, and realised that she couldn't climb up with her staff in hand.
'Remind me to create some kind of carrier for my staff, in case I have to do this again.' She said, before laying her staff carefully down and taking a grip on the drainpipe, testing its strength. She guessed that it would hold, but she wasn't certain that this was the best way. After all, it was quite possible that the window would be unable to open far enough. If she climbed up the drainpipe and then found herself stuck outside the window it would ruin her reputation. Even if no-one ever learned of it.
"WITH THE ADDITION OF LIGHTENING YOURSELF, YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO CLIMB UP WITHOUT ANY UNDUE PROBLEMS. BUT YOU ARE CORRECT, THE WINDOW MAY NOT OFFER AN ACCESS POINT WITHOUT BEING BROKEN."
'Y'know what? I'm just going to try the door.'
Subtlety was overrated anyway. Taylor pulled her staff back into her hand with a flicker of telekinetic force, and walked to the door. Locked. Here she had a conundrum: did she smash the door down, or try something less violent? Well, she might as well attempt a less direct manner, she decided.
'I wonder if I can pick locks using telekinesis?'
As it turned out, she might not have been able to. The Emperor, however, had more knowledge on how locks worked, and therefore was able to coach her through it. It only took a minute or so before the lock clicked and Taylor eased the door open.
'I'll have to practice that. Being able to do it is really useful.' She mused as she carefully shut the door. She turned on her heel, just as a shaven-headed man in a white vest and dark trousers stepped out of the room that bordered the small entrance hall. There was an instant of staring at one another, and then the Empire goon opened his mouth. Taylor reacted instinctively, and a gesture and a flicker of power closed his airway. The shout turned to a choked gasp, and Taylor lunged past the choking man into the living room. There was one other man in there.
"Barry? What-"
Taylor caught the second man off guard, stunning him with a blow from her staff and knocking him unconscious with the familiar spark of psionic power, transmitted through her fingertips. She turned back to the first man, cancelling the effect of her power on him as she saw that he was lying still on the floor. Taylor quickly knelt next to him, checking for a pulse: she needed to know if he was alive. After all, Shadow Stalker- Sofia Hess- had been shanghaied into the Wards after nearly killing a man. If Taylor had just killed the Empire goon his body would need to disappear. And his friends. She hoped he was still alive, it was a long way to the Bay when carrying several bodies. Fortunately, he had a pulse.
'Well, that's a relief. It would be quite embarrassing to tell Piggot that I wasn't as stupid as Shadow Stalker and then accidentally kill a man.'
Taylor patted the unconscious man on the head and stood up. There were still four more men in the house, after all. Taylor took a moment to locate them, feeling the approximate location of their minds, and set off, treading carefully. There were two in a single room upstairs, one on the ground floor with her and one final goon in a different upstairs room.
'The individuals first, then.'
The man downstairs was easy: he was in the kitchen, head bobbing from side to side as he listened to music on a pair of headphones. Taylor simply crept up behind him and rendered him unconscious with her usual close range psionic spark. She dragged him into the living room, leaving him next to the first two before moving to the stairway. She looked at the uncarpeted stairs for a moment, before deciding not to risk them creaking and carefully using a variation of her levitation to lighten herself until she could be sure of making no noise. It was still somewhat tiresome, but not as tiring as fully levitating would be. She reached the top of the stairs, finding herself in a small corridor, with three doors leading off from it. The noise of running water came from behind one, and a soft creaking and moaning from the other. Taylor settled into a kneeling position while she briefly conversed with The Emperor.
'Interrupt a shower or a couple having sex. Somehow, I never thought that this situation would come up.'
The Emperor gave a deep laugh, which was particularly odd given its monotone nature.
"AN UNFORTUNATE SITUATION INDEED. HOWEVER, I WOULD SUGGEST THAT THE SHOWERING CRIMINAL WOULD BE BETTER- IT WILL BE LESS AWKWARD FOR YOU AND IF YOU WAIT THE…INTIMATE COUPLE, SHALL WE SAY, MAY WELL HAVE FALLEN ASLEEP. OR CAN BE GENTLY PERSUADED TO DO SO."
Taylor had to admit, the suggestion had merit. One naked person was definitely less awkward than two naked people, even without the whole sex thing. With that in mind, she placed her hand against the bathroom door. It was held shut with a deadbolt, but…well, telekinesis. Unimaginably versatile. The bolt slid back, and Taylor shoved the door open. The man had just gotten out of the shower, and was nowhere near fast enough to react as she rapped her staff against his head, channelling a psionic spark through the wood as an experiment. He dropped like a sack of potatoes. Unfortunately, that meant that Taylor had to catch him. Which meant that she briefly had a skinny, scrawny, ugly gang member pressed against her body. She let him slide quietly to the floor and immediately began to shudder and flail in disgust.
'I've changed my mind on the relative awkwardness of the two situations. Also, I think any attraction to men that I had has gone. At least for a while.'
The Emperor was laughing. Absolute bastard, Taylor concluded, and communicated that to him as she dropped a towel on the fallen Empire member, to cover him up. He was certainly not the best example of the male form.
'Alright, now for the love-bunnies.'
She used the plan that The Emperor had suggested, with a slight change. The man in the room was hit by a deep suggestion that he should sleep: combined with the fact that he was falling asleep anyway, it took easily and held fast. The woman was urged to head to the bathroom, and Taylor dragged the scrawny gang member aside and lurked behind the door, waiting. It was easy to surprise the woman, and Taylor staggered her with a strong blow to the back of the head and pushed her against the wall. Their eyes met, and Taylor broke into her mind with ease. She was more experienced now than she had been the first time, and the woman would suffer no ill effects beyond disorientation for a few hours after she awoke: it was a simple matter to alter memories so that she believed she had simply been knocked unconscious. Taylor smiled to herself. Fortune had smiled upon her: the woman was the highest ranked Empire member in the building and had known the location of a larger Empire storehouse and the hiding places of the drug, weapon and cash stashes in this safehouse. One quick looting trip and she could be on her way.
The second Empire safehouse was a warehouse. Looking derelict, Taylor could sense the busy minds within, almost a dozen. She carefully scouted, making sure that there were no security cameras in the warehouse that might disrupt her plans, and then smiled to herself. Trying to be stealthy had been surprisingly enjoyable- disturbingly naked goons aside- but there was something far more delectable in the thrill of full combat. Not that she would be taking credit for it…no, there were no cameras and so she could make use of her plan to point the Empire at Coil. She sneaked into the warehouse, concentrated, and cast her illusion. To the gang members, sound and sight suddenly ceased to function. An instant later Taylor tore their weapons from them, and moved swiftly among them to knock them out. Fast, clean, efficient. She didn't have time to torment, she had memories to modify. Twelve implanted memories of an assault by the distinctively equipped mercenaries that Coil favoured, and Taylor was almost done. It was easy to pile the Empire members just outside the door, and take her share of the loot in the warehouse before using the skills at arson that The Emperor had acquired over his life to ignite an area at the back of the building, far away from the gang members. Taylor waited long enough to see the warehouse fully catch light, and then left with a smile on her face. One minor gang war for her benefit, made to order. She had to admit, she would consider this particular night quite a success.
Two nights later, Taylor was less certain of the success of her plan. She had expected some fighting to be underway by now, but it seemed like Coil and the Empire had either come to a truce or were being unexpectedly cautious. How annoying. She was crouched on another rooftop, considering whether to step up her efforts and include the ABB in her attempts at provoking a minor gang war when her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. Taylor pulled it out, frowning at the number she didn't recognise, but answering.
"Circaetus!"
Even in a whisper, the voice was easy to recognise.
"Tattletale? What-"
"There isn't any time! Bakuda, she- she came after us, she wants us for her head bomb squad! She's already got Bitch and Regent, she's coming after me, you're the only one who can help!"
Taylor immediately shelved her questions about where exactly Tattletale had gotten her phone number at that. Bakuda with civilian suicide bombers was bad enough. With a fairly capable cape squad? Bad news, especially given that it would more than double the effective Cape power of the ABB. Triple, in fact, since Oni Lee was still in PRT custody.
There was an explosion in the distance, and Taylor slowly turned to see that fire was already licking at the walls of the PRT building. Alright. Maybe Oni Lee would not be in custody for much longer. Taylor gritted her teeth, fighting the urge to hang up and go to help the Wards. No, she concluded, they were smart enough to avoid tangling with Lung. Save the Undersiders first, prevent Bakuda and Lung from acquiring a potentially deadly asset.
"Alright." She said into the phone. "Tell me where you are, and I'll be on my way."
Chapter 6: Chapter 5Chapter TextImmediately after hanging up Taylor set off, roof hopping and hastily punching another number into the phone.
"Circ? This had better be good, we got problems." Glory Girl said, picking up on the third ring.
"Yeah, I know. Lung attacking the PRT building to break out Lee?"
"Yup. Could really use you here."
"Yeah…about that. Turns out, Bakuda has kidnapped the Undersiders and is taking a shot at minion-ising them. Big problem, I need to stop it."
There was a momentary pause, in which Taylor could hear wind noise- Glory Girl must have been flying.
"I'm gonna be honest, Circ, I don't actually see the problem." She admitted. Taylor sighed, making a psychic assisted leap between two buildings. She was getting closer to Tattletale, but it was going to take a few more minutes.
"Not a problem? Well, imagine the Central Bank debacle happening again. And then replace Regent and Hellhound with suicide bombers and give Grue a tinkertech weapon."
The pause this time was shorter.
"Shit."
"Yeah."
"Yeah, alright I see your point. Could really have used you against Lung though, so try to be quick? Good luck, Circ."
Taylor gave a gentle laugh.
"I'm not the one heading towards Lung, Glory. Good luck yourself." She replied. A brief chuckle was her only reply, before Glory Girl hung up and Taylor could focus on moving. Despite her levity she was concerned now: Glory Girl was tough, but Lung was Lung. He was…unprecedented. Taylor herself would want to avoid anything remotely like a fair fight with him, never mind a full contact physical brawl. Glory Girl didn't lack guts, that was for certain.
'So, do you have any plans before I go rushing in to confront a mad bomber and her inevitable terrified minions?' Taylor mentally asked, deciding that she might as well put up some semblance of planning this time. She didn't have that much experience with the ABB, but she thought that they were quite similar to the Empire in terms of basic thugs. Just with more focus on cheaply made katanas and poorly learned martial arts.
"IF YOU ARE INSISTENT UPON SAVING THE UNDERSIDERS, THEN IT IS BEST TO UNDERSTAND THAT WE MAY NOT BE ABLE TO FREE THEM ALL IN ONE ATTEMPT. OF ALL OF THEM YOU SHOULD FOCUS UPON THE GIRL, TATTLETALE."
'You think so?'
"YES. HER POWER ALLOWS HER TO STRATEGISE, TO PLAN, TO FIND INFORMATION. KNOWLEDGE IS POWER."
'Guard it well. Tattletale first, then, and Grue if possible. They have the most utility and would make it a lot harder to deal with Bakuda. Although I thought Lung wanted them dead…think there's some power plays going on in the ABB?'
"IT IS POSSIBLE. PERHAPS TATTLETALE WILL KNOW MORE."
'Yeah. I just hope that we can be done before Lung gets back. Fighting him wouldn't end well. Especially not fighting him alone.'
The Emperor grunted agreement: he and Taylor had discussed the possibility of facing Lung, and concluded that the best chance they had at the moment was to do as much damage as possible and run while he regenerated. Lung simply healed too fast for anything she had to put him down without a mind-frying psychic attack, which brought the issue of revealing her full power. Which, of course, she was actively trying to avoid. At least until her power had grown enough that she could handle herself against any hostility. But Bakuda shouldn't require such measures. She would just have to be careful.
Taylor paused when she reached the Trainyard, a section of the Docks opposite the shop-filled Boardwalk. She hadn't been here before: there wasn't much call for her presence, as The Empire rarely ventured here, especially in the kind of force that would attract her attention. Regardless, she knew her way around. Her father was the head of the Dockworkers Association after all, she had gained some knowledge by simple information diffusion.
'Alright. So the building is over in that direction, it's a storehouse. There will be ABB and Bakuda.'
"AND POSSIBLY OTHERS. THE UNDERSIDERS ARE NOT WITHOUT SKILL, BAKUDA MAY HAVE SOME OTHER REINFORCEMENTS.'
'Right. Yeah. Well, there's no point in waiting. We aren't going to find out anything by standing here.'
Taylor moved quickly and quietly, tucking her staff behind her back as she ran, slightly crouched to better hide. It wasn't actually a storehouse that she was looking for: rather, it was a large collection of storage lockers, a mixture of ramshackle sheds and abandoned shipping crates that formed a sort of maze, held behind a battered chain-link fence. Once used as makeshift housing by people down on their luck, an epidemic of crime and the proliferation of drug dens and gangs had left the storage depot a sad and desolate ghost town. A perfect place for the Undersiders to leave a stash, really. Taylor didn't know the exact location of the Undersiders locker, but she knew that Tattletale was somewhere around. Once she was in the approximate area she could locate the villain with her powers: Taylor could already feel people, she just wasn't close enough to identify them yet. It wouldn't take long, and she headed for the largest concentration of minds, planning as she went. If needed she would mount the shacks long enough to deliver a surprise attack and grab Tattletale before running. Pragmatism. And then she sensed a cluster of minds, surrounding one that she recognised as Tattletale, and saw two figures atop a shack. Taylor made a jump, using her power to boost herself to the top of the nearest locker and leaping between the roofs, the thin corrugated iron bending alarmingly under her boots but holding.
'Two on the shack, most dangerous and I'll deal with them last. Drop next to Tattletale and use a shockwave to clear out the goons?'
"A REASONABLE PLAN. JUST BE READY TO ESCAPE IF NEEDED."
'Yeah, I know. Back into action we go.'
Taylor leaped from the last roof, landing next to Tattletale. Her staff slammed down, and a whipping circle of power expanded out around her, the circle not touching Tattletale but slamming into the closing ring of goons. They went everywhere, swept aside by the telekinetic burst, and Taylor raised her head to look at the two figures atop the shack.
"Howdy." She drawled, sizing them up. The pink and white costumes were a little garish, but sometimes garish did not mean ineffective. One of them was hardly impressive: pudgy and slouched over, he didn't cut an impressive figure. The other, Taylor dispassionately noted, had a physique that was best described a chiselled. Maybe even heroic, but that didn't make him all that dangerous. Parahuman powers were funny like that, for all she knew the big guy had the power to breathe bubbles while the small guy could punch out a mountain. She doubted it though, mainly because she recognised them. Or thought she did, anyway.
"Uber and Leet, right? What are a pair of two-bit bottom-feeders like you doing taking on the Undersiders?" she asked. The indignant way they twitched made her smile. Easy, easy, easy. Too quick to annoy. In fact, she almost felt bad for doing it. Almost.
"That's some big talk from someone who's biggest contribution for far has been getting hospitalised by Oni Lee." Uber replied after a moment. Taylor laughed.
"Oh, that's cute. How long have you been working on that one, genius? Real witty banter there."
"He's been using his power to make him witty, probably." Tattletale supplied from behind her. Taylor grinned behind her mask.
"He definitely hasn't been using it to be fashionable." She replied. She glanced around herself, seeing that a couple of the goons had gotten back up.
"You know, I guess that I should be intimidated. Known villains and all that. But then again, do these two really count? Anyone who's best day involves beating up a streetwalker needs pity more than anything else."
Uber and Leet glared at her, and Taylor eyed their camera from the corner of her eye. She was tempted to destroy it, but ultimately she wanted the whole of their fanbase to see them get beaten. It wouldn't exactly be a new thing: the two ineffectual villains ran a website, streaming their low quality and frequently unsuccessful crimes, but it would be some decent publicity for her.
"Anyway. What say you two go home, and call out Bakuda? I don't have time for the minnows right now."
Leet growled in anger, but Uber put a hand on his shoulder.
"Don't. She's provoking you."
"What? Oh, no I'm not. I'm genuinely terrified of the chinless wonder over there. He might flub something so badly he actually hurts me as well as himself." Taylor mocked, taking a leaf from Tattletale. Uber muttered something to Leet, then dropped to the ground, standing a fair distance away from Taylor.
"Alright, Circaetus. You've made your point. But let's see if Brockton Bays latest two-bit vigilante is all talk or not." He said, his rich voice low. He gestured, and the goons- those recovered enough to stand again- advanced. Taylor shifted her stance and grinned to herself.
"Finally. Though I wouldn't rely on your power too much for insults Uber: it isn't exactly sterling quality."
The first goon came in. He was ABB, Taylor could tell, even though he was wearing a bandana that covered his face. Honestly, the katana was a real clue. Taylor rolled her eyes and stepped away from the clumsy swing, flicking her hand at him. A tiny application of power sent a gust of dust into his face, and as he cried out and reached for his eyes she lazily smacked his hand with her staff and took his katana, thumping the back of his head with the hilt. A half turn and a raise of the hand brought her stolen sword up, clashing with another that was directed at her head. Taylor shoved her staff into the man's belly and blew him into a shack with a psychic pulse.
"Two. Two, is that it? Man, henchman standards have gone down. Not that I blame them…I'd be reluctant to attack if I was armed with this shit." She commented, inspecting the blade in her hand. The Emperor didn't like katanas, she knew: they just didn't suit his theme. Or the staff and sword style she favoured, if she was honest. This one was particularly poorly made, but she supposed that beggars can't be choosers.
'What I'd give for a proper Force Sword. I could cut Lung in half with one of those.'
"LEARN TO FORGE AND YOU CAN MAKE YOURSELF ONE."
'Well, maybe.'
Taylor looked around: there were maybe half a dozen goons left. She nodded to herself.
"Hey, guys? I'm going to do you a favour here. You see, I've been working with my powers, and I've worked out that I can do some pretty neat things."
Even as she spoke, Taylor stretched out her power to the dust and debris around her. There were very few large pieces, but more than enough dust for what she planned.
"See, I wanted to copy what Rune did, but then I thought…well, why settle for inferiority? Rune, if you're watching, I just want you to know: I'm definitely the better telekinetic of the two of us. And this should demonstrate just perfectly."
Taylor raised the katana, perpendicular to her body, and swept it down. An instant later she felt the distinctive pressure that indicated her eyes were glowing, and a storm of dust and fragments rose around her, complete with three larger sheets of corrugated iron that she kept low to the ground- Tattletale had backed away and was pressed against a shack wall behind her. Taylor gave a brief mental sweep to ensure that there was nobody near her- she was safe, Bakuda's mind was a way behind Uber and Leet.
"So," she said, raising her voice and registering the sudden increase of fear from Uber, Leet and the goons,
"Who wants it first?"
She didn't even wait for a response, pushing the dust storm ahead of her and lunging at the nearest goon. The ABB member- a tall, heavily built man- cowered, a scream coming from his throat. Taylor laid him flat with a blow from her staff, and moved on through his friends, quickly bringing them down. She turned towards Uber just in time to hear him cry out.
"Leet!"
Taylor shifted her gaze to the Tinker, just in time to see him pull a cartoonish bomb from his backpack and clumsily overhand it towards her. She swung her staff, and one of the larger plates intercepted it, causing a blast of force that billowed her coat and briefly dispersed the dust storm. She let it settle- it would be more a hindrance now that only Uber and Leet were left.
"Well, not bad." She said, in a mock thoughtful tone.
"You didn't blow yourself up, at least."
Uber took a stance opposite her, and Taylor noted it as a swordsman's stance.
'I'm regretting the posturing with that katana now.' She mentally remarked, remembering that Uber had the power to be good at anything. Not great, maybe, nut she was hardly a practiced swordswoman. Well, at least she'd be learning something. Leet was glaring at her.
"Circaetus, be careful. Those bombs are holograms, but they pack a punch." Tattletale said from behind her. Taylor looked over her shoulder long enough to offer a nod, and when she looked back Uber had a sword in his hand. Again, it was rather cartoonish, but it was presumably sharp.
"I'm going to be honest, I don't play video games. So…any chance you'll tell me what that is?" she tried. Uber seemed to like boasting. Maybe he'd talk.
"You don't know…what sort of philistine are you? This, this is the Master Sword, the great weapon of Link! A legendary Hero!"
"And yet you are using it. The sword probably feels ashamed." Taylor deadpanned, subtly pumping power into her katana and staff. Leet usually had issues with building consistent tech, but he could make something great on occasion. Anything called 'The Master Sword'- capital letters, no less- was probably pretty sharp and tough. The piece of crap katana she was using would need reinforcing. Hopefully the stress of her power wouldn't shatter it before she was done.
"Alright then. Disregarding ruminations on the irony of you using the sort of a great Hero, what say we see how good we both are?"
Uber raised his sword to the guard position. Taylor crossed her staff and sword flat before her, and idly wondered how long it would be before one of them cheated. She gave it fifteen seconds. At best. Oh well.
Uber lunged.
Blade met blade, sparks showering as psyker reinforced steel clashed with whatever the Master Sword was made from. Taylor swung for Uber's knee with her staff, but he slid aside, disengaging with a flourish. Low swipe, meeting staff before a katana thrust was dodged with a roll of the head and a spinning step away. Taylor went on the attack. The katana was awkward and poorly balanced but sharp, and Uber was forced back, his hands moving in smooth motions to parry and block and Taylor abruptly found her attack reversed and her desperate defence used sword and staff but she could feel her katana cracking, breaking, unable to withstand the stress of combat alongside the crackling thrum of her power. Time to cheat.
"Hey, Uber!" Taylor panted out as they fought, "You enjoying this? Because I'm having a blast!"
A moment after the word, Taylor hopped back a step and threw her katana into the air, ramming a destructive charge through it. Barely a second after she threw it she threw up a telekinetic shield, and the sword ruptured into spinning metal shards. Uber screamed, staggering away: he was barely hurt, but he was shocked and frightened and Taylor took the moment pause to ram a boot into his stomach, slam the Master Sword from his hand with her staff and shove him away. A moment later she stretched her hand out to him and made a gripping motion, curling a telekinetic fist into his uniform.
"Get over here!" she snarled, yanking him towards her and meeting his stomach with her staff, holding him up for an instant before hurling him at Leet with a burst of power. The Tinker didn't dodge fast enough, and they both fell from the shack roof into a tangled mess of limbs. Taylor smiled.
"Having fun yet, Dynamic Duo?"
Twin groans were her reply, and she gave a brief glance at Tattletale.
"These two really took down all four of you? Did they get the drop or something?"
Tattletale stood, looking a little shaky still.
"Got the drop yeah, but not just them. Didn't I tell you-"
"That they weren't alone?" asked a mechanical, hissing voice. Taylor looked up at the shack roof again, having sensed Bakuda long before she arrived. When she saw the ABB cape, however, she did a double-take.
"Oh. Oh my. Bakuda, much as I appreciate the costume, it's a little odd."
The same pink and white garb as Uber and Leet, topped off by a heavy gas-mask with ominous red lenses? Odd. Very odd.
"I mean, I dig the Wolfenstein look, sure. Very intimidating. But given that you're part of an Asian gang in a city that also contains a bunch of Neo-Nazis, I'm not sure the look is quite…Reich."
Tattletale spluttered behind her.
"A…A nazi joke? Really?"
Taylor shrugged.
"I take my cheap shots when I can get them." She admitted, "It was just the most obvious joke."
"Yes, highly amusing." Bakuda hissed, her mask fixed on Taylor with unnerving steadiness.
"Your quips will no doubt be just as amusing after you join the rest of The Undersiders in my ranks."
Taylor blinked at Bakuda, then narrowed her eyes at the villain.
"Alright, Explodigirl. No need to be too hasty. Fact is though, I've got three objections to what you said. One, I'm not an Undersider. Two, if I was to let any villain have their wicked way with me it sure wouldn't be you. And third…fight's not over yet."
Taylor called a storm of shrapnel forth with barely a twitch of her hand, hurling it at Bakuda before sprinting for Tattletale.
"We have to go, right now." She snapped. Tattletale nodded hastily, letting Taylor pull her up.
"I thought you would have stayed." She admitted. Taylor shook her head as she hustled the two of them along.
"Not against a Tinker who's got the ground prepared. Not if I have a choice."
"Good call. She used some kind of grenade against us, from the way Grue and Regent reacted it causes pain. Too much to stand."
"What, really? Wow. That's pretty nasty. Try to avoid her grenades, then?"
"If you can."
Taylor and Tattletale went quiet after the last dry remark by The Undersider, and continued running. As they did so Taylor hoped that the Snitch- the tiny, nigh indestructible floating camera that Uber and Leet employed to record their acts- wasn't following them. If it was, Bakuda might well be able to find them by looking at the Internet Stream. That would be awkward. And then there was an explosion.
"Woah!"
Taylor lurched back several steps, dragging Tattletale with her.
"She's using it to pen us in. Keep us in the area, so her goons can get us." Tattletale panted, a little out of breath from running. Taylor bit her lip, glaring around at the storage shacks.
'What I wouldn't give for an Iron Halo right now. Should have spent some more time on stealing tech to build my own.'
Regardless of past regrets, she needed to do the best with what she had. And what she had was a pocketful of psyker powers that she had more or less never broken out before. Maybe she should have pretended to be a wizard, actually, like that Cape she had vaguely heard of. Fireballs, lightning, telekinesis, wizard would cover the lot of it. Oh well, regrets were pointless.
"So, do you have a plan?" she asked Tattletale, feigning casualness. The villain seemed shaken, shaking her head.
"No. I- my power doesn't work like that. She's got henchmen all over the place, we can't get away without taking them on. And they're all either ABB or they're being forced to help her by something- bombs in their heads I think. We might have to fight our way out but I don't know if we can."
Taylor normally might have flinched at the thought of facing off against potential innocents who could explode at any given moment. In this case, she merely steeled her resolve and looked directly at Tattletale.
"How vulnerable to tampering are the bombs? Say, if the people were tasered, would there be an explosion?"
Tattletale blinked at her, and then frowned, the expression shifting to one of pain a moment later.
"No. No, I don't think so. But I can't tell for certain."
An echoing roar shook the air after Tattletale spoke, and Taylor gave a worried glance to the PRT headquarters. Lung must be seriously ramped up to make a noise like that.
"Doesn't matter. We'll go the way she wants, smash through and escape. Bakuda might have planned for The Undersiders, but I said it before: I'm not an Undersider."
Tattletale still looked unsure.
"But-"
Taylor looked her in the eyes, resting a hand on her shoulder.
"Buts will get us nowhere, Tattletale. Have faith. Have courage."
The villain sagged for a moment, then let out a weary laugh and straightened.
"You really do believe that. How do you manage it, Hero?"
Taylor didn't even have to think about the answer, it rose from the depths of her soul…and perhaps some of the still foggy memories she shared with The Emperor.
"Doubt is for the dying, Tattletale. Come on. We're alive, so we aren't beaten yet."
Immediately following her words Taylor set off, locating the largest cluster of minds nearby and moving towards them, Tattletale quietly following her. There were only about half a dozen goons there: all in the green and red bandanas of the ABB.
"So, your power giving you anything better?" Taylor asked Tattletale, making conversation as she gathered her power. This would have to be very precise.
"Being tasered won't detonate the bombs. No guarantee that Bakuda won't afterwards, though. So, do you have a Taser?"
Taylor smiled slightly behind her mask, keeping a careful eye on the group as the ABB goons raised their guns: those who had them, at least. Two revolvers, a pistol and a machine-pistol. Not too much.
"A Taser? Well, not as such. Just wait and see."
"Fire!"
Taylor raised her staff, and a triangle of force formed before her, deflecting the bullets with contemptuous ease. Her left hand rose, pointing at the closest ABB goon, and she raised her voice as the shooting died down.
"You ever rubbed your feet on the carpet then given someone a static shock?"
Blank stares were her reply, and Taylor shrugged.
"Try doing it as a full force telekinetic. The results are positively electric."
And lightning arced from her hand.
It was hard to make out Bakuda's expression when they emerged from the storage yard utterly unharmed, but Taylor could feel the emotions boiling off the villain. Rage, disbelief, a taste of fear…Taylor relished it. And the fear coming from the more numerous henchmen she had with her, so much stronger than Bakuda's, suddenly began to shift to Taylor. It was practically exquisite.
"I have to commend you on your plan, Bakuda. It was reasonably well constructed…assuming, of course, that none of your opponents are really combat rated Parahumans. Inflexible, though. What exactly are you going to do now?"
Bakuda began to monologue. Taylor tuned her out, preferring instead to extend psychic tendrils to each member of the ABB and the local conscripts that Bakuda had surrounding her, forging a channel for lightning or easier psyker attacks. She would have increased their fear and tried to make them run, but Bakuda probably had her finger on the bomb trigger. Too much risk. Besides, Taylor had no wish to be splattered in brain matter. She kept her eyes on Bakuda as she ordered some kid- some poor Korean kid, looked like he wasn't even out of school yet- to get a gun, and shoot. Taylor turned her gaze upon him, wondering. Would the kid actually do it? She wouldn't have begrudged him a shot- she was easily able to deflect it. And then she felt defiance flare in the kid and he fired into the sky, and Bakuda's mood turned ugly immediately. There was a faint buzzing noise, and the kid just liquefied. Turned to goop, a human puddle on the ground. Taylor blinked. Tattetale gasped quietly. Bakuda laughed.
"I'd forgotten I'd even made that one!" she crowed, the mechanical translator in her mask making the creepy laughter and tone even creepier. Taylor idly considered the chance of reaching her, punching her skull off and then covering it up. Poor chances: there was a crowd, and that was a lot of bodies to hide. Plus she was fairly sure that Uber and Leets Snitch was still watching. Damn, this little act would be giving their viewers them quite a show.
'Alright. Shock the crowd, flip the jeep, hope Bakuda gets crippled in the action?'
"KEEP ONE HAND FREE, YOU MIGHT NEED IT FOR A SHIELD. SHE'S NOT SHOWING IT ALL THAT MUCH, BUT THERE'S A GRENADE LAUNCHER ON THE SEAT."
'If only there wasn't so many people around, I could really use that. One 'jam' and Bakuda is…well....'
"JAM?"
'Oh, very funny.'
"I CERTAINLY THOUGHT SO."
'You would do.'
The rapid exchange took less than a second, and Taylor kept her gaze on the cackling Bakuda throughout.
"Bakuda." She said, injecting a measure of steel into her voice. The Tinker stopped laughing, the gas mask tilting towards Taylor.
"What? Some little last words, Hero?"
Taylor ignored the mockery, lifting her staff a little as though deep in thought. And then the realisation hit her.
'The crowd is half civilians! I can't shock them on live tv, the PRT will be on me like lice!'
"YOU MUST DO SOMETHING. BLIND THEM WITH YOUR LIGHTNING?"
'Bloody Tinker bitch!' Taylor mentally raged, but she went through her hastily planned words anyway. She was in too deep to make many changes now.
"Well, I suppose you could say that. Really, it's a simple thing that I want to say, something that you've apparently forgotten: I am not helpless."
The staff slammed down, and an bolt of lightning raced up her staff and burst in a blinding, eye searing display. Taylor herself had closed her eyes and turned away, and so was almost unaffected, but the crowd were blinded and terrified and they quickly dissolved into panicking chaos. Bakuda, at least partially protected by the lenses of her gasmask, howled in incoherent rage. A grenade came hurtling towards Taylor, thrown overhand and spiralling towards a slightly stumbling Tattletale, but Taylor trapped it in an orb of force, hurling it into the air to detonate relatively harmlessly. The orb absorbed most of the shrapnel before failing and letting the fragments fall more or less harmlessly, and Taylor changed her plan. She didn't attack the jeep: instead, she burst the lenses on Bakuda's gasmask with a carefully targeted blast of force. The Tinker screamed and fell over, and Taylor swatted Uber and Leets Snitch away before she grabbed Tattletale and ran, dashing past the crowd and away from the storage yard, running towards the warehouses in the Docks. She paused in the shadow of a large, derelict building.
"Can you see?" she snapped, having half-dragged the villain a short way. Tattletale looked at her, still blinking but focused.
"Yeah. Yeah, just about. Still a little blurry but your lightshow hasn't hurt too much."
"Good. Sorry about that, but I needed something surprising."
Tattletale gave Taylor a dry look.
"I'm guessing that it was a surprise to you too?"
Taylor shrugged.
"Hadn't considered that attacking a bunch of civilians would look real bad for me. Don't want the Protectorate or PRT to have anything to use against me."
"Hmm."
"Did you get anything from Bakuda? We could really use some information right now." Taylor said, looking around them and checking that no ABB were approaching- they had escaped the trap of the storage yard, but that was no guarantee of safety. Tattletale nodded.
"You hurt her. Hurt her badly. She was using toe rings to detonate her bombs, and a system in her gas-mask goggles to select which bombs to blow."
"In her goggles. The goggles that-"
"The goggles that you made explode, yeah. Best guess, she's real pissed. Best case, she's now blind."
"Blind? Please, I have more control than that."
'Probably.'
Honestly, Taylor wouldn't shed a tear over blinding Bakuda. It would be almost poetic justice, if what Tattletale said about the way Bakuda was using her bombs was correct. Tattletale locked an unwavering gaze upon Taylor.
"You should have killed her." She said quietly. Taylor shrugged.
"Maybe."
"She'll get a kill order once the PRT hears about what she's done to those civilians. You wouldn't even get trouble for it." Tattletale added. Taylor frowned. True as all that might be, Tattletale didn't sound like she normally would. Taylor locked eyes with the villain.
"And rest assured that when she receives that kill order, I will be happy to tear her skull off and mount it on my wall." Taylor said, a fraction of her temper breaking through.
"But until then, I'm not going to kill to satisfy your need for revenge."
Tattletale maintained eye contact for a few seconds more, then sagged.
"Right. Yeah, sorry. It's just…she's got Grue, Regent and Bitch, and with my boss always looking over me-"
"Tattletale. Focus. We'll get them back, but we need to get away from here first." Taylor interrupted, having successfully reined in her own anger. Tattletale nodded to her.
"Right. Right, okay. We need to get clear. Before she recovers, she might be smart enough to guess where we are."
"You think she's that smart?" Taylor asked doubtfully. The two of them started to walk, carefully staying in the shadows. Tattletale shrugged.
"Smart, yeah. What kind of smart is harder to tell. She'll be after you, though: she's got a fragile ego, and you put a serious dent in it."
Taylor sneered, though she knew Tattletale wouldn't see it through her mask.
"She can come after me all she likes. If it weren't for those hostages I would have buried her." She grumbled. Tattletale shrugged.
"If." She murmured. Taylor glanced aside.
"I want to know how a Tinker specialism in bombs lead to enough surgical expertise to implant bombs in skulls without killing them, or leading to extreme brain damage." She said sourly. Tattletale shrugged again.
"Maybe she had a lot of practice." She observed dourly, and Taylor grimaced at the thought. Practice. More like experiments. Bakuda was becoming more and more annoying, and Taylor was beginning to wonder how hard it would be to implant a suicidal mental command. Just a slip when preparing a bomb, and Bakuda would Tinker no more. There was a kind of elegance in that plan that briefly appealed to her, before she realised how much damage something like that could do and pushed the plan away. She kept it in the back of her mind, however, aware that it might eventually be used.
"Lung's gone quiet." Tattletale observed softly. Taylor darted a glance at her, and then turned on her heel, trying to hear. True to her word, there was no longer any roaring in the background. She hoped that meant that Lung had been defeated, his assault and attempted rescue of Oni Lee foiled, but she didn't trust to that hope. There wasn't anybody around, the ABB milling around near the storage yard. And then an engine roared and the minds of Bakuda and several flunkies moved fast towards them.
"Fuck. They're coming towards us." Tattletale cursed. Taylor rolled her shoulders, taking a better grip on her staff.
"Yeah. I noticed. Good thing we managed to leave the Snitch behind." She replied. She chewed her lip for a moment, understanding that it would be much harder to escape while Bakuda had the jeep. Vehicular destruction it was, then. The jeep approached, moving fast, and Taylor pushed Tattletale into the wall.
"Stay here." She ordered calmly, extending a psychic tendril to the jeep driver. Time to put Bakuda out of action. At least for the moment.
'This way.' She mentally lured, reeling the driver towards her as she stepped out into the open. This would need timed well, but she could do it. She considered simply ramming the jeep into a wall, but this was better. More dramatic, it would put fear of her into Bakuda and the ABB. The jeep raced into sight, and Taylor heard Bakuda scream out.
"There she is! Run the bitch down!" the Tinker howled, clearly crazed by pain and psychotic ego damage. Taylor gestured with her free hand, and every tyre on the vehicle blew. It skidded towards her, and Taylor rammed a wedge of force directly into the engine, driving downwards and indicating the application with a downward swipe of her staff.
The vehicle flipped.
'Hmm. Close.' Taylor observed, turning just as the vehicle flew over her head and dragging the driver free- not wearing a seatbelt, tut-tut. The ABB member was thrown clear, though he landed hard. To her slight disappointment, Bakuda was also thrown clear, though she had gone before the car was flipped and had landed in a heap about six feet from Taylor.
"Pathetic." Taylor remarked, derision filling her tone. The Tinker was trying to get up, just about getting to her hands and knees, so Taylor replicated her action from the Central Bank robbery, extending a hand and pressing Bakuda down with an easy application of force.
"All that talk and here you are. Beaten, fallen and grovelling at my feet." Taylor continued, stepping closer. The rage and fear was pouring off Bakuda, and some part of Taylor found it intoxicating.
"Maybe I'll just kill you." Taylor mused aloud, and Bakuda's fear increased.
"You can't- you won't! You're a hero, you don't do things like that!" she gasped out. Taylor raised an eyebrow and increased the force, until Bakuda slid from her hands and knees, forced prone by the weight of psychic energy.
"Maybe. Maybe. But after all those civilians, you think you won't get a kill order? I probably won't even be accused of anything. A tragic accident…killed when her driver crashed the jeep you were riding in."
Bakuda finally understood, and her terror overwhelmed her rage. Taylor smiled behind her mask.
"And there it is." She said, letting her voice lull into cold apathy, even though a twisted spike of anger coiled inside her and drove her onwards.
"All that time you spent, getting all worked up over causing terror, and you can't take it yourself. The big, bad Tinker, reduced to a whimpering child crying in the dark. All that ego, all that intelligence, all that power, and you still can't deny what you are: a weakling excuse for a human being. It really would be a mercy to end you here."
Taylor continued walking forwards, holding out her left hand and locking on to something that she had seen fall form the wrecked car: a katana, similar to the one she had wielded earlier. She glanced at it as it settled into her hand.
"Crude. Sloppy workmanship, poorly held edge, steel is probably soft or brittle. Don't worry though: I don't have to use it like it is. It'll be nice and sharp when I swing it."
Taylor again took a leaf from her actions at the bank, wrapping her power around Bakuda and forcing her to her knees, head bowed to expose her neck. The Tinker was struggling, but she was physically weak, not able to match Taylor's power. Decapitating Bakuda maybe wasn't the most easily covered up kill, but there would be plenty of explosives lying around to destroy the evidence once Taylor took her skull and bathed in her bloo-
"I THOUGHT YOU INTENDED TO LEAVE HER ALIVE?"
The booming near-monotone cut through the anger that was swelling in her, bringing her back to her senses.
'Maybe I've changed my mind.'
"THAT IS, OF COURSE, YOUR PREROGATIVE. BUT BE CERTAIN THAT IT IS YOUR CHOICE BEFORE YOU SWING THAT BLADE."
Taylor hesitated, standing quite still with the katana held loosely in her left hand. It would be easy, all she had to do was let her staff float for a moment, take the proper two-handed grip and strike, but she knew there was something wrong with it. For all that Bakuda deserved to die, it wouldn't be Taylor striking that blow. Not entirely, and that made a great deal of difference to her. She shook her head.
"Ah, Bakuda, consider yourself fortunate. It would be far too hard to cover up your body. Besides, I don't want to sully myself with your blood."
Taylor turned around, letting her power press Bakuda prone again before releasing it as she walked back towards Tattletale.
"No. Far better to leave you as you are. Let you crawl back to Lung, beaten and humbled. Maybe this will make you a better person, having known what it is like to be helpless before someone more powerful? Remember this day, Bakuda. Remember it well."
Taylor threw aside the katana. It was tainted, blackened by the memory of the unnatural fury that had come over her. She doubted that she would ever again be able to pick up such a blade without thinking of it. A good thing that The Emperor- and therefore Taylor- preferred European style weapons.
"The Snitch is back. It was watching the whole time." Tattletale informed her quietly, and Taylor resisted the urge to curse. It truly was fortunate that she had resisted her murderous urge: it would have outed across the entire Internet if she had given in.
"So they saw me show mercy." Taylor said, rather than what she was thinking. Tattletale shrugged.
"I suppose that's one way to look at it."
Taylor had reached The Undersider, and was about to ask her how they could get away when a rasping, cracked voice sounded from behind them.
"Learn, you say?"
Taylor turned, a slight frown crossing her face. Bakuda had already been unhinged: she might well have cracked entirely at this point. The Tinker was crouching, head down.
"Learn? Remember this? I'll remember it, yes, I'll remember it well."
Every instinct Taylor had started to scream at her, and she dragged her power to the surface in a sudden rush as Bakuda finished her words, her voice rising to an insane shriek.
"I'll remember! But you won't!"
At the howled last word the insane Tinker threw out her arms, and a half-dozen grenades sailed towards Taylor and Tattletale. Taylor had only an instant to react.
A hand snapped up, and three of the bombs were flung into the sky. The staff pointed, one more bomb being sent hurtling towards the sea, and Taylor simply flung her staff at another before realising there was one last bomb and she didn't have time and she turned to Tattletale, mind racing. A gesture, and the warehouse wall tore and splintered and dragged itself around them and Taylor wrapped her arms around Tattletale and smothered the pair of them in a psychic shield that would act almost like a barrier before the grenades exploded and a despairing shriek from Bakuda was the last thing Taylor heard, the world turning into heat and light and buffeting force.
Taylor stood slowly. Her ears rang and bright spots sometimes flickered across her vision but she was unhurt, no real pain. She turned her head to Tattletale- the Undersider lacked the slightly enhanced toughness that Taylor possessed, and her body was wracked with slight shivers as she clung closely to Taylor. Taylor quickly glanced over her, checking that there were no obvious injuries, and then carefully put a hand to Tattletale's face, gently turning her head to face her. The Undersider blinked once she looked at Taylor, and her mouth moved, her voice faint but just about recognisable.
"I…I'm alright."
Taylor nodded slowly.
"Are you sure?"
Tattletale nodded, but when Taylor tried to put her on her feet her legs gave way. Tattletale looked faintly surprised, but Taylor noted that she was shaking still- that was the reason she couldn't stand. She sighed, but lifted the villain again, carrying her bridal style- with a little psyker strength enhancement, of course. Tattletale wasn't that much smaller than she was, and Taylor wasn't natively that strong.
"A conventional bomb. We got lucky." Tattletale observed, as Taylor stepped out of the relatively untouched patch of ground beneath their shielded cocoon and onto ash-seared concrete.
"I'd rather be lucky than good." Taylor quietly replied, scanning the area and noting where the other bombs had gone. One of the ones she had sent skywards had not gone far enough, and the roof of a warehouse was now glimmering glass. Looking to the sea, Taylor saw a circular patch of ice, melting but clearly there, and shivered. She briefly looked around, and then carefully laid Tattletale down on the ground.
"Sorry. Most comfortable place I could find."
Tattletale shrugged.
"I'll be alright soon. Can you see Bakuda?"
Taylor shook her head, noticing that a slight pain was starting there. A minor headache for now, but any more use of her powers would quickly cause it to build, especially without the comforting buffer of her staff.
"I'm going to look for her now." She said quietly, turning to where she felt Bakuda, the Tinker lying in agony. Taylor carefully walked towards her, placing her feet gently in case the ground had become unstable.
Bakuda was a grisly sight.
The Tinker was lying on one side, one hand weakly clawing at the ground as she tried to crawl. Her formerly white and pink uniform was scorched, seared away in some places, and her exposed flesh was cracked, at least reddened and at worst black and crimson, awfully burned. Her right arm hung limp, and Taylor could see white bone in several places where the flame had charred away the flesh. Her right leg was less ruined, but still burned. Her left side was better off, but not by much, and sobs and rasping gasps came from the barely intact gas mask.
"IT WOULD BE A MERCY TO KILL HER." The Emperor intoned. Taylor grimaced, an unwelcome feeling of pity worming its way into her stomach.
'Maybe.' She replied, strangely unwilling to finish the woman off. In the end, she shook her head.
'You're right. It would be a mercy, and remove her from here. Take away her pain and one of our threats.'
Taylor considered how best to do it, and then sighed. Affecting people was harder than objects, but she was almost within touching distance and Bakuda was in no shape to fight. A simple psychic squeeze of the heart, and Bakuda would appear to have died of heart failure. Not too surprising in this case, and Taylor couldn't see the Snitch anywhere. No witnesses. She stepped closer, steeling herself, and then a shout came from the storage lockers. She didn't recognise the language, but the volley of bullets that followed it were quite eloquent.
'Fuck!' Taylor mentally bawled, throwing up both hands to bring her shield into place. Normally she would have no problem, but with the loss of her staff it was harder and with the heavy recent use of her powers a headache was starting to build.
'Could really use my staff right now.' She noted, wincing as bullets thudded into her barrier and she backed away. The Emperor didn't immediately reply, but she sensed him casting about for something while she focused.
"YOU HAVE NOT LOST IT. IT MUST HAVE BEEN THROWN AWAY BY THE EXPLOSION, CAN YOU NOT FEEL IT?"
Taylor gritted her teeth, pushing her shield outwards so it would hold for a moment without her and diving behind a piece of fallen warehouse. Her headache spiked abominably, but she managed to push through the pain to locate a niggling sensation in the back of her mind, a short way behind her.